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Topics - TerraEsperZ

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91
Gaming / NiGHTS Into Dreams - Full Soundtrack!!!
« on: May 09, 2007, 11:03:53 pm »
Forgive me all for sounding so exuberant, but I'm in the middle of an auditory orgasm!



Despite never having played NiGHTS Into Dreams for the Saturn, I've long been a fan of its soundtrack, despite how badly recorded the only available set of MP3s on the net were. I was even more disappointed when, after watching videos of the game in action and reading about it, that the soundtrack was actually quite dynamic and that many songs had multiple variations that weren't on that OST.



Well, someone must have heard my prayers over the silicon highway, because someone recorded a full, as-perfect-as-possible soundtrack directly from the game! I'm listening to it now, and it just sounds so much better, even the soungs already on the OST have so much more definition and things going in the background that weren't there before!



Of course, there's a big chance that nobody here even cares about NiGHTS's music, since there aren't that many regular posters and we all seem to have very different tastes. But anyway, if anyone cares, simply visit http://www.ultrace.com/uost/nights/.



Now allow me to go back in audio bliss...



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

92
Map Gab / NiGHTS into dreams - Score Attack (GBA)
« on: May 03, 2007, 10:05:15 pm »
Here's a little something I've been working on this week. It's NiGHTS on the GBA! What's NiGHTS? Well, if you never heard of it, "NiGHTS: Into Dreams" was one of the most famous titles for the defunct Sega Saturn, though despite its reputation it wasn't succesful enough to merit a sequel until now, since a sequel for Wii is coming in the future :) !



Anyway, this mini-game was apparently something you could download on your GBA while playing Phantasy Star Online for the GameCube, and consists of four rounds where you have to collect all the spheres and pass through all the loops before time runs out. Once the fourth is finished, the rounds loop again, the ultimate goal being to achieve the highest score possible.



So, here are the maps. They look a bit cluttered I know, but I did my best to include everything. For the second layer for example, I altered the colors since they were identical to those of the foreground and you couldn't tell where one ended and the other started otherwise. Also, since the loops use a pseudo-3D effect while in-game and thus changed all the time, I show them as they look when viewed straight from the side.



This is pretty much a submission JonLeung, optimized ad best I could, so feel free to upload them to the site. Now, back to Sonic CD!



Game Logo:

User posted image



Round 1:

User posted image



Round 2:

User posted image



Round 3:

User posted image



Round 4:

User posted image



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

93
Message Board Help / How do I embed a YouTube video!?
« on: May 02, 2007, 09:57:33 pm »
I know it can be done (JonLeung just did it with a Mega Man video) but I can't for the life of me figure out how to do it, or at least I don't feel like wasting hours figuring out something that I know is easy but which escapes me at the moment. Any help would be appreciated.



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

94
Gaming / Super Paper Mario (Wii)
« on: April 12, 2007, 09:59:47 pm »
I've only just found out about this awesome game, and it makes me mad I'm saving money for a trip in France and another one in China next year or else this in addition to other existing games might just have made me buy a Wii.



Anyway, from the previews I've seen, this game kinda follows the previous Paper Mario games but this one is more of a platformer rather than an RPG (though it still keeps things like items and XP). The coolest thing is Mario's ability to switch from 2D to 3D and thus see the world from a completely different angle, showing things that were previously hidden. It's though to explain, and you really need to see videos to understand.



Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=super+paper+mario&search=Search



For example, in one video, Mario's running up a hill on which giant round Twomps are rolling down.  It might seem hard if not impossible to avoid them by jumping but *surprise*! Switch into 3D and you realize that the Twomps are really thin while the slope is quite large, and you can just walk around them!



(Incidently, it reminded me of a cool super-power I imagined once after finding out about Tesseracts and reading an article about a hypothetical four-dimensional world. Like Paper Mario, the guy would be able to switch into a higher-dimensional existence and thus be able to see things and move/act in ways impossible before, although how exactly our world would look from such a point of view is anyone's guess).



