#btw i cover whatever music happens to be on my radar!

[a-moth-to-the-light]

Songs of the Summer, 2023: Honorable Mentions

[intro & rules]

Allergy – G-IDLE

I like this more than I want to, and that’s mostly because of how catchy that chorus is--it almost makes up for the messy production, but not quite. But I have a feeling this is one of the songs I'll remember the summer by, given how many times I've listened to it--so "Allergy" deserves a place here!

Cool With You – NewJeans

It’s not boring, it’s PEACEFUL!! You just don’t understand me!! *stomps off to my room*

Dance the Night – Dua Lipa

This was my last cut from the official list, actually. It’s mostly a wrong place, wrong time thing--"Dance the Night" would have been THE song last summer, but this summer I’m just kind of like, “Huh, that’s pretty cool, I guess.” 

Estúpida Mentira — Ringo Galperin

Beat of the summer! Outside of that beat, there’s not much else going on with this song, but it’s MY good-texture anthem and you can’t take it away from me!!

Fast Forward – Jeon Somi

Meh, the formula works on me. I love it, I love it, I love it. I could listen to boring club music from a performer like Somi all day. 

Lemon Black Tea // Taxi – Jo Yuri

More good-texture anthems… at least one of these two would have been on the main list if the album had come out earlier in the summer. Maybe “Lemon Black Tea” will be on my Songs of the Year list in January, once I’ve had more time with it! That title alone is worthy of a spot. 

Madeline – Limelight

Obligatory tropical house!! I'm still not sick of tropical house--leave me ALONE. *giggles* This is just so, SO good though, with beautiful performances from the members. After this one AND “Eye to Eye”, I have high hopes for Limelight. 

Sunshine Baby – The Japanese House

“Sunshine Baby” is awesome! … I think? I don’t know, give me two and a half years to get back to you on that--that’s how long I took with the similarly-gloomy “Dionne” (which I now think is her best song), so…

Wicked Love – Yena

Obligatory Yena! I mean, she sounds GREAT in this style of song (I think I called it a top-tier Red Velvet bside back when it first came out), but I have to admit that “Wicked Love” is mostly just here because of how much I’ve liked Yena's previous releases. She’s my favorite of this generation of soloists, and I love the distinctive persona she's built with her discography!  

Zero (J.I.D remix) – NewJeans

This is a VERY begrudging addition; I couldn’t avoid it, though, because of just how much I’ve listened to “Zero” in the past few months. The production on this remix is gorgeous, especially that future bass in the chorus, but even considering how muted the rest of my listening this summer was, I find SO MUCH of this song SO BORING that I really can’t explain why it was so huge for me this summer. 

Air Force One – Odd Eye Circle // None of My Business – Itzy

These sound like fall songs to me, not summer ones, so it feels weird including them here, but I want to at least shout them out, since they were both released this summer!  

[these two were released in early may, but close enough to summer to be songs of the summer for me, anyway]

Kaze – Younha

Younha performs soft songs so well. This is two summers in a row where she’s blown me away with some random understated acoustic track. “Kaze” isn’t quite as wonderful as last year’s “Rain Song”, to be fair, but it still meant a lot to me these past few months. 

Welcome to MY World – Aespa

This probably would have been a new favorite even without Aespa’s vocals, which make any melody a thousand times better, but WITH them, well... I think we have a new kpop classic on our hands, folks. Listening to this at like 5am while I was staying up all night to see the sunrise, just because it was summer and I could, is what finally made it click for me, so I think I’ll always associate it with the summer.

[annakie]

An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part Six

Wherein we get out into space and explore a bit, and complete our crew.

And post a lot of gifs, because screenshots were lost.

List of Posts: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

So I use the NVidia Control Panel app to take screenshots and videos.  Since it’s already running and it takes good shots it seems dumb to not use it.

I ended up being super busy this week and didn’t play much, just got through like, talking to Kaidan after the big speech on the bridge more or less for the entire week, and through Therum.  I updated my drivers a day or two ago.  And then I didn’t notice that for whatever reason, yesterday when I went to play for a few hours, NVidia decided to record videos just fine, but not take screenshots.  I probably actually mashed the button several hundred times.... but all I got were videos.

Most of it wasn’t a great loss, it was a lot of talking to the crew, and a few planetary missions which... so I’m going to have to go back and redo some of it later for screenshots.

