Fool's Chaos on Soundcloud

Friday, December 21, 2012

(Music) Ave Maria - with Kelsey Mira

I am very pleased to present my new collaboration with Kelsey Mira, a symphonic rock/metal version of Ave Maria.

When Kelsey and I were working on Winter Paradise, she mentioned she had always wanted to do a version of Ave Maria with heavy guitar. The most important aspect I wanted for our new vision of Ave was to keep the beauty of the original. Kelsey created this beautiful new melody for Ave and that made it easy to keep that wish :) This track is a collaboration in the truest meaning of the word, in that I asked her approval of every part from beginning to end, and she made many wonderful suggestions that made the track so amazing. She is a great songwriter as well as a spectacular vocalist, and it was a joy and privilege to create this track with her.
I have always wanted to do an operatic metal track, have always loved Ave Maria, and this project is a dream come true :) I could not be happier with how this turned out:)

Please check out Kelsey's website at  http://www.kelseymira.com/
and her link about Ave Maria here -  http://www.kelseymira.com/ave-maria-a-twist-on-a-holiday-favorite/

If you haven't heard it, please also check out our previous track - Winter Paradise




Monday, December 3, 2012

(Music) Winter Paradise featured in a video

Being a gamer, I have a special fondness for cosplay, so I thought it was really cool to discover this video that featured my track with Kelsey Mira :) I love all the costumes and marvel at what these people create, their dedication to their art, and how well they pull off the costumes :) This video is just superb :)







Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Monday, October 29, 2012

(Music) - Video for Winter Paradise

Kelsey created a video for our song "Winter Paradise". Please check out her Youtube channel as she has some great videos.

Monday, October 15, 2012

(Music) - New song - Winter paradise with Kelsey Mira

I had the honor of working with Kelsey Mira on a new track called Winter Paradise. The song turned out absolutely wonderful and I'm very very happy with it. Kelsey's lyrics and vocals are just amazing  :)

You can check out her main page here

 Her blog is here

And her youtube videos are here

I highly recommend checking out her videos and music as its excellent!! :)

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

(TV) Michael O'Hare (Sinclair from Babylon 5) passes away at 60

I am a huge HUGE fan of Babylon 5, and was saddened today to learn of the passing by another of the TV show's cast, Michael O'Hare.

Michael played Commander Jeffrey Sinclair who was the officer in charge of B5 for the first season of the series. His character was so charming, noble, kind, emotional, and falliable. He was the strong but gentle leader, assertive but not a typical military type of personality. There was grace in the way Michael portrayed Sinclair, and I loved the character. When Michael left after the first season and the leading role going to Bruce Boxleitner,'s John Sheridan I was not happy at first. I love Bruce as an actor, but I enjoyed the friendship that Sinclair's character had with Michael Garibaldi, Babylon 5's chief of security (played by Jerry Doyle), his interactions with a much angrier G'kar, and his undeveloped relationship with Catherine Sakai. I always wished that there would have been more of that relationship, but the romance of the show was destined instead for Sheridan-Delenn (Mira Furlan).

My disappointment was short lived as Bruce knocked it out of the park with his performance as Sheridan. I grew to love his interactions with the other characters just as much.  I always felt sad for Garibaldi as Jeff was his best friend, and they looked out for each other., and then he was alone. I couldn't have guessed that Sinclair would eventually make a return for a short time and the plot developments would blow everyone's minds at the time. What an amazing story Babylon 5 was, and portrayed so incredibly with such an amazing cast. To this day, Babylon 5 is my favorite TV show ever.

I am including some Babylon 5 videos below that features Michael as Sinclair, to honor him.
He has crossed the rim to join the others that have gone before, Andreas Katsulas (G'Kar),  Richard Biggs (Stephen Franklin), Jeff Conaway (Zack Allan), and Tim Choate (Zathras).

Links - http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-ohare-babylon-5-dies-37518

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/30/michael-ohare-dead-heart-attack-babylon-5_n_1925947.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

http://io9.com/5947574/goodbye-to-michael-ohare-babylon-5s-commander-sinclair







Wednesday, September 5, 2012

(Music) - New song - Trapped In Dreams

My new track "Trapped in Dreams" is the 2nd part to the musical trilogy "The Less Traveled path".

I am very influenced by Progressive rock (Styx, Kansas, Rush, Focus, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Yes )
and these tracks convey that style but are mixed in with another influence, Michael McCann's soundtrack for Deus Ex: Human Revolution, specifically the track Icarus. Even if your not a video game fan or a fan of the Deus Ex series, I highly recommend checking out at least that track or better yet the entire soundtrack, it's amazing.

The trilogy starts with Lost in Dreams, which has a mysterious ambient sound and style. The track is supposed to portray to the listener that the track's character is in a melancholy sad dreamworld, trying to find his way through.

The 2nd part of the trilogy is the new track - Trapped In Dreams. The track starts with the theme that Lost ended with, then transitions to the track's character starting to feel trapped in the dreamworld. It slowly builds to the character's feeling of frustration and finally crying out at the ending.

The third and final track when finished will tell of the character escaping the dreamworld.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

(Music) - New EP from Maren and Jonny :)

When i first joined Soundcloud around 3 years ago (2009), one of the first few songs I uploaded was a remix of Little Boot's track - Earthquake. There was a competition and quite a few people uploaded their take on the track. One of the best remixes of the track in my opinion, as it wasn't atypical and had it's own unique vision, was by Storm is right - Jonny Naylor. I was impressed by the synths he used and that he went a completely different take on the melody, which was great!. (You can listen to that version here ) I started following him and waited for new tracks as I enjoyed his style.

