If you know me or follow me on Twitter than you have already figured out that I have an unhealthy obsession for music and DJing, but where did it all start? It started with buying Jamiroquai’s album Dynamite when it was released in winter 2005. Above the large display of CDs at Tower Records in Dallas (which has sadly closed since) were copies of the album on record. The plan was to pick up an LP frame and frame the album for my wall; It never made it onto the wall. Instead of buying an LP frame I thought it would be interesting to pick up a cheap turntable from Guitar Center to play the album. Everything about playing the record got me excited and I figured I was only a few steps away from a full, very cheap, DJ setup. The following week I picked up my second turntable and a cheap mixer.

This initial setup consisted of the Altec Lansing headphone from my computer, a Stanton direct-drive, a Numark belt-drive turntable, and a Numark DM1050 mixer. The Dynamite album was quickly joined by plenty of Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx, and some other random records I liked at the time. It was about that time when I started buying records that I began to listen to and understand the differences between the genres and sub-genres. In the summer of 2006 I bought a pair of Technics turntables and since then there have been a steady stream of equipment purchases and upgrades. Fast forwards to early 2009 and I don’t even want to know how much I’ve spent on this hobby in three and a half years, but I will say I’m currently playing hip-hop, house, electro, and funk (the funkiest of funk that was ever funky – including old favorites like Parliament). Below I’ve outlined what I use and a little on why I love it.

Turntables: Technics SL-1200MK5
Technics delivers a turntable that is built well enough to withstand the bumps and knocks that accompany hauling gear around from party to party. On top of that these things are as reliable as you get when it comes to turntables. Sure there are cheaper alternatives, but once you pick up a pair of Technics its not very likely that you will need to buy another pair for a while.

Mixer: Pioneer DJM-909
The DJM-909 from Pioneer is the two channel mixer that could. It’s good for scratching and mixing. Complete with your standard cross fade controls and channel adjustments. The DJM-909 comes with a bank of built-in effects which are implemented very well and are more than enough for me. Some people enjoy using effects and layering them to create new effects on the fly. Layering is something that cannot be done on the 909, so if you are looking to play with effects a lot I would suggest picking up a different mixer and investing in an external effects unit.

Headphones: Technics RP-DH1200
When it comes to headphones sound quality is a must, but at the same time they must be comfortable to wear. The Technics RP line of headphones are definitely not the best sounding headphones on the market, but out of all the headphones I have used the RP-DH1200′s are the most comfortable to me. Wearing these for hours at a time does not bother my ears like some other headphones have.

Digital Vinyl System: Serato Scratch Live
Rane Serato Scratch Live is a tough one to explain. I went with Serato over Torq and other digital vinyl systems due to the fact that Serato is the current standard. Not only is it the standard among many DJs, but it also has the most usable interface in my opinion. Plus there are built in easter eggs such as the ability to play pong using records to control the paddles.

Speakers: JBL JRX125
The JRX125 speakers from JBL are great for indoor use. I’ve never had a problem with these speakers in an indoor environment. The bass provided by the unit is good, but as soon as you turn these on outside its apparent that a dedicated sub is needed in addition to these. Either way these are a great place to start. They drive all of my parties and many people take note and tell me how good they sound.

Wash Light: American DJ Revo III
American DJ comes on strong with the Revo III. This is honestly one of the only American DJ products I feel is worth anything. The unit comes ready to go out of the box with a built in speaker to detect the music. It does a surprisingly good job at keeping with the music and delivers a great wash-light show with plenty of variety. The unit also comes ready to be plugged into a control setup for full control over the light show. The unit is a part of the new generation of LED lighting equipment which enjoy longer lifetimes as well as the ability to run without a cool down cycle. For examples of the unit in action look up the Revo III on youtube, there are tons of videos.

Light Stand: Ultimate Support
The Ultimate Support stand stands out for the lock, raise, and lower features. At the base of the stand is an adjustment for lock, raise, or lower. In the lock position you are unable to move the stand higher or lower. In the raise position the stand will only move up, allowing you to easily raise the stand with your lights or speakers attached. The lower setting slowly lowers the stand back down for after even tear down. The system allows you to setup the stand without help from a second person. Definitely a must for those working a party or small event on their own!

