A Quite Jazzy Jackrabbit

So, since I've been working in the labs a lot recently and have been looking for inspiration to keep me awake working in a timely manner, I was on the prowl for new game music to listen to. Most of my favorite soundtracks weren't that great to listen to while sleep-deprived... They were either too high-pitched (Mega Man series), or too quiet and soothing (The Legend of Zelda series), so... I started looking through my tumblr playlist for songs that I'd reblogged to possibly listen to later.

I used an awesome program called trntbl, but I won't talk about that right now. What I need to talk about right now was how I reblogged the Jazz Jackrabbit theme and didn't even realize it.

For some reason up until now my memory of that soundtrack was being very eerie and kind of intimidating, so I barely even thought about it. But after listening to the whole soundtrack three times since last sunday, I think it's had a different impact on my older self.

"Holy crap... what year is this?!"

I loved this game as a kid. I still to this day don't understand how or why it got into my hands (my parents would've never bought me a game like this... probably had something to do with my cousins), but man, whatever great power is responsible for this... I thank them. Greatly. Well, right now, specfically for the soundtrack.

Another thing I learned by doing a bit of research a few days ago was this was actually Epic Games' first release back in '94. Amazing that they started with something so... so... *ahem*

Well, anyways, I'd like to share some awesome tidbits from the soundtrack that I love. Here they are:

Not to be cliche or anything, but some of these actually feel pretty gears of warsy to me. I guess it sort of feels like, consistent with Epic's style, at least.

MGSV Theory - Diamond Dogs more like... Diamond Masochists?

Okay, so... normally I'm not much of a game theorist. I usually couldn't give a crap about things like this before a game is released, but... I'm admittedly a huge fan of Metal Gear, and as of recent have been following the lore a little more closely in order to appreciate the intricate story more. So, today, I noticed something.

I used the 60FPS MGSV trailer for one of my game design projects which was basically "give us your favorite trailer and explain why.." etc etc. So I've watched it several times today, right?... Well, I was watching it a few minutes ago and noticed something notable about the background graphics and punished snake.

So, you know this scene where "Punished Snake" gives all the imprisoned children (I think they're children? or really short people?...) pieces of diamond. Or glass. Or something like that. They look like little diamonds so I'm going to call them that for now.

Well, right after this short scene, it cuts to a text image with this graphic in the background:

See the little shards inside the skeleton's body...? I have no idea if anyone's noticed this yet, I mean, I guess SOMEONE has but I haven't seen it, but this has to be either a HUGE allegory for "punishment" or I could maybe even go far enough to say it's a LITERAL thing that Punished Snake is causing himself. So... this proves that Punished Snake does in fact feel some regret for his actions, in either a metaphorical or physical way- the children's diamonds could fly out of their hands when they fall down and pierce his skin or something. Either way, this is REALLY COOL. I LOVE this metaphor so much. When I first watched the trailer, I assumed it was like a stupid message or something like, "HEY. DIAMOND DOGS WERE HERE. WE DID THIS," like how Sly Cooper leaves his little symbol in the place of artifacts that he steals.

But no, Oh my god. It means so much more than that. I can't believe how much of a dumbass I am for not noticing this. Punished Snake's name has meaning. Wow, good job self.

So I guess the large chunk of diamond in his head is a symbol of some sort of larger burden of guilt or something. I look forward to seeing the story behind that shard of glass/piece of diamond. Hehe.

Intro

Hi friends! This is a separate blog from my progress one because it contains mainly inspiration I get from other games/theorizing about games I'm a fan of and stuff. Follow this if you're interested in my dumb opinions and or some cool inspiration from games that I've played!

I try to play games at least once a week (I kind of have to because I'm currently the Gaming Club president), so when I do I make sure I observe EVERYTHING and make notes of techniques, mechanics, design, etc. that I like. So from now on, I will post it here. Hope you can appreciate that stuff with me!