But I thought... hey, for posting on tumblr, I’ll just make it a shorter update and make a few gifs and most this a mostly-gif post!  That’ll be fun!

...and then I spent several hours making almost 80 gifs, including a lot of what I also had screenshots for but thought making gifs would be more fun.  

I mean I was watching the last few eps of the newest season of Great British Bake Off on Netflix, and a few other shows this morning so it wasn’t just gif time... but yeah I made a lot.  So I might split this into two posts now because... that’s a lot of gifs. This post will still have a lot of screenshots, too.  So here we go!

There are so many things to love about this moment.  It’s such a great like, re-launch of the game... Bioware telling us “Okay, now you know the plot, you know all the major players, you know a lot about our world (galaxy) and how it works and who lives here, now, it’s time for you to go out on your own.”

First, it starts with being able to vent a little to Joker, which is a nice touch.  Shepard might feel guilty about taking the ship over from Anderson, but Joker also assures us here, a great preview of the way he’s tasked with helping Shepard keep it together in ME3.

I love seeing Shepard’s words affect the crew.  The swelling music, the same as the “you’re a Spectre now!!” music just underscores the journey, and what’s to come.

I used to always miss this scene by not picking the right speech option, and would be mad Kaidan was left out of this montage.  My fault!

This moment is so beautiful and epic.

...and here we go.

ALOT, btw, makes the galaxy map so pretty.  Sharper and clearer and more colorful.  

We all usually just head to Liara’s Dig Site first, right?  Unless you’re doing one of those “Pick up Liara last just to see what happens” playthroughs?  I did that once. It felt weird.  And sad, when you tell her “oops I killed your mom and I’m not sorry.”  Seems like she shouldn’t have gotten over that so quickly, but well, that’s game design.  The entire plot just doesn’t feel the same and more flimsy without Liara around from the start.

I usually do Therum --> Feros --> Noveria --> Virmire.

Well okay, first a stop at Edolus, since, you know, it’s on the way.

What a LOVELY day, nothing could possibly go wrong on this barren world. I feel like they gave us a pretty easy-to-get-around-on world to start out with.

I honestly love driving around in the mako 90% of the time?  Once you’re used to the controls, it’s not that hard to get most places you want to go.  Though I admit the Nomad in Andromeda is a big upgrade.  I kinda miss it in ME2 and ME3, though I only do what driving is necessary in Overlord and skip Firewalker like, half the time.

First, let’s check out the map...

I’m pretty sure I didn’t realize you could mark your destination on the map and it’d put a handy arrow on your radar until I started playing on PC.  Before then I was checking the map every 5 seconds making SURE I was going the right way.  *facepalm*  

Generally my scanning strategy on the planet is... just go to the things on the map, but do go to ALL the things on the map.  If I see something along the way, stop and get it.  I don’t go way out of my way to look for unmarked stuff.  Usually the UNC missions can be completed doing that + complete planet / asteroid scanning.

Oh hey here’s a guy, let’s just grab what we can off him...

UGH.  MINIGAMES.

Like I get that the minigame is a stand in for “looking for clues, are you successful in finding anything useful?” or whatever but it’s still just the worst.  A minigame is fun occasionally, making it as a gate to something like looting a body is stupid.  I guess I have to forgo actually putting points into things that keep Kaidan alive at the early levels so he can help me... loot bodies.  Cool.  Great.

Since I’m cheating in credits, all weapons and armor get medigelled almost immediately so that I don’t have to do the minigame later on when they get harder, like, ever.

The ME2 minigames at least make a little more sense than this moving puzzler thing.  That’s at least an attempt to look like some kind of code hacking or rewiring/reprogramming.  This thing is just... silly.

ME2 has a disable minigames mod... so there will be no talk of minigames from here on out.  They don’t exist after the easy minigames early on in ME1.

So I ... somehow managed to not get video or screenshots of you know the ICONIC THRESHER MAW attack on Edolus?  So please enjoy this gif I made of it back in 2013 instead.

It’s such a great fakeout and moment.  Like “Oh man how easy my goal is like right in front of me!  That’s great, so easy!” then OH HELL NO, FUCK YOU, GIANT WORM!!

These gifs are from another planet later on, but they’ll do.

My normal MO with Maws is to get out of the way, far enough that they can’t appear too close to or especially under me, but close enough that they do still show up, then stay stationary and jump over the goo while shooting at it.

