A few weeks ago, USA Today did an article related to the not-so-age-old discussion: Are Video Games Art?. While it was less an address of the debate and more of a presentation of those things that were arguably considered to be such, I found it rather disappointing that a show mentioned in the article, entitled Into The Pixel contained no…well, pixels.

While I am a huge fan of all Video Game inspired art, music, writing, etc, I have to say that it would be nice to see a widely recognized gallery, show, and artist which actually features pixel-based paintings or other works of art containing pixels, squares, what-have-you. It honestly baffles me how at this point in time, with the influence of early Video Games on culture, and furthermore on the current generation of up-and-coming young-to-mid adults, that pixel based art is not a widely accepted or practiced form of abstract/conceptual art…why not? I do realize that pixel-art is most definitely a form to many, however, this acceptence generally happens only when it is created, shared, and viewed soley on a computer, generally over the internet.

Going back to my reaction to the Into The Pixel show; this was the same reaction I had to the series of I Am 8-Bit shows in Los Angelos, CA these past couple of years. I was thrilled to know, however, that a few pieces of pixelated goodness were accepted into last summer’s show, by none other than my talented bro, Jude Buffum. Additionally, the pieces displayed were a set of four from his Happy Endings series.

I personally love the pixel as a medium - simple yet pronounced, sharp but elegant - which is part of the reason I depict naked women, bowls of fruit and other images that once begged for curves and many shades of color to be considered art. I’ve honestly had people tell me that they would f*ck the girl in a painting of mine. And yet, I’ve had others be offended that I would depict naked women, even in such low resolution - my dad among them, nonetheless - though there are no more than 4 or 5 pixels worth of nipple in any of the paintings. That, and I haven’t yet shown any nether region, but I think I just might…

My point is that who’s really to say what is and isn’t art. It doesn’t matter, art is what it is to whom it is. However, one thing that art most certainly is, is a representation, in one way, shape, or form, of the culture and generation which creates it and embraces it. I create pixel art, and I embrace it.

For those that still think pixel art isn’t valid art, I leave you with this image:

Pixel-Love!

Against all the advice of my brother, friends, and peers, I shelled out for one of those hand-press Badge-A-Minit button makers. After tax and shipping it cost me around a buck-fifty, but I figured if I could sell the buttons included in the Master Kit Plus on ETSY or at 32-Bit Genocide, it would be worth it.

So, I figured that all occurances that my fellow button-making enthusiests experienced could be chalked up to dumb luck, mis-use, or just a faulty model. Well, it turns out they were right, because after just a dozen buttons, here’s what happened:

For the time being, it is useless. Hopefully, I will be able to take advantage of the company’s 100% Satisfaction Guarantee - I need to make a few buttons for Otakon and use the rest up by 32-Bit Genocide.

I just added an Articles & Interviews section to my side bar here on the blog. Some of you may be more interested than others to check out other official sources who thought my work was noteworthy - I think it’s neat, especially since I find most of the articles while doing a search for my name or something related to what I do, without prior knowledge of the article being written. It’s nice to randomly find sites like Joystiq, Destructoid, Geek Crafts and GamerTell writing articles about my Bead Sprites!

Okay, I literally just found this.

I did a Google Image Search for “Doctor Octoroc” (I know, how conceited of me?), and this picture came up:

And here is where I found the image: http://felicacy.blogspot.com/2008/04/ipod-nano-loves-3.html.
Feel free to check it out yourself, but I’ll describe it to you.

This is a blogspot.com page which, according to the blogger, is home of the “mother of all bead craft”. There are several blog posts containing images of various Bead Sprites, and within each post is a price…one would assume the blog is for the purpose of selling these crafts.

The particular post containing this image was posted on April 12, 2008…

If you haven’t figured it out yet, that picture of the beaded iPod Nanos was taken by me, made by me, and submitted to DeviantART on February 29, 2008. Also, if you roll over the download link to the left, guess what the name of the image file is? That’s right, “iPods_by_DrOctoroc.jpg”.

Now, what’s the scam, that this blogger took my image from DeviantART (which is under
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License, I might add)? No, I couldn’t care less about the image. It’s actually flattering to me that someone saw my work and thought that it was good enough to use for a scam. Look at the right side panel of the blog. There is no official or protected payment method, just I Banking and POSB Bank Transfer. What the hell are those? It sounds worse than an Escrow Service to me.

This may not be convincing enough, so I attempted to find some more information on this blogger. There were no outgoing links to other profiles or blogs, but I did find one inlink (for those of you that don’t know, you can find websites that link to a URL by typing “link:www.URL-goes-here.com” into a Yahoo search. So, I did this, and found only one site - another blog with the same setup, format and grammatical errors as the one containing my iPod Nanos: http://theice-creamshop.blogspot.com/.

I honestly can’t know for sure what these pages are all about, but it definitely looks shady. There seem to be random comments missing. Also, the fact that there are no inbound or outbound links from the blog, this screams shady. However, I did another inlink search on Yahoo for http://theice-creamshop.blogspot.com/, which returned other blogs such as http://thelittleland.blogspot.com/. This blog links to a ton of other blogs like these, including http://the-fakeshop.blogspot.com/, http://prettyconcept.blogspot.com/, http://the8088shop.blogspot.com/, and many more.

