ArmadonRK

I find this funny because I define those terms precisely the opposite. Mainstream rap being the junk and hip-hop being stuff of musical and lyrical quality, although not necessarily underground so much as old-school, from the 80s and 90s. Well, I guess hip-hop was mostly underground back then, and also less diluted, and therefore better overall.

I'm going to make a comparison here, between country and rap, for the sake of the discussion. I don't mean to deviate, but I think country and rap are probably the two most hated on genres, I think they have a number of similarities, and I don't disagree entirely with all the hate. Every genre is flooded with generic, middling trash, perfectly fine production wise, often decent composition wise, but that have no individuality, with uninspired, interchangeable melodies/beats/whathaveyou. In rap and country, specifically, we find singular lyrical content in this subset. Women & violence in the former, love & woe i the latter (with some acceptable deviation, we'll call it the lyrical margin of error). In other genres the quality stuff doesn't always get drowned out. It's submerged a bit, we may have to wade through our share of the mediocre to find it, but the mainstream is littered with top-notch material here and there. In rap and country I find the mainstream is almost exclusively the aforementioned "generic, middling trash", and the quality music struggles to get attention. As for your talented lyricists comment, I'd agree. I'd, again, apply it to rap to. Talented lyricists, to be sure, if only they'd write lyrics about something interesting rather than the same old crap. [Obligatory, post-encompassing IMO]

Now that I've had the chance to listen to every song several times, I have to say, it's one of the best listening experiences I've ever had. Unfortunately it's making me impatient for Reiki. I suppose I'll just have to keep pimping it out to everyone I know while I wait...

I figure all those games together normally cost $154.87, but they're all individually on sale now for 50% off which is $77.37 in total, but the pack is 75% off bringing it down to $38.72. Audiosurf is lots of fun, I keep going back to it, even if it's not a barn-burner that you'll find yourself hooked on for hours at a time. I find myself glad I have it when I feel like playing it. I enjoyed Killing Floor a lot, and still play it on and off. Left4Dead may have had more impressive game mechanics overall, but the sheer volume of weapons and maps gave Killing Floor longevity way past the point I got bored with L4D. Super Meat Boy is amazing. It's fun and challenging and plays like a dream, one of the smoothest platformers around. The Dark World can be frustrating, but it's kind of like the Hard mode of SMB. It's one giant retro/throwback/homage/parody extravaganza, from the characters to the "plot" to the level design. As Clefairy said, it minimizes the penalty for death by respawning you instantly, and the music doesn't stop and restart. It just keeps going, which goes a long way to keeping you engrossed in the game. (That's the one thing platformers tend to do worst, every time the background music stops and resets it digs at you and digs at you until you stop playing and end up hating the music forever.) Oh, and Danny's soundtrack is incredible. Given that I already have those three games, though, I wonder if the rest of the pack is worth spending the cash...

Not hitting "Repeat" when Roboflamenco came to a close was one of the hardest things I've had to do in a long time, but it felt like two tracks in was too soon. I will get through the whole thing before I start replaying tracks! A question about The Battle of Vyazma. Between 2:00-2:40 I'm hearing some kind of recurring, intermittent distortion that sounds like it might be an intentional part of the piece, but I want to make sure this isn't an actual technical problem with the track, and give you guys a heads up if it is.

Time-lapse of that ridiculous piece of art being made, if you're into that sort of thing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1mhfHklIRQ

Stocking Stuffer keys should have been given to everyone regardless of when you logged in after the holidays, and did not change into regular keys. Winter Keys turned into regular keys. You must have received one at some point. Maybe you used it thinking it was just a regular key? Post-winter update they were the same anyways.

I hadn't heard much of your stuff before, so I took my time getting around to listening to this album. That was a mistake. This is some amazing work, and anyone not in possession of this already is doing themselves a disservice!

