R-R-R-Remix

Ladies and gentleman of the jury,

I present exhibit A



How do you feel when someone takes a classic part of your childhood and messes with it? I've been seeing more and more of these hacks lately, from Zelda: Parallel Worlds to Mario DX: Blue Twilight. People take old, beloved games and attempt to make them more "hardcore". Are independent developers becoming lazier, or has the technology just recently became available to enable such games?

Exhibit B



I really don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, it seems like the gaming equivalent of fan fiction: a cheap, mediocre imitation that only rarely surpasses the source material. It lifts aspects wholesale from many Sonic games and mashes them together into a jarring, stilted, unnatural whole. These people are amateurs and these videos can really make you appreciate the work of professionals. I mean, look at the level design, it is a mess.

Exhibit C



However, you have to admire their dedication. They obviously have a deep love for the original games and are looking to add their own creative twist. While watching the Misty Maze video, I realized I wanted to try it. The music fits and the graphics, particularly the background, were nice to look at. I know these were lifted from other games, but as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism....er, flattery. It is heartening to know that these communities exist and are trying to further their passion.

Certainly not all copying is bad. "Good aritists borrow, great artists steal." Konami's Castlevania: Symphony of the Night owes a lot to Super Metroid. Cave Story is almost entirely Pixel's homage to 2D Metroidvania titles. However, these examples at least used their own characters and settings. Doubtless, the legality of these games is questionable at best.

I wonder how developers feel about their creations being used in such a way. I heard a talk recently by MIT professor Ian Condry about the divided opinions of anime directors over fansubs; some love the enthusiasm, others feel cheated. Though the analogy is not perfect, I would imagine there is a similar range of sentiments regarding hacks.

I am still not sure how I feel about this treatment of classic games, but no amount of hacking can take away from the originals. At the end of the day, quality speaks for itself.

A sucker for parallax scrolling,
Alucard

La of La of La

Guten Tag,

The Internet is a dangerous place to be on the first of April. Though I was prepared for it this year, strange things still befell my travels. For instance, I went to OCRemix and saw a new Sonic song had been posted. I started reading the description and it talked about the newest site project, Re:Capitated, which was entirely dedicated to Ice Cap Zone of Sonic 3. Now, there are some games that have one song remixed over and over (see Gerudo Valley, Ocarina of Time). I don't know exactly why this happens with a given song, but OCRemix has seven versions of Ice Cap already. At any rate, I chalked it up to a 4/1 prank and left. I came back a bit later only to find that it was indeed a downloadable song, and it is pretty good. I start poking around a bit more and find the project's site with a bunch of new remixes. Since I already had three versions, I decided not to get any of them just yet. I should have tried though since as soon as the day ended, it was gone. So now, I don't know anything. Would all of the songs on the site link to the one I already downloaded? Did people actually make mixes knowing that they would only be around for a day? I mean, I went on the forum and the members were discussing them as though they existed. I am confused. Moral of the story: Don't surf the intarwebz. Ever.

In related news, OCRemix is awesome. It jump-started and helps sustain my video game music obsession. With over 1,000 songs, you are bound to find stuff you'll like. VGmix has a bigger selection, but because the songs don't pass through any judging process before they are put up, I find the quality is generally lower. Also, the site has been down for the past year, so that kind of puts a damper on the whole thing.

This website is dedicated to arranging video and computer game music. Our mission is to prove that this music is not disposable or merely background, but is as intricate, innovative, and lasting as any other form,
djpretzel

Broken Pixels

Hola,

I was watching the 1up Show's recent interview with the director of Ninja Gaiden Sigma when he made an interesting point. He said that Devil May Cry is not an action game (it is), but rather a combo game. Now, Team Ninja can kind of be assholes sometimes (see: Tomonobu Itagaki) but despite their history of ragging on competitors (Tekken), I think it has some validity.

As much as I love DMC3, most of the normal combat is you doing cool take downs on enemies. As hard as the game is, a lot of the normal battles are not that difficult. They are a lot of fun, but that is besides the point. The real action is against the bosses, which can't be knocked into the air or juggled with pistol fire. As entertaining as these encounters can be, it generally boils down to finding the most damaging thing to do and doing it repeatedly, while not getting hit. They take out the part of the best aspect of the game. I don't think NG is any different in this regard, but it is something the genre can work on. I stand by everything I said in my DMC3 review, it is a great game, I would just like to see if Capcom could address this.

I have not played nearly enough Ninja Gaiden to comment on it.

Speaking of broken games, the old Genesis Sonic titles. I have spent many happy hours foiling Dr Robotnik's (Eggman?) ill-conceived plots, but there is something inherently wrong with the game design. They are platforming games based on speed; as the levels progress the precision required increases to the point where going fast is no longer an option (unless you are Joe Stanski). I noticed this first in Metropolis Zone of Sonic 2: the running sections are really short and infrequent, focusing instead on a lot of tedious jumping. Better level design that takes into account constant motion would make a huge difference. I mean, look at games like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or Spiderman 2. When moving is fun, the game is win.

One other quick gripe about Sonic: the bonus levels are too long. I only rarely go for emeralds because it takes you away from the main game for several boring minutes.

I hate Blue Sphere,
Yuji Naka