HERE'S SOME STUFF MIDWEEK!!! also africa by toto

PATREON SONG RELEASED! "LEGENDS"!

My new song, inspired by the Dominaria set for Magic The Gathering!

This one took a while because I got REALLY ambitious with it, and haven't been playing Magic as much as I have, but I'm please with the end result.

The set was all about Legendary creatures, and with so many in the set, I had to incorporate legends into the theme. Also, the set is a return to the previous "center" of the Magic Multiverse, Dominaria, so legendary planeswalkers like Teferi, Karn and Jaya Ballard make a comeback. But, it's mostly to set up the current generation of Planeswalkers (Gideon, Jace, Liliana, et al) and their story going froward.

Also, this song is about David Bowie.

FREE SONG: "E3 NUMBER 5"!


OK, so TheHashtagonist on Twitter, a writer and podcaster, made a parody version of Mambo No. 5 about E3, and I became REALLY TEMPTED. So I got home, got a free karaoke track, and got to work. All I really had to do was change some words around to fit better, and BOOM, you get this mess!

JAM OF THE WEEK: "Dancing In The Dark" by Bruce Springsteen


OK, So I know this isn't regarded as the BEST Springsteen song, but I have been thinking about it a lot lately, primary because it's so different. The pacing is upbeat, Bruce begs more than sings, and the song is about that unique kind of depression where you're stuck in a rut and have nothing to do.

However, that specific synth sound, is so calming. It's still the main hook, but the edges are rounded enough that it acts like a sedative. Like, the synths in Toto's "Africa"- Wait.

Shit....

I mentioned Africa on the internet....

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Status Quo Championships 2015

This week's jam:


Now, unlike most songs where I reconize the tune, but not the name of the song, this is one of those songs where I've seen the title, but never bothered to listen to the song until just recently, and as a song with jangly guitars, fast lyrics, and a sound straight from the 70's, I was naturally intregued. It was available for the Rock Band Network, then taken off.

Right, this is Sunday, right? Uh.... Damn, keep kayfabe, don't tell everyone how hype you are at 360 Backwards compatability, the new Star Fox game and the bazillion other games at E3....

HERO HYPE CON RECAP VIDEO!!!


Which dovetails nicely into my second point...


RHYTHM BASTARD T-SHIRTS ARE NOW ON SALE!
You don't have to worry about shipping, I want to see how the first couple orders pan out first.

Other than that, I moved all my stuff off my laptop to my desktop computer, I'm working on new material, and just generally cleaning house on certain things in the future.

On Sunday WHICH IS TODAY, two major events competed for my attention: Money In The Bank and the Nintendo World Championships.

MITB was underwhelming and when I found out Shaemus won the contract, I stopped giving a shit. Rollins vs. Ambrose will never not be golden, but, eh....

But the Nintendo World Championships? SUPER HYPE! This needs to be a thing at EVERY E3, especially now that speedrunning and Let's Plays are more of a thing.

I started watching about halfway through, when the second round began, and they were playing Metroid: Federation Force. One cool thing they did is that if you didn't place in a round, you went to a loser's bracket and played a game there. If you won that round, you were still in the loser's bracket, but you stayed in the game.

That was Super Metroid, where there first one to beat the end section got to stay in the game. Then Mario Kart 8 (top 3 finishers of a 3 track cup), and Balloon Fight of all things. Arin from the Game Grumps lost the Balloon Fight elimination round by a hair. Turns out he's pretty good at video games when he doesn't have to talk over them.

After that was Super Smash Bros. and the final round was Mario Maker, with ridiculous levels designed by Treehouse members. I think that, more than anything else, sold me on the WiiU. Between the Kazio insane levels, music making ones as seen in Little Big Planet, and, GUARANTEED a functioning computer system.

So my goal for this week, expect to see my MTG songs on YouTube, and a couple videos from me. This weekend is Treasure Coast Comic Con, so I'll be heading there to hand out a couple business cards.

Echo Chamber Post Game Episode 8E-3 and 8E-4

E3 FUTURE PREDICTIONS: YOU WILL DOWNLOAD THIS EPISODE

-Mega64 Skit

There was also a later one, but I'm not including it because of Harrison Ford's traumatic death.


-Is E3 necessary?

