Antonio Pizza

151. EDIT: "Break your pokéballs like that dude Johnny Cage" Hahahaha! Zing!

? Does "i likd it huh lol" count or are we doing something halfway decent the artist might appreciate? Not party-poopin', flaming, trolling, or spoiling the fun, but just checking this ain't a +1post count spamfest... ...not that you would condone such an action Y2J. : ) P.S. Lemme know when you get to 1035. : p

Soshiro wins. Lock thread. Happy BIRFPHDAY Sam.

Patience! For the Jedi it is time to eat as well!

Happy BIRFPHDAY you Mario mustache singing, Magus hope decaying, tall building, circuit breaking, injured one!! Swell wishes to one of the first artists I heard on OCR.

=================================================== Hot Pursuit in the Lost City of Wily (Mega Man III) =================================================== by Disco Dan. You may remember him from such remixes as Blaster Master's "Prolouge in A Minor" and the Genesis/Mega Drive port of Mortal Kombat's "PITiful (part 1)". I have not written a review since OCR00563 10 years ago, when the site was still an orange subdomain of Overclocked.org. And 5 years I ago I promised Dan a review on DKC - "Riptide" (a bent promise, but one I still intend to keep). James Todd Smith said, "Don't call it a comeback! I been here for years. I'm rockin' my peers, puttin' suckas in fear." I don't know how else to better describe the the atmosphere surrounding the newest ReMix from OCR foundationary old-school staple, Disco Dan. He has not lost any of his voice; and though I'm out of practice I will try not to lose mine. Old school ap review coming up: The nutshell: 8½ slices. The details: Up-tempo maracas/shakers. Disco Dan trademark. The song gets you geeked with these for 8 seconds, with a synth assigned to the OST's "Square B" channel fading in gradually. At 0:20 you get what I've been calling the "Club Technochocolate main melody teaser". It's a hard hitting, 4 note techno synth teaser, which upon first hearing, made my heart (prematurely) sink. "Oh no," I thought. "Not this crud." Silly me. I'd forgotten this was a Disco Dan track. It gets better...much better. Twenty-five seconds in greets you with a quick drum intro followed by a scratchy funk bass synth and a hard hitting drumline. The SqB channel fades back in at a higher octave and is beautifully harmonized starting at 0:39 (again, another DD trademark). The OST's 2 second intro is played and from 0:53 - 1:19 the main melody is played with the OST's "Square A" channel as the same techno synth we heard earlier in the teaser. At 1:19, any remaining skeptism is slayed. Disco Dan is here. With a quick jam of the drums the chorus is introduced and is comprised of Dan's signature disco beat and claps. SqB's high BPM married with the bassline keeps the foot tapping. A bit of ambient synth strings in the background keeps the song enveloped and prevents the ear from getting hungry. But the star of the chorus is SqA's "Moroder Synth". In djp's posting write-up, he compared it to The Neverending Story. I agree...80%. It's definitely Giorgio Moroder-ish, but to me it sounds closer to . Whatever. It's hot. And it brilliantly seizes your attention.But Dan's not satisfied. So about 15 seconds later he harmonizes it in the MIDDLE OF THE LOOP(!)...for 10 seconds. Then they diverge, like two happy children running side by side who then playfully split up and chase each other. I loved it. The song then returns to the main melody and loses the claps temporarily. After one loop, SqB is harmonized with a higher pitched club synth. Another brief drumfest at 2:12 heralds the return of the chorus. After one loop of the chorus, we are introduced to an arpeggio'ing "wet-wah synth". I've been calling it the "MCoG synth", as it sounds similar to a whistle used in Haim Saban's track "Esteban's Adventure" from "The Mysterious Cities of Gold". My guess is this is where Dan derived the name of the ReMix from ("...Lost City of Wily"). If you're not familiar with the show, you may not pick up on the similarity. If you are familiar with MCoG, slow this part of the ReMix down to 70-75% using Chronotron or Pacemaker for Winamp and it becomes all the more apparent. 2:37 - 2:40 = SICKNESS. Can't explain it otherwise. 2:40 begins the bridge. Everything is cut off except the maracas, a hihat, the bassline and 3-hit echo-y drum kicks. A couple of echoed sound effects and the overall ambience reminds of one of Donkey Kong Country's "Mine". You almost expect a pan flute to come in, but a quiet SqB rejoins the fray at 2:53, this time as a light organ synth. When I review a song, I often slow the tempo (not the pitch) so as to Rain Man my way through it; and at 50% speed SqB sounds eerily similar to . And I'm no Ferengi, but I believe I hear Dan's beloved cadenza strings lightly supplementing the mine as SqA.3:06 begins an almost 40 second long freestyle with the Moroder synth. Beautiful contrast with the hurried tempo of the SqB synth + maracas vs. the slow keyboard dancing of the Moroder. 3:48 begins the fade out of the 3-hit drum kicks, SqA, and the strings. By the time you get to 4:00, there is only the bassline, the maracas, and SqB; the mix has essentially hit the reset button which means... 4:13 - 4:17 - Club Technochocolate main mel teaser. There is no drum solo to kick things back into gear like after the first teaser. Dan gets right back to work with SqB and a brief fade in of the percussion. The OST intro is played again and 4:27 brings us back to the main melody, but the analytical ear will notice that the drums are a little more playful this time around. It keeps a repeated section of the song from sounding EXACTLY like its predecessor. Smart move. Deliberate musicianship. SqB's harmonization comes back around the 4:40 mark for about 13 seconds, followed by the drums again heralding the arrival of the beloved Moroder synth chorus...and there's a lot that goes on in a short time here: 5:06 - enter MCoG wet-wah; 5:09 - harmonize Moroder SqA; 5:17 - diverge SqA harmony; 5:19 - lose EVERYTHING but percussion and MCoG wet-wah, 5:33 - re-enter bassline; 5:46 - re-enter SqA Moroder synth. 6:00 (yes, six minutes into the song and you're not tired of it yet) - the SqA Moroder synth has been for the most part harmonized with occasions of divergence. Now both instances freely dance their own performance, yet still in harmony. At 6:14 the ambient synth strings make their final return and prepare to close us out. The song continues to play with the bassline at the end of a measure and 6:25 bids us adieu to the fading Moroder synth. About 5 seconds later, the bassline also begins its fade out followed quickly by the percussion. By the time you get to the last 17 seconds of the song, there is only the MCoG wet-wah and the ambient strings, which dreamily fade you to silence at 7:06. Freakin' brilliant. Disco Dan is an admitted perfectionist and it shows. The man has a raw talent and ear for music, tone, feel/mood, thickness, layering, tempo, and definitely harmony. Dan is a purposeful musician. If he uses a trick of sound or an audio technique, it's never gimmicky or used as filler. It's deliberate and well-fitting. I love his use of juxtaposition. The "SICKNESS" break at 2:37 - 2:40 and the de-layering/re-layering from 5:19-5:46 are wonderful examples and are my favorite parts of the song. I'll close by noting that Disco Dan has the incredible ability to take source material I can't stand and make it desirable. This is not a track I'd have chosen. Neither was Mega Man 2's "Heat Man", but "Rapid Fire" turned out to be one of my favorite ReMixes and "Hot Pursuit in the Lost City of Wily" will join those ranks. It didn't even FEEL like 7 minutes, yet he knew that any longer would have been too much. *smh* Natural ear. Adult gummy vitamins shows us that candy can be good and good for you. Disco Dan peeks into OCR after a long nap to show the whipper-snappers that he is still busting out notes and melodies that aren't just yummy to the ear, but nutrious for it too. Folks, these opinions are just that. I'm hardly a remixer. I'm a listener. But if you've been a regular visitor to the message boards since July 10th of 2001, you already know that. Please, listen to this track more than once before you make your own opinions. Listen to it through decent speakers. And keep comin' back. Kudos Cubaníto. Well done.