So I'm still listening to this album over and over. What I'm loving is that every time I listen through it, my attention is drawn to a different track. I started off certain that Forest Funk was the best track on the album, until Betus Blues drew my attention. Then it was CHAD's Lullaby, and Can O Salt. And I still listen through at least part of this fantastic soundtrack each day, and I'm constantly discovering new tracks I love and new layers to tracks I loved before. And don't get me started on how it all comes together while I'm playing SMB. This one's a hell of an achievement!

The lack of attention this thread is getting is a travesty. Anyone who hasn't picked up this soundtrack yet is doing themselves a disservice. At the very least grab the digital release for the ridiculously low price of 4 dollars, although you would be hard pressed to come up with an acceptable excuse to pass on the pimped out 2-disc edition. If you've played the game, you already know why this music must be owned and heard. If you haven't, you should buy the soundtrack and play the game.

300 explosion damage, plus 105 from the critical melee hit itself. That's more than 400 damage, which will kill some not completely overhealed heavies, or overhealed heavies who have taken some damage. Which is, let's face it, most situations. Heavies rarely sit around behind the front lines at full overheal without taking some fire. So from a practical point of view, if you wait for that heavy and his medic to start taking fire, you increase your chances to one shot him. I think people having killed heavies in such situations are mistaking them for being at "full overheal".

"Step aside, deadmau5, let me show you how it's done." Forgive me, I don't mean to hate on deadmau5, but I couldn't resist a harmless jab at the current iTunes dance chart-topper. I'm sure a few of you know of Andy Hunter, at least (I think everyone's heard Go at some point in their lives). He was my first introduction to electronic music seven years ago, and I still think he's one of the best EDM artists around. Collide is his latest 5 track EP and feels very different from his previous ventures. The whole thing has a club vibe going on, but just as you think you're listening to standard "club hit" fare, he brings in the clean, elegant, "Andy Hunter" melodies. Anyway, I'm pushing for #1 on the iTunes dance charts. You can listen to Annihilate and Raining Sunshine on Andy's Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/andyhunter

I just recently got through my first rewatch of Cowboy Bebop sinced it first aired here a few years back and realized how much better it is than I remembered (and I remembered it being pretty damn good). And I found this great (and currently incomplete) set of articles that I think fans of Bebop would find interesting. Cowboy Bebop - Overthinking It

This thread reminded me that I had Awesome God on my computer. Had to play through that a few times for good measure. (Where I first heard Awesome God: http://sweetraptorjesus2.ytmnd.com/) Now, there are a few songs that have made me teary-eyed for sure, and a many more I don't quite remember how much they impacted me, but that have definitely struck a powerful chord. Was it "just because they were that good"? Well, they're all incredible songs I hold in very high regard, so maybe, but a lot of what we feel about music is the thoughts and feelings we associate with it, so maybe that's not an easy way to look at it. The Latter - Songs that make me emotional: Lithium Flower ~Yoko Kanno with Scott Matthew Divenire ~Ludovico Einaudi Amazing ~Andy Hunter A Watchful Guardian ~Hans Zimmer Hunger & Leave No Man Behind ~Hans Zimmer (also off Black Hawk Down, Deniz Prigent's Gorto A Ran, with Lisa Gerard) - Ya know what, just the whole score. One of Zimmer's best and most emotional. 1+1=3 & Poem ~LoLo The Former - Songs that have made me teary [at least]: Translucent ~Andy Hunter Lifelight ~Andy Hunter A Dark Knight ~Hans Zimmer (Find it in your music library, there's no excuse not to own it, and go to the 7 minute mark and just listen to the next minute and a half of the song, it's beautifully tragic and heroic, simultaneously new and reminiscent of the classic Shirley Walker themes. Incredible.) Blue ~Yoko Kanno & the Seatbelts with Mai Yamane Earthman ~Poets & Pornstars I could go on and list everything Kanno and Zimmer have ever done, but that wouldn't be a productive use of time. Their stuff is amazing, and more of it that I can list is incredibly powerful. Instead I'll just give you, The Be-All-End-All of Emotional Music: Space Lion ~Yoko Kanno & the Seatbelts Anyone who can listen to Space Lion and not tear up is dead inside. Period. P.S. Not really, you still have a heart. P.P.S. But no, dead inside.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Mature" anime, I mean, there's different ways to define mature when speaking of television. I wouldn't write off Fullmetal Alchemist so quickly, since it's a driven by strong characters and has a strong narrative. I don't know about "mature" but the characters are very real and it definitely doesn't shy away from the darker implications of the story, so I suppose you could call it that. It does get quite dark in places, especially later on. I have to add my recommendation for Cowboy Bebop to the list. Great characterization and maybe the most mature, narrative-wise, of the lot, with its film-noir style. It's not exactly happy endings and good times through and through. Oh, and the music. 'Nuff said. Also, Ghost in the Shell is a very heady show. Maybe you can enjoy it for the fluff, but I love it because of how much it can make you think. There's a tremendous amount going on under the surface if that's what you mean by "mature". Yeah, I listed some of the most popular anime, some might criticize them of oversaturating the mainstream, but I consider these the best. There's a reason they're so popular after all.