YOU’RE FACING THE OTHER WAY HOW DID YOU SPIT AT ME?!

This is fine.  EVERYTHING IS FINE. We’re just A LITTLE ON FIRE.  Our shields are at full...

Oh hell, Kaidan slap some medigel on it, please.

Even though we don’t know who Cerberus is yet, FUCK YOU CERBERUS. I always bring the VS to any Cerberus mission because THEY WERE RIGHT NOT TO JOIN YOU IN CERBERUS.  Let’s keep a FUCK YOU CERBERUS count going to remember all the horrible shit we SAW Cerberus do in ME1 to remind ourselves why Ashley or Kaidan is the only SANE ONE for going “No, sorry, I’m not joining you in Cerberus.”

Deep breath

OK, let’s go get Liara.

Wrex comes with us to Therum.

Dear Lord, Therum is gorgeous.

This is real nice just a pleasant day on this thresher maw-less planet and great scenery, we’ll find that asari scientist in no ti--- WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?

Have I mentioned how everything is fine lately?

Well it’s time for how I deal with most of the geth while in the Mako...

Armatures are worth five points each!

Rocket troopers are only two points, but I got a lot of them!

Stopping and fighting in the Mako takes way too long.  Push on through all the way til we’re stopped.

Hm, this is the one I should push, right?

*crickets*

Fine.

Just... real pretty.

I love this part of Therum right here.  A really great, scary fight that feels so dangerous, but winnable.  Great level design, too.

Then this happens.

Does everyone’s hair do that in this cutscene, or just mine, or this hairstyle?

Also, ME3 has a mod now that lets chracters use their correct weapons in cutscenes, my eternal devotion to the modder who could do that in ME1.  None of these characters use assault rifles in-game!!

I’m fairly certain I have played and replayed this fight more than any other in ME1.  AKA RUN FOR COVER OH SHIT AVOID THE BOMBS AND LASERS FLYING AT YOU AT ONCE PLEASE DON’T DIE COMPANIONS PLEASE KILL SOMETHING I CAN’T DO THIS ON MY OWN AHHHHH!!! 

This time around, I died my first time, actually did really well the second time, and decided to go back and record the fight for gifs and... won, barely.  The gifs would not be good.  Wrex and Kaidan didn’t last long. 

Anyway, It’s a great cutscene, but hoo boy I wish it were skippable.

Okay but what were these ruins *for*.  Also, real lucky that they had the boss fight way up here instead of down where Liara was.

Speaking of Liara...

Hello Doctor T’soni!

I have a lot of questions like... how long have you been in that bubble?  How are you sustaining it that long?  How long has it been since you’ve eaten?  If I didn’t come get you until after Virmire, would you have been holding that bubble up for the weeks in between then and now?  

Ah well, you’re here now, and I suppose I’m going to owe you my life later so... welcome to the team.

You gotta admit that’s one badass entrance, though uh, if the forcefield is still up, where did he come from?  Doesn’t matter.  Wrex, let’s kill us one of your brethren (sorry.)

I’ll just *assume* that Liara is too tired from holding up her stasis bubble she was in to actually be USEFUL.

I love the chaos of running the fuck out of there.

Texture popping is still an issue even with a decent computer and texture packs, but at least it’s quick now.

Also I really feel the loss of this conference room in the future games.  The awkward oval table never quite feels the same.  But also, uh, this is a lot of room taken up in this small ship for eight chairs and a holoprojector.  You gotta think there’s more uses for this space than just that.

But yeah, I love these check-ins, it’s a chance for everyone to get together and really hash out what’s going on, as well as reinforcing the plot to the players in a more natural way.  Having Liara this early will let us understand the Protheans better at an earlier stage, even if it turns out she’s wrong about some stuff (though at the time this was written, she was right for all everyone knew.)

Wrex and Garrus don’t talk much here, probably because you can make it through the game without one of them.  I did a “didn’t recruit Garrus” playthrough in ME2 once.  They change like one or two lines then Garrus goes back to talking about Old Times.  So like you CAN, but you really shouldn’t not recruit Garrus, because Bioware didn’t do a great job changing anything aside from your initial greeting during the Omega Archangel mission.

Not recruiting Wrex, though.  Wow that’ll have consequences later on.