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

95
VGMaps Social Board / Happy (late) Birthday JonLeung :) !
« on: April 09, 2007, 05:47:04 pm »
Yeah, I know I'm a few days late (what with Easter and all) but it's heartfelt all the same. Hope you partied as much as you wanted and got lots of expensive/meaningful/useful presents :)



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

96
Maps In Progress / RE: Sonic CD (Sega CD)
« on: March 04, 2007, 10:36:25 pm »
Okay, this isn't really a project I'm taking on. It's more of a side-project if anything. You see, I'm tired of seeing a series as popular as the Genesis Sonic games being without any maps, or at least well-made maps.



So in a single day, using only the game's Debug Mode, I decided to put this together. Now, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you for the time being by only posting a crippled version of it. Sonic is just too popular to risk seeing this being stolen by others, so I won't submit any finished versions unless I've either done the whole game or done a significant portion of it. Although, doing a finished map as nice-looking as this from start to finish in a single day *is* a nice incentive to continue. Debug Mode is certainly much easier than playing, capturing and guessing...



*cue in JonLeung's annoyed comments about me starting too much stuff and neglecting long-delayed maps*



User posted image



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

97
Gaming / Sonc the Hedgehog 2 - Long Version
« on: March 01, 2007, 10:05:10 pm »
For those not in the know, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Genesis ended up as a very different game than it was supposed to. A dumped ROM from a beta cartridge as well as mock-ups images and interviews reveal that several things changed along the way.



For starters, there were some simple name changes like Green Hills -> Emerald Hills and Neo Green Hills -> Aquatic Ruins.



Some stages were removed after being started. The beta ROM allows you to see very preliminary version of the Wood Zone (taking place inside a forest with big leaves and huge tree trunks) and the now infamous Hidden Palace which looks like a cave with crystals and waterfalls.



Finally, some zones ended up being cut all together at various degrees of completion. First, we have a desert zone which was only featured in a mock-up picture and has been incorrectly referred as Dust Hill zone ever since. An interview also reveals that the zone was supposed to change into a winterland halfway through with Christmas trees instead of cacti. And finally, there was Cyber City which was then renamed Genocide City before being removed altogether before it was even started. A concept sketch shows that it would have been a high-tech zone with lots of mechanical traps, kinda like Metropolis but much more futuristic.



All of this is to introduce you to a fan project called Sonic 2 Long Version, which is an attempt to recreate the game that Sonic 2 was supposed to have been. Of course, liberties were taken and it's still far from finished (most new stages feel quite incomplete and/or boring) but it's fully playable and can be finished. For example, Genocide City is actually completely new, using new graphics and takes place instead on top of a series of sky-scrappers and is a bit boring to me but it looks nice anyway. Dust Hill is my favourite so far because somehow, the graphics from that mock-up picture were either found or recreated and the level design isn't half bad, plus it does turn into a sorta winter zone halfway through.



In any case, if you want to try this special version of Sonic 2, you can find it at the following link:



http://www.sonicresearch.org/s2long/



Enjoy!



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

98
Map Gab / Adventure Island IV (NES)
« on: February 27, 2007, 09:51:56 am »
The fourth chapter of this classic series was previously only released on the Famicom, but thanks to yet another of those nifty translation group, a translated ROM has been available for some time.



Unlike the previous 3 games, this one features a number of "overworlds", similar in part to a previous project of mine, Ufouria.



This is yet another project I'm reserving but, for once, I intend to finish it rather quickly. There are practically no difficulties in the mapping proper and thus it should only take me as long as I need to finish the game to finish mapping it. However, thanks to the nature of the game, I'm unlikely to post any completed map until I'm nearly finished with the whole thing since you often need to go back to previous areas with new abilities to see everything.



