Wednesday, September 4, 2013

---Starscream---

Before they became the chiptune band now known as Infinity Shred, they were Starscream.
A duo whose mix of live percussion and gameboy riffs would launch me into an invisible light saber
swinging frenzy in the solitude of my bedroom. My two favorite tracks titled "Years One-four" and the followup "Years Five-Eight" say something to me about immensity and eternity I can barely describe without crumpling at it's grandeur, and I would tho this isn't a Bawwww thread so I digress. Starscream's music is becoming increasingly hard to find now that they have moved on with their current moniker. 
Check out Starscream's "Future and it doesn't work", "Years 5-8*", and  "Gravity in terms of time and space". Just WICKED.
-Voyager 1

Future and it doesn't work
Years 5-8

Gravity in terms of time and space



Monday, September 2, 2013

Tower Fall looks delicious.


Introducing Towerfall!
A SmashBrosesque, arrow fueled battle royal which has been getting rave reviews since it's debut. Play  as one of four main characters, collect power ups, and kill-kill-KILL. One of the coolest parts of this game, as I have seen, is the changing, warping stage structures. Like bomberman, explosives are available and work with the stage's already wild, seemingly random conversions. So sweet. UNFORTUNATELY TowerFall is only available for the ever-so-annoying OUYA console (I know, shoot me...) for now, but quite a few developers (including TF's) are getting it prepped for Mac/PC. Check out the Trailer!

Keiji Inafune is at it again!

So most people are familiar with Keiji Inafune as one of (if not THE) creator of Megaman's overall design. In Rockman's introduction, Capcom teamed up with Inafune to create the Blue Bomber's trademark aesthetic, blending a raw technological look with a style that reminded us of Tatsumi's Astro Boy on robo-steroids. The Villains, especially, are some of the most memorable Nintendo characters in the entertainment system's history and in my opinion, it is the artistic flair of these characters, not the actual gameplay that can be credited for most of the franchise's popularity (See "The Krion Conquest" lol) . Total win.


In recent years, however, Inafune left Capcom on the grounds of "creative differences", but many speculate that Capcom had been stifling Megaman's IRL Dr. Light for years. In multiple press talks, Inafune stated that he "Hated [his] job at Capcom" and had trouble growing with the company due to a glass ceiling within the company. The leave was shocking and depressing, especially considering Inafune's warning that classic Japanese gaming was becoming a dying industry. Plenty of neo-classical/revisited retro style games have come out since his quitting, but the MM universe seems to have been taken over by the fans (see MM vs. StreetFighter).

But fear ye not Rockman fans!...
Decades after MM 1 flew off the shelves, Keiji Inafune and his production company Comcept returns with a brand new game, untainted by "the biz" titled: "Mighty No. 9"!
Still in it's crowd-funding stage, MN9 aims to be a game which takes us all back to our roots while providing a visually modern landscape for gameplay. In his Kickstarter promo video, Inafune promises us some serious artistic innovation to the typical run-n-gun, action-platformer style that made MM games such a hit for so many years. As he says on his Kickstarter page, "While the beloved creations of my past are no longer at my disposal, the spirit they were born from still is. By tapping into that spirit we can create a new game--and new characters--that carry on the legacy of the past."
[^Look familiar?^]
--And from the concept art previews, the looks into screenshots and some of his interviews regarding the project, I can't help but feel excited for what Inafune and Comcept has in store. Yeah, it's sort of a kick-in-the-balls-concept aimed at showing Capcom what they are missing out on by letting him quit, but so far the ideas presented seem very original; especially considering that, the concepts some would say he is "copying" is actually his own work in the first place. Almost like if Alan Moore wrote a sequel to Watchman and called it the LOOKmen2 and.....Okay bad example.
  Check out his Kickstarter [HERE] and give a little bit to a growing project. They have reached their goal but the packages for insider news, betas, and more are still available for about a month.
Good luck Keiji!