The Goon, one of my favorite comic series is back! In Comic Form! So now the song is on YouTube and Soundcloud and all o dat!
Youtube:
Soundcloud:
UPCOMING CONS!
As you may have seen on the sidebar, I have a couple new cons on the horizon:
Ultracon Of South Florida! (April 12th-14th, 2019)
This was a con that's been away for a bit, but now it's back! I'm not sure what else is on the schedule yet, but if you're a collector, it's a really good con for that since the dude that runs it is notroious for having a big G.I. Joe Collection. Mizucon! (May 26th-27th, 2019)
Mizucon I've had a lot of good times at in the past, but they went away last year, and are now under new management, some of whom are from Anime Iwai. There's a lot I can't confirm yet, except that I do know they will give me a show, and another panel that we're going to bring back!
Hint: Mega Ran was part of it. Other Convention I've Never Played Before!
For an audience I never played before! PAX EAST HYPE!
What am I looking forward to?
PAX East Rumble! It's a royal rumble at PAX East! It will be an absolute clusterfuck.
DJ Roborob! All his stuff! He, Ben Briggs and other friends are going to be at the Jamspace at 10 PM on Saturday for a big VGM Dance Party!
The Improvised Post Mortem! Pat Baer is always good for an entertaining time, and he brings some improv fun times to PAX East in one of my favorite panels in any con ever. The premise is simple: Given a game title, these people make up a game and how it could have gone better/worse.
JAM OF THE WEEK: "Tempted" by Squeeze
This song is my goddamn white whale in Rock Band 4. I have YET TO FULL COMBO IT!
I MISSED LAST WEEK BECAUSE I WAS PAX EAST
All of The Echo Chamber (from L to R: me, The Ozone, Arcanon, Mystakin and Weff).
Oh God, so much happened over that weekend, so I'll just copy some stuff over from my Twitter Thread on it:
-Smack Talk Showdown/FUNEmployed:
So, it used to be that EVERY party game was trying to rip off Cards Against Humanity, which ripped off Apples to Apples.
I am thoroughly sick of Cards Against Humanity. Too much of it relies on the card being funny, the jokes don't work on everybody, and you'll always have one asshole going "OH COME ON! THAT WAS SO FUNNY!" Apples to Apples abstracts thinngs a little bit, since you can't rely on throwing down MIDGETS SHITTING IN A BUCKET LOL.
Smack Talk Showdown and FUNEmployed require you to actually be funny, and use your wits. With Smack Talk Showdown, you cut a wrestling promo with a set up, and have to deal with "Smack" cards that you need to include. FUNEmployed makes you take 4 seemingly random cards and have to present a coherent presentation on why you should get the job.
-Beat 'Em Ups Are BAAAACK! AND ALL THREE OF THEM ARE DIFFERENT?
1. Raging Justice- What's Different?
A unique art style gives the appeance that all of the characters are rotoscoped clay models, like Mortal Kombat makes DKC. Also has objectives where you can arrest certain perps for bonus points.
2. Streets Ablaze- What's different?
Full 3D characters, environmental hazards and a neat little effect that shows off your "finishing moves"
3. The Take Over- What's Different?
Made in conjunction with Matt of Super Best Friends Play, this has full 3D environments, and GUNS. Most importantly though, it has Haggar Dropkicks. MAtt's a fan of the genre, so I know he and the team will do it justice.
-Sentinels Of Freedom:
I love the Sentinel Comics verse, and I'm really glad this game is coming out.
So far everything "fits" the tone and gameplay of the original Sentinels Of The Multiverse, and creating my own charachter only seems like an added bonus. Who knows? My they'll make me enjoy playing as Fanatic!
FRIDAY NIGHT MYSTERIES PRESENTS: DANGANRONPA EPISODE 8
Now we're getting into the good shit. The Manly Stanley joins me on this episode, and we talk about Zero Escape, Ace Attorney and my Danganronpa Theories. Like I mentioned, I'm going to try another game after this one before going to the sequel.
Hopefully he can join me in future episodes!
JAM OF THE WEEK: Danganronpa Menu Music
Because it's baller and I've never featured it before.
This song was in the cooker for a while, but I finally got it done in time for PAX East! Shout out to Owen from Heel Turn/The Zonecasts AND MORE for letting me make the PAXAMANIA version to use in PAXAMANIA 3. Sadly, audio issues fucked up my big break.
That version was made using a tool called N64 Soundbank Tool where you take the N64 ROM, dump it into this program, and you get a soundfont that lets you use the different instruments and sound effects in that ROM.