Sometime after that Jonny started working with Maren Elise and I just loved their tracks together. It had that style that I enjoyed with his Earthquake remix, but these were original tracks and I just loved Maren's voice.
I commented and complimented on about every track and meant it sincerely, as these were just great songs.
They turned those tracks into their first album which can be found on Itunes and Amazon.
I highly recommend listening to a few of my favorites such as Apocalypso and La Sirena, the entire songlist is just excellent. You can listen to some of the tracks, including the ones mentioned above in a list here

Thanks to my love of Jonny's music with Maren, I was honored later down the road to have the opportunity to collaborate with Maren on Pales in Comparison :) A song that I love and is one of my personal favorites of the music I have done. We intend to have future songs too :) I'm looking forward to that!!

Today Maren and Jonny released their new Surf EP "The High Five" on Itunes and Amazon, get it here and here :) It's a great price for 5 wonderful tracks, and I recommend purchasing to support these great musical artists.
The music is surf-tastic with sassy attitude and smile inducing fun, I highly recommend taking a listen below!!




Monday, August 13, 2012

(Gaming) Paul Steed passed away R.I.P

Back in the early days of 3D acceleration (The 3DFX years), one of the game industry persona's that really stood out was Paul Steed. My favorite websites like Voodoo Extreme, Bluesnews, Planet Quake, etc were so exciting back then, as 3D gaming on PC was just hitting it's stride and there was always something amazing around the corner (which would lead you to buy a new video card unfortunately but it was exciting nonetheless)

I remember reading Paul Steed's Plan file updates which were sassy, in your face with attitude, somewhat controversial for the time, and unforgettable. Paul had a hand in many games that are classics today, but mainly known for his time at ID software. If your a fan of Quake 2, the intro movie was created by Paul. The man was a real talent as what he did, and I wish I could have met him. He seemed to be a real character, beloved and reviled by some, but someone who made a real mark on the gaming industry, and I salute him.

The Jace hall show (Someone who I greatly respect as he founded Monolith and had his hands involved in making some of my favorite games, Blood, Shogo, Condemned, and Fear) had an amazing and funny interview with Paul and I would like to share it here. I am working on a followup to my track Lost in Dreams, and I would like to dedicate the original (Which can be played below) and the sequel when I finish and release it. I will update this post with a link to it when finished.




Thursday, August 9, 2012

(Music) - Remix of Pales in Comparison by Candy Apple Blue

Candy Apple Blue - A great Electronic pop group from Pittsburgh (And awesome people too) composed a remix of my track Pales in Comparison with Maren Elise. I love what they did with the track, and I think Maren's voice sounds amazing on the electro-pop style. Please check it and Candy Apple Blue out :)


Candy Apple Blue also has a new video out, please check it out below :)  - I just love them :)

(Music) My music used in Videos

I just love this video which used my "Springtime Jazz" bass solo track.



This is an amazing video using a remote helicopter with a vid cam set to my track "Lost in Dreams".



This video is for Airsoft battles set to my track "Pales in Comparison with Maren Elise". It's a cool video, with the FPS view it reminds me a bit of a video gamer, and as a gamer, I think thats pretty cool.





Wednesday, July 25, 2012

(Music) - My music used in Vids - more videos edition

I'm going to feature all the videos I have found that use my music in the videos. I'm going to create them slowly but I will feature all the videos I have found so far :)

Another awesome video for Thai food, this time a dessert (nam kang sai) using Slowly falling out of innocence. I really enjoy Migrationology's videos, but especially Mark's as he shows such delight and enthusiasm for the food he eats. Nat Geo or The Food Channel should hire Mark, he makes whatever he eats look delicious. I have been craving Thai food since I found his videos :)



One of my very favorite video's that uses my music is this video for Queen's Day in Amsterdam 2011. It's a wonderful video, and uses my track Ashes of Time. It looks like so much fun doesn't it? Everyone seems to be having an amazing time. :)


The same person created a video for the prior year's Queen's day using my track "Missing you".




Friday, July 13, 2012

(Music) - My music used in Videos.

I release many tracks under creative commons, as I love for people to use my music in their pod casts, videos, etc. As long as it's a non-commercial situation, I don't expect anything for it. I love to find videos with my music in it, I always get a kick out of it :) A few new ones have recently popped up on Youtube.
I'm going to create a post for the others as well, there are probably 16 or so videos with my tracks right now :)
This one is based on my latest track with Ms. Something-Else, Silent Screams. I just love the artwork in this video.


The 2nd video is for Thai cooking. I'm a huge fan of Thai food, and my favorite Thai restaurant in my area is the Thai Seasons. If you live in Cincinnati, I recommend checking it out.
The soup in this video looks amazing, but alas I doubt I could handle the heat as the video says it takes 30 red chilies..yikes...



Thursday, June 28, 2012

Bethesda's Dishonored - new Walkthrough videos

Bethesda released two new walk-through videos for Arkane's Dishonored. If you missed the original gameplay video you can watch it here 
VG247 has a write up on it here

This game looks amazing and each video they release increases my anticipation for it's release date.  I'm a big fan of stealth games, Dishonored has that but allows you to play aggressively if that is what you wish. This is going to be one of those games you will want to replay to make different choices, I love that :)

The first video - takes the slow and stealthy approach.



The second video - takes the aggressive approach

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

(Music) - New video posted - Dancing In Starlight

This is my track Dancing in Starlight, available as a free download on my Soundcloud and Reverbnation pages. Inspired by the dancing clubs in the Mass Effect series and Babylon 5. It's a melancholy sad dancing track inspired by trying to have fun while the world and galaxy burns around you.


Monday, June 25, 2012

(Music) - Meat Beat Manifesto - An influence

I am a huge fan of Meat Beat Manifesto - Jack Dangers and have been since the 90's. I consider Jack's music a huge influence on the music I make. While my tracks don't really sound like his, his awesome beats and unique style was what I was listening to when I was just starting out making mod or 669 tracker files in the early 90's. I didn't know that Jack had an official  Youtube Channel until today thanks to Synthtopia, who posted the video, please check out their post here. Please check out MBM's lastest vid below.




