The Holocene Mass Exinction Event

what it says on the tin. it's kind of great.

http://community.livejournal.com/pixelart/64809.html

does this bring back fond memories for anyone else?



so i was talking to a friend about this game a few days ago and how AWESOME the theme was, and she was like, "it was even better on the commodore 64", and i was like THERE WAS A C64 VERSION OF SKATE OR DIE OMG?! so i went searching and it turns out that skate or die was ported to the C64 and a few other consoles, but that skate or die 2 never was. dang! i wanted to hear the SID chip yelling "diediediediedie!!"

in my searches i found out the name of the composer, though, and it is rob hubbard, who is a musician who got interested in computers and software, taught himself assembly, and started coding and making video game music in the mid-80's. i went to the high voltage SID collection to try and find the mythical C64 version of skate or die 2, was reminded the thing has so many fucking songs on it it's impossible to find anything, and then found this great site, stone oakvalley's authentic SID collection, which has a great search interface (+ apparently non-emulated recording, which i wasn't aware HVSC had?). anyway, here are a few of rob hubbard's pieces that i found and really liked:

Rasputin: first song i clicked on after skate or die. it starts off weird and fun and gets faster and crazier as it goes.

Phantoms of the Asteroid [part 01]: adventurous, mechanical, spacey.

Phantoms of the Asteroid [part 04]: weird and experimental sounding. bleep bloop glitch.

W_A_R: epic, but not melodramatic. you feel like there's a big, sprawling story going on with this one.

Zoids: here is some drama! yes, i love that arpeggio!

Lightforce: atmosphereic but intense. reminds me a little of music from ecco the dolphin.


these aren't like the songs i sometimes link from places like 8bitcollective, etc; these are all from commercially released C64 games. very impressive. that's also why most of them seem to have really abrupt endings, because whoever was recording them probably stopped them before they stopped looping again. you can probably control that if you download the SID file instead of the MP3 and play it on a SIDplayer, but I don't know for sure because i haven't done that yet (the SID is the name of the sound chip in the C64, and it's got a gorgeous sound. if you're going to listen to game music, you can listen to an MP3 recording of the music, or you can get a played that will play the original sound file. that's what i have for listening to old NES and genesis music, and it's very cool since the music files are only a few kilobytes per song, and depending on the player you can manipulate and isolate the separate channels that the music is being produced in, which is loads of fun).

had a dream about the BEST VIDEO GAME EVER. it was for the game gear and it was a new sonic game. the first two levels were awesome sonic goodness, and then the third level started and it was like a crazy war in the jungle and you had to do regular sonic stuff but also shoot sucker darts onto these specific flying robots with arms. it was super abrupt too, like the first level of raptor rampage for the genesis, where you're suddenly in the middle of everything and you have to immediately start jumping around and getting away from corporate military contractors who were trying to killl you. in my dream it was very confusing because it was the first time i'd ever played this particular sonic game so i wasn't familiar with the layouts and the enemies and i kept almost dying and having to grab that one ring so it wouldn't happen.

and did i mention the point of this game was to RESCUE DONNA NOBLE? eventualy i think the game turned into a book. yes, i tried to read ahead so i'd know what the end was before i woke up, but it didn't work. drat.

anyway i really want to play this new sonic game now. woe, for it does not really exist.

so when i was in chicago a few weeks ago i was talking to my friend tamas about demos. and then a few days ago i was wandering (virtually) around youtube looking at demos. i think i got there by way of looking for some doctor who 8-bit remix (there's one on youtube that says it's an nes version of the theme but it does NOT sound like an nes tune to me). demos are made when a crazy nerd loves an old computer system very very much... anyway i found these demos and i thought they were awesome:



robotic liberation by pwp. it's about robotic liberation! also it's a 16k demo for the commodoore vic-20.



doctor by trilobit. it's about taking your medicine when you're told. also it's an 8k demo for the atari 2600.

a few songs i have been listening to incessantly for the past few days:

i am a sucker for computer singing, guys! i love vocoders. so obviously i am all about a song in which a report robot is trying to wish a boy happy birthday, but can only utter the words from its environmental report: "don't drink the water, it's poisonous for you".

HOAP - Report on Planet's Drinking Water 332-A - Birthday Song by PDF Format

how bout more vododers? yes! this song sounds so sweet and upbeat with a hint of emotional reserve. i'm still trying to suss out all the lyrics, but it seems to be about a being named disastertron, and, er, people who live in an asteroid and get all their food from a space kangaroo.

Lullatwerp by Disastertron (collaboration between Spambot and Disasterpeace)

and oh my goodness i am in love with henry homesweet. i had heard one or two songs of his before, but i found his page on 8bitcollective and i LOVE like every song of his on there. just loads of gorgeous gameboy tracks. he squeezes so much emotion out of those wee little blips and bleeps. there is something hypnotic about Tradgic But Magic (depsite the misspelling), and i just want to listen to it on repeat forever. and then Simple Pleasures starts off sort of slow and sweet, and just ramps up into this mass of happiness and hopefulness and gah, i love it.

Tradgic But Magic by Henry Homesweet
Simple Pleasures by Henry Homesweet

thanks, 8bit collective!

gameboy sunnydale!