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
Sounds exactly as good as you imagine a hair metal band in the 90's would sound.
-Online Play I couldn't get to work, but I'm glad it's there with all
the features we mentioned. Namely the "all members get one song".
-As someone coming off a Game Jam, most of what happens when making a
game comes from the testing, more so then the coding. For example. you
can program a basic collision detection code to get everything else
moving, but until you find out stuff like "running in a corner accelerates your character so hard you go to another dimension",then you go back and fix that error.
Like the old proverb, "Most Writing Comes In The Editing"
-Adolf Hitler was born in 1889. If you bang in 1910s Germany, you could pop out Eva Braun. She's not a leader, though so chances are you're popping out the modern day equivalent of a modern day millennial.
(1904) In April, copies of Phi and Delta arrive (presumably in Germany or Europe) via transporter from 2029 following D-END 2.
(1905) Ten months after arriving by transporter, another copy of Phi is sent to 2008.
(December 25, 2028) - In California, Sigma is knocked out by
Soporil in his car. His consciousness is pushed to January 25, 2074, and
his 68-year-old consciousness occupies his body in the present time.
Phi's consciousness also switches places with her future consciousness.
Akane joins Sigma and Phi, but her consciousness isn't from the future
so she hasn't experienced the Radical-6 outbreak. The three of them
infiltrate the Mars Mission Test Site
(Dcom) in Nevada after using Crash Keys to hack the admin server to
include them. Six others have joined the Dcom experiment for their own
reasons: Junpei, Mira, Eric, Carlos, Diana, and Q.
(January 27, 2074) Akane has been wearing K's
armor. K is revealed to be Kyle, a clone of Sigma, who has been kept in
cold sleep since the beginning of the Nonary Game in this timeline.
Sigma learns that his body is 67 years old, but his consciousness is
from the past. Akane attacks Phi with the Myrmidon knife, making Phi and
Sigma's consciousness jump back to the past to April 13th, 2029.
-My intro is of course referencing, a Bad, Bad Man by John Cena:
-In my door-jump scare searching escapades, I found a website called "Where's The Jump?" that highlights when jump scares come in movies. An interesting idea, and I'm curious to see how the jump scare rating corressponds to the movie's quality. Some of you are going to whine about it because it's the same line as-
-Tom is a hot dog salesman from the game Shenmue, who drunkenly shambles across 7 different stereotypes and then recommends you see a Travel Agency to know about Chinese people:
-John: Do I have a curfew? RB: John., you're a grown ass man, you can do what ever you want.
John: Will Ine-san give me a daily allowance? RB: You're a grown ass man John, you need to work for it.
-This and another episode was where me and John went back and forth on a question where I end up repeating the same thing. I think the "cartoon in the real world" scenario. I'm a big fan of comical repetition
-ANDY AND JOHN OPEN UP A BURGER STAND: One day in 1980's Japan. John and Andy opened up a burger stand. "This will be a fine burger stand!" said Andy. "We got burgers, we got homebrewed beer, what more could the people of 1980's Japan want?" "I KNOW RIGHT" said a very shy, reserved John, his voice like whispers on the wind. "WE'RE GOING TO MAKE SO MUCH MONEY! LET'S GET STARTED!"
John lit up the grill with a smile on his face, and Andy looked at the bottled beers like they were beautiful babies
Suddenly, a hot dog truck pulled over across from them. A strange man with sunglasses and dreadlocks stepped out, and started dancing. "Oh hi Mark! You guys want a hot dog?" he said, dancing. "How's your sex lifes?"
This man was very strange. "HEY, ANDY! THIS GUY IS SO STRANGE!" "I know, right! Hopefully he doesn't cut into our business!" "MAYBE WE SHOULD WORK WITH HIM?" "You know what, John? That sounds like a fine idea! If we work together, we can all be successful!" "AND WE CAN GET WHAT DRUGS HE'S CLEARLY ON!" So Tom, Andy and John all worked together and made a lot of hungry people in 1980's Japan happy, all while getting super fucking baked.
Ryo's father also wasn't dead. ECHO CHAMBER EPISODE 182
-Millennial Weddings:
If we can bother to afford them, what kind
of traditions will we pass down that our kids will think is lame? Our
generation, because of aforementioned financial issues, are questioning
the big to do. While we keep the legal and religious ceremonies, the
fact that it needs to be a lavish affair are-
No, wait, what kind of DJ brings a fucked up file to their party? Like, what happened? Did this guy NOT check?