Synthesizer: KORG Kaossilator
When the Kaossilator hit the streets it turned a lot of heads. In Tokyo you were hard pressed to find one of these units for months as stores sold out as soon as more arrived. Using only a touch pad and a bank of effects you, the KORG Kaossilator lets you churn out beats anywhere you may be. This can be thought of as the iPod of music creation, but there is a downside. When you turn the unit off your work leaves with it. The Kaossilator isn’t as much a tool for production as much as it is a great tool for improvisation. I wire it into my DJM-909 via the session in inputs and drop my own custom beats into the sets that I’m playing. Always a nice touch that no one else can replicate.

Vinyl Cleaning/Storage: Gruv Glide
When dealing with vinyl media you’re going to need a solution for wiping off everyday dust and also for protecting your music collection from the thing they’re normally subjected to. Gruv Glide itself, when applied, kills static electricity and also cleans minor dust and grime from your records. This means that not only is your record now clean, but its also static-free! That means less dust build-up on your precious vinyl and to prove how well it works they include a very technically advanced static detection unit (aka a packing peanut). The boxed version comes with two microfiber pads which allows for a quick wipe down of your records before giving them a spin on the decks. A single bottle of Gruv Glide works for around 150-200 records, so when you think of it like that it doesn’t cost much for how many records it protects and how much it helps.

Preliminary Design
In Fall 2008 I worked on my first small, PC-based game using DirectX 9. The original concept for the game was to be a small dungeon-crawling based game where you played through the dungeons as an archer. Each room of the dungeon would be equipped with turrets, a maze, and enemies. Rooms with a maze only required the player to get to the exit of the room while empty rooms required the player to eliminate all enemies in the room before progressing to the next room. Plans for a boss at the end of the dungeon were discussed, but never realized due to time constraints on the project. In fact, the game in its final form is nothing as we had planned in the beginning.

(Click thumbnails to enlarge – Original concept sketches)

So what was the deal with not meeting our original goals? The biggest reason we were unable to realize our original design was due to the fact that this was a game programming class. We walked in on day one not knowing anything about either Visual Studio or DirectX programming. This fact alone cut our work time in half as the first half of the semester was devoted to learning how to use DirectX to make something that resembled a game. The class served as a reality check at how time consuming building a game is. Implement a new enemy, test the game. Oops! The game crashed, let’s track down why. Maybe that or the new piece of code doesn’t work as you thought it would have, its time to rewrite it or pinpoint your logic error. Needless to say, with only two programmers and one artist, you’re stretched thin relatively easily.

Finished Product
Below are some screenshots of the “final” version of LINUS (the version that was turned in at the end of the semester). The game’s main character became a robot since the artist completed the robot sprite and it was what we had to work with first and the game’s basic mechanics were altered within the final weeks of developing the game since it was apparent that there was not enough time to accomplish everything we wanted to in the beginning.

With these things in mind, LINUS evolved into a game that is best described as a fusion or Geometry Wars and Smash TV set in a desert where you control a robot that blasts through extraterrestrial enemies. The game is not about completing the game, since that is impossible. Instead its about how many points you can manage to rack up before you become overrun by the enemies and run out of lives.

(Click thumbnails to enlarge – Final game screenshots)

Even with the revised game premise and mechanics we still didn’t get everything into the game we had hoped for. Code was assembled on the last week to include two types of enemies equipped with projectiles, but we ran into issues where either the enemy firing caused the game to crash or the enemies projectiles wouldn’t register as hits on the LINUS robot. Since we couldn’t pinpoint the issues with the code quick enough, and we didn’t want to demo a game that crashed as soon as things started to get interesting, we took the two new enemy types out of the game.

A working demo might be posted here in the future. Right now I’m waiting to get final polished artwork for some bits of the game and don’t want to post the game in its current state. Hopefully I’ll get my hands on those assets soon and post a working copy of the game here.

Overall it was a fun semester project and I wouldn’t mind working on another game in the future. I’ve downloaded the XNA since then to play with development on the XBOX 360, but I’ll save my comments on that for a future post.

Once again, the latest installment of the Persona series does anything but disappoint. I’ve already run over the point that Persona 3 completely changed the way the series functioned; It allowed you to control your character’s entire life for one full year. This mechanic, along with several others, are carried over into Persona 4. That being said, I’ll start with what is similar between the two games.

