[compoopers]

I guess I could find something like that. Worst case scenario I just put my music on my phone and just make genre playlists (which is what i've been doing). The reason I hate this is because I don't like redundancy, so I have to decide if a song is "more" hip hop or "more" jazz and put it in the respective category. I'd rather just be able to look up hip hop genre and have all the stuff that I deem as hip hop show up.

It's such a pain.

 

[a_recording]

Quote:

I guess I could find something like that. Worst case scenario I just put my music on my phone and just make genre playlists (which is what i've been doing). The reason I hate this is because I don't like redundancy, so I have to decide if a song is "more" hip hop or "more" jazz and put it in the respective category. I'd rather just be able to look up hip hop genre and have all the stuff that I deem as hip hop show up.
It's such a pain.

Hmm. This is starting to sound like a problem of your own making lol. You don't want to make playlists with many to one references to songs, and yet you recognise that your songs could fit many playlists...

 

[kiteki]

 

...play Maniac Mansion?
 

I think I must be giving off the idea that I was a nervous and sickly child, scared by any number of not so scary things...

 
Not at all!  Maniac Mansion was the scariest game on my NES!  It had a lot of 'feeling', you really got into the character, like they were alive.  To this day, I never finished it!, - I don't like walkthroughs (which conveniently didn't exist back then), the adventure was coming up with ideas yourself.
 
We come from a certain golden age of videogames, you know, like this girl --> http://pixelninja.se/profile.htm
 
 
Today it's all online gaming, clicking and shooting, internet cafes boomed and arcades died, except for fighters (Tekken, Kof, etc.), shooters, and the music / rhythm games which have only increased in popularity up and up since the late 90's until now, keeping arcades alive (in Asia at least).

 

[ardgedee]

Genre tagging is a nuisance. I would just as soon it be abolished.
 
Freeform keyword tagging would have been nicer -- that way you could among other things include as many or as few genres as seemed appropriate.
 
The MD3 spec doesn't support freeform keywording though. The free text field could be used for that purpose but many media players don't include it in searches and others consider matches there less relevant than matches on title or artist name.
 
Not that any media player anywhere supports MD3 properly. iTunes is the least bad of them all, but that's not the same thing as saying it's good.

 

[compoopers]

Hmm. This is starting to sound like a problem of your own making lol. You don't want to make playlists with many to one references to songs, and yet you recognise that your songs could fit many playlists...

I guess I am sort of making my own problem. I really just want modular playlists, that's all. Like, I want to be able to listen to ALL my electronic music, but I also might be in the mood for ONLY my chiptunes music, which is a subgenre of electronic. So if I tag my chiptunes music as "chiptunes; electronic", then if I want to listen to only chiptunes, I just go to my chiptunes playlist, and if I want to listen to only electronic, I go to my electronic playlist. But if I want to listen to both, I can look up "electronic" genre and they'll both be there. Does that make sense? anyway, it makes sense to me, but it seems like most people don't listen to music in the same way as me. On that note, how do you listen to music? Do you just set up different playlists for all your needs? Some people tell me they only listen to full albums, but I can't do that.

 

[PhoenixClaw]

Quote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQMgXPFzdg8
I don't know why it's called death jazz. But isn't it popping?
 

Since you like jazz made in japan I figure you would like these guys:

 

[kiteki]

USHER has a distributor in Dallas. Hmm...
 
Road trip?

 
No harm in listening to them to see what you think?  Just keep your salesman-proof vest on.
 
 

---

 

Originally Posted by kiteki /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
Speaking of the JVC's and break-up frequencies etc. did you see my post on 'sine-wave tightness'?  Link.

 
I think I saw that graph before, it's terrifically interesting.  I wish Tyll would measure all his headphones with square / sine waves for a broader spectrum of results.

 
I think music / audio is more sine-waves than it is volume.  I think people tend to use measurements more as a tool of self-satisfaction, rather than as a tool of investigation and science.

 

[MuppetFace]

Nice job on the impressions a_rec. Naturally the one I'm most interested in is the MDR-1R, so the suspense is building!
 