-Since this episode was recorded, Green Day released this video for a song WAY more coherent:
-Stars Playing Rock Band- The Protomen, as mentioned:
Rush, also mentioned:
Alice Cooper, Death In His Eyes: I CAN'T FIND IT GRAAAAH
Lots
of interesting stuff in there, but that $30 price point without any
extra DLC is very hard to justify. I guess with the pre-order bonuses,
it's a little better, but imagine NOT being a Rock Band fanatic or
getting into it the first time and looking at that. The preorder DLC is
good, making for some great party times, so I can at least use that as
an excuse.
The problem is that I don't think the new features are worth $30 on
their own. Both are great modes, but I'll have to wait until we have
more details to see how deep they go.
Rockudrama looks stupid and ridiculous, which is exactly what I wanted from this.
The Rivals mode has me excited and if Pokemon Go is anything to go
by, people love being part of arbitrary teams. As long as the challenges
keep up like a Hearthstone or something, I can see people checking back
in daily to help out their crew.
-Fitbit: Are They The New Subject Of Numerous Thinkpieces?
Arcanon had a picture up on his instagram that showed he got 1337 steps
and I'm furious I can't embed those images into this website's CMS.
Either way, I'm glad this and Pokemon Go are helping people move around
more.
So, to make up for that, here's a picture of Fitbits and Vape Rigs:
-Echo Chamber Creepypasta: One secret episode that IU listened to at
6:66 PM it was really scary and Rhythm Bastard started screaming and
Jeff said how much he loves anime and Arcanon said how much he hated
anime and then hyperrealistic blood came out of my headphones.
-Miley Cyrus's "Can't Be Tamed"
Wow, where did all that shit come from? EDM has a habit of going from
0-60 in a matter of measures. It did chart the most interesting part of
the song, though.
It is possible to chart EDM, as evidence by Mr. Owen himself:
-Type Rider I was expecting to have a story like Braid or Limbo or
something where there was a greater story in the background, but it's
refreshing to see an edutainment game present differently than what
we're used to.
-Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing/Mario Teaches Typing were some of the
big games when I was a kid (at least that I could play while I'm in
school). Thought I question how much that really helped us with typing
since the whole "Home Row" thing never stuck. Like, as I type this it's
half muscle memory and half me looking at my keyboard and jamming shit
in as fast as I can and OH GOD I'M LOOKING AT MY HANDS WHILE TYPING I AM
NOW MANUALLY BREATHING SOMEONE HELP.
-The Daigo Parry Video we were talking about is impressive even without knowing all the mechanics:
This article as goes into detail on how this moment works, but what I
find fascinating is that Justin Wong could have won by DOING NOTHING.
In a game like Magic The Gathering, you can see the level of strategy
step by step. In Hearthstone, it also shows you the past few spells cast
so you can go back and see what happened.
But in fighting games, all of that happens at a way faster pace. If
you've ever had trouble pulling of a Shoryuoken consistently, imagine
having to not only be able to pull it off on demand, but also devote
mental energy to playing what is essentially MtG without the benefit of
stopping.
For me, this moment would be HBox's Bracket Reset at this past EVO:
No offense to Armada, who gave Hungrybox a HELL of a run for his
money and could have easily taken it, but he looks like someone or knows
someone who has unironically uttered the words "Cultural Marxism".
-Top tier meme:
-This is the Mew Card that was a promo for Pokemon The Movie 2000:
Translate: Mew w/ 30 HP 2 PSI Energy- Psychic: 40 Damage
-80's Overwatch Setlist has at least 2 not 80s songs on the playlist, but it's still got tons of fucking awesome jams: I'D RATHER NOT EPISODE 21 I see Mr. Robot all the time during WWE Raw, and the first episode got a little too close to home for me as far as his mental problems go. It's brilliant, but it got too real to me. Klingons wouldn't be that tough because of what's known as The Worf Effect.
