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orion_mk3's

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Oct 1, 2012 - 03:48 PM

2012 can go fuck itself

tl;dr summary: orion vents a little bit about white people problems.

Now I'm not saying that the year has been all bad. What I am saying is that the ratio of bad to good is way out of whack and there's been a disproportionate number of "body blows" that have real stress and psychological heft behind them. To wit:

- A 500-lb doe jumped out in front of my car on New Year's in the most desolate bumfuck part of Indiana known to man (so tiny that they had a half-size Wal-Mart). The crash cased $5000 in damage, forced me to drive home with no driver side window and smeared with deer shit, and spending the #1 party night of the year in a shitty motel pretty much set the tone for the rest of the year.

- My brilliant idea to set my passport on the night table so I wouldn't forget it leads me to forget my passport and miss a flight to meet my family on vacation. I had to rent a car for this step, the usual car being in traction.

- My girlfriend dumps me in the most humiliating way possible shot of open polygamy. She decides to shack up with an old friend who lives 3 states away during a 2-week conference and breaks the news to me after I bring a welcome back flower. Mario-related craft art goes to waste.

- My family dog, at 13, finally gets so far gone into dementia and incontinence that there's no choice but to put him down. I get to make all the arrangements for this since it's "too painful" for the rest of my family, for whom I've been the dog's sole caretaker for 2 years while they're out of the country.

- And now my 94 year old grandmother has died. I got to talk to her by phone the day before, so there's that I guess. I've missed 12 out of the last 14 work days due to vacation and contagion respectively just for extra fun.

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[public entry #33]

Sep 7, 2012 - 12:19 PM

Game Music Bundle IV: Revenge of the iOS

It's Game Music Bundle time again! This time all the music comes from iOS games, a stunning departure from the last sets which featured only 90% and 87% iOS game music respectively.

Now, the only issue I've ever had with the bundle is that there's a lot of stuff in there that's so goddamn obscure, and not available to sample on Bandcamp or anywhere else, that no one has reviewed it and you're basically shooting craps. Granted the cost ($10 min for everything) is low enough that that's not an extinction-level problem, but here are some mini reviews anyway for those who might be thinking about taking the plunge.

Horn Original Soundtrack by Austin Wintory - Yes, the same guy that does all the thatgamecompany games that Vincent Diamante passes on. Given how neat Journey was, this seemed like an easy home run. Sadly, it's kind of a whiff: lots of very sparse, dark, medieval stuff without a lot of melody; the more atmospheric tracks are vaguely Journey-like but not nearly as good.
Rating: **
Preview

Squids 2 Wild West by Romain Gauthier - I really enjoyed the last Squids, and placed with its best song in SotW. There's a direct sequel to that song here that's pretty neat; overall there's a wild west feel like you'd think and lots of great melodies. While there are quirky and fun tracks, a lot of the music (nearly 3x as long as the original) is surprisingly dark.
Rating: ****
Preview of the original

Puzzlejuice Original Soundtrack by Big Giant Circles - I already listened the crap out of this on Bandcamp and probably would have bought it full price before. It's bright melodic synth poppy stuff from the guy who did some of the awesomest parts of Mass Effect 2 (and whose absence from its hilarious sequel was keenly felt). Short and sweet highlight of the bundle.
Rating: *****
Preview

Globulous Original Soundtrack by zircon and Jeff Ball - zircon was just behind virt in this year's BSC indie-off, and he's done good stuff all around and provided many a virus pun. I don't know this Jeff Ball guy, but he seems play will with the zirc. The three tracks where they directly collaborated are fantastic highlights, especially "Dawn Oblique," even if the rest of the album and their solo tunes are occasionally a bit blah in comparison.
Rating: ****
Preview

Organ Trail Director's Cut OST by Ben Crossbones - A version of Oregon Trail that replaces oxen with zombies? I'm sold on the game instantly forever. To its credit the music mostly sounds like something that your old 2nd grade class's Apple IIgs could spit out, but the music is really dour and really sparse, and kind of hard to sit through unless you're a fanatic for C64-style synths.
Rating: **
Preview