I did get a chance to play around with the UE6000 at Best Buy a few weeks ago. The build quality is decidedly plastic-y but solid; I like the way they've given the headband a sleek but robust quality, kinda reminiscent of some rapper 'muffs. The style is aggressive but clean in my opinion. In contrast the new Denons are just over-designed and messy. Soundwise I too was surprised by how balanced they sounded, though it was a little hard to tell with the default music they were using. Is the UE9000 supposed to sound the same, just loaded with more features? As one might expect, these things are reportedly better in passive / wired mode anyway, so the additional feature set isn't particularly important to me, though I'm still curious as to how the UE6000 and UE9000 compare just as straight up headphones.
 
It's good that we're seeing new entries into closed, semi-portable fullsized headphones that sound good. To that end, I think this year was the "year of the closed headphone," what with the aforementioned UE6000, Momentum, TMA-1 Studio, and MDR-1R. Then there was the TH900 (which isn't really isolating) and announced TH600, along with the new Audez'e closed-back prototype. AKG's K501 gained in popularity quite a bit, though I still feel it's a pretty awful sounding headphone for my personal tastes with its metallic tone and hollow presentation; they also apparently released a silver version with a pretty neon-blue cable tailored for iPhones.
 
 

Quote:

 this girl --> http://pixelninja.se/profile.htm

 

 
 

 
LOL.
 
Peach: "Get your hand off me."
Mario: "Huuurrrr...."
 
 
* * * * * * *
 
Speaking of classic gaming, I've got this beautiful thing coming sometime soon, hopefully:
 
 

 
NEO GEO X GOLD.
 
The case for it was designed to look just like the home AES system! OMG OMG OMG....
 
 

 
They also include a stick modeled after the original AES ones....
 
 

 
Even the packaging emulates the original AES presentation...
 
 

 
A whole lot of care and thought went into designing this thing, and it seems clear to me that the folks behind it have a certain respect---dare I say, a certain love---for SNK and the culture surrounding it.
 
As for what comes bundled with it, a lot of the games are standard fare you can find in any one of the plethora of SNK compilations released over the years, but that really isn't the point. I hope this project gets enough initial support to be carried onward, and for us to see more titles being released in card format. I'd love to see some of the later KoFs, Samurai Spirits, and---despite smacking a bit too much like wishful thinking on my part---stuff like Matrimele, Mark of the Wolves, SNK v Capcom: Chaos which were released at the very end of the AES lifecycle.
 
 
But yeah, there's...
 
Quote:

 

• 3 Count Bout
• League Bowling
• Art of Fighting
• Magician Lord
• Alpha Mission 2
• Metal Slug
• Baseball Stars 2
• Mutation Nation
• Cyber Lip
• Nam 1975
• Fatal Fury
• Puzzled
• Fatal Fury Special
• Real Bout - Fatal Fury Special
• The King of Fighters '95
• Samurai Shodown II
• King of the Monsters
• Super Sidekicks
• Last Resort
• World Heroes Perfect

 
 

 

 
 
* * * * * * *
 
My brother and I have owned a few arcade cabinets off and on, though they always ended up sold because one of us ends up moving or losing interest in the particular machine. Therein lies the beauty of the MVS system with replaceable carts lol. One of my goals for the coming years is to find and restore one of the classic MVS cabinets.
 
 
 

 

 
That, to me, is just a thing of beauty. That red cab is my childhood hopes and dreams coalesced into a singular object.
 
And like I said, the cartridges are interchangeable, so you can build up quite a library of dreams:
 
 

 
That picture takes my breath away. Those are all arcade carts, playable in that big red cab pictured above or in a "consolized" version (basically the arcade boards placed inside a smaller enclosure and given outputs for controllers and monitors).

This collection belongs to a "professional" player who is fairly well-known in competitive circles. I mean, just look at what he's got: the entire King of Fighters series from 94 to 03 (!!!), Last Blade 1 and 2, Waku Waku 7, all the Samurai Spirits, Metal Slugs, etc.
 
He even has Windjammers lol.
 
Aaaaaargh. What a collection! ;____;

 

[kiteki]

I only own one Neo Geo cartridge, lol, I spent all my money at arcades, I never liked sitting at home, I preferred playing games in noisy and smoky places at 2 A.M., or 5 A.M., or 1 P.M., where you can m33t pPL.
 
 
Thanks for the link Romy, so it's set for release 31st of Dec?, according to amazon.jp.
 