For those of you further behind, Worf is a character on Star Trek: The Next Generation from the Klingon species. He's a warrior, but he always gets his ass kicked to show how tough the antagonist is as if to say "If they can be Worf, they must be the baddest mofo in the universe!" FUCK RONALD REAGAN The bit where we talk about Office Hours and the cafeteria sounds reasonable compared to the other shit talk about. I'D RATHER NOT EPISODE 22 60% of Twitter went with job security because, duh, millenials. 999 has 6 endings, and Virtue's Last Reward has 9. Though I think VLR has like 24 tracks. I've never read any HP Lovecraft shit, so my only "Cthulu God" knowledge comes from C'thun of Hearthstone, the Eldrazi in Magic The Gathering and Cthulu Saves The World. Benny's scenario in I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream's Good Ending, where this happens: This is article lays out all the things Finland does right in regards to schooling. Like alot of things the Scandinavian countries do, us Americans look at it and go "WHERE'S THE HARSH PENALTIES FOR FAILURE? HOW CAN WE FUCK OVER BROWN PEOPLE?" Me according to John and Andy:
Also, John is a fucking idiot, because I do not do leg day on a machine. SQUATS FOR DAYS, DEADLIFTS FOR EON, LOWER BODY GAME STRONG AS FUCK.
Now I've got two weeks to catch up on, thankfully not a lot of ground to retread:
GODS AND MONSTERS: SLAYERS OF DECADENCE EPISODE 9
Another episode where we're out of our comfort zones with Ray playing a aggro goat demigod Landris to his trickster water god Zun Quib Slay, and me playing Explorer for the Future Fillion to my smashy-smashy War God Kindunos.
While it's not quite the finale, we did set up a REALLY good final chapter, and some groundwork is laid for Fillion to a perfectly politicking asshole.
-"I Should Have Killed You When I Had The Chance" Supercut
-"You Just Don't Get It Do You?" Supercut
-OK GO "Upside Down Inside Out
I'm fucking glad OK Go is doing these music videos. Back in the early
days of MTV, the first people to make videos were art students and
people who wanted to make weird shit, and they were the one of the first
ones on YouTube to go "FUCK YEAH! EAT OUR CONCEPTS, NEEERRRRRRDS!"
-Rock Band 2 Update brought us A LOT of good music, like "Ace Of
Spades" (the '08 rerecord where he says "But no one wants to live for
ever/but apparently I am), "Alex Chilton", "Alive", "Bad Reputation",
"Chop Suey", "Come Out And Play", "Down With The Sickness",
"Everlong"... that's only up to E. Rock Band 2's soundtrack was probably
my favorite out of the lot.
It was right at that confluence of "We haven't completely mined
everything yet" and "We have a shitton of money and promotion behind
us".
However, I think it's the soundtrack I got sick of the soonest. Like
GH3, it was the peak of it's popularity, the setlist was the most played
and there were setups EVERYWHERE. Especially "Livin' on a Prayer" and
"Anyway You Want It", two of the biggest singalong songs ever. I think
the only thing RB4 is missing now is Lego Rock Band and AC/DC, the
former I regret getting on.
-Mystakin Of The Axe v. 3 with the CORRECT flavor text
-The notion of a "Console Wars" I believe has subsided in the past
few years, primarily because everything has gotten so expensive, all the
games come out for pretty much everything. In response to that, the PC
Master Race comes out of the ashes, and the focus shifts between not who
has the better platform, but who plays their games in the best way.
The term comes from an old Zero Punctuation Review of The Witcher
(the first one), where Yahtzee states that the nature of the game's
PC-Only Nature meant it had to be very difficult and complicated.
What started as an ironic joke turned into a symbol of pride. "Look
at these snobbish assholes" became "LOOK, WE'RE SNOBBISH ASSHOLES!".
It's like if rich people introduced themselves with "As A Fat Cat
1%er..."
Also PCs are more expensive than consoles. Whereas the CONSOLE WAR
mentality was usually because you could only buy the one, PC mentality
is like "I spent more on this, why isn't this the best? I need 60 FPS!"
-Pokemon's Super Bowl Commercial
I was in the right age to get absolutely overwhelmed by the Pokemon
Machine as a kid, and this ad is peak "Sure, whatever kid, had a big ol'
adventure for yourself!" and presents a world where people can have
Pikachus for pets.
Now I want The Miz to play Giovanni in a live action Pokemon thing.
-The name of Demetri Martin's show was "Important Things With Demetri Martin". It
was all right, considering how often Comedy Central gives standup comics
a sketch show for a couple years then cancels it.
-Mystakin is one of the Authors under the Rhythm Authors banner, who Harmonix has been outsourcing some authoring work to.
Not necessarily a surprise, since Harmonix is independent studio and
has a fraction of the manpower they used to have, so reaching out to
experienced Rock Band Authors is a completely acceptable course of
action.
Rhythm Authors did a lot of songs for the Rock Band Network for some
very popular metal bands, such as A Day To Remember, Between The Buried
and Me and Five Finger Death Punch.
