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I still wish that Activision and RedOctane would publish a Jazz Guitar Hero (a Pat Metheny or Lee Ritenour track will make “Jordan” and “Through the Fire and Flames” seem like 4th-grade band lessons on Expert), but today’s “FoxTrot” touches base closely enough.

Oh, and did I tell you that Setsucon 2008 was even more awesome than last year? The Daily Collegian covered the event! Sorry, no pictures as both days were pegged at 110% for me working the gaming room. Apparently, my head was glowing red from the effort, though I consider it good stress compared to what is going on right now with classes. Sunday’s “Guitar Hero Idol,” despite being a technical failure (believe it or not, two PS2s died during that event!), was still a lot of fun with those who participated; same goes for “Retro Gaming Live” with 007 GoldenEye 64 and Pokémon Stadium minigames. Meeting Chris “Kilika” Malone, Dave Lister, and Kyle Herbert was awesome, too. Finally, the PSAOM managed to sell over 50 copies of the manga’s pilot chapter (which is posted online here as well), quite a success for our group’s first print run!

I miss those two days, namely January 26-27, but it’s less than one year ’till 2009, Setsucon fans!

[Edit, 2/18/07] Here’s video of a former PSAO member competing in “Guitar Hero Idol” (she’s the owner of the “What the Kat dragged in…” blog); thanks to GeminixDragon for the footage!

Welcome 2008 (I guess)! Here goes another year of sporadic blogging, brought to you by Kevin.

Today marks the beginning of the second semester of my sophomore year – and EE 210 is right at the top of my “hardest classes that I cannot afford to get below a C in or face the wrath of my own ‘unstable yet lackluster’ standards”-type courses. People say that “sophomore” means “wise fool” as well; let’s hope I can debunk that definition this time around (considering the…very…lacking performance of this past fall).

And now, some fun things to speak of:
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Here’s a new autoplayed recording of a more-recent StepMania 3.9 simfile created around an Animusic track. Actually, a redux: I’ve used Animusic 2‘s 7/4-time Starship Groove in a pair of early, laggy experimental Couples charts, back when custom “stepping” was a new hobby for me. Since those turned out to be far too easy, even for dance pads, I’ve scrapped everything and built a brand new level; the redone 13-footer Challenge stepfile is difficult enough to warrant keyboard-ing it instead – just like the file based on Drum Machine. If one wished to dance to it, this would be like a four-minute sprint with incinerated feet!

As usual, I’ve posted the normal video capture along with a version that has Player 1’s assist tick enabled. This is so that the viewer can understand the stepchart’s overall rhythm better.

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Similar to a post in RELAy several months back, I’ve continued to make more simfiles and YouTube autoplay videos for StepMania 3.9. This time around, I have a non-lagging version of Animusic‘s “Stick Figures” and a brand-new stepfile built around Animusic‘s “Drum Machine.” The latter was a lot of fun to make, but I’d say it’s very difficult even for experienced keyboard players; actually dancing to it on a pad would impress me immensely because of the number of 3/4-panel hands involved. Finally, there’s a tricky negative BPM/mine-laced singles file created around Jimmy Luxury’s thumping “Cha Cha Cha” track.

All of these simfiles are Challenge difficulty, with “Stick Figures” clocking in at 12-foot difficulty rating (for a dance pad), “Drum Machine” at 13 (keyboard), and “Cha Cha Cha” at a whopping 20 (dance pad). Each video has a second version where I turn on the assist tick so that viewers can understand the rhythm better; for couple-type tracks such as “Stick Figures,” the tick is enabled for just the left side instead.

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