 
Edit:  I like how Ninja Masters is the default included cartridge (okay, perhaps it's only a memory card), since I liked that game a lot, actually!
 
The rest of the list looks pretty lame I think ...
 

 

[MuppetFace]

Arcade and home gaming are both really important for me, and I value both for their own sets of reasons. I have a lot of fond memories hanging around arcades, which for me need to be dark and lit by harsh artificial lightning by necessity. They need to be loud and a little dirty, a little sleazy. For me they're a sort of alternative borderworld invoking phantoms of Derek Jarman's Jubilee as filtered through Blade Runner. I like to feel like I'm on a space station and it's still the 80s and there are elevators that connect the surface of the Earth to the moon. Meeting people in arcades was a little iffy at times, since it often resulted in someone trying to cop a feel. Going with friends was always the best. There was one dude who ran an arcade close to my neighborhood growing up, back when there were still standalone arcades in the US (most of them now are either part of a bowling alley, mini golf course, or retro family diner) and gaming was still something of an underground scene. He kept that arcade open all night and into the morning. My friends and I would hang around until 3 AM and then go across the street for snacks at the movie theater afterward, having a grand old time until the waves of artificial-butter-induced nausea hit.
 
* * * * * * *
 
Re: NEO GEO X GOLD
 
The biggest issue I have with the list is that it's too predictable overall. In their own right, a lot of those titles are pretty ballin'... Metal Slug, Fatal Furty Special, Samurai Spirits II. It's just that they've been on so many compilations over the years, they've become tired.
 
They actually managed to pick some interesting choices however: Magician Lord, Mutation Nation, Cyber Lip, Alpha Mission 2, Ninja Masters. These are less obvious and riskier titles, and the list is better for it. Also it's pretty cool seeing Real Bout Fatal Fury Special and World Heros Perfect on there.
 
But yeah, it could have been a lot better. Problem is I think they were trying to go with a list that was diverse, but filled with older and worn titles to drive home the nostalgia factor. Essentially I can see them thinking "let's try to capture NEO GEO in 20 21 games." This is fine by me assuming they plan on releasing more titles in the future to build upon it.
 
Also I'm wondering if getting the rights to some of the later titles is tricky even for SNK themselves, as the company went through so many internal changes (Playmore, Sammy...). That, and maybe some of these ROMs got lost in the shuffle and are hard for them to find. I had this mental image of them having to look on the Internet to find their own games LOL.
 
* * * * * * *
 
While we're on the subject of gaming, something has been on my mind as of late: the potential ramifications of all this online and multiplayer connectivity. For me, playing folks online isn't particularly rewarding, so I've mostly ignored it in favor of well-constructed single player experiences and playing with friends in person. Like, sitting amongst a group of friends. Now that so many videogames are emphasizing larger communities consisting of people you don't know, I'm wondering what will become of these games in, say, 10 years? We can still play fighting games with friends that are 10+ years old and have a good time. However what becomes of the game that relies on a community infrastructure, when there's no one around to play with and the company has shut down the servers? Especially now that so many games are pushing for integration, you've got single player games that rely on assets you gain from playing online with others, and in some cases the former depends on the latter, so you wont even be able to effectively play the single player game when the online component is gone. Take a game like Mass Effect 3. What happens when you want to play the game in 15 years? Getting the best ending in what is essentially a single player game largely depends on getting enough points from online play, so in 15 years it seems like you wont be able to get the best ending in such a game.
 
Are we going to look back at this era in gaming in 20 years and see a bunch of ghost towns?

 

[compoopers]

On the topic of Ghost Towns, basically, YES.

I'm an ex-MMO addict having played tons of quirky Japanese MMOs as well as been a part of a bunch of online communities. It's always the same exact pattern: a small group of players starting out, figuring the mechanics out about the game. The eventual golden age, where developers release great patches and wonderful content, a solid community with recognizable names and real aspirations. Then it slowly dies down -- I hate to sound hipster but -- they get too popular. Little kids are attracted to the game/community, and all the problems that come with them. The eventual lack of maturity scares away most veteran players/members in the community, childishness dominates and often times the games/communities become popularity contests. That's usually when I give up and quit. Then a couple years later you check up on it and it's either just gotten even further worse or it's completely dead, a ghost town as you put it. The game is practically unplayable because of the lack of community atmosphere. Oftentimes in an attempt to squeeze out cash the developers will release patches that ruin core aspects of the game (pay2win etc), so you can't even have the gaming experience you once had anymore.