This is probably the most known track by Meat Beat Manifesto which appeared on the Matrix Soundtrack. The bass in this track is just killer and as a bassist I loved this.



Jack is also quite skilled at creating an audio atmosphere. This track sounds like something you would have heard in the game Bioshock.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

(Games) The Amazing Spider-Man - FEATURES BRUCE CAMPBELL - Whoo hoo!! :)

I am a huge fan of Bruce Campbell. :) I have the Evil Dead movies in multiple versions and collectable releases, and I love his style of humor. I am now really looking forward to the new Spiderman title, you can never have too much Bruce Campbell. The game also features creator Stan Lee as you have never seen him before, I love that. Stan seems like such a cool guy, I want to be like him when i grow up :)


Tuesday, June 19, 2012

(Music) - New tracks :)

I recently just posted two new tracks :)

The first track is a collaboration I have completed with Gail Something-Else. She has an amazing voice and the song turned out spectacular. Gail's lyrics are so emotional, you feel like she is venting just to you. You can hear her other tracks at her soundcloud page


The second track was written, recorded and sang by Emma Zen, and I provided the bass guitar. I have always loved her beautiful voice and music and it was an honor to jam with her track.You can check out her other tracks at her soundcloud profile

Friday, June 8, 2012

(Games) - Epic's Unreal Engine 4

Epic is banging the next gen drum and I'm loving them for it.
I am a true technology nerd/geek and graphics enthusiast, I am one of those gamers that would buy a new top end graphics card (or three) every year if I could afford it, but alas I usually do so every 2 to three generations. (I wrote a previous article on that here)

Epic's Unreal Engine 4 reveal doesn't disappoint. Joystiq has a bunch of videos in one place, I recommend going here for all the details.

You can also check out the main reveal videos from gametrailers below.




Wednesday, June 6, 2012

(Gaming) - Gender Criticism for Gamers

Gamasutra featured a great article from Kaitlin Tremblay that covers an aspect of games that gets on my nerves at times. The over the top sexual objectification of characters in games.

I'm not just talking the barely clothed comic book style representations of females, but the buff beefcake machismo in male characters too. I recommend reading the article, it's funny and well written.

Kaitlin also has a blog  (ThatMonster) where she writes about games and nerd culture, I recommend checking that out as well.




(Gaming) Best of E3 - Glimpses of Next Gen

There are three glimpses of next gen gaming at E3 this year, with a fourth coming Thursday with Epic's reveal of what the Unreal Engine 4 can do. Any graphic or technology geek will appreciate these two games.

1). Ubisoft's Watch Dog's - Many gamers love the idea of an open world video game where it feels like a real life modern city. The Grand Theft Auto, Mafia, and Saint's Row series of games have increasingly improved on this, but Ubisoft's new title Watch Dogs just blows everything else out of the water. This is run on a high end PC, and I would love to know the specs, as I don't know if my machine could run it. The open world visibility, effects, textures, amount of characters on the screen, and animation is on a completely new level. This is a game that would make gamers buy a new Next gen console, this game would be a killer app. The only question is if MS and Sony will make a good enough console to run it, or will we be forced to upgrade or buy new PC's to play this amazing game.



2). Star Wars 1313 - I had heard rumblings regarding a new "mature" Star wars title but I was blown away when I watch the demo shown on Gametrailers. This is truly next gen, I only hope the next consoles can actually play something with this much detail.


3). Square Enix's next gen engine demo - We are getting to the point where they will be able to release the movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within as a real time game or movie demo. This engine is very impressive.




(GAMES) Glorious E3 - One gamer's opinion

I'm one of those hardcore gamers or "core" gamers, so much so that I look forward to E3 like it's a true holiday.
When the month of May comes around and all the pre-E3 speculation starts, I get excited and become a major annoyance to my friends. (Does this sound like you or someone you know?)

As E3 gets closer, I start sending emails and messages about checking this or that out. When E3 week finally happens I have to hold myself in check from spamming my friends with my opinions and updates. I love gaming, and like any "core" gamer, I tend to be very opinionated and passionate about it. It seems I am one among many, as there are forums and message boards filled with love and disgust at what happens at E3 every year. I am usually spouting my opinions right there with everyone else, but now I have my own blog, so I can go into much greater detail and not have to mail bomb my friends.

The conferences - Microsoft

I never know what to expect with Microsoft's E3 conferences.
I want the same thing every year; new surprise AAA titles and online/offline features to build excitement for the Xbox 360 until the next E3. I think that is what most "hardcore" gamers want, nothing too extravagant presentation wise, just awesome games, new hardware, and new features and services.

At E3 2012, MS decided it was a good idea to have Usher perform a track at their conference, WHY?
I remember when the 360 announced in 2005, MS threw a party shown on TV and invited celebs and The Killers to perform. I remember at the time thinking that was ridiculous but it made more sense than taking time away from your gaming announcements.

MS could learn some lessons from Sony's E3 presentation, as Sony mostly kept their presentation about games. MS focused much of their presentation on non-gaming items like the very interesting smartglass, and the kinect's voice recognition for searching movies, TV, and music on XBL. From the comments I have read online, many gamers are disappointed with that focus.

The conference opened up with Halo 4, and it was very impressive. 343 Industries had a big job and a ton of pressure to create a new Halo that was as good or better than what Bungie has done with it's prior trilogy. From the intro and gameplay they showed it seems they have delivered.
I loved the FMV mixed with the CGI that flowed right into game play, the transition was smooth and the graphics were beautiful. Halo 4 looks to improve on Reach graphically and that alone is impressive.

During the conference, MS gave us Splinter Cell: Blacklist, a new Forza, Fable: The Journey, a new Gears of War, COD: Black Ops 2, the new Tomb Raider, and a few others. There was simply nothing new here as all the games listed were expected or yet another sequel. Outside of Halo 4, the best gaming highlight was when Matt Stone and Trey Parker appeared on stage talking about South Park: The Stick Of Truth. As a South Park fan I am hoping this title turns out to be as awesome as it should be, go Obsidian!!