-Mystakin covers Single White Infidel:
-Mystakin covers Rhythm Bastard:
-Mystakin covers Arcanon:
4chan would paradoxically be NICER than most other places? Like,
they'd probably call us "gay faggots with shitty butt music" and it
feels so generic that I couldn't be offended. It's still offensive, but
it loops back around to being inoffensive since that's what they say to
everybody.
-Christian McBride: Cherokee, because I have to feature the improvised jazz solo at least once:
I find this odd, since technically this album came out in 2013... DUN DUN OPEN NOTES
The
hard separation between fast and slow is jarring, but I take it this
won the Grammy because the Pianist, Christian Sands is able to keep up
regardless. Like, the rest of the band is like "Hey, let's see if we can
fuck him up" and Christian Sands is like "Ha ha you wish motherfucker."
Or
possibly because the way Christian McBride plays bass is like a normal
guitarist busting out a solo. If this were an octave higher it would fit
right into a metal song. That guy's fingers must be swole as fuck.
What I'm saying is that it's a good song. Not one I'd have on my MP3
while I'm pumping iron in the gym, but one I enjoyed listening to
writing this recap.
-Nuclear Throne is the best class of
roguelike, because the "run" is as simple as pulling the lever on a slot
machine. Same with FTL, where a run doesn't require a major time
commitment, and if you lose, you're only out an hour at most.
-"Tacos are a renewable experience"- Rhythm Bastard
-Pro level strats with Jeff Gertsmann
-Mega64's Deadpool Movie Sketch
-So, in Magic the Gathering, there are 5 colors, each with it's own
strengths and weaknesses. I'll summarize as quickly as possible: WHITE- Usually white spells are about keeping you and your creatures alive for as long as possible. BLUE-
Usually blue spells are about playing the game on your own terms, doing
things such as making creatures weaker, or countering your opponent's
spells. BLACK- Black spells involve death of some sort, usually
either killing creatures, or interacting with your discard pile (aka
"Graveyard") RED- Red spells are about speed and direct damage, like
"Deal X damage to target creature or player" and creatures that can
attack very early on in the game. GREEN- Green spells are about big
creatures and lands, so you can make lands big creatures or get more
lands to get to your big creatures sooner.
Around the mid-2000s, Magic made characters called "Planeswalkers" that act as an embodiment of each color.
Jace,
who Jeff talked about is the blue mage, and he's the most popular
probably because A. He looks the most like what we think of a "Wizard"
and B. He's moody and brooding and all the anti-hero types in what is
basically a scrawny scene kid: Every bit of lore he's involved in goes as such: Someone tricks him, then he gets tortured, then he Protagonists his way to victory.
Garruk was the Green Planeswalker for a while, until the Innstrad block when he'd been cursed with a magic artifact. Origianlly he was going to use his magic to be a farmer, then local army wanted him, but him and his Dad were all like, "Nah, fuck that noise" and the Army killed his Dad. He then spent the next 10 years suplexing progressively larger beasts, then eating them.
Chandra is the Red Planeswalker. Guess what her magic preference is?
I agree with Jeff that her "Origin Story" is the best. She was raised on Steampunk India (Kaladesh) where her parents were Engineers but she was like "I'm gonna be King Of The Outlaws!" which is a coincidence because her parents were also working for a rebel alliance because the government was basically Reaganomics and was like "THE AETHER WILL TRICKLE DOWN!".
So when she was delivering some Aether the royal guard caught her, but she fought them off with her newly discovered fire magic. Her parents were like "That was cool and all, and we love you baby, but we need to GTFO".
They fled to a village, then the Royal Guard caught up with them and was like "Gorbachev, burn down this village. Chandra was to be excecuted in an arena, where at the last second she planeswalked away.
-Some highlights from the Sonic The Hedgehog Twitter:
First of, Zonecasts started doing recap videos again! Yay!
ECHO CHAMBER EPISODE 152
dril TWEETS ARE THE NEW HOTNESS ANYWAYS
Holy shit 2016 has been terrible so far. After losing Lemmy in 2015,
we lost Glenn Frey from The Eagles, DAVID MOTHERFUCKING BOWIE, ALAN
GODDAMN RICKMAN, "Iron" MIke Sharpe, goddamn... My "God's Trying To Make
A Supergroup" Theory becomes more and more real by the day.
Bowie and Rickman both died of cancer at 69. You know who's a lump of human cancer and is 69 years old?