Well, looking back at Gotham Knight and The Animatrix, neither was mind-blowing. At their best they were cool or neat or interesting, but never great. So going into Halo Legends, I think you should be expecting more of the same. Setting your expectations too high is how you end up disappointed. When I pick it up, I won't be expecting a great narrative extension of the core story, but entertaining "fluff" akin to Gotham Knight and Animatrix, hopefully with enough new material to make it worth the price of admission.

I'm a fan of In Silico over their other work too, although I do love Hold Your Colour as well (most of the album is tight DnB, but I liked their electro/rock fusion from In Silico a little bit better). And while it was their In Silico singles that first brought them to my attention (Granite got nearly endless playtime on TV here) I have to say 9,000 Miles and The Tempest seem like the highlight tracks off the album to me. Oh yeah, I couldn't stand the MC. Although, I can't stand MCs in general. Well, I'm not sure what specifically you're referring to, there was plenty of awesome and unexpected packed in there. All I know is hearing Aerodynamic gave me chills.

I'm not sure why I didn't think to post this here before, but I figure there have to be some other Pendulum fans around here. And in case any of you didn't know, they're performing material off their upcoming album, Immersion, at a concert in London, being streamed live on their website right now. http://www.pendulum.com It's only just begun, but it's off to a great start.

So, I've been listening to this remix since pretty much the day it was released on OCR, and I've been listening to Hyperblast Redux since I first pulled it from my UT2004 installation 6 years ago. Only today did I realize Club Showdown was a mix of Go Down... This is easily one of my favorite video game tracks ever, yet, somehow, I never made the connection. I always knew there was something, listening to the two pieces, but I never did quite realize it. I suppose my brain just stopped working every time I listened to them, they're such immersive tracks both. It might have helped if I'd read the remix description 5 years ago, I don't know. But I just had to say this is an outstanding mix of an outstanding track that I'm still listening to today, however slow I may be.

For free you say? What is it with OCR artists giving away their stuff for free? Some of us want to pay for this stuff! Those of us who get our thrills exchanging currency for your goods and/or services are left out in the cold here. Drat! Also: loving the album. It's very chill. I also understand what Zeal's saying and agree, although "lightweight" isn't the word I'd use. Airy, maybe. Breezy, possibly. Ethereal even!

Sad to see you off the panel, Mr. Aversa, your input to the innumerable rejections of the last half-decade is well appreciated. This is most poignant because you're a caliber of musician we don't otherwise have on the OCR judges panel... Except for maybe Anso. And BGC. Darke. Fishy. OA. Palp. And Vigilante... Never mind, we dont need ya, so, bye! Really though, I'm really looking forward to whatever you've got in the pipeline. Good luck with whatever you're doing next and have fun doing it!