Much of the conference was spent talking about new entertainment apps for XBL, Smartglass, Nike+Kinect, Usher and Dance Central 3, Kinect and voice activation. While the voice activation demo was impressive as well as what Smartglass will be able to do, it took away from the games, and it felt like MS was padding their conference to fill time. This could be exactly the case as the rumormill suggests the next Xbox will arrive next year, and maybe they are saving for the 2013 E3.

Rare didn't make an appearance this year, which indicates they are working on games for the next gen. Crytek's Ryse didn't make an appearance though it was teased last year, so it looks to be canceled or will be a next gen game. Overall I felt the MS conference was disappointing but looking back on 2004's E3 (which was the E3 before the 360 was shown in 2005), I guess it's not any worse.

The Conferences - Sony

Sony's E3 presentation was mostly what the hardcore gamer wanted, except no Kevin Butler. I imagine they will bring Kevin back for Sony's next console, at least I hope so!

Sony started off with a NEW IP (MS take note!) called Beyond: Two Souls, and the game looked amazing. The facial technology is the best I have seen in a console game this generation. It looks like it's going to be a fantastic game.  Sony ended with The last of US which looked amazing and had a very intense game play experience. Both games were more exciting to me than anything MS showed outside of Halo 4.

In between we had a chance to see an EPIC Assassins Creed 3 naval warefare battle (Seriously impressive!), God of War: Ascension, Playstation All-Star Battle Royale, Far Cry III Co-op Multiplayer, entertainment apps, and the incredibly boring Wonderbook presentation. What I noticed we didn't see much of was new Vita software, they mentioned a few titles but I thought that they would really push that at E3. The large amount of time they filled with Wonderbook would have been much better filled with new Vita games and information. Overall, I think Sony had the best E3 conference as they had little fluff and eye rolling moments (except for Wonderbook) and kept it about the games. The rumor is that they are also releasing a new console in 2013, but unlike MS, they weren't holding back.

The conferences - Nintendo

I had hoped at the start of the conference that Nintendo would show me, someone who doesn't own a Wii, the reasons why I HAVE to buy a Wii-u. Unfortunately, I never got that excited while watching their presentation.

Nintendo focused much of their presentation about what the console can do and it's controller. The controller itself was re-designed, it looks nice and even comes in a Black model rather than just White The conference started with videos about a new Pikimin, and it looked cute and interesting, but not a killer app. They talked about Nintendo Land which seems to be the Wii-u's family killer app, but it's another collection of mini games, and didn't really do much for me. They talked about Miiverse which is their online dashboard, and it looked interesting, but nothing really wowed me. They showed a New Super Mario game, but I was very disappointed it's not a sequel to Super Mario 64. If they would have showed a graphically gorgeous 3D super Mario game, that would have been an amazing Killer app, instead we get a game that looked more like a Wii game than a Wii-u game.

When the conference started the audience was so excited, and when it was over they seemed very underwhelmed. The normal cheers that you would expect at a new console reveal wasn't there, and I don't think that is a good thing for Nintendo. Now they have to get us excited somehow before launch, and that will be tough. No one I knew that was on the fence about a Wii-u has changed their mind, nothing shown made them want a Wii-u. This was the most anti-climatic new console launch I can remember.

In conclusion

This E3 was not really that exciting overall, no major "megatons" were revealed, and the Wii-u's major reveal was not what most of us had hoped for. The standouts so far are games that show what the next gen will be able to do, or what a high end PC can do now. These games are Ubisoft's Watch Dogs and Lucasarts's Star Wars 1313. These two games show the future of gaming and induced the "OMG" effect I was hoping to have at this E3. I highly recommend checking them out!
Now, how can I get tickets to E3 next year?




Friday, June 1, 2012

Bethesda's Dishonored - new gameplay trailer

I have been following this game, eagerly awaiting some real gameplay video, and Bethesda and Arkane haven't disappointed. I am now very excited for this title.



Wednesday, May 30, 2012

(Games) - The Elder Scrolls online - an opinion.

First off, a disclaimer: I am a huge fan of The Elder Scrolls Series.
I'm one of those gamers that have scheduled off from work the release day for a game in this series (no I don't get an Elder Scrolls flu, I pre-plan my time off.)

The first game in the series I played was Daggerfall, and I have played every Elder Scroll's rpg and their expansions since. I cannot say that I am a scholar in the game's lore, but I could give you a nice dissertation of events that have happened in the series, from Arena to Skyrim. Admittedly, I did not play the step-children of the series, Battlespire, and Redguard.  Those are games I would still love to try, but I have heard that the 3D acceleration requires 3DFX's Glide API ( I owned a 3DFX Voodoo 1, Voodoo 2, and Voodoo 3 but no longer do) and thus cannot play it on my current video card.

Whisperings of a Elder Scrolls Online

The rumor of an MMO based on the Elder Scroll's has been around for quite awhile, with the first rumors starting to appear in 2006-2007. At the time, I had pulled myself away from World of Warcraft (WOW) after being addicted to several beta's and then finally the full game when it was released in November of 2004. When I first heard of a possible Elder Scroll's Online, I wasn't ready for another MMO at that time, and was worried i would find myself combating a new addiction.
Six years later we finally receive information from Zenimax that indeed the rumored game was in production, some screenshots, and some articles on the game. All I can say is FINALLY :)

The Timing?

The problem with their timing is that Bethesda have released Oblivion and Skyrim since those rumors began. Oblivion was a big seller for Bethesda, and sold far more than even Morrowind, which sold far more than Daggerfall.

Daggerfall was PC only, Morrowind was Xbox and PC, and then Oblivion was released for the Xbox 360 and PC four months after the 360 launched in March of 2006. Oblivion not only sold in large numbers, but it's DLC sold very well too. One year later, Oblivion was released with updates on the PS3, and did very well. After Oblivion came Fallout 3, and the Obsidian developed Fallout: New Vegas, which reached new fans for Bethesda's style of gameplay.