Aliens Incursion Original Soundtrack by elmobo - el mobo has been at it since the earliest days of VGM, and his Bandcamp page is equal parts treasure and trip down memory lane, and even the newer titles are an exercise in great music for shitty games. I wouldn't say this is his best stuff, but there's synthy techno and some of his gift for melody to be had.
Rating: ***
Preview

Wyv and Keep Original Soundtrack by Luke Thomas - This is one of those "soundtracks done but game isn't" things you sometimes see on Bandcamp. Most of it is percussive synthy jungle music that probably does well as background but translates into a pretty boring listen. A few tracks like Mysterious Hat Seller do lift it up somewhat though.
Rating: **
No Preview

Flight of Angels Splice OST by Dain Saint - A game about splicing DNA with angel track names? Okay, sure. This takes the flOw/echochrome route of having quiet vaguely classical vaguely ambient music for a puzzler. Sounds kind of like Philip Glass, which means most will probably love it or hate it. Some of the tracks really were nice, I thought, but the presence of some boring songs and pretty lousy and muffled piano synth dings it a bit.
Rating: ***
Preview

Mecho Wars HD Original Soundtrack by Sean Beeson - I stumbled on Sean's website a while back and I'm now a big fan. He reminds me of a younger, hungrier Jeremy Soule who writes moving, wistful stuff without resting on his laurels quite so much. This is exactly that: fans of Soule will eat it up.
Rating: ****
Preview

Polymer Original Soundtrack by Whitaker Trebella - What's up with so many indie games being named after material types? Regardless, there are some nice sounds and beats here but the music falls into the trap of too much repetition without much variation, so when the music if over you feel like you've heard it 50 times instead of just once.
Rating: **
Preview

iBlast Moki 2 Original Soundtrack by Romain Gauthier - Another fine Gauthier songtrack that CHz conned people into voting SotW gold. It's solid stuff, mostly pastoral and relaxing with some quirk here and there, but pound for pound I prefer Squids (heresy, I know).
Rating: ***
Preview

Super Hexagon EP by Chipzel - The first "bonus album" unlocked by people buying stuff. Probably closer to the actual kind of techno you'd hear in clubs than anything I offhandedly label "techno" in passing despite (or perhaps because of) that 8-bit sheen. Each of the three tracks starts out kind of bleh but gets better later on as more layers are added, but it's probably really only for big fans of this sort of thing. Also written by a girl which in my mind is a plus.
Rating: ***
Preview

I'd say this one is probably worth your $10 (or $13.37).

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[public entry #32]

Aug 18, 2012 - 06:00 PM

They really didn't want to sell me "The Last Story"

Seriously. I have been all "shut up and take my money" about that game since I first read about it, but it seems that no effort has been spared to keep it out of my grasp.

To wit: I pre-ordered it the minute that a US release (admittedly, just the Euro release with its cockney accentery intact but NTSC compatible) was announced. The release date slipped four or five times, allegedly as goodies were added to the package to make up for its obscene tardiness.

The actual release date came and went with GameSpot claiming that they hadn't gotten the copies that they were promised. It wasn't until days later that they actually arrived, and even then it was exactly one copy per preorder. Even Xenoblade did some shelf time in our local GS but not so Last Story.

Not only that, but they shipped only a single soundtrack (one of the delay-inducing add-ons despite being a straight reissue of the Euro version complete with 2011 copyright date). Me and the other guy that preordered were there at the same time and they actually had to look at our order slips to determine who got the goody that delayed the game by like three months. I got it, luckily.

All this, of course, after the game was originally not slated for any kind of extra-Japanese release and only brought extremely grudgingly after a massive fan campaign. It's like 1994 all over again.

The packaging itself is bloated, with *two* cardboard slip covers surrounding the actual game and accompanying "art book." It's nice that they took the time but all things considered I'd rather have just had the game in June in a case that fits on my shelf, thanks.

