Messages

196

Classic Video Games / Favorite 16-bit soundtracks

« on: October 27, 2017, 12:40:15 am »

In the 16 bit days there were so many games with memorable soundtracks. With sampling coming into play music was able to achieve new levels of fidelity. Thematic Sonic the Hedgehog. Moody Super Metroid. Epic Final Fantasies. Playful Yoshi's Island.
 
One of my new favorites I've been listening to is Gokujou Parodius, and the whole Parodius series in general. For those unfamiliar, Parodius is a parody of the Gradius series. Hence the name. Konami took their serious space shooter and heavily Japanified it. While crazy crap happens on screen there's insane/silly tracks playing that match the same level of absurdity.

Because of the incredibly fast development cycles the sound team didn't really have time to write new compositions. Some of the songs are lifted straight out of existing Konami games, but most of the tracks are these incredibly pumped up rearrangements of public domain classical music and Japanese folk. They took all these familiar songs and turned them on their head. While almost none of the music is original per se, it's still entertaining.

Arcade version of "Paro-Paro Dancing" (remix of Dvorák's Symphony No. 9)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UojNRhidLQg

Arcade version of "The Cat Battleship Forever" (remix of Stars and Stripes Forever)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZsd8kIQOek


What are your favorite soundtracks from this period?
Feel free to post video links to examples.

197

Modern Video Games / Re: Mario Odyssey Discussion!

« on: October 26, 2017, 07:02:02 pm »

pickin up the Switch bundle tomorrow

198

Modern Video Games / Re: Switch now supports Wii U Gamecube Adapter

« on: October 25, 2017, 04:16:27 pm »

Are their any Switch games that plan on using it?

199

General / Re: October 2017 - Recently Added to Collection/Recently Purchased

« on: October 24, 2017, 11:42:08 pm »

Been after Turtle Bridge for years. I finally picked one up after receiving a bonus.

200

General / Re: The First Video Games We Can Remember Playing

« on: October 22, 2017, 12:34:35 pm »

I remember a set of arcade games in a small store 300 yards down the street from where I grew up. They had Ms.Pacman, Bubble Bobble, Aero Fighters 2, Samurai Shodown, and a racing game I to this day have no idea what it was. The images in my head of it are too vague.

However, there may have been something earlier. My father was a high school biology teacher when I was little and he had a couple Apple II machines in his room. The few times I visited him at work in those days I played some kind of explorer game on them. You played as an Indian Jones-like character wondering around these underground platform mazes. Retrospectively it looked a lot like Lode Runner. You could collect keys to open chests that were at the end of the stage. I just remember most of the environments were totally back with spider webs you had to avoid. Wish I knew the name of this game.

201

Site Feedback / Re: Item entry not showing "created by" name

« on: October 22, 2017, 11:53:09 am »

https://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,8631.0.html

202

Site Feedback / Re: Bug: no valid session required to create item

« on: October 21, 2017, 03:24:54 pm »

Its probably situations like this that also produce the occasionally blank entry.

203

General / Re: How Do You Feel About Yet Another Call Of Duty Game?

« on: October 20, 2017, 01:08:49 am »

should have stopped after cod4

204

General / Re: Which gaming stereotype do you hate most? Which are you most like?

« on: October 18, 2017, 10:07:22 am »

As a member of the PC Master race, I am offended. 

205

Site Feedback / Re: Item entry shows black images no matter what

« on: October 16, 2017, 09:32:08 pm »

I posted about this in the admin section a while back. I figured how what causes it.

"It comes down to the wrong file extension applied to an image. Like switching .PNG to .JPG.

Let's pretend I scan an image and the device saves it to my computer as SCAN001.jpg. Next I go into Windows Explorer and rename the image to have a different extension. So something like SCAN001.png. If I were to upload that image to VGCollect it would come out black. Many programs like web browsers or even OS thumbnails ignore the written extension.

I'm uncertain to how Matt wrote the site by my guess is that when the algorithm goes to encode an image it first determines the format of the uploaded image by it's extension. At this point it breaks because it starts reading the image data incorrectly. PNG and JPG for example use very different methods of compression. Instead of determining the format by the given extension it needs to actually read a bit of the file first to figure out what it is before proceeding."

206

General / Re: Why do game designers and directors not get revered as much in gaming?

« on: October 14, 2017, 10:05:20 am »

I think it comes down to how the products are marketed. Films adverts tend to really push the stars, directors, and producers as a selling point. Video games tend to come from a more toy/product direction, rather than an entertainment event. Similar to toy ads they always make sure to boast about what company made it rather than an individual designer.

207

Video Game Database Discussion / Re: The Rating List

« on: October 12, 2017, 01:43:58 pm »

What platform uses EOCS? I've never heard of it.

208

General / Re: Is Gamer Culture Too Toxic?

« on: October 10, 2017, 05:45:28 pm »

The thing that irks me is "lazy dev." Bitch, you don't know what goes on in the office day to day.  Some of use are working 70 hour weeks.
But really, unless you've been in a studio what gives someone the right to declare if a developer is "lazy."

209

General / Re: Is Gamer Culture Too Toxic?

« on: October 10, 2017, 02:18:05 pm »

https://kotaku.com/game-designer-says-developers-would-be-more-candid-if-g-1818729507

Its all so true. People just want to bitch about everything, in part to not knowing anything about development. Fans are devs worst enemies.

210

General / Re: Does Anyone Remember The Giga Pet / Virtual Pet Fad?

« on: October 10, 2017, 06:23:58 am »

You can still get your Tamagotchi on. They still make them.