Fast forward to November 2011 and Bethesda released Skyrim, the 5th game in the series. I was at my local Gamestop for the midnight launch and 60 to 100 people were there, waiting in line patiently to grab their copy of the game. I was amazed as I had no idea that the Elder scrolls was now this huge IP. I knew the game had it's diehard fans, but no idea that such a wide range of ages were clamoring for this game.

The point?

The Elder Scrolls fanbase has continually grown with each new release, so much so that when it was released, it was Steam's fastest selling game ever. That is pretty amazing, and the fact that most of my gamer friends own the game also amazes me. For the longest time I was the only one playing the series. That changed with Oblivion as a few friends owned the game, and when Skyrim released, most of my friends bought it. As I said, each game reaches more and more new fans.

The reason the games have sold so well is it's gameplay and graphical style. The game allows for almost total freedom in that you are not on a linear path, you can do whatever you want, when you want, and not even complete the main quest. As an example, I am still playing Skyrim, still have a lot to see and do, and I'm 200 hours into it. The game is primarily played in first person, the option of third person is there, but it's not how most people play the game. The series is known for it's cutting edge graphics at the time of release and Skyrim certainly didn't disappoint.

My point is that when someone plays an Elder Scroll's game, they have an expectation for how it's going to play, look, and feel. Every MMO I have played feels very different than an Elder Scrolls game, and I have played most of them. Most MMO's play in the third person style as you have to be aware of your surroundings and can easily trigger an enemy in first person. I can't imagine playing an Elder Scroll's game this way.

Don't get me wrong, I love MMO's, but I'm not really talking about me here, I'm talking about the fanbase for the single player Elder Scroll's games. Are most Elder scrolls fans also fans of playing MMO's? Does the average Wow fan enjoy the single player of the elder scroll's? My concern is that Zenimax might be trying to sell an MMO to the wrong crowd, a crowd that isn't really into that style of game. I want to play it, and I hope to be on the beta's, but will the other fans feel the same?

Differences in game look and style

Edge Magazine has a new an interview regarding The Elder Scrolls Online (TESO). In the interview with Matt Firor, Edge asked him "What do you think Truly makes this an Elder Scrolls game?" Matt's answer is its the Lore behind the games, and I think he is partially right, but that the Lore isn't as important as he thinks.

I love the lore in the series, it's very deep, and there are hours and hours involved just reading the books from the games, you can read those at the Imperial Library.

The backstory that Bethesda has created over time for the series is truly vast, but I don't believe it's why the average person bought Skyrim. I believe the average person bought it due to the gameplay and graphic style.

From the comments I have read on articles regarding TESO, the hardcore fans of the series seem uneasy, skeptical, and sometimes downright critical of the idea of this series becoming an MMO. The average fan who loves the gameplay style of the past games, will they want to play an MMO? How many MMO's have come and gone since WOW became the Juggernaut of massively multiplayer games? It seems even the big budget latest MMO release, Star Wars: The Old Republic (SW:TOR) has suffered the same fate as other MMO's that came after World of Warcraft.

I got a free week of SW:TOR and I was disappointed to finally get to play it and realize it's essentially the same MMO we have all played before, but with different features and visuals. I was hoping for more than that.
Subscriptions seemed to have dropped quite a bit since launch already, but it's still doing well, but isn't even close to the huge numbers WOW had or even still has now.

So, the question becomes what is Zenimax really trying to do here? Are they trying to woo over MMO players to be the next WOW? To get MMO players interested in the other Elder scrolls games? Are they trying to get the fans of the single player RPG's into their MMO, with those nice monthly subscriptions? Of course the answer is all the above, and while i'd love to see that happen I have my doubts.

The Elder scrolls is largely a male audience. World of Warcraft managed to gather a large female audience, though it's prior real time strategy games were again mostly a male audience, so that's a possibility. However, WOW was very simplified, it was the first MMO that didn't punish the player so much, and had a female friendly colorful visual style. The elder scrolls is dark high fantasy, and it's look probably won't have the same appeal to the average female gamer. I think they will grab a decent male audience, but will the female audience be as responsive? I'm not talking about the hardcore female gamers, I'm talking the casual players that never played an MMO before WOW, as those are in much larger numbers.

Most of the MMO gamers I have met are not into single player games. They love the simplistic types of quests, hanging out online with old and new friends, and the constant draw of earning that next piece of armor or weapons. The single player gamers like the solo play, the story being about them as the definitive hero, the do what you want when you want exploration, the immersion of it all.

In conclusion

I am not bashing or deriding TESO, I'm just voicing my concerns. I want to be amazed, to be impressed, and to love the game when I have a chance to play it. I truly want to enjoy the game!

Zenimax, you have the chance to impress us all, and take MMO's to a new level, to essentially make MMO 3.0. World of Warcraft was MMO 2.0, and a flood of 2.0 copycats and imposters flooded the market and many died along the road. You make a 3.0 version where it's not the same old grind, the same old battles, the same old leveling scheme and we will love you for it.





Friday, May 25, 2012

(Music) - Bass player birth control?

I discovered this article posted on Synthtopia,
The article is posted and written at The Trichordist

What made me want to post the article at first is the bass player joke and comment :) I will not post the joke here, you have to read the article for that. If your a musician, it's worth the read, and it's definitely in depth.
Its great, well written, and packed with information. I will be going back to The Trichordist to read from time to time

Regarding the article, I haven't made that much money with my music, it's something that I would love to do as I would love to invest the income back into equipment for music creation. As a musician that creates music but doesn't tour, it's not easy to make money. I am trying to get my music out there for licensing, and find other ways to support my passion. There is so much equipment out there I would love to have, but it's not in my budget. Music creation (and gaming) are expensive loves :)

I have to say though that the internet has been wonderful to me, especially sites like Soundcloud, Youtube, Vimeo, etc. It used to be that only a few people would hear my music locally, but now I have a limited following that wants to hear my next tracks. I have found that there are others that enjoy my tracks, and that is very gratifying. I love it when people use my tracks for their videos, I think that is such a great compliment.
As a test I placed music on Jango found that I got more fans that I expected, and if people like me enough to do that, I must not be all that terrible. I would love to get signed by a decent label, get some marketing behind me and see what happens. I have been doing it all myself, it's time consuming, and although fun, I'm not great at it. If I could get in with a label that was great at marketing, that would be wonderful.