DONALD TRUMP
OK on to less depressing things, here's "Bowie In Space":
-Again, I am upon another heading that I wrote down when doing this recap: Chrono Cross? Postal 3?.
At the time, I didn't get the reference when Arcanon compared Chrono
Cross to Postal 3, in that they were both spiritual successors,
considered terrible by fans that had nothing to do with their
predecessors. Mostly because I thought there wasn't a Postal 3.
Then I remembered watching a video on Asshole Simulators and I was
like "Oh yeah, there WAS a Postal 3!" It was released in Russia before
the US.
Postal is the only thing Running With Scissors has ever done. yay edgelord games.... Like seriously, Taliban Jokes in 2015?
-I CAN'T SPEEDRUN BATTLETOADS
That's true Mystakin. Oh wait, you said THE EXACT OPPOSITE LAST WEEK. See the video above.
And since this is the recap on MY site, here's a Battletoads Speedrun:
-UpUpDwnDwn is Xavier Woods' videogame YouTube Channel, and it's a
really interesting watch. He/Austin Creed's not the best Let's Player,
but I love watching him play with other Superstars, watching them break
Kayfabe and have fun together. It's mainly the reason I want to see
Heath Slater and Damien Sandow on TV again.
However what I'm looking forward is a reignition of his rivalry with Dirty Dan Ryckert Giant Bomb at PAXAMANIA:
-Rock Band's Soundtrack has MAYBE two main setlist songs completely
unrecognizable at first glance(Those most likely being "Electric
Version" AND "Dead On Arrival") . Chances are, someone from some
generation will recognize something, and songs like "Are You Gonna Be My
Girl?" and "Here It Goes Again" are still fresh in people's minds from
various advertisements, there's plenty of songs people ask for by name.
As the games wore on, the setlists opted for less recognizable hits but
bigger bands (U2? VAN HALEN?)
-The Simpsons and Family Guy are shambling forms of their old selves,
and the ways in which they attempt to innovate are more patheric as
time goes on. The Simpsons look to cash in on the latest pop culture
craze after animators spend 9 months working on it, and everything seems
to be retreading old ground. I need to wartch it again, but looking at
the Wiki page, they seem to have eased off the Celebrity of the Week
Episodes.
Family Guy on the other hand has become Loss.Jpg the series.
While it's shock humor and pop culture references are wearing thin,
they tried getting "real" by introducing more serious storylines, such
as Brian contemplating suicide, Glenn Quagmire's mother being
transgender, and Glenn's sister was in an abusive relationship.
-In this week's edition of "Rhythm Bastard's Not Crazy", the word I was looking for was Pankration,
All it was is a mix boxing and wrestling, which seemed to be the
official fighting style of mythical figures. I was right, but wrong at
the same time. But the most important thing to take away from all this
is....
I'M NOT CRAZY!
-In I'm not crazy news part 2:
I listened to this guy during work, I've checked the related videos, and I realized I shouldn't have done this during work.
So from what I remember from browsing business articles Facebook
shoves in my face, I know that discovering unexploited niches is key to
being a successful provider of internet content. Let's Plays are mined
to fuck, you might not know anything about makeup or fashion, and your apartment isn't sad enough to rant against women existing, so "Chugging 40s In A Ski Mask" could be an Innovative new Youtube trend for #thebest #web #content
#RhythmBastardIsNotCrazy
-Shinsuke Nakamura is known as The King Of Strong Style and has a dope-ass theme song. He also fought Kevin Owens (then known as Kevin Steen) in 2014.
-Yotam Perel, very good animator, hosts his Tosh.0 Special and unwraps a naked baby:
Man, this week's theme seems to be "shitty web content". Hmmm... What can I do to counteract this....
All better! SLAYERS OF DECADENCE EPISODE 7
Hey, look! The Gods of Fortitude actually managed to be parents this time! So we have the second half of the "Not Fucking Up A Child" montage next week, but this week we partake in my favorite trope: Kindunos and Zun Quib Slay working with each other by working against each other.
It happened when we retook Firefly: "I'm going to seduce the General!" "I'm going to have my army kill everyone and squaking with my eagle face!"
Same here: "You should totally steal all those goats" "Bro, you gonna take that shit?"
-Yeah, I'm on Team Christmas, because that's the time of year when your racist ass aunt is obligated by Our Lord Capitalism to shut her damn mouth. Thanksgiving is when she's all like "Hey, you wanna know what I think about INSERT NAME OF MINORITY GROUP?"