First, both games drop you off into unfamiliar surroundings and give you a year to play through the game and interact with the world in the main character’s shoes. The Social Links return on steroids. Not only do you receive a bonus when fusing new Personas, but those in your party gain abilities as their Social Links raise to higher levels. Allies can perform follow-up attacks, help knocked down players, and even withstand attacks that would have otherwise incapacitated them. Persona 4 beefs up the characteristics system by expanding the areas of focus. Expression and Understanding are added in Persona 4 and become important parts of the game. Previously you would mostly be restricted on actions due to a lack of courage, but in Persona 4 people within the world won’t talk to you unless certain characteristics are high enough level. Joining clubs, hanging out with friends from school, and dating return intact. Aside from those mechanics and the obvious facts that the games look identical graphically and that you are fighting shadows, the rest of the game is refreshing and different. Let’s get into the new mechanics after the video break.

Let’s play nice and not shoot ourselves in the head! Welcome to Inaba. You’re here staying with your uncle and cousin for a year while your parents tend to business. Shortly after your arrival an international celebrity shows up dead hanging upside down after an intense fog coats the town. Not only does this woman show up dead, but rumors surface alongside which say that if you stare into your TV when it is turned off on a rainy night that you will see the person you are supposed to marry. The second victim, a girl from your high school, sparks a personal tie to the murders through your association with fellow classmate Yosuke.

Before you know it you’re reaching into televisions and no one believes you; that is until they see it for themselves and you’re knocked into a department store TV along with Yosuke and Chie, the girl you sit next to in class. Inside the TV you meet a bear who has no explanation for the world inside the TV or his own existence. The bear does however offer to aid you in return for your help. From this point the story takes off and you slowly accumulate a band of friends that becomes a murder mystery solving and victim rescue team. Its up to you and your friends to put an end to the murder attempts and bring peace back to the small town of Inaba.

To avoid spoiling the entire story, which I’m dying right now to do, I’ll get into the game’s mechanics. In contrast to Persona 3′s “Dark Hour”, in Persona 4 you can only explore the TV when the department store Junes is open during the day. Not only does exploration take place during the day now, but if you explore the TV during the day you will be too tired to focus on studying or any other activities that open up to you at night except from Social Link activities within the house. This breaks down that during the day you can shop, explore the TV, go to club meetings, go out to eat, and so on. Night is reserved for more character development than anything else. Your character is allowed to accept jobs from the billboard in town and you can work at night. Not only does work raise certain characteristics, but most jobs also pay you for your services. Any extra money is good money, and in the early stages of Persona 4 money is tight.

The most notable gameplay mechanic that has changed is the replacement of the moon cycle system. Instead of watching moon activity you are now focused on weather activity. You’re given until the fog sets in to save the current victim, but you’re never told exactly what day the fog will set in. You’re only clue as to when this will happen is the weather pattern. The fog usually sets in after a few days of consecutively heavy rain, but at times the fog it is harder to predict. All in all the potential onset of fog keeps you on your toes unlike in Persona 3, where you knew the exact date of a boss encounter and could fully prepare. Another new mechanic is the “detective” system. After the first few rescue missions the group is sent around town to search for clues about the current victim so that they can be pinpointed with the world inside the TV.

The tower crawling system was, in my opinion, the biggest problem with Persona 3. Even then, it wasn’t much of a problem. I just found myself tiring of the surroundings after a few hours of play and would need to either return to the city for a few days or step away from the game for a while. Persona 4′s world follows the same stair-crawling scheme, but each section of the game has its own theme which succeeds in keeping your surroundings fresh and interesting. On the topic of dungeon wandering, your team now always sticks together. I didn’t find myself telling my party to split up often in Persona 3 anyway so this is a feature that doesn’t bother me personally. I’ve yet to hear anyone complain about the lack of the party split command.