One particular quote in the article that I found interesting is the following:
"The general consensus in the music business is that The Bass Player is the most aggrieved and dissatisfied member of any ensemble.  I have many good friends that are bass players and even they will admit there is some truth to this stereotype".

I found that interesting, but I guess in my case I'm fortunate that I have never felt that way. I have always been a songwriter/composer and helped create the music in the bands I have been in, and was never in competition for getting my songs played or recorded. Many times the "lead" instrument players (Guitar, Keyboards, etc) are the main composers, and if the bass player joins the band that has been in progress for awhile, probably will have to fight to get their song used/recorded. I only briefly played in bands that already established, and most of the time found myself meeting other musicians and forming a project or group, with the expectation beforehand that I am going to write songs. Unless I joined a group that makes decent money so I could support my own projects, I wouldn't join if I couldn't partake in the groups song creation, I would feel stiffed.

I also think it depends on the bassist's style. Except for the early bands I was in where I was still learning to play properly and be comfortable with the instrument, I have always been a "out front" bass player. My main influences were bassists that weren't hidden in the group, bass players like Steve Harris, Geddy lee, Larry Graham, Anthony Jackson, and less "out-front: but no less impressive the great James Jamerson.
My music tastes are quite varied which has been great for my music creation, as I love to blend genre's and styles.

If you check out my music, I thank you :)






Monday, May 21, 2012

(Music Tech) - DJ Shakey's amazing controller - The Voltaxe

Take a ton of different controllers and link them together to create one amazing controller. Very creative and techee, love it!  - From Dubspot



Via Synthopia

(MUSIC TECH) - Coolest thing ever?

Jeri Ellsworth (Who works for Valve Software) created a Commodore 64 bass guitar, triggering the built in SID chip using Piezo pickups.  This is simply awesome and I'm soooo jealous, I want one! She is now in my list of coolest people ever :)


Watch live streaming video from makelive at livestream.com

She plays bass, works for Valve, Is a major techhead, could she be an cooler? :)


via Synthtopia

(MUSIC) - Tubular Bells Cover

A classic from my childhood, and very well executed here, sounds very close to the original.
Big props from me!! :)



Via Synthtopia

(RIP) - Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees pass away at 62

Robin Gibb, one of the three brothers of the Bee Gees passed away. His voice and music were a huge part of my childhood growing up in the 70's.  RIP! Article here






Saturday, May 19, 2012

(GAMING OPINION) – Is our gaming future in the cloud?

Nvidia just recently announced the Geforce Grid, which is their GPU (Graphics processing unit) solution for cloud gaming, and it’s impressive to say the least. According to an article on Techspot.com, Gaikai have been using Fermi based GPUs (GTX480 and GTX580) in their current servers, with One GPU per server with 28 servers in a rack. The new Grid solution uses Kepler GPUs (GTX680) and allows four GPU’s per server which is 84 GPUs per rack. The power difference is halved with the old Fermi solution being at 150w per GPU, and 75w per CPU with Grid. It reduces latency (the main problem with cloud gaming) up to 30ms. You can read more at Techspot  


Is this the really the future if gaming?
 
This is the multi-million dollar question that Onlive and Gaikai are trying to provide the answer to. Will gamers or even casual PC users gladly give up their own hardware, consoles, and PC’s at home for a cloud solution, the answer is probably yes, but not in the near future, but it’s probably inevitable, at least to some degree.

In my opinion, the technology and concept of cloud gaming is in its initial development phase, and not quite ready for prime time. ISP’s are not happy giving their subscribers unlimited Internet anymore and many have imposed data caps. They won’t come out and say it, but this is an attempt for the cable companies to stop or discourage consumers from leaving their pricey cable packages for Internet TV options, or just plain greed in some cases.  This will not help online gaming solutions like Gaikai or Onlive as they eat up bandwith quickly. If they partner with these cable companies that could alleviate the ISP data costs, and though I have heard rumors of it, I haven’t yet heard proof this is the case.

Graphic limitations and latency vs. convenience 

Cloud gaming seems to be stuck at 720p for now as the bandwith required for true 1080p is huge, and the backend processing is much heavier. When I have played games on Onlive, it plays like a mid level PC with stripped down graphic options. Unfortunately, playing a game like Deus Ex: Human Revolution on Onlive doesn’t look as good as playing on your own mid level PC at home, at least at the moment.  The resolution is stuck at 720p, the textures are not as sharp, and the streaming artifacts are there, though minor. Latency seems noticeable when playing a first person shooter or quick action style game, the controls just don’t feel as tight. Gaikai seems to have slightly less latency, though that might be because of my location to the server or my ISP, and the graphics seem sharper to me. Where Onlive shines is the interface, I absolutely love it. When you log into Onlive and get to the menu screen, you have multiple choices. My favorite is the Arena, where you can watch other gamers play games live. Microsoft wanted to try something like this when they released the Xbox 360, they had plans for it with the Project Gotham series, but it never panned out.  When you start a game on Onlive it just starts running, and that is impressive. Once you load the client, going in and out of games is very quick, it amazed me the first time I played a game on the service. Gaikai doesn’t use that type of client (yet), it’s a website that install a java based client as you run the game, and plays in your web browser window. It doesn’t load as fast as onlive as you are loading each game separately. I played the Mass Effect 3 and Bulletstorm demos on Gaikai. I didn’t feel hardly any latency with ME3, but it was very noticeable in Bulletstorm which is a fast paced shooter.