OK!  So the gang’s all here, and this post is already very long.  Next time: Let’s go talk to everyone for awhile, and do a few more sidequests because we can’t go back to the Citadel til our persuasion is high enough to grind Mikhailovich’s arguments into the dust!

[attract-mode-collective]

Finally, The ET Video Game That You’ve Been Waiting For

Since there was no proper game culture wrap-up last week (again, sorry about that), along with how I’m filing this at the end of the week instead of the beginning (there’s… stuff happening, so consider this one of the more minor examples), there’s a lot to cover this time around. Including a bunch of happenings from the word of art.

So kicking things off is the latest from Amanda Visel X Michelle Valigura. Much like their Star Wars, Beetlejuice, and Heathers cabinets, here we their ideas of what arcade games based upon ET and Aliens could and should look like. And yeah, playing as Gertie is an approach that could salvage its reputation in the video game sphere, plus I totally want an Alien/Aliens video game starring Newt.

Actually, hasn’t something similar already happened? Sorry, haven’t kept up with the video adaptations; last one I played was for the Jaguar. Anyhow, and unfortunately, both pieces are sold out online. Though… and I’m not 100% certain, but… they’re both at the Thailand Toy Expo, so maybe they brought a few extras with them?

Elsewhere in Asia, Japan to be exact, are not just one but two other notable shows, and both focused on electronic entertainment. First is something you’re probably familiar with, the My Famicase Exhibition, and not just because it’s been around for 13 years. As of this writing, the entire assortment has yet to be shared officially, so you’ll have to turn to Twitter to see the participants boasting their own handiwork.

[UPDATE: 5/7/17] Actually, all the pieces are finally viewable on the Famicase homepage proper. Here are my faves…

… I particularly love Saturdays’s flavor text: “The gateway opens once a week. Tomorrow I’m going in.”

… You kinda need to see the actual cart in the wild to understand; here’s a pic courtesy of @mandimappy…

And finally...

… It’s maybe pointing out that the artist responsible for the concept above also did a piece for last year’s event as well, which ended up becoming something that’s actually playable! Hope history repeats itself cuz I really want a game about an all cat band with gross lyrics.

Now, the other show is something you may know nothing about, cuz a. the 16 Bit Models Exhibition has only been around for two years and b, was only open for just one day, hence why it’s fallen under many radars.

Admittedly, I found last year’s assortment a bit more up my alley, most due to my affinity for the obscure. Yet I can still appreciate this very realistic take on the Super Mario Bros (btw, am also sorry that I don’t know who’s responsible for what)…

Along with this realistic take on Pauline and Donkey Kong…

Yet the exhibition was a reminder that not every Nintendo game out there has been paid tribute to death, specifically Urban Champion…

The dioramas are easily the best parts of the 16 Bit Models Exhibition. Here’s an equally impressive one, featuring Castlevania…

Though once again, the obscurer the better, so this tribute to Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa gets a thumbs up from me…

Which is the lesser known game: Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa or City Connection? The latter at least was released on the NES at the time. Then again…

Moving onto fashion, UNIQLO recently unveiled an upcoming line based upon Mario and company. As one might expect from UNIQLO, they look quite nice! Here’s the campaign movie from Japan…

The best part is that UNIQLO’s entire line is headed towards the US! Was not expecting that. Alas, certain designs are not available to everyone, and I know more than a few adults who wouldn’t mind that Kirby tee. So here comes YUMMY MART to the rescue…

Somewhat along the same lines is Namco enlisting the talents of PAYNUS, who represents some of the esoteric offerings in the Pac-Store…

The constant reference to pizza is something that’s present in both the PAYNUS designs and Namco’s own in-house efforts…

Meanwhile, back at METEOR, in addition to the latest Famicase exhibit, they’ve also been busy with a collab with THUNDERBOX (which I highlighted just a few weeks ago). And from the looks of miki800.com’s post, MOUNTAIN GRAPHICS is also involved? Talk about a holy trinity…

Whereas the previous combination makes sense, the following is… unexpected. Recently discovered that R23X has teamed up with the The Yetee of all folks to produce a line of shirts showcasing glitched VHS stills. Including one that’s game related (technically two; there’s also a crop top version as well)…

Looks neat and all, but I’m less of a Final Fantasy 7 fan and more of a Wave Race 64 aficionado, and would therefore love to see this on a tee…