Though you don't get ads all the way in September saying "BETTER THINK ABOUT THANKSGIVING!!! ONLY XXX DAYS LEFT!!!". How early do you think about Thanksgiving? The morning before you're supposed to show up to your parents? PSSSSSHH!!!
-Halo, for a while, was the new Goldeneye 007, a game that everyone plays together in the dorm room, but I wonder if it's been beat out by something else, even Smash Bros. Call Of Duty seems to have the online shooter space squared away, so it's hard to see what place Halo occupies in the public consciousness since it's early Original Xbox days.
I've always been aware of the series, and how Master Chief is another "Legendary Video Game Character" to stand shoulder to shoulder with Mario and Lara Croft, but I never got the appeal, until I started playing Halo: Reach. It plays well and doesn't have a lot of what are known as "feelbads", or anything that would hamper a player's enjoyment right off the bat. The DMR was accurate, but still can fire at a decent clip, health regenerates, and ammo was very rarely a concern.
It's a good game, which is why so many are eager to kill aliens and don't afraid of anything.
-It hit me as I was listening to this podcast to write the recap that while I was thinking of The Hold Steady's "Sequestered in Memphis":
Arcanon might have been thinking of "Walking In Memphis" by Marc Cohn, a bit of a one-hit wonder.
-For the record, Brain Dead was the original name the Peter Jackson movie I was talking about, and Dead Alive is what it was called in the States.
-Dark Cloud 2 Advertisement:
May I talk about how much I loved this back in the day? Never played the game, but as a naive high schooler, shit like this seemed possible. "Wow! I CAN DO ANYTHING?!?!?" Hahaha no.
-PAX EAST IS GOING TO BE AWESOME! Tickets sold out quickly, but your plan ain't worth shit. Got my room all lined up thanks to Good Guy Owen, and ready to have some fun in Beantown.,..in 5 months. Hopefully we can get a panel, which means an extra $150 to spend on Magic Drafts.
Maybe we can taste test some mozzerella sticks with Mudry's Mozz...
Also we talked about fainting couches. According to Wikipedia the speculated reason for the existence of fainting couches are sexist as fuck:it's either corsets or "female hysteria".
Also, there's such a thing as fainting rooms. Which have fainting couches. Fuck Victorian Europe. So expect to see plenty of pictures of us flipping off fainting couches.
-Now, how I do these things is I listen to the podcast and write one
broad heading for every subject I think I can write about. Then I put
all the headings into the CMS for the site and go from there. All I have
for my notes on the first part of the podcast is "Dinosaur/Donald
Trump", which could only mean a prompt to list my favorite possible
Donald Trump/Dinosaur interactions:
Dinosaurs eating Donald Trump's face off
Bernie Sanders winning the election, then riding off on a veloiciraptor, who then goes back and eats Donald Trump
Herbivoric dinosaur thinking Donald Trump's hair is vegetation, then eats his head in the process
Brontosaurus's stomping on Donald Trump's crotch
Donald Trump being horn fucked by a triceratops.
A pterodactyl picking up Donald Trump by his belt and then dropping
him into a volcano and his pants come off in the process as his tiny
baby dick flops around before he falls in and his dick gets burned first
-Now, "Shitlord" has gotten a lot of flack for being a
"TUMBLR/SJW!!!" insult, since it's an insult not specific to any race or
gender. However, I feel such limitations on languge lead to more
direct, honest insults. For example, instead of old standbys like "Fag",
"Retard" and "(insert racial slur here)", you're calling them "shit",
which isn't comparing them to other people, but instead something that
can't exist without us. Adding "serf" implies being owned by somebody
else. So, calling them a shitserf means "You're subhuman and someone
else's problem"
-"Anime took a shit on the E-string of a guitar"- Jeff Webster, on Babymetal's "Gimme Chocolate" "Hungry Like The Wolf" from BABYDADROCK
-It's interesting how the Karaoke Revolution/Lips games never
achieved the same success Guitar Hero/Rock Band did, because there were a
lot of Karaoke Revolution games. However, none achieved the same level
of success, when most people use GH/RB as a glorified karaoke machine. I
think RB just got the DLC stuff all figured out, and focused on a
broader scope of music, so they took first on that. Karaoke Revolution
committed the Mortal Sin of having to switch out discs and even when it
went online, there was not enough DLC.
So hopefully Rock Band can keep up the DLC front, since that's what kept them separate from the rest of the pack.