The question is one of convenience; will gamers accept something of lower quality than the more expensive solution of owning your own hardware? As a musician, it’s easy to say to just take a look at the MP3. Many music lovers listen to their favorite music on 128 or 192 Kbits and are perfectly happy with them. I personally use 320 Kbit MP3’s on any music site that will allow them, some will only allow 192 or lower unfortunately.
Most people don’t want to download a 50mb or higher wav file for a song still, even though the quality is better. However, MP3’s don’t have latency, and if every MP3 file started with a 3 to 5 sec pause before the song starts, I think the average listener would be very irritated.

I think that eventually Onlive, Gaikai, Evolve, and maybe PSN and XBL will be on everyone’s cable box, TV, or internet device. That option will be there and people will use it, but this will take time, and until super fast fiber networking is available in every home, it’s going to be a slow process.

The merging of the cloud and home products.

This is what I think could be really interesting, especially for the upcoming next generation consoles that we all know are coming but haven’t been announced (I’m not including the Wii-u, from the specs rumored so far, it’s going to be more like our current generation in performance)

What if we could merge local hardware with cloud hardware?  What if you could make a game like Mass Effect where the level was on the local machine, but the backgrounds are in the cloud? Instead of painted or pre-rendered backgrounds with sparse geometry in front, you could have a Blade runner type of cityscape complete with advertisements geared to you while you’re playing the game? Using ME3 as an example, when you are on the citadel and looking out beyond the place your character is standing, you currently see a beautiful rendered background mixed with geometry that fades in detail is it goes. Instead, you could have the cloud render or stream a video of an immense city with advertisements geared towards the player. If you didn’t have the connection to stream, you would still have that background as before. It would be the best of both worlds.

Instead of a high end machine rendering everything, it would only have to render the parts that would be affected by high latency. Even if the game is at 1080p, the background image wouldn’t necessarily have to be.

I haven't heard anything regarding merging the technology, but it seems to me the way to go, at least initially.
Gaming might eventually go completely cloud, but this would be a great way to start the transition.




Thursday, May 17, 2012

(RIP) Donna Summer passes away at 63

I grew up to the music of Donna Summer on the radio, and it is sad that at a young age of 63, another Diva passes away in 2012. As it's all over the news, and there are many links and videos to watch regarding Donna, I will honor her by posting the song that I always loved by her most.


(Tech Talk) - The joys of technology

 
Video card technology is wonderful isn't it?

You can spend a fortune on a current GPU, feel quite happy about your purchase, and then months later view a press release, review or article on a new improved version of what you previously bought. The pace of innovation in regards to electronic gadgets, graphic chips and products is just staggering. When buying, it's almost impossible to buy something at a fairly expensive price point without having to research what is coming soon.

Using video cards as an example, my current video card is an EVGA GTX480 (Fermi architecture). I bought this card around August of 2010, and 3 months later in November 2010 Nvidia released the GTX580 (Still Fermi) GPU’s. Admittedly, I wasn’t too upset about it at the time as the 580 didn’t have a huge performance difference from my 480. Yes it was faster and had the cuda cores the 480 should have had at release, but it wasn’t an entire new generation of chip, and was more or less just an enhanced Fermi GPU like what I had in my current card.

Last March, Nvidia released the GTX680 GPU’s (Kepler) and these were a new generation of chips, with a new architecture and new bells and whistles. I think this was a sad day for GTX580 owners, and here is the reason why……
Last year, Epic games released a demo of new features for Unreal Engine 3 called Samaritan. The demo required three GTX580’s to play it properly. Epic has just released information regarding Unreal Engine 4 for the next gen consoles. The new demo is supposedly running on just one GTX680!! In a previous interview, they mentioned that they were able to get Samaritan running on a single GTX680 as well. After spending anywhere from $379 to $600 for a GTX580, that had to hurt just a bit……

Here we are in May, and Nvidia releases information on the new enhanced Kepler GPU called the GK110 (The GTX680 is a GK104). This new card is going to be a Nvidia Tesla card which is for animation render farms and business use, not a consumer card. This card will have an amazing 7.1 billion transistors, this is twice what the GTX680 has!!! While this card will not be a consumer card to start with, it does hint that Nividia will already have the basis for a GTX685 or even a GTX780 card already ready to go. This means that I already feel a bit sorry for the early adopters of the GTX680.

I love technology and am I upset in any way that it’s moving so fast? Absolutely not!
It just amazes me that how fast technology transitions, but I would have it no other way.
My only wish is that Microsoft or Sony would choose the fastest possible GPU for their next generation consoles. But that my friends is another story…………

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

(Game Review) - The Darkness II Review


Reviewing games wasn’t something that I had planned to do when I started the blog, but I feel compelled to do so after playing this fine game. I love PC, console and mobile gaming, and have been a gamer since the days of the 2600 and Colecovision. It seems only natural to write about the games I love on this blog. I’m not trying to write a review that matches the style that most game sites use; this is just my personal take on the game.

I am a big fan of Starbreeze’s games. Enclave started my love affair with its medieval fantasy world, next came the Riddick games and lastly to The Darkness (I haven’t yet tried Syndicate, but it’s on my list). I loved The Darkness, and I would rank it as one of my favorite Xbox 360 games. The gloomy and moody open world FPS was wonderful; it sucked you into its story, and kept you enthralled till the end. The game’s collectables made replays fun, and I loved the phone numbers that you received with them. Going to the phone after each new collectable find was very enjoyable.

The Darkness 2 is the sequel to the first game, but this time it’s Digital Extremes as the developer. The writing is continued by Paul Jenkins who wrote for the comic series and the story for the first game, so the sequel is perfect in it’s continuation of the story.
The plot is based on the comic but deviates quite a bit from the original story. This was fine with me, I prefer this new story to the original, and the main character is less of an arrogant jerk and far more human in the video game version. Jackie is still missing his lost love Jenny and the story is just as romantic and touching as the first game. Both games, but especially the sequel, show a romantic side that most games cannot touch or compare to.