It's a sad state of affairs -- I've yet to see a gaming community that maintained its quality. Even WoW is not nearly as fun as it was back in vanilla/TBC. Although it is one of the better-faring communities.

On the other hand, during those great times when the community is functioning and things haven't gotten awful, it's an unparalleled gaming experience. I love single player games, but there's no feeling like being in a living, breathing world filled with players who haven't quite figured out how to cheat the system yet, players who are recruiting for guilds or clans and setting up tournaments, not sure if the trade they're about to make is completely fair or not. Venturing into a newly released world or dungeon with your teammates... god it's really magical. It feeds my adventurous side and you really do make strong bonds.

 

[kiteki]

Section 1, wow!  In which state?
 
I've actually never played Matrimelee so I looked it up and found this prequel (NSFW) looks interesting --> http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/powerinstinct/powerinstinct2.htm
 
I'm (literally) falling asleep at the office so I'll read section 2 and 3 later.  Your analysis on this era of online gaming looks interesting.

 

[MuppetFace]

Quote:

On the topic of Ghost Towns, basically, YES.
 

 
 
Several of my friends were hardcore MMO players, but it was something I never got into myself.
 
As a whole in general, my online gaming experience is somewhat limited. In high school, I basically played Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, and some of the early console efforts, back when things were pretty limited. Fighting games in particular were just starting to go online, and the lag was atrocious and it was difficult to find opponents (well, opponents who didn't just quit as soon as they started losing). I gave up on those fairly quickly. One game later on I was particularly fond of was Monster Hunter, and I'd say the most rewarding online experiences with folks I barely knew were found in that game series. Really, the only "true" MMO I've played to any extent was City of Heroes and Villains.
 
The conundrum I'm thinking of specifically has to do with the increasing emphasis some companies have on integrating multiplayer elements into their single player games. By this, I mean either games like Mass Effect 3 where multiplayer is actually a requisite part of getting the most out of the game (it's pretty much impossible to get the "best" endings without playing multiplayer at some point to earn enough assets), or a game like Prospero where it's an online community but each character is pursuing a somewhat linear storyline.  Valve had announced that they're no longer concentrating on developing single player games in the traditional sense, but that from now on their games will have some kind of integrated online component, even if they're focusing on the linear progression of a single character's story (in other words an "enhanced single player" type of game). It can be as simple as using the online community for in-game resources (what ME3 does essentially), or as complex as Prospero where it's a bunch of people going on an individual quest together in a sort of shared space.
 
The problem is: what happens when the support for these games runs out, which will inevitably happen at some point? A company wont maintain the infrastructure if the interest isn't there, and peoples' attention spans are limited, so it seems like major parts of these "single player" games (if not the entire game structure) are doomed to collapse. When there's no community there, how does one play a game like Prospero? Or in the case of games like ME3, how can one get those resource that were only available through online play? In the case of the latter, while it's still possible to play a good chunk of the game, it's impossible to get the full experience at that point. It's like games these days have shorter half-lifes (no pun intended), decaying at a much faster rate. Obviously this goes with the territory of MMOs and other online games, but it seems like it's infecting single player or small group based co-op as well these days.
 
If one unearths a game from their childhood, it's still possible to play the game and enjoy it, experiencing the full extent of what the game has to offer. Seems like that's going to become increasingly harder in future generations. Games these days seem more... expendable? Biodegradable.
 
In general, I think this is something that goes with the territory of a larger tendency for games to no longer be self contained. A game cart had everything on it in the past. Now it has expanded past its own borders, through time and space. In my opinion, downloadable content is a proverbial double-edged butterknife: It's great to be able to get new content and rekindle interest in games you had previously exhausted. However it seems to also foster some unfortunate tendencies; for instance it seems increasingly common place for games to be released in broken, rushed, and incomplete states because they can be patched later. Developers presume people playing their broken-ass console games have stable Internet connections. Also one ends up spending like $200 on a single game once all the DLC has been added into the equation. However my point is not to complain about DLC ... rather, to note that these "enhanced" features of online connectivity in single player games is part of that phenomena. If you buy a game off the shelf and play it on a console without any type of internet connection: what do you get? If you have an Internet connection but go back and play a game with all these integrated online features 10 years later: what do you get? More and more, it seems like one has to work to build up their game to its "complete" stage, like some kind of trainer getting their Pokemon to evolve to their final form or something. Then after all that the game degrades and dissolves into a fragmented shell of its former state. You buy a game and it has yet to reach its apex, and once it does it's for a set period of time before breaking down again. In a weird way games are becoming more like living organisms.
 