-Joe McCarthy was a man who was behind the main thrust of Communist
Paranoia in the U.S. It was stupid bullshit in the Cold War, since we
were itching to invade another country since WWII. America's got mad
warboners.
So, you'd think Joe McCarthy would be regarded as a fucking loon, as his day's Jack Thompson, right?
IM A SMERTMEN!
-I have many thoughts on Until Dawn, but if I may draw some
comparisons between it, The Walking Dead (Telltale) and Heavy
Rain/Sadness Trilogy.
In The Walking Dead, you reach the same endpoint of the respective
stories, however all the decisions are meant to make you feel shitty THE
SECOND AFTER you make a decision. The choices didn't matter in the
grand scheme of things, but broken up episode to episode, you had the
experience of thinking about what would happen next, where the story was
going, what other people did, etc.
Beyond Two Souls seemed to have to have one binary choice at the end. Fuck that noise.
Indigo
Propechy had "multiple endings" but if we're thinking in video game
terms, all you had to do was not fuck up the QTEs and make the OBVIOUS
CHOICES to get the best ending. It was supposed to be episodic, but
budget fucked them over. It promised a "malleable story" but, not
really.
Heavy Rain, on the other hand, delivered on this promise a little bit
more, where main characters can die, rendering parts of the game
inaccessible. Like Indigo Prophecy, the endpoint was obvious, but the
game kept going if you screwed up. Also, there were "sub-endings" once
certain conditions were met depending on how long you used certain
items, what you did, etc. Kinda like Silent Hills 2 and 3.
Until Dawn was similiar in all of those aspects, however it does this
odd thing of keeping its cards close to its vest and throwing them out
on the table. Yes, like Heavy Rain characters could die, but the game
gives you hints on what to do next and how to keep everyone alive. So,
like the Walking Dead, characters remember what happened, but unlike the
Walking Dead, I wasn't caught up in the world and the story too much. I
ENJOYED IT, loved playing the game, but I was still playing it like a
game I tried to win.
But Hurricane Erica was a Tropical Storm then fizzled out.
-HOW DARE YOU! How dare you not cater to my tastes exactly?
HOW DARE YOU acknowledge other people in the world?
HOW DARE YOU HAMDIX for not making the soundtrack be exclusively
Avenged Sevenfold and Dragonforce? What's with all this obscure hipster
bullshit like "The Who" and "Elvis Presley"?
HOW DARE YOU call me a faggot online! I'm not gay, I fucked your mom! You're the faggot!
HOW DARE YOU say "Black Lives Matter"! I'm not black, arer you saying
my life doesn't matter even though white people are treated with way
more respect in diginity in similar situations?
HOW DARE YOU cut
in front of me in line you old hag? You're like 90, you can fucking wait
like 20 minutes for me to argue with the cashier over a coupon.
-Mystakin's back, so cast your Five Cost Starving Buzzard and get
ready to speedrun through this podcast with your backup strats.
-Rock Band "themes"-
"Really Hard Southern Rock Song" RB1- "Green Grass and High Tides" by The Outlawas RB2- "Bohdisvatta" by Steely Dan RB3- "Free Bird" by Lynard Skynard
"Song By The Who" RB1- "Won't Get Fooled Again" RB2- "Pinball Wizard" RB3- "I Can See For Miles" RB4- "The Seeker"
"Mega Dumb 80's Hair Metal Song That Gets Picked All The Time" RB1- "Wanted Dead Or Alive" by Bon Jovi RB2- "Eye Of The Tiger" by Survivor RB3- "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake RB4- "Panama" by Van Halen
"Throw The Last Song We Head On The Radio On To This" RB1- "Dani California" by THe Red Hot Chili Peppers RB2- "That's What You Get" by Paramore RB3- "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse RB4- "Uptown Funk" by Bruno Mars
"Throw That Indie Song From That Car Commercial On To This" RB1- "Reptilia" by The Strokes RB2- "Float On" by Modest Mouse RB3- "Lasso" by Phoenix RB4- "Arabella" by The Arctic Monkeys
Song by Avenged Sevenfold RB1- "Enter Sandman" by Metallica RB2- "Almost Easy" RB3- "The Beast and The Harlot" RB4- "Hail To The King"
Song by The Foo Fighters- RB1- "Learn To Fly" RB2- "Everlong" RB4- "Feast And The Famine"
Dumb 90's Song- RB1- "Sabotage" by The Beastie Boys RB2- "My Own Worst Enemy" by Lit RB3- "Walking On The Sun" by Smash Mouth RB4- "What's Up" by 4 Non Blondes
AS OF RIGHT NOW, it seems like a
neat little unlocking thing, but is seems to set up a bad precendent,
especially with the Amiibo scarcity. But I can see them doing somethng
where you can buy the related DLC for the same price since it unlocks
stuff among different games/systems.