The battle system has been altered and only for the better in Persona 4. Tactics seemed to be an issue in Persona 3 and your teammates wouldn’t continue assaults on multiple enemies if they had an ability that foes were weak against. Now your allies are smarter and will systematically knock each enemy down instead of targeting one enemy twice in a row, good move! But wait, there’s more! Are you a control freak and want to tell everyone exactly what to do? Now you can! You can set your party tactics to direct commands and issue commands directly to each person in your party. I found that this has made boss encounters less stressful, but it seems that boss encounters have been beefed up to account for human control of all the players on the battlefield. Not only do boss encounters seem more intense, but there are optional bosses which will move into areas that you’ve already cleared. Make your way back through areas you’ve already been to and get rewarded with a boost in both experience and courage.

On several game review sites I cross-posted my Persona 3 review and gave it a 4.5 out of 5, or a 9 out of 10. The lack of a 5 out of 5 rating was due to the sometimes monotonous crawling of Tartarus and the fact that your own teammates would make decisions that turned the tide of a battle to the worst. The latest installment has a fresh story line, great new gameplay mechanics, and even slips in some great tie-ins that will excite Persona 3 players. With all that being said, Persona 4 does not hold itself back from a rating of 5 out of 5.

This article is a repost from my old blog. Since it was one of the most active posts from the old website I decided to repost here. This is also a good lead-in for an entry I am posting soon.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 showed me that the RPG world can still be rocked by the smaller companies and original franchises to compete with larger franchises such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. While I consider the Final Fantasy games to be very solid in story, gameplay, and interest, they don’t give me the impression of style. I am a big Final Fantasy fan, but with the mainstream games, Square Enix sticks with their system of doing things and that both works well for them and is familiar to the Final Fantasy veteran. In steps Persona 3. From the second you load the DVD into your Playstation 2 until the second you decide to quit playing for the night, Persona 3 bleeds its originality and style. Even the first menu screen you see as well as all of those within the game are carefully crafted to reflect the feel of the game.

So I am ranting on about the style of the game, and if you haven’t payed Persona 3 you probably won’t understand it until you actually witness or play the game in person. The art team spent a lot of time on developing the world and characters in Persona 3 and one of the lead artists actually commented on how they first created the main character of the game and built the entire rest of the game’s art and characters in order to compliment the main character. You play yourself (well the main character has no default name, so you’re expected to use your name), a high school student who just transferred to a new school at the beginning of your Junior year. I don’t want to spoil too much of the plot, but one thing leads to another within the first few days of your arrival and you end up on the roof watching one of your dorm mates attempt to shoot herself in the head while a giant shadow monster is approaching you. She is reluctant to pull the trigger and the shadow monster knocks the gun out of her hands, so what do you do? You pick up the gun and shoot yourself in the head of course!

That’s right! Did I fail to mention that the characters strengths rely on inner dwelling powers known as “Persona”, which can only be released when the user shoots them self in the head with a special pistol called an Evoker. Well thats just fantastic. Shadow monsters roaming around during some time called the “Dark Hour”, mysterious things happening within the community and your school, and to top it off high school kids shooting themselves in the head in order to defeat the monsters.

All of this is tied together into a game with original art, story, and gameplay. The gameplay works in a similar fashion to Harvest Moon. If you are familiar with the Harvest Moon franchise then you know that your goal is to bring a farm back to life, usually within one year, but you can also venture into town to pick up goods, learn about the residents, create social ties, and develop relationships. In Persona 3 the main character attends school on a daily basis, except for Sundays, and while in school is able to make friends, increase his knowledge, raise his social status, join one of several clubs, hit on girls, or make after school plans with classmates. These bonds you create with other students help strengthen your own inner power and persona abilities. You are given one year (April 2009 – April 2010) to play the game. You get to go through every day, spending as you so choose, making all of the decisions on your own and not stuck to a static line of events. Taking a couple days off from fighting is encouraged when your friends become sick or tired from battle and need time to recuperate. When you’re done with the daily school and club activities and any other errands or things your have planned then you can get down to the fighting RPG side of things and explore the strange tower which only appears during the “Dark Hour” every night. This fighting portion of the game is in essence the game’s main purpose and objective, but with all of the other game elements mixed in you have a constant variety in what you can do.

If you’re interested in an RPG / life sim hybrid that allows you to control what, when, and how you act throughout the game then give Persona 3 a try. As an added bonus, every copy comes with an art book and a copy of the soundtrack. Remember all of the style I was talking about earlier? The soundtrack is amazing in itself, really sealing the deal on the entire game with fresh music that is rarely seen in RPGs, let alone any games.