I admit that when I started this game, I was concerned that Digital Extremes would not provide the same type of experience that the original had. I have played some of their past games and wasn’t wowed by Pariah (I have yet to try Dark Sector). The new graphic scheme had me worried as I tend to dislike Cell shading in games, but DE did a great job here. It is very comic book like and the graphics are excellent, though I admit to missing the gloomy look of the original. The sequel is far more violent and bloody than the original, and I really enjoyed the visceral executions that you can pull off with the demons arms. The controls work very well for all that you can do in the game. It's truly fun to be shooting with dual guns in each hand, and using your demon arms to grab, throw, and eviscerate your enemies at the same time. I can't think of another game that gives quite that experience. I do wish that DE would have brought back the demon arm extension ability, where you could travel through cracks and crevices, but i didn't really miss it that much with everything else you can do.

The music and sound in the game was great, and along with the new graphics, did an admirable job of bringing you into its world. The game has a more linear campaign than the original, but allows you to walk around Jackie’s skyscraper home at your leisure. I felt more could have been done with it. Most rooms were just furnished and nothing really of note for your character to see and do. The exception to that were the collectable relics, and each time you find one in a level, they appear in the Darkness relic’s area. The creative back stories for each relic were very entertaining. There were some minor character interactions, and some shooting missions, but nothing major. I was a bit disappointed that Butcher had a very minor plot role this time around. After the events in the first game, I would have thought Butcher would have been utilized more.

The characters in the game were well voiced. Jackie had a different voice actor this time, and that saddened me initially. I am a fan of Kirk Avecedo (Band of Brothers, OZ) and wished he would have made a return. Brian Bloom did a great job however, and he still sounded like Jackie, just not as raspy. Mike Patton makes his return as the Darkness and again does a fantastic job. As a fan of Faith No More, it was great to have him in the game again.

The game has excellent replay value which is great as the campaign is pretty short, somewhere in the 10 hour range. It took me three playthroughs to get all the abilities, but I could have done it in 2 if I would have chosen a higher difficulty most likely. Besides the campaign the game has Vendettas. Vendettas are a series of missions that you play as a different character, but this goes on during the events of the campaign. It’s as fun as the campaign, and you can play it co-op online which is a great option. There are 4 characters you can play as, each having their own darkness weapon and abilities.

Overall, this game is one of the better non-realistic first person shooters games I have played on the Xbox 360. I enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed the Bioshock series, the Fear series, the Condemned series, and Raven’s Singularity (A very under rated game in my opinion). While not a game for the kiddies, it should appeal to anyone that loves a great story, lots of interaction, and a world filled with dark wonders.
I give this game a Highly Recommended rating.

Monday, May 14, 2012

RIP - Donald Duck Dunn passes away

Dunn was a great bassist, very much the quintessential in the pocket player.
Most will know him as the pipe smoking bassist in the Blues Brother's movie, but he was an accomplished session bassist too.

Bass Player - Donald Duck Dunn dies

Softimage animation plugin - Uses one of my tracks.

Amazing video that uses my track, Slowly falling out of innocence.


Friday, May 11, 2012

(TECH) Augmented Reality using a Kinect?

This could also be labled as gaming, but this has far more applications than just that. This is amazing, almost hologram like. Eventually, the user of multiple small projectors along with multiple Kinect type of devices will get us very close to holograms. The actual laser technology needed for true holograms are probably way far off.




(GAMING) - Xbox 360 to finally get a internet browser?

This is something that I thought would happen for the next xbox maybe....But not for the 360. This is long overdue, and I would love to see this happen. I wonder if Flash support would be allowed or if it will be HTML5 only like IOS devices. Will MS allow access to any site like Youtube as they have a special app for that? Allowing flash would probably allow to many security risks, but it's something that I would love to see happen.  The adding of Kinect support is interesting, but not sure how that will really work.

The Verge - Internet explorer on Xbox 360 with Kinect Support?

Thursday, May 10, 2012

(GAMING) - Assassin’s Creed III – first gameplay trailer released

VG247 has the latest trailer for Assassins Creed III, and it looks really good. I'm looking forward to playing this one, I kind of skipped out on Brotherhood and Revelations.


(MUSIC) - Synthtopia - A favorite web site for music production

Part of my every day routine is to check out the updates on Synthtopia. If your into music production, it's a great site, has a nice forum, and you will learn something there. I highly recommend it.

Synthtopia.com

(MUSIC) - DJ Vespers - How to Make Nasty Filtered Bass in Massive & Ableton

I am a big fan of Vespers. :)
When I switched from Sonar to Ableton I relied on many tutorials on Youtube to get me started quickly. I loved his videos and his attitude towards teaching. He didn't hold anything back, and wasn't afraid to show you how to make one of his tracks. He became a Certified Ableton trainer and he knows what he is talking about. Here is a link to his latest tutorial. He can play a mean Sax too :)



Thursday, April 26, 2012

(GAMING) - Play Deus Ex:Human Revolution with Adam Jenson


I am a HUGE fan of the Deus Ex series, and absolutely loved Deus Ex:HR. I found this video and thought it was awesome that these guys were playing the game with the voice actor who played Adam, Elias Toufexis. One of my tracks "Lost in dreams" is inspired by 'Icarus', the main theme to the game.



Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Welcome to my new blog :)

I will be featuring great music from Soundcloud and Reverb Nation artists and posting my opinions on video games and technology as well. I love scifi and fantasy movies and books and I'd like to suggest checking out a friend's blog http://www.geeksonfire.net/
Justin writes book reviews on the blog and he also is one of the book reviewers on http://www.fantasyliterature.com/  - Please check it out :)