I'm glad I ran a quick search before starting a new thread. There are some great mixes listed here. Of course, one of the first things I think of when I think Halloween is one coked up pumpkin hopping all around Mad Monster Mansion, and while Audix and Neko delivered a rocking rendition of that theme, the one other Banjo Kazooie mix is one of the most hauntingly moody tracks I've ever heard. It's not scary or frightening outright, not on its own. Rather than screaming "Halloween" in your face, it whispers it in your ear from just out of sight. In the Darkness Lies - DragonAvenger, The Joker It's Halloween guys! What ReMixes make your skin crawl?

Let's assume that because of the sheer monetary difference, you can't class PC gamers and console gamers together. I mean, sure "hardcore" players are the minority, they always are, but casual PC gamers are not really comparable to casual console gamers. The casual console gamer doesn't seem to mind matchmaking. The same cannot be said for 'casual' PC gamers, as these are people who have spent money (and maybe time) on a PC for playing games rather than (or in addition to) a console. In other words, there's a reason a person chooses PC or console. If they were both the same, what would be the choice? 2 things to state: 1) The PC gamer (hardcore or casual) is looking for a different experience on PC than console. 2) On average, the PC gamer (casual or hardcore) has a better understanding of the technical side of their gaming experience than the console gamer. And so the homogenizing of console and PC gaming is a mistake because there's already a disparity between the two groups. PC gamers have chosen PC gaming for a reason, and to assume that they want exactly the same things console gamers are okay with is not an intelligent way to design a game. And let's face it, the capabilities of a PC versus a console are very different, and that's why online gaming is so different between the two platforms. PC gaming benefits from dedicated server support, from server connection to customization to the player's ability to community building. PC gaming has consisted largely of, if not mostly, servers building a playerbase. The most popular servers are predominantly played on by 'regulars'. People choose the best servers to return to, for whichever of the above reasons they wish. Sure, matchmaking serves a purpose, but to NOT have dedicated server support alongside it AT LEAST is detrimental to a PC game. PC games have lived by dedicated servers for most of their lives, because of the more numerous options and technical superiorities that come with them. Ad hoc gaming was not created as a superior alternative, it was created as a simpler one. In the case of consoles, it was the more appropriate measure, while dedicated server support was not as feasible. Another thing to note is how the popularity of games can often depend on communities (such as this one) supporting it. By running a server. Now that such communities and sites and groups and leagues can no longer do so, that's a fair-sized drop in the playerbase from what would be, essentially, 'word of mouth' advertising. Those who might find incentive to buy the game because they know of such a server might not anymore. To be frank, I don't see the release going forward without a change to this policy, public opinion of this announcement has been pretty unanimous, and it's not just the "hardcore" gamers complaining. If it does go forward as is, I honestly do expect we'll see the outcome in reduced sales.

The first season was, on the whole, pretty miserable. It had a few good episodes and a few good moments, but Eliza Dushku is not capable of carrying a show as lead actress. Fortunately, it's a Joss Whedon show, and the supporting cast are all fantastic. That said, the only thing that really made me excited for season two was Epitaph One, which was utterly brilliant. Before that it was blind hope that the show would get better that kept me watching, but Epitaph One showed plainly what Dollhouse was capable of being.

Just picked this up, although I have been meaning to for a while now. After the first listen through (I'm now re-listening to specific tracks) I have to say, it's phenomenal. I've come to expect a certain level of quality from my favorite [or any, really] OCR artists, and I never expect to be disappointed in the commercial albums they release. So what blew me away was the diversity of styles and genres here. And it never felt like a jarring change of pace, it was always just right. Much harder to pull off, I imagine, than a singularly themed album. The album builds up really well, with a slow change in style from track to track, until it peaks in energy with Danse Macabre and 300.5, before simmering down to a lovely finish. Of course, now I'm left eager for more. As I said, phenomenal, and I hope to see another commercial album from you in the near future.