shmups.system11.org

Fragile > TDS brah!

I like the pumpy riddims, angst-howled naughty lyrics and XTREEM brillo pad on dirty pan guitar textures of TDS - I'm gonna cum all over you! (■｀ω´■) - but Fragile's more subtle approach is certainly good too - although being a double LP it has the usual issue of clunkers sneaking in under the wire. I punt "Where Is Everybody"'s Fred Durst-esque ass right off the list! The vast majority can stay though, especially the rather nice cyber-acoustic open/close "Somewhat Damaged" / "Ripe (With Decay)," and the considerably pumpy "Into The Void" and "The Big Come Down" (oh mayne, I love the latter's eccentric loping beat and explosive percussive violence)

Actually WIE might be the only one I boot, can't recall others.

I don't actually chop "Hurt" off the end of TDS. I find it overly whiny compared to the rest's roaring twisted vice, but musically and thematically it's a fairly indivisible album. I just kinda stop paying attention to that song until it gets near the end, and the glorious redeeming BWAAAAAAAOW - which could just as easily be Lemmy, leaving his bass leaning on the amp at the end of a Motorhead show. The feels! (Jesus, I know what old favourites I'm gonna be rifling through when I get home 2NITE )

Ah, good times. The lyrics are pretty much 110% "GET A JOB YOU FUCKIN BUM"-bait, but the man could do pumpy dark industro-pop with naughty lyrics like a motherfucker.

Evac is cave spelled backwards.

The Edirol/Roland Virtual Sound Canvas that was bundled with Cakewalk software back in the day has two modes: GM2, and GS
I always thought this was simply a matter of compatibility i.e. the only difference is the patch codes and such
no
activating GS mode enables SEVERAL HUNDRED MORE SOUNDS that are otherwise unavailable in the default GM2 mode


guys, I've had this thing since like 2003 and I never knew this.
The audio quality of the VSC makes this realization a bit moot for modern music, but hot damn 2003-me would've liked to have known about this shit!


This has been a PSA to Always Read Your Help Files

Ralphie's dad on A Christmas Story is Kolchak the Night Stalker.

took me till the boss fight with the two dudes at the end of sunset 2, on my second playthrough (my first was many years ago), of killer7 to realise you can switch personalities without going to a harman room :O

Game collecting, Foreign exchange market.
That is to say; cash for cardboard.

James Rolfe is married with kids.

Emil Tchakarov conducted Simon Boccanegra with Wilhelmina Fernandez (soprano) A.D. 1985. That was not very unlikely I guess, but the thing is, I've had a reoccuring obsession with the former's Prince Igor recording (Sophia Festival Orchestra and, I think, some Russian soloists) for years, like, I would listen to it REAL obsessively. The latter, on the other hand, starred in the 1981 film Diva I'd been just as hooked on about the very time of my Price Igor affair. So to find just now those two worked together inbetween the recording and the movie is a rather late realization in my case.

By the way, you may not care about the film or operas in general, but if you try to follow development of film music throughout decades, do listen to the original Diva tracks by Vladimir Cosma. That OST is a high point. In fact, I can't think of another nineteen-eighties' feature film music this distinctly timeless [maybe Peter Gabriel's third album* echoes in one track, but that's about as "its time & age" as it gets - a far cry from any stereotype eighties' film music which was, typically, more "glamour", synth(-pop)-influenced (think Blade Runner)].
Not sure about the rest of the world, but at least in XXth Century's Europe - on either side of Iron Curtain - kid's cartoon music was typically more adventurous than feature film music, as if the composers, producers etc. were given more artistic freedom when working on kid's shows.

*) Yet even later realisation - the whole Peter Gabriel's "Third" got re-recorded (not just vocal tracks, but the lot from what I understand) all sung in German and released as Ein deutsches Album in Germany A.D. 1980. I would not be surprised at all if titled so in a high-brow nod at Ein deutsches Requiem by Brahms. Not to be confused with Deutsches Album, i.e. a re-worked version of his "Fourth".
I suspect that because Germany, in previous decade, was universally looked up to by rock music innovators all over the world, Gabriel made a most serious attempt to leave his own rock as "Kraut" as he could for posterity.

Interesting Soundtrack. I have not watched the film, though.
More importantly, re. La Wally - track 1, I'll see your Fernandez and raise you a Callas; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pkNpl-tZIw

Also; though not "Film music", Malcolm McLaren's "Fans", is certainly a very 80's experiment, that the Diva OST brought to my mind.