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

99
Gaming / (PSP) Dracula X Chronicles
« on: February 01, 2007, 08:35:59 pm »
For those Castlevania fans who were still waiting for a port of the PC Engine game Rondo Of Blood, well look no further. Konami is planning to release an upgraded port of that game for the PSP with new soundtrack and 2.5D graphics (the classic version will also be included) in addition to a straight port of Symphony Of the Night. All I can say is that a video of the beta version looks really impressive and I envy those of you with a PSP!



You can read the preview here and see a video of the first stage here



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

100
Map Gab / Virtual Boy Wario Land (VB)
« on: January 22, 2007, 11:46:09 pm »
During The Ultimate Koopa's thread where he requested Wario Land maps, Captain Drake mentioned the possibility of him doing maps for Virtual Boy Wario Land, something he later said would be too difficult.



Well, I like a challenge and as I said then, I started working on a map for the first level, to see how hard it would be (similar to the Super Castlevania IV map I did). Turns out that it was really hard and time consuming to do, and that was with only *one* parallax background to separate from the foreground. Anyway, I have finished mapping this level tonight, and for once, I decided to make it an official submission to the site, with map header and all. JonLeung, feel free to be angry at me for making you do a virtual Boy section ;)



User posted image



Game Name: Virtual Boy Wario Land

Copyright: Nintendo 1995

Level Name: Level 1

Resolution: 7168 x 432

Size: 151 KB

Format: PNG

Type: Ripped



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

101
VGMaps Social Board / A family friend died a few days ago...
« on: January 11, 2007, 11:02:16 pm »
Life seems so fragile sometimes; it takes so much to live a happy life, and so little to utterly destroy it...



Last weekend, while reading the newspaper, I read a little footnote describing a car accident near my hometown. I didn't actually pay much attention (as usual for such articles), since the chances of people I know being involved in it are very low.



Two days later, I received a call from my father. He told me that a good family friend of ours was involved in a serious accident, and had fallen in a coma. It took me about 2 seconds to make a connection with the article I had read. He didn't have any other news at that time, and promised to stay in touch.



When the phone rang a few hours later, I had a bad feeling before answering. It was my mom, calling to tell me that our friend, and more importantly her *close* friend, had died from severe head trauma. We talked a bit about it and then she hang up to go to bed, still crying.



I'm still in shock. On one hand, I wasn't that close to her, since I live an hour away from my parents and thus I didn't get to see her much during my infrequent visits. But still, a few years back I and the rest of my family  had more frequent contacts with her and so I guess I should be crying right now, but I can't. It just... seems unreal right now. In fact, it might not totally sink in until I attend the funeral and my hugging brain finally realizes and accepts that yes, she really *is* gone. But it just feels weird right now.



It feels like the premise of a movie; after visiting a friend in the next town, she decided to drive home late at night while it was extremely foggy outside. Of course, she said she'd turn back if it was too hard to see on the road, but like most people do in a situation like this, she kept going, being sure that some fog wasn't going to stop her from coming home. And like a twisted turn of fate, her car crashed somehow, leaving her body practically intact but causing massive head damage.



It all feels unfair really. Back when I was a kid, she along with her kids were good friends of the family (the husband was a total asshole though, even if he was always pleasant with us to save face). Eventually we stopped hearing from her due to the fact that said husband, a local artist with a huge ego, kept treating her like shit, beating her, telling her he would gladly beat her into her grave sooner or later, and cutting herself from all her friends. That, plus he kept living the big life with the local wealthy class with frequent visits to his mistress (my hometown is pretty small, so everybody knew about it) while she stayed at home fully aware of his actions.



It took over twenty years for her to finally manage to ask for a divorce (after getting separated and accepting him back several times), that is enough time for the kids to move out and for her to feel ready to begin a new life single (and even then, it was a huge effort for her considering how emotionally dependent she was). Of course, because of various dealings of his, she was left with hardly any money. He manage to pay her using mostly paintings of his, evaluated to large amounts by expert "friends" but without much resale value for a woman with no connection to the art world. Then she had to find a way to earn a living, which isn't easy when you're a woman in her 50s with an outdated medical assistant diploma with no practical experience in 20 years.