 

Quote:

Section 1, wow!  In which state?
 
I've actually never played Matrimelee so I looked it up and found this prequel (NSFW) looks interesting --> http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/powerinstinct/powerinstinct2.htm
 
I'm (literally) falling asleep at the office so I'll read section 2 and 3 later.  Your analysis on this era of online gaming looks interesting.

 
Texas.
 
The best parts of Matrimelee were its off-the-wall sense of humor and the soundtrack.
 
There was one guy who only fought with his legs, sort of like Oro from Street Fighter III who only fought with one arm. In both cases I think it was because they were confident in their immense power and wanted to make it fairer for the other characters, so they purposefully handicapped themselves.

 

[mosshorn]

On the topic of Ghost Towns, basically, YES.
I'm an ex-MMO addict having played tons of quirky Japanese MMOs as well as been a part of a bunch of online communities. It's always the same exact pattern: a small group of players starting out, figuring the mechanics out about the game. The eventual golden age, where developers release great patches and wonderful content, a solid community with recognizable names and real aspirations. Then it slowly dies down -- I hate to sound hipster but -- they get too popular. Little kids are attracted to the game/community, and all the problems that come with them. The eventual lack of maturity scares away most veteran players/members in the community, childishness dominates and often times the games/communities become popularity contests. That's usually when I give up and quit. Then a couple years later you check up on it and it's either just gotten even further worse or it's completely dead, a ghost town as you put it. The game is practically unplayable because of the lack of community atmosphere. Oftentimes in an attempt to squeeze out cash the developers will release patches that ruin core aspects of the game (pay2win etc), so you can't even have the gaming experience you once had anymore.
It's a sad state of affairs -- I've yet to see a gaming community that maintained its quality. Even WoW is not nearly as fun as it was back in vanilla/TBC. Although it is one of the better-faring communities.
On the other hand, during those great times when the community is functioning and things haven't gotten awful, it's an unparalleled gaming experience. I love single player games, but there's no feeling like being in a living, breathing world filled with players who haven't quite figured out how to cheat the system yet, players who are recruiting for guilds or clans and setting up tournaments, not sure if the trade they're about to make is completely fair or not. Venturing into a newly released world or dungeon with your teammates... god it's really magical. It feeds my adventurous side and you really do make strong bonds.

+1 to this. I've been on some online game for about 8 years ago. I would probably say my fondest memories are with Guild Wars. I started healing on dialup, and it has been my favorite role ever since. Pvp though, it still has arguably one of the most interesting and fun classes to play:the mesmer. Their job is to singlehandedly shut down an enemy in various ways, and several of their spells are reactionary offense. In other words, if you hit me, stop hitting yourself. But if you Stop attacking, I'll hurt you too!

Then mesmer changed in GW2, and no dedicated healing class

 

[compoopers]

I see what you're saying. Personally, I HATE the way DLC works nowadays. Before, you'd get a solid full game and then maybe extension packs that were definitely worth $10-$20. Nowadays developers release shoddy, bug-ridden games and since everyone does it it's become acceptable. First day DLC and prepurchase bonuses are so bogus. And maybe it's just me, but the prices seem to have risen while the amount of content in extension packs has gone down drastically... $3 for a gun? $5 for a MAP? It used to be $10 for a whole new campaign and dozens of new units and now they're doing this. I hate all of that stuff.

I get the problem you are having with single player games with multiplayer components as well. It seems like every game has a multiplayer component nowadays. Look at Dark Souls/Demon Souls -- invasions and stuff are a huge part of the experience even though the game is a single player game. Etc.

Another interesting thing is games like Skyrim. At least for me, half the fun is modding and changing things. In many years when those mod databases go down, a lot of content will disappear...