-Super Mario Maker/Kaizo Mario is what happens when a Game Designer
actively hates you and wants to hide in the bushes while you play and
giggle at your failure. Most game deves passively hate you where it's
like "Eh, we could fix this, but nah" Kaizo Mario is a 72 oz, Steak Challenge of a game, only two minutes in you realize you suck at eating. Kaizo Mario is the "let's make smaller paddles!" bit from That 70's Show.
-The Consuming Shadow, while not game of the year material is still a
refreshing game, in that it goes hard on one thing (puzzle
solving/logic puzzle) while being part of another (survival horror).
What TCS reminded me the most of was this logic puzzle:
Albert Einstein once posed a brain teaser that he predicted only
2% of the worlds population would be able to solve.
FACTS:
1. There are 5 houses in 5 different colours.
2. In each house lives a person with a different nationality.
3. These 5 owners drink a certain beverage, smoke a certain brand
of cigarette and keep a certain pet.
4. No owners have the same pet, brand of cigaratte, or drink.
CLUES:
1. The Brit lives in a red house
2. The Swede keeps a dog
3. The Dane drinks tea
4. The green house is on the left of the white house.
5. The green house owner drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall keeps birds.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blend lives next to the one who keeps cats
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill
12. The owner who smokes Camel drinks beer
13. The German smokes Marlborough.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house
15. The man who smokes Blend has a neighbour who drinks water.
The question is, who keeps the fish?
See if you can answer it in the comments!
-FUN FACT: I was sent the raw files for "Hot Topic Is Not Punk Rock" and had to reconstitute the song using the ProTools file, and add my own distortion. Part of me wants to try and finish it for the Custom Creators Collective, but that would be disrespectful to Lars. Also, my C3 energy is better spent on the Best Song Pack Ever consisting of "Super Rad!" by The Aquabats, "Let's Dance To Joy Division" by The Wombats and "Anal Cunt" by G.G. Allin.
-"Only God can judge me"- Jeff, an atheist.
-Arcanon is working on an Adult Content pack for C3, so "Anal Cunt" by GG Allin might be a possibility.
-Vocals in Rock Band were always hit or miss, and if Rock Band 4 allows for more expression, then I'm all for it. It's really a buzzkill when, even on Easy, someone who just wants to sing karaoke fails out and is given negative feedback. No Fail Mode as the default helps a little bit, but it's crushing when a player onjly scores 50%.
"I suck! I'm never going to play again!"
There's a colloquialism in Magic The Gathering for when there's a mechanic that can be seen as discouraging to players not quite ready to handle it: "Feelbads". For a game that invites such a casual playerbase, you want to avoid as many "Feelbads" early on in a player's career as much as possible.
-Final Fantasy X: HAHAHAHA! HA HA! HAHAHA! HA HA! HA! HA!!
-Canary Mary in Banjo Tooie was regarded for being very difficult. While Mystakin and Arcanon tried to argue the best ways to tackle her, I'll be lazy and post some tips from GameFAQs: "No-one can beat Canary Mary in less than 13 seconds (not even a
giraffe) as she cheats and adapts her speed to match the player’s skill.
If you play too well she always seems to win. We never did fix that one
properly…" (Translation: WE DUN GOOFED!)
"The main thing to remember with Canary Mary is to keep the interval between your button presses constant" (Translation: Wicked rubberband A.I.)
"If you're into mashing the button as fast as possible, go ahead.
However, if you feel like you're slowing down, press start to pause and
get the blood back into your thumb... or finger or whatever (nose?). As
long as you can stay ahead, it's all good" (Translation: Stop playing. Fuck this game)
The last method is one more suited to those who are a little more
desperate. If you're sick of trying everything and anything and just
want to finish the game 100%, buy yourself a turbo controller from an
online store or your local retailer if they stock them. Turbo
controllers allow the user to hold down a button and get the same effect
of mashing it at an extremely fast and constant speed - perfect for
beating Canary Mary. (Translation: Fuck this game, just cheat)
Also recommended:
-A spoon
-A pen
-Rock Band fret button
But, it makes sure to note that they fucked up the programming, so this won't work either.
Video Time? VIDEO TIME!
-"Barkerville" by John Drake