Yes, it is inspired by Overwatch and no, I don't know when and how many more songs I've got.
OMNI EXPO RECAP
2017 is Omni Expo's first year in the Florida Mall, and it is probably one of my favorite shows so far. Someone bought me a beer, someone bought a T-shirt, and a pit opened up, so at the very least I had a fun gig.
The con itself suffered a bit from the new location since everything was spread out over two separate wings, but that was balanced out with being right by the Florida Mall, so I was able to shop around during the down time and get a cheap bite to eat.
Hopefully they use the space better next year, because it seemed like the staff and everyone knew what they were doing.
JAM OF THE WEEK: "Lone Digger" by Caravan Palace
You should all know by now I loves me something with a good boogie and a sick music video.
"Lone Digger" is an electro-swing song by the group Caravan Palace. It's very heavy on samples, but they help elevate the beat and the vocals beyond A Good Pop Song and add some fun and chaos.
For the music video, it's Hotline Miami in Zootopia: very sharp, distinct color separation, a dark palatte, and a hell of a lot of blood. Also animals are there. Is it one of my favorite animated music videos? It doesn't quite crack the upper escelon, but it's worth watching.
PAX EAST YESS!!!!
Oh man, how can I sum up such an awesome weekend? Well, for starters, it was really great be surrounded by friends and happy, creative people where I got to try a lot of new things even though it was cold as fuck.
Then I came home to humid weather and the job I hate.
All right, so I'm just going to go after the highlights right now from what I can rememeber:
THURSDAY
-Brattle Theatre had a screen of the League Of Heels Documentary, and it was a nice recap of some of the earlier events I had missed. Kudos to Arron Trites and Eric Pope for having this dumb video game thing last so long.
-Body Slam is such an 80s movie it hurts. FRIDAY
-Didn't play as much Magic as I wanted, instead I got into a draft with Weff. He beat me down with Tezzeret's Touch/Walking Ballista Combo and I never quite recovered.
-Got to play Secret Hitler for the first time with the devs of "I Expect You To Die". It's a fun game, because unlike Werewolf, there is WAY more leeway and merit for accusations than "You have a lot of chest hair, therefore you are a wolf"
-Played Open Sorcery, an interactive fiction game about an AI used to banish evil spirits. It's intriguing from what I've played and not that much if you want a short story.
-The Harmonix Rock Band Party was good times with many drinks. Didn't play anything, but, you know, many drinks.
SATURDAY
-Spent the morning before PAXAMANIA walking around with Owen, playing some indie games. First up is Smuggler Craft, a racing game akin to Episode I: Podracer for the Nintendo 64. Felt a little slow, but it looks really promising from what I played and they said they'll look into increasing the speed.
-Back Off Barbarian was a game by The Behemoth, an arcade machine that was set up in their booth. Apparently I'm late to the party on this one, since it was included with Castle Crashers Remastered.
-Then came PAXAMANIA!
Audio issues prevented my song from being played!
Highlights: Being name dropped, Starting a Fuck You Owen chant, and Trin shutting down a heckler
-Whatever panel this came from:
SUNDAY
-Didn't do a whole lot that day since I had a flight to catch, but I did manage to catch up with a relative who lives in Boston at this place called Laugh Boston
That's right! A little something I've been working on is being remixed using the Wrestlemania 2000 soundfonts! The song is called "Fire In The Hole", and my plan is before PAX East to release a single version with the original song, the AKI remix, and a BONUS song.
JAM OF THE WEEK: "Splash Woman" by Mega Ran
Black Current-cy Month continues with a man I saw 3 times live in the span of a year: MEGA RAN.
"Splash Woman" is his most popular track, and it ends every set of his. He makes a chill dance groove with Splash Woman's stage music from Mega Man 9 and manages to make it a tragic little romance.
What's got me hype is that he's going to be at Mat Mania: The Revenge on March 31st at The Social in Orlando. He's a big wrestling fan, Wrestlemania's in Orlando, and it's going to a BLAST, considering I'm missing him and Lars next time they're in town since I'm going to PAX East. The weekend before that however...
OMNI EXPO
The link to the Facebook Event is there. So far not a lot to report on, but hopefully I'll have more to announce as things get closer!
I wanted to cover this music video, but all the hype and my song took everything over.