In short, the last few years, she had to spend fighting to get whatever money she could in addition to trying to overcome her emotional dependency issues which, while she had found a nice and loving guy to live with, where still keeping her attached to him even though it was becoming clear that it wasn't working out in the long run between them.



My mom told me tonight that she wasn't really happy at the moment, and I can understand since all she went through made her depressive. It just seems cruel that, while she was working as hard as she could to try and put her life back on tracks, something as stupid and final as a car accident would come in and casually put a stop to all that.



It's hard to see all that makes a person what she is, all the pains, all the dreams, the happiness, the challenges, the memories, everything that she is, just vanish so suddenly. All that is left in the wake are the people who cared about her, of which there were many but in those case there are almost never enough.



I guess I wrote all of this to try and remember who she was, and yet I didn't even talk about that yet. Well then, this is who she was: she was a kind woman, a warm person, a good mother and a trustworthy friend. She was a hard worker and sadly she had much more potential than what she actually had time to exploit.



Farewell Lucette. You'll be sorely missed. May you finally find the peace you were never afforded on this Earth.



Incidentally, I've been feeling kind of down this week because of that, so I won't be posting much for a little while. Hopefully, the service on Saturday should help me with my grief and finally making me realize that she's gone forever so that I can finally cry and express my grief.



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

102
VGMaps Social Board / RE: Happy Holiday Season!!!
« on: December 22, 2006, 09:59:36 pm »
Well, I'm leaving tomorrow for the holidays and I won't be back until at least January 3rd.



Consequently, I'm wishing everyone here a happy holiday season, whatever it is that you are celebrating this time of year. So, leaving aside all this "politically correct" crap (I was once flamed for wishing an atheist a 'Merry Christmas'), please accept my wishes in the spirit they were intended, and most important of all, have fun and enjoy yourself :) !



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

103
If, like me, you are still using Microsoft's poor excuse for an operating system, and your copy isn't exactly, how shall we say... *legal* ...then you're probably having a lot of problems downloading things like service packs and DirectX updates.



Now, a lot of hacks and cheats were found to bypass the validation check over the last few years, ways that are almost corrected/prevented shortly thereafter. I was in this very situation a few days ago, and I found a neat page that features the best way around the check.



Direct links to download the files you need. It's so amazingly simple that it deserves a prize to however thought about it first. So in case you too need some important updates, have fun by going there:



http://www.mydigitallife.info/2006/10/08/direct-download-link-for-microsoft-downloads-center-wga-protected-software/



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

104
VGMaps Social Board / Today, I ran straight into a moving trailer...
« on: December 12, 2006, 09:27:52 pm »
Alright, first let's set the scene:



Right after work, I had trouble crossing a street just in front of where I work. It was dark, and cars kept coming in from both direction. At one point, it looked like the way would be clear for a few seconds so I headed toward the other side, timing myself to cross right after a minivan had passed me.



It turned out that said minivan was carrying a small flatbed trailer *with no lights* so in the dark, I never even saw it. I was expecting to cross the road and instead, my knee smashed into the side of the moving trailer, sending me for a spin or two before crashing on the ground. After the initial shock where I was wondering what the hell I had just run into, I managed to get off the street, and incidentally confirming that I had no obvious bone fractures.



Thankfully, my apartment is 5 minutes away from a hospital and 10 minutes from work, so getting to the emergency room wasn't too had even though my leg did hurt quite a bit. Turns out nothing was broken and I just had a major bruise above my knee. Heck, I didn't even bleed (at least, not above the skin). After receiving a tetanus shot just in case, I was able to walk home with one heck of a battle scar!



User posted image



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

105
VGMaps Social Board / Very first appearance of Ronald McDonald (be afraid)
« on: December 08, 2006, 10:12:06 pm »
Seriously, it's a wonder they kept the character at all after this horrible first outing...



http://www.ebaumsworld.com/2006/12/mcdonalds-commercial.html



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

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