Oh, the game itself? Jury's still out. It's a lot like Xenoblade so far, which was a disappointment for me, but I'd only put like an hour into it so far.

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[public entry #31]

Aug 17, 2012 - 09:49 PM

Para Norman Trooper

So: ParaNorman.

I'll admit, I was predisposed to like this one. It's a pretty simple breakdown:
1. It's stop motion.
2. It's from Laika and Coraline was awesome.
3. The guys who directed it came from Aardman which is awesome in a completely different way.
4. It has comedy zombies ("combies").
5. John "World of Pain" Goodman and Casey "Coward Robert" Affleck.

But, as we all know, things that look awesome sometimes have a way of turning out to be horrible. Look at Sucker Punch; I'm still amazed that a movie with bunny mechs and WWI zombies didn't work. Hence the reason that I braved it in a theater despite the fact that, as with any so-called kid's movie, there were going to be small children talking loudly throughout after their parents dumped them there to finish their drug deals in peace.

Luckily, the movie delivered. It was hilarious, for one thing, with a gleeful sense of fun and campy affection for old horror films that are tame by today's standards. Casey Affleck's last line in particular brought the house down, as did the John Carpenter ringtone.

The animation, it goes without saying, is beautiful. Stop motion is infinitely superior to computer animation because it is real objects being photographed but there were also some effects that really stretched the boundaries (the finale, in particular).

I was actually surprised that, like Coraline, the movie had a twist and some ugly underlying issues. It might not be Shakespeare, but it lent the denouement a certain weight (that and the fabulous visuals). It doesn't pull any punches, either: there's some swears and the whole concept of

Spoiler:

is about as Grimm-dark as you can get.

Bottom line? Go see it. Vote with your wallet for more stop-motion originality in a sea of computer-animated drek.

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[public entry #30]

Jul 17, 2012 - 01:47 PM

What I should do with my old bootleg OSTs

So I have decided to divest myself of my old eBay Ever Anime/Miya bootlegs by purchasing actual copies (or at least bootlegs that took the time and effort to accurately copy the proper record label and catalog number anyway).

The question remains: what to do with the old bootlegs? I can't sell them and would rather not destroy them Office Space style. Maybe a local thrift store, which will sell them for about $4? Of course they'll also smear the discs with Sharpie (to match the removed discs and their cases, since people are always nicking the discs otherwise). Someone might actually discover Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy Tactics, or Vagrant Story that way, maybe.

The proper fate of a bootleg...it's food for thought.

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[public entry #29]

Jul 10, 2012 - 11:35 AM

Ever Anime Can Suck It

God, how I hate bootlegs, especially Ever Anime ones. I was hoping that Amazon would be a bit more of an insulator between me and their shit, but all it really has done is allow me to return the counterfeits in question less shipping. The seller even had the gall to claim that they "don't sell bootlegs," and I responded with a NerdRant™ about known bootleggers, catalog numbers, and how they should check their goddamn product before squirting it out the door.

I suppose that, on the plus side, the ratio of real used albums to shitty bootlegs on Amazon has been 2:1, while on eBay it was something like 1:1. Guess from now on I will have to pre-query every seller to ask for the catalog number and label to run it against Known Goddamn Bootleggers. I know that by rights I should be using a reputable importer, but they charge two arms and two legs and take forever, and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay $75 for Legend of Goddamn Mana.

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[public entry #28]

Jun 19, 2012 - 09:25 PM

Prometheus and Bob

There's no way I can complete with this hilarious assessment. So I won't even try.

The movie looks gorgeous, as one expects from Scott; the music is quite good as well. It also, unlike the average sci-fi movie these days (e.g. Battleship or Transformers) has pretensions of being about ideas rather than action or explosions. The idea of xenogenesis, the origin of life on Earth being alien, is a compelling one (Scientology aside) as is the initial image of a humanoid literally sacrificing itself to seed a lifeless earth with its DNA and amino acids. There's also a stab at the duality between faith and religion, though of the sort clearly written by an atheist with no idea of how actual people of faith think or act. Asimov-like questions about synthetic life, Oedipal complexes, and immortality are also issues raised tangentially. It's been a long time since the last sci-fi to tackle any such issues (2010's Inception might be the last). And of course there's the whole promise of a tie-in to Alien.