In other words, this may be a huge network of scamming blogs…

I may be a Nintendo Fan Boy, but I can appreciate oldschool gaming for every platform. While Genesis may be the only system I’ve ever owned for just a week, it did have some memorable music, and you know what that means - it’s time for another compilation album, a Genesis one, from Game Music 4 All!

I just got the skinny from Anthony about the compilation, who insisted that there be a Doctor on the album. I told him Doc Popular was available, but he didn’t fall for that one, so needless to say, I will be contributing one of my own tracks, however, I’m not sure which one yet. Plus, I’d like to keep Anthony on his toes as to whether I’ll finish the track at all - and this wouldn’t be the first time…

You may have heard the Here Comes a New Challenger compilation. If your memory is a bit hazy, maybe the cover art will help jog it!

Who are all those attractive people on the cover? Why, those are all the artists that contributed to the album, of course. I’m in there somewhere…black hat, brown shirt, jeans, grey shoes and black wrist bands - do you see me? No? That’s right, you’re too busy staring at the girls from Zombies! Organize!!

By the way, you can still download all of the tracks from the HCNC compilation for free, right here, on the Media page. Also, if you want a higher resolution image of the amazing artwork for your desktop, or the individual sprites of all the characters, you can find them on the About page…or somewhere around the site.

Anyhoo, this next comp is sure to please. I may not have gotten to do my Chemical Zone track from “Sonic the Hedgehog 2″, but someone will, that’s for sure. Now that I think about it, Genesis games did have some pretty bad-ass tracks to them. Maybe I’ll do a track from “The Great Waldo Search”.

Be sure to follow the Game Music 4 All Blog to stay up to date with the VGM community, and look for the Sega Genesis Tribute Compilation sometime around this October - hey, my birthday is in October!

I have the uncanny ability to build up any situation to be so much more exciting than reality will allow for. I believe it’s my imagination hard at work, but I could be wrong. Having said that, and knowing I have this gift for self-disappointment, I have also learned to seperate upcoming events into two categories:

1. Great potential to disappoint
2. Will not disappoint.

This is very valuable, although I still build up those items that fall under category #1, those that fall into #2 are sure fire. 32-Bit Genocide is sure fire.

I first attended 16-Bit Genocide on August 16, 2007. Having missed the previous 8-Bit Genocide, I was unsure of what to expect, but I went with my brother, who was part of the Art portion of this Video Game Music and Art Fest. He suggested that I set up a table next to him and sell some Bead Sprites I had made.

Unexpected, and much to my satisfaction, I sold a lot. Additionally, of what wasn’t sold to attendees (around half of the merchandise), all but a few pieces were consigned by the show’s sponsor, East Coast Earthquake. I was overwhelmed and saw a vision:

I was at 32-Bit Genocide, and I was sitting in a chair. In front of me was a table and on that table were many pieces of art - not fine art, but kid’s art…crafts! there were those little ironing beads that fuse together, and they were all depicting my favorite video game characters. There were Pokemon, items from A Link To The Past and Super Mario World, a bunch of other characters on printed backgrounds and then…then I saw the gigantic bead sprites. They were beautiful - Gutsdozer, Ninja Gaiden, Skull Castle, Mega Man X…and people bought them all!

Needless to say, this year is going to be very exciting for me…and possibly very exciting for every one else there - after all, I’m not the only person that is going to be there.

Anyone who appreciates this entry title is probably a good friend of mine.

Of course, this post has nothing to do with Vietnam…well, not in the literal sense. No, I am refering to the masses of electronics I’ve lost in my life time, the most recent being my poor, departed, lap top computer.

The worst part about losing a computer to an unfortunate iced tea accident isn’t the money it costs to replace it, or even the time it takes to get the new system, set it up, and explain to everyone how you spilled iced tea all over it in the first place - no, the worst part is all the work I’ve done over the past year. I have yet to determine if I can salvage the hard drive, but rather then give my hopes up, I’m making the assumption that I cannot, and should it happen that I can, it will be a happy, happy day.

I have a lot of hobbies, many know this about me, and a lot of hobbies means a lot of projects - many in the works, many completed and many no more than a simple text document on my desktop reiterating my ideas to my future self. These are the things that 3 oz. of Arizona can take from you in a heart beat if you’re not careful…which I most certainly was not.

Now, to my real point. We live in a time when electronics, advancement and technology are a large part of most people’s lives. Think about how seriously f*cked you would be if your power went out for a week. Just for shits and giggles, I’m making a list of all the things I wouldn’t be able to do in such a situation.

• No Internet
• No Computer
• No Video Games
• No Movies or Television
• No Air Conditioning or Heat
• No Music
• No Light
• No Cold Food
• No Cell Phone
• No Shaving

I could probably go on with more trivial matters, however, this should suffice to say that our society puts way too much stock in electronics. I know this sounds ironic coming from someone who makes his living on the Internet and spends close to 12 hours a day utilizing the aformentioned, but still, I have a point - admit it!

Now, time for another list: Items I’ve lost to the electronic grave, and how I lost them (in reverse chronilogical order).

• Dell Laptop Computer (2008) - iced tea
• Kensington Optical Cordless Mouse (2008) - too many clicks?
• Motorola Cell Phone (2007) - washing machine
• MuVo MP3 Player (2007) - gravity
• Dell Laptop Computer (2007) - old age
• Sony Portable CD Player (2006) - battery leak
• Sony Portable Mini-Disc Player (2006) - gravity
• Kyocera Cell Phone (2004) - it was a piece of shit
• Dell Laptop Computer (2002) - Pepsi
• Gateway Desktop Computer (2000) - rain
• Sharp Portable Mini-Disc Player (1999) - it was also a piece of shit

Once again, the list goes on, and as curious as I am, I don’t even want to add up the cash value of these things, beause it would probably be enough to pay off my student loans.

I recently got a new computer, and therefore was forced once again to populate my iTunes with my music. I started by transfering all of my CD’s, then encountered a common problem when I wanted to put music on my iPod back onto my new computer. Unfortunately, the path from iTunes to the iPod is a one-way street. However, after downloading several different programs which all failed to complete this task, I discovered a method that worked. If you have this problems and you are running Windows, and your iPod is Windows formatted, you can follow these simple steps to re-attain your music:

1. Connect your iPod, open the device drive in My Computer and access the Tools>Folder menu. Under the View tab, you will find an option to show hidden files, which by default, does not. Change this.
2. Under one of the newly visible folders, entitled iPod_Control, will be a series of folders, all named randomly. These are your tracks. The meta-data is still intact, so don’t worry. Just create a folder on your desktop to store them all and drag them all out from the iPod to that folder.
3. In iTunes, under the Edit>Preferences menu, you will find General Advanced Options, and there will be two options to check here. The first is  Keep iTunes Music folder organized and the second is Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library. Check these, then confirm the changes to exit the Preferences window.
4. Now it’s time to add the files from that folder on the desktop you created. In iTunes, go to File>Add Folder to Library… and select that folder. Depending on how the music was organized in iTunes when you first put them onto your iPod, they should organize themselves in the same manner.

That’s it, really. Once you add the songs, double check your iTunes Music folder to make sure new folders were created for any of the music you just added, then feel free to delete the folder to clean up when you’re done. Just be sure to wait until all of these steps are done before you go adding artwork or re-organizing the id tags, that way you’ll save yourself work later if you have to add files again.

My girlfriend recently bought me a Nintendo DS for no real reason. I’m not one to complain.

Until a few days ago I played nothing but Phoenix Wright games on the innovative hand-held but I decided to try my hand at a different genre. So, I grabbed a pair of screen protectors for the fury to come and purchased:

Introduction to the Game -- The first thing you will notice about the game is that it is sideways — that is to say, you need to rotate the DS itself 90 degrees counter-clockwise. The in-game screen is the touch screen now on the right and the map appears on the left. During cinematics, both screens are utilized for more dynamic, fast paced story telling (although you are still required to touch in order to advance the frames). I learned to love this feature but it took me awhile to realize why they would program the game in such a way to require you to hold the system sideways, as I’d never seen this before.

Configuration — All movement, fighting, navigation and interaction is controlled with the stylus except for two actions. For accessing the inventory menu, press the start button. To leave the menu you can touch out in the bottom right corner or use start but it is simpler to just touch out. Any other button blocks. This, I believe, is the main reason why the game is sideways on the screens. This enables you to hold the DS in your left palm and use your thumb on the R button to block.

Control — The stylus control takes some getting used to so anyone who has played the XBox or XBox360 versions of this style of Gaiden will likely become frustrated. The most difficult concept to grasp right away is the location of the stylus strokes and movements used to control Ryu. Simply, various directional strokes will cause Ryu to slash with his sword, tap will use projectiles, upward strokes will make him jump and combinations of all these preform special moves like the “Flying Swallow” from the other titles. After the first level I got used to the controls and had no problem controlling Ryu but it is easy enough to compensate the player for the initial unfamiliarity. One neat feature is when Ryu performs Ninpo you use the stylus to trace the form of the character associated with that magic. Each of the seven Ninpo techniques have a different characters but there’s no need to memorize them as you are given plenty of time to trace it.

Graphics and Sound — Few DS games have yet to impress, but this would be ignoring the fact that it is a hand-held system. The graphics for most DS games seem to compete with N64 graphics, to the degree that PSP graphics are similar to Playstation quality. However, this game seemed to reach near Gamecube definition, in a less literal sense. Simply, the size of the screen, the number of available colors and the seamless combination of full 3d environments and pre-rendered backgrounds — these things are utilized very well for an optimal display and performance. Nintendo has always been famous for generally freeze-free and skip-free games, mainly due to their cartridge based systems. Being yet another cartridge based hand-held system