I forgot who it was, but someone on the Giant Bombcast mentioned that while those of us "in the know" already knew a lot about what's going on in the video game industry already, E3 is more for the average consumer who gets their news through more standard/mainstream outlets (Newspapers, evening news, 24 hour cable networks except for Fox News because technology is scary). A local news station that Bombcaster worked at was only aware of video games during the E3 conference, or during some kind of moral panic.

Your average consumer couldn't care less about what's coming up outside a game that's already being advertised on TV, or more than a month down the line, so they still look to go "GOLLY, look at all these shiny new toys!" before caring about the couple they buy a year.

There was the failed "E for All Expo" that happened a couple years ago which was supposed to be a "Hey, guys! Come and see what's coming out!" thing, but it ultimately flopped.

FOR NOW, until more consoles get online so we might be able to do some time-limited demo/beta stuff for the masses, and until the news gets more video-game savvy (see below) we still need that central rallying point.

-Re: Arcanon on Amplitude: Given Jeff's comments on the previous episode (his credit limit was boosted more or less right away, Arcanon had to wait), I think from this we can determine that Arcanon's bank is WAY LESS likely to receive a government bailout in the future.


BROADCASTING TO YOU LIVE FROM UNDERWATER

-So, while my Skype setup was all good, I still had my USB mic plugged in, which Reaper set as the default. FFFFFF-

-Carolyn was a great guest, and probably the main reason (behind Ozone of course) that this podcast happened in the first place. It was really awesome to hear how much she loved running the RBN Network, and she felt warm fuzzies with us talking about how much we loved making stuff for the RBN.

-Revolution 60- This game sounded really unique from the description she gave, and my brain is stuck on The Walking Dead Telltale meets Megaman Battle Network, which is enough to get me to play it. According to their Facebook page, it's ready for testing.

More pics on Flickr, which is the Online Photo Service of all the cool kids.

-So, yes, THIS ACTUALLY RAN ON THE L.A. TIMES:

"Nintendo's 'glacier white' Playstation 4"

See also, "Cowboy Bebop at his Computer"

Which reminds me that I still need to watch Cowboy Bebop and on top of that, I got my brother bitching at me to watch Attack On Titan.

-We out ourselves as Nintendo Fanboys a lot on this one. Whereas Sony and Microsoft are competing with each other, Nintendo at this point is flailing it's arms going PAY ATTENTION TO US!!! Mario Maker and Splatoon got us the most hype, but my attention was more focused on 3DS and their offerings. So, in average PODCAST RECAP TRADITION, here's what's going to be on my wishlist in the coming months:

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright:

A.K.A. Two of my favoritest DS games had a baby and now I get to play them at the same time instead of choosing what to bring with me on the toilet.

Persona Q:

The universe and characters of the Persona Series, on a console I don't have to beg my brother to use!

Project  S.T.E.A.M.:

Steampunk Advance Wars where you and Abraham Lincoln fight aliens and for the love of Xenagos you had me at "Advance Wars"

-Your annual reminder that Frog Fractions exists

-Following the news that John Drake was let go as well, maybe we can have him on as well?

Echo Chamber Podcast Post Game Episode 43 and 44- E3 Edition

BEFORE THE STORM
AFTER THE STORM

DURING THE STORM- Oh. We're done with that? OK, then.

SO, here's what we talked about:

-Second Life is STILL a thing, BTW
I don't know who's using it nowadays, but it's there. You'd figure there would be something else.


-Fantasia: Music Evolved was still the biggest one for me. Now while the trailer made the game look like this:

(I CAN CONTROL BRUNO MARS WITH THE POWER OF DUBSTEP!)

-The gameplay looks incredible, and I've been looking for something to fill that Elite Beat Agents void:



-Another one we liked was "The Division"


-SWERY65 has a new game on the horizon! (But it's Xbone Exclusive D:)

I'm digging the "Walking Dead" style art and character models, since Deadly Premonition's "Like the PS2 but better's" aetschetics was a turnoff to some.

 -The Hyperkin RetroN 5 looks SO HYPE. I can play 9 different kinds of retro consoles? EBAY, AHOY!

-Even though Microsoft retracted its statement on DRM, and allowed used games, I'm still on the side of "not getting one". Mostly out of trust, since all of these measures like "connect every 24 hours" or "no used games" could have been used for great things by the developers except for two reasons:
1. Games aren't going to get cheaper
2. Budgets aren't going to get cheaper
and
3. That shit is fucking hard. When you take the first two points into consideration, ANYTHING that could POSSIBLY throw the consumer off will screw you over in the end.