While reading the newspaper today, in an article about the financial success of the gaming industry (citing the new Spider Man game, RDR2 and GTA V), I just found out that Minecraft is a sandbox where you build things. I was shocked.
Because of the "mine" part of the title and my total disinterest in it, for all these years I imagined Minecraft as a modern 3D version of Minesweeper... I couldn't believe there was nothing to do with it, lol.

Metallica's lyrics of Battery don't allude to a transportable power source. Nor the Hungarian noblewoman and alleged serial killer.
Bummer.

There is actually an i in TEAM , it's hidden in the A-Hole

The music for the tutorial movies in the 360 port of Akai Katana has higher quality than the audio that plays in the actual game! (128kbps WMA audio vs 106~113kbps XWB audio, though the latter somehow manages to sound even worse than what the numbers would suggest)
The Origin/Climax mode tutorial song is also the prototype version of the stage 1 theme for some reason.
The audio for these tutorial movies is also literally a third of the game's entire music data (15.8 out of ~47mb)
Seriously man, why did they have to compress AK's music so bad...

The protagonist of Romance & Cigarettes movie was played by James Gandolfini. Looked somewhat familiar to me, but having never watched a single Sopranos episode in my conscious life, I couldn't put my finger on it. According to English Wikipedia, Roger Ebert was a person oftentimes rating highly the films I buy on cheap DVDs and also rate highly thereafter. Nevertheless, he liked Pan's Labyrinth best A.D. 2006, much to my bewilderment (I did not buy any DVD of it, however, so this "cheap one" condition might be of a crucial relevance here).

I've known this for a while now, but back when I played Super C as a kid, I didn't know you could charge your Fire Gun by holding B for a few seconds and releasing it for a bigger blast.

Also, it took quite a few years to realize that you could turn off the PS2 by holding down the reset button. I always used the power switch on the back.

I just discovered by accident that in "Into the Breach" the weapon upgrades are not a tree. So for example on the basic punchbot you can skip the dash upgrade and go straight to the extra damage.

This... this changes everything!

Uriah the cat dragon in Space Harrier...



Is based off Falkor from Neverending Story, who resembles a dog...



Didn't make the connection until now.

There are items in the original Legend of Zelda that increase your maximum bomb capacity. I thought you could only ever carry up to eight.

Musha Aleste uses the same melody in its title screen music as the one in the original Aleste.

Correct, Yu Suzuki even admitted this in interview.

Even though Dead Cells' new Rise of the Giant DLC is free, you still need to "buy" then install it separately. It wasn't just included with the latest patch.

With relatively soft jazz style and all the use of drawbar organs and vibraphones etc in Elevator Action Returns' OST, I occurs to me that Yack may have been deliberately basing the game's musical style off of... well, elevator music.

The first picture of the intro in Mega Drivo Castlevania presumedly shows a Belmondo and a blonde, backside. Cue for the word 'ancestors' in the text.
Maybe Trevor and the babe.
For the longest time I thought it depicted the games' own heroes, John and Eric. In my weakly defense, they are shown in the last pic, frontal, and it is - a Belmondo relative and a blonde.
So. Glad that got cleared.

What's also a bit misleading is that Vampire Killer's opening scene is clearly referencing the first game's iconic boxart, with a Sypha-esque figure airdropped in. So it mashes up imagery from the first and third games in a way that could be read as Simon time travel-banging his own grandma. It still works, because ancestral gamer memories, but yeah!

VK's also starring of a buff BERUMONDO laddy and a fine blonde lassie doesn't help matters either! ^_~ ("AW NAW, WHAT YOU MEAN THATS A DUDE" - Konami USA head of localisation, ca.1993)

I only just realised (was flat-out told, actually!) that David Patrick Kelly played both Jerry Horne from Twin Peaks, and the WARRIORS, COME OUT TO PLAY-EEE dude from The Warriors!





I'M SUCH A FUCKIN NOOB

Joakim Sandberg, creator of the Noitu Love games and Iconoclasts, has also done graphics/animation work for a number of Wayforward games.
This... actually makes perfect sense.

I may had mentioned this before, but I didn't know you could turn off the PS2 by holding down the reset button. I always used the on/off switch on the back of the console.

Also, this isn't so much of a late realization so much, but in Contra III, Bill and Lance carries a second rifle on their back that contains their secondary power-up and they only get to use both at the same time for the spin shot. Well in Contra Advance, your character still has that second rifle on his back, even though he carries only one weapon at a time in this version.

Holy Crap, Freespace 2 is over 20 years old now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCmMrs5Oao8

The one game to pretty much have a permanent spot in the hard drive of every single computer I've bought/built since release.

DELIVER backwards is REVILED and thus anagrammatical of RELIEVED.

Riveting observations from gazing out the office window at the Chips Truck offloading its myriad tempting garbage treats