Did anyone else think the new live action Cowboy Bebop series was better than most people gave it credit for?

I love the anime but I didn't want a recreation of the same thing in live action. I wanted an original take on the same material and that's exactly what I got. The style was the same, but the story and characters were different enough that I couldn't see what was coming while still being close enough to the original that they're instantly recognizable. I think that's exactly what you want in a remake or reimagining. If you want something exactly like the original, why not just watch the original?

Above all else, I think the casting was perfect. As soon as I heard John Cho was involved, before reading the article I immediately thought "he's gotta be Spike". And despite not being black in the anime, Mustafa Shakir still looked and sounded so much like Jet that it was uncanny. He was totally perfect in the role.

Some of the things they changed didn't work, and some of the controversy was justified. But overall I think the series got way more hate than it deserved.

I'm sure you all remember this classic.

I love to purchase physical media for things I enjoy enough to splash out on, I think of it like building up a collection of things I love most that will likely outlast streaming services and that I can actually hold in my hands and display in my room. Vinyls are my go-to, albeit the most expensive so I don’t have a large amount, it’s always fun to get out my record player now and then and listen to an entire album away from my phone or computer. I also have a small hoard of CDs and DVDs from a few years back when I wanted physical copies of my favourites, and I always try to buy physical copies of video games when available since I prefer to swap the cartridges over rather than select a download.

This is pretty much how I feel. For things I'm really fond of I like to have something physical that I can display on my shelf.

I used to be really against all-digital media because I was worried about the digital storefronts delisting things and removing your ability to re-download things you've bought. But so far that has only happened a few times I'm aware of in the last decade. Usually, even if something is no longer available for purchase you can still download it as long as the storefront is operational.

These days I see it as a lot more convenient to have a mostly digital library. I reached a point about six years ago where I realized I was avoiding playing certain games because I had a physical copy and didn't want to bother switching discs. That's when I started going mostly digital.

Movies are a bit different. The movies I want to buy are often easier to find a physical copy of than digital. Recently I could only find the Beverly Hillbillies movie on DVD so that's where I bought it. There's a pawn shop in the city I used to live in that I'll still drive two hours to visit because they have a massive library of old DVDs that you can't find anywhere else.

For music, I'm pretty much 100% digital. I only have a half dozen vinyls, but I never listen to them. I have the albums digitally as well and have the records framed.

physical media can be just as, if not more convenient than streaming if your physical media is high enough capacity, e.g. hard disks.

Maybe the conversation around physical media has changed, because I never would have considered digital downloads on your harddrive as a physical copy. But now that we have cloud streaming there's yet another layer separating people from ownership of their media.

I don't know if "congratulations" is the right word, but it's the sentiment I feel for you. I hope your transition is a positive experience and the people in your life on and off line are supportive. I know I am. You be you and be great at it!

If UMD's, MiniDiscs and Hi-MiniDisc's had been the same form factor and properly interoperable instead of separate formats, Sony would rule the world today I'll never understand why they split their formats like that, it was such a foolish move!

I actually wrote an essay in college for a media class about how badly Sony has mishandled their various media formats from Betamax up to Blu Ray. My conclusion was Blu Ray was destined to fail too based on precedent, but I turned out pretty wrong on that. I think it was mostly luck rather than good business sense on their part though. The PS3 probably helped, but it didn't sell like the PS2 did to push DVD adoption. The Xbox 360 not having a built in HD DVD player probably did more to help Blu Ray than anything Sony did.

I thought UMDs were a really cool format. I love the form factor. It kinda reminds me of 3.5 inch floppy discs. Although I didn't think they'd catch on for movies, I thought they were a cool idea for portable games. Way neater than flash cards.

but people underestimate how much a skilled developer can bend any engine to look and behave like they want to.

This is quite true. After making this topic I did a search for a Unity games list and found a lot that I never would have assumed were Unity. So smaller teams and less experienced developers must use a lot of the basic settings but those with more skill or resources can customized it more.

I actually have the same issues with Unreal Engine too; I can spot a UE game instantly after a few minutes of playing with it.

What I usually notice about Unreal Engine games is the animation is kinda stiff and the lighting is very harsh with a lot of bloom and shine.