This is the continuation to the story told in MysteryBen's previous music video for the Mystery Skulls, "Ghost". Mystery Skulls have some slick, sexy music, and it's a great counterpoint to see these music videos done in a fun, quirky style akin to the Scooby Doo cartoons. While the story is more straightforward that "Ghost", I don't like it as much. I love seeing more in this universe, but it explains what was a mystery in the old one.
Funny thing about my trip: the first plane experienced a delay because the heating system for the windshield was failing, so they needed to get us a new plane, because to replace it would take 9 HOURS. If there was a Wolfgang Puck Express in the airport, I would have lost my shit.
FRIDAY
After waiting on line for like a bajillion hours, we finally get into the Expo Hall and who do we see playing on the Rock Band 4 stage?
These jackasses:
From left to right: Jeff, Paolo, ComplicitOwl and kitlerc
Amplitude Tournament- This was the first thing I remember hitting up on Friday for PAXventures. Keep in mind, I have never played the PS4 version of the game yet and my skills from the 2003 version have withered significantly. Paolo came as well, and as luck would have it, we got paired up in the first round, and I beat him, but that's as far as I got.
MtG Tournament- PAX East had some free Magic events through out the weekend, one of which being a Modern Tournament, which both Jeff and the persistently late for school Anime Cow also played in. Went against both of them. Went 2-2, but proud, because my tokens deck held up.
Concerts- On Friday night, MC Frontalot and The Protomen played. Frontalot was on point as usual, and The Protomen's set was very special, in that they showed new songs from Act III and the "Light Up The Night" music video. Hopefully he Protomen can get some serious momentum behind them, since they put on a fantastic live show.
SATURDAY
Indie Games w/ Owen- That morning, me and Owen spent some time bumming around the Indie Mega Booth. A couple games of note we played were: 1. Manual Samuel- You control a rich asshole and are required to do everything, from walking, to blinking to breathing with controller prompts and need to survive the day. I can see this being like OctoDad, where speedrunners work to override the purposefully awkward controls to get through it as soon as possible.
2. Stage Presence- The first VR game from Tiny Build. Nothing special here, yell into a mic for 60 seconds. To its credit, the stage graphics are well done, and the full game seems rather ambitious, but eh, did nothing for me.
3. Move Or Die- The latest in bringing couch co-op, this party game is really simple, but can get really chaotic. The big problem I have with it though is that five games for a session feels too repetitive. Will still get it, but it feels like it's been out forever.
4. Screencheat- A FPS game where everybody's invisible, and you have to rely on looking at other people's screens ala what you did during Goldeneye 007 back in the day. There's a lot of little design elements that lean into this, where the levels are designed to have distinct landmarks and different colors in each "zone", and the weapons reveal your location. I'm definitely getting it, I just don't know what everyone is getting it for!
Shy Guy/Mega Ran- Bad news is, I missed the Live From The Magic Tavern Panel, Good News is, friend of the show and host of "I'd Rather Not" Andy is now in the Magic Tavern canon. Also, these were some really good shows.
Harmonix Party- Speaking of really good shows, Harmonix threw a party and Jeff was able to score me a ticket at great expense (he got a Reddit account). They had a party at the Hard Rock Cafe last year, but I missed getting a ticket. This year, I was able to get in to see The Warning, Princess Problems, The Autoblasters (HMX house band that made most of the music for Amplitude), Bearstronaut and Freezepop.
SUNDAY
Some dickweed was being an asshole to his girlfriend, Jeff stepped in and then got punched. He had to go to the hospital, and we were super worried about him.
Jeff, get well soon.
Other guy, you... suck.
PAXAMANIA - Owen helped with the latest shitshow, and like real wrestling, it took almost half an hour before a match took place. Partly due to technical difficulties, partly due to PAX Wrestling canon being so out of control. The first thousand people there got posters, which I had signed by some of the Giant Bomb people.
There will be a game that's a driving game/dating sim called "Rumble Road":
Rock Band Panel- Anything I could write about this is muted by the fact that A. this article has gone on so goddamn long I stopped caring and B. WE'RE GETTING ONLINE PLAY!!!
THOUGHTS?You have no idea how much PAX recharges me. While I do go to cons, I'm "on the clock" and worrying about my show and promoting my show, etc, but with PAX East, even with all the doing, I go to sleep each night with no regrets.
Once I recover, I'm ready to get back in the studio, get back in the podcast, and just get back to the grind.
CONVENTION NEWS?
Yes! My show at OutCON is at 3 PM! I've updated the sidebar in accordance with this news! Also, the first episode of A Fox In Space is out!