I’d also love to get my hands on one of these 100 yen pins that @rgb_club posted a couple weeks back, though no word on when it might be available…

Here’s another thing that’s not for sale, mostly cuz there was only one, which is of this baseball player made to look like a Street Fighter…

Which had the better Spinning Bird Kick; Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li…

Or City Hunter (yup, that’s Jackie Chan; via tenshokyaku)…

Sticking with leggy video game stars, thanks to thevideogameartarchive, we finally have an answer as to whether Link is boxers or briefs…

And sticking with Link for just a bit more, I particularly dig nozovis’s summary of the fun times him and Zelda have in Breath of the Wild…

Along those same lines is a zine that @WPR_haru made that’s filled with all the photos he took, one that I’d love to have a copy of…

Which fan art featuring a character from behind do you prefer; this Breath of the Wild piece by James Kochalka…

Or this Overwatch piece by some unknown artist (if anyone knows, plz let me know)…

Here we have @RAStyle85’s Astro City with a lots of buttons, for playing whatever game that requires that many inputs…

And here we have former Taito graphic designer Atsushi Iwata’s custom-built device, for producing pixel graphics!

Such things were used in other places, like SNK. Here we have a quote from someone who worked there, courtesy of videogamesdensetsu…

“The sprite editor used by artists for a number of SNK fighting games (Art Box) was written for the Neo-Geo, and uses the Neo-Geo as the interface. As in, you would use the joystick and the buttons to draw the sprite. He didn’t believe this when he started there, until one of the higher ups showed him by firing up one of the machines and drawing a kickass sprite of Robert Garcia in like 10 minutes”.

Does the Art Box sound familiar? Well, it should be.

The latest from The Gaming Historian, on the creation of the d-pad, answers the one question I’ve had for ages: if Nintendo was able to patent the control input, how were Sega and others able to get away with something seemingly similar?

Remember the 8bit Harmonica from last week? Well here’s another project involving the Famicom by Ugoita that’s a bit more… random?

This post has gone on for far too long without any Sega. Time to fix that with some gifs of Sonic from Sega Saturn de Hakken!! Tamagotchi Park, which as you may have guessed is a Tamagotchi title in which you can raise Sonic (and sorry, chilli dogs was Sonic’s fave food in the US, though I believe Sonic Generations would later recon that; via pr0jectneedlemouse)…

Though you can also raise other Sega personalities, like Opa Opa and Alex Kidd, plus even a Mega Drive cart (via grooveonfight)?

Super obscure Sega humor doesn’t get more obscure than this folks (note to self: on the next car trip, bring along the soundtrack to Super Hang-On cuz repeated plays of OutRun and Daytona USA tunes can get old after a while; via dnopls)…

I know the following has been shared liked crazy (hell, even NPR posted the damn thing), and for good reason. All I can say is, Pikachu #14, get your sh*t together…

Speaking of Pikachu and his pals, The Pokemon Center released a line of Ditto Gachapon figures that are supa kawaii (via retrogamerblog)…

Though the one piece of plastic I want the most is the also recently unveiled Samus from Metroid Prime figure by Good Smile Company, which looks hella cooler than the previously released Other M Figma…

Am embarrassed to admit that I have no idea where this following screenshot is from, nor the tune that accompanies it, both courtesy of radicalhelmet. If anyone would be kind enough to clue me in, would be supremely appreciated…

I wonder what the cover girl of this issue of Spoon is playing (via sixteen-bit)…

And this week’s recommended reading comes courtesy of mah boi Don Miller, and is actually something that Oliver at Minus World also picked up on, which is a book produced by the creator of LSD: Dream Emulator, among other things, and someone I’ve mentioned quite a few times around these parts. It’s called The Art of Computer Designing: A Black and White Approach and is available via archive.org…

As someone who has always planned on transforming an old iMac into a fish tank, thanks to Phazed, I know have other ideas…

And finally, and I also know that I’ve been saying the same thing over and over again, but Super Attractive Club members will be receiving another round up game culture snapshots, hopefully very soon! Until then, please enjoy this still life courtesy of peazy86…

BTW, peazy86 also does music, plus music videos…

Don’t forget: Attract Mode is now on Medium! There you can subscribe to keep up to date, as well as enjoy some “best of” content you might have missed the first time around, plus be spared of the technical issues that’s starting to overtake Tumblr.