Has anyone else noticed that games made with the Unity engine all have a particular look or feel to them? Not that they all look alike or play the same. A huge variety of games types and art styles have been made with Unity. I can't place exactly what it is, but there's always something peculiar about them to me. Maybe it's something about the physics or the rendering. Whatever it is, it's subtle enough that I can't figure it out definitively.

I just played Oddworld Soulstorm for the first time and it gave me the same feeling as when I played Recore and a dozen other Unity games. It's always there but I don't know what "it" is.

I can't say it's a nice sense I get from them. Even if it's made by a major developer with a big publisher, something about it just feels low budget to me. (Not that low budget inherently means the game is bad, of course.)

I was just curious if this is all in my head or if anyone else gets the same feeling.

Do you count level editors? I used to play around a lot in the original Star Craft level editor trying to make my own campaigns, and then the same in Sacrifice. I made a few multiplayer maps in FarCry Instincts on Xbox that I tried to give a story to as well. It was kinda cool working on purely environmental storytelling.

For actual standalone game development, I worked a little bit with RPG Maker, Ren'Py and GameMaker but never accomplished anything worth noting. Twine was really easy to pick up and I got the workings of a Choose Your Own Adventure story going but haven't worked on it in years.

I got furthest working on my own Javascript engine from scratch. I still never got beyond a working proof of concept, but it made for a good portfolio piece when I was looking for work.

Have you released any Doom WADs or just personal projects?

You can do this with CSS using the CSS :active psuedo-class.

Code

html {
 cursor: url(https://ani.cursors-4u.net/games/images16/gam1564.png), auto;
}

*:active {
 cursor: url(https://ani.cursors-4u.net/games/images16/gam1567.png), auto;
}

Example: https://codepen.i:ha:jsrn/pen/RwBJxjK (tested on Firefox on MacOS)

Oh daaaang. I got schooled today. That's so elegant.

I write Javascript apps for a living (Angular, so technically Typescript which is Microsoft's beefier type-strict language that transpiles into Javascript). For a web application it's great because the aim is to be dynamic and highly interactive. But for personal sites like a blog, or anything where you're serving up static content, I still prefer PHP.

I used a fair amount of Javascript in my last personal website, but as others have said I made sure there was nothing you couldn't do with it disabled.

I also built a prototype game engine and level editor in Javascript but never bothered to finish them.

You'll need a little bit of Javascript. Here's a stack overflow thread that appears to outline what you're trying to do.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17117004/how-to-change-mouse-cursor-on-mousedown-event

They're using jquery, which is a great library that makes Javascript a lot easier to use.

https://learn.jquery.com/about-jquery/how-jquery-works/

Praise You by Fatboy Slim - This is just the most incredible piece of counter culture; it was unstaged; the audience/staff had no idea they were in a music video.

I love this song but never knew the story behind the music video. That's a cool bit of history.

The Sweater Song by Weezer

I've never been a Weezer fan, but you reminded me of "Sweater" by Willow. The whole music video is projected on a screen around the singer and is really cool.

The best music video of all time would have to be virtual insanity

I still don’t know how they did this after watching this a hundred times i feel like i’m going (virtually) insane!!!! :omg:

It looks like the walls and camera are moving while anything on the floor is staying in place, or maybe a sliding surface on the floor being dragged around? The way he has to keep his feet moving to stay in one place makes me think it's one of those. Either way the walls definitely look detached from the floor.

On that note, does anyone else confuse Jamiroquai with Jordy Birch? They don't look or sound alike but their names are just similar enough that I always mix them up.

What are some of your favourite music videos?

I always think of "South Side" by Moby and Gwen Stefani. It's a great lampooning of '90s celebrity culture and vanity.

Oh, and I almost forgot "Twisted Transistor" by Korn. When I first saw it I was young and really naive, had never seen what the band members looked like and was totally clueless about rap, so I totally missed the joke and thought those were the actual band members. I can now thankfully say I know who Snoop Dogg is.

I guess the trend is I like music videos where the artists make fun of themselves

Waffles. They have a little bit of crispiness to them that I love.

Marvel or DC?