And yet for all the issues raised and all the beauty and poise in the film's elegiac first third, there's another problem thanks to a script that's intelligent enough to raise the questions yet so brain dead that not only are they not answered but there are massive slips in logic at every turn. The Space Jockeys created life on Earth, yet they inexplicably want to destroy it with biological weapons--all a character can do is speculate that they "changed their mind". They left us clues on where to find them (somehow, despite leaving before eukaryotes evolved) yet the clues for some reason point to a weapons facility and the Space Jockeys are so unhappy to see us that they rip our heads off and stomp our skulls.

Religion and science? A character has a cross and gives a short this-is-what-an-atheist-thinks-Christianity-should-be-like about faith and her boyfriend gets depressed because he can't meet his maker and ask him stuff (all while completely failing to appreciate how ironic his being a dick to an android is). Questions about synthetic life? Hinted at, largely thanks to a great performance by the android actor, but left murky by sudden shifts in its motivations (first it takes care of them, then it poisons them with alien bioweapons, then it helps them). Oedipal complexes and immortality? Most of that subplot must have been left on the cutting room floor. And the lead-in to Alien? Barely there. It's like seeing those goofy Star Wars prequel ships that were supposed to evoke the iconic X-Wings.

And then there are some really bad things that one would have hoped someone could catch at the screenwriting stage. What kind of suicidal space explorer would take off their helmet on an uncharted, toxic, and possibly life-supporting planet? Why does the "bioweapon" sometimes make people into explodey zombies, sometimes create proto-Aliens ex nihlio, and sometimes impregnate major characters with squids ("Congratulations, Reggie, it's a...squid")? Why does no one care to ask what happened to the squid after it was delivered (including the doctor and at east one other person who was beaten up over it)? How is the mapmaker the one who gets lost? And why is it that key plot elements (the old Mr. Weyland trying to make his immortal mark, mercenary scientists exploring a pyramid, and a stinger with an Alien chestbursting out of something) seem to have been lifted from Alien vs. Predator, that greatest of the series to date?

So yeah. I'd go so far as to call this a refrigerator movie as most of those points occurred to me afterwards. Definitely a severely flawed experience but not a total waste. But why couldn't they have cut down the tacked-on creature feature and action sequences, removed a few characters, and kept things on the same (relatively) high plane as the first part of the movie?

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[public entry #27]

Jun 13, 2012 - 06:55 PM

Mario Magnet Drama-Update!

Thanks for all the props on my Mario magnets, guys! Means a lot to me.

Oh, and my girlfriend dumped me before I could give her the present. Fun times!

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[public entry #26]

Jun 11, 2012 - 01:13 PM

So I made some Super Mario magnets

So my girlfriend's birthday is this week and it happens that she likes both Super Mario World and handicrafts. What better present than to combine the two?

I blew up the tiny 16x16 sprites so that they were an inch or two square and printed them on cardstock. Finding decent sprites from SMW was the hardest part, since no one cares to rip them or write a ripping program for Macs.

Cut out each shape with an exacto knife.

Following the individual pixels was a pain in the butt but it wound up looking way better than leaving any white space.

I then put the little critters through a laminator to give them that extra-shiny protection from the elements (my girlfriend will most likely be using them in the kitchen).

Cut out each shape. Lamination left a little air pocket about half a millimeter around the edge of each sprite, so I had to leave a bit of a laminate border to prevent the seal from breaking and allowing contaminants and evil spirits in.

Finally, I glued craft magnets to the back of each one. I used these rather than cheaper ribbon magnets because they suck less and having the sprites stand out a little makes them look cooler (plus they can overlap to get around the fact that they each have an inviso-border from the laminate).

And there you have it, ready to stick! Once they're unwrapped I'll post some action shots (I'm in the middle of painting the gift box to look like a question block).