It HAPPEN!!

Pics or it DIDN'T HAPPEN!! : p

Potentially unlimited game size thanks to external HDD? Grand Theft Auto: North & South America.

Ukelele-Harmonica!

When a reasonable defense on all the fps clones and God of War-ish games out for the 360/PS3 can be made, I'll settle for Nintendo's unoriginality being singled out. Till then I don't wanna hear it.

Smash Bros.

Graphics are fine & dandy, but a high def picture of a turd is still a turd. Is the game fun?

The Wii sold out for, like, three years straight.

Your lawn is in my neighborhood, sonny. ocre, let me know how nsmbu plays. The Wii version took me back to Mario 3. Loved it.

*pours a pitcher full of sunshine into your glass half-empty to make your glass half-full. I can't spare the resources for it yet, but I'll admit it my initial skepticism has been gently assuaged. We'll see if it's worn down in 2½ years after a price drop or when Nintendo buys Rare®. Perhaps I'll get ths system as a gift like my Wii!. Blanket response to general "Nintendo is too kiddy" comments: So what?

@Gollgagh: 527 @Bleck: Whoopi Goldberg.

The stigma of "Nintendo = soft" has been around since at least '91-'92 when Mortal Kombat was released for SNES and Genesis. It's 20 years later, the "stigma" is still here and so is Nintendo. As for the shovelware taunt, I'm sure EVERY OTHER game for a non-Nintendo console over the past 30+ years (including the beloved Xbox and PlayStation franchises) has batted 1.000, right? Nintendo is the ONLY one to throw tripe on the shelves? Bubsy 3D. The defense rests, your Honor.

Play Shaq-Fu.

Ditto that. Now, sadly, both are highly unintarwebbinated. : (

Discovered how to make .brstm; looping zircon/sixto's Subterranean Kamikaze.

¡Felíz KOOMPLAYAHNYOS Cubaníto! Shall I BIRFPHDAY you a short story or a poem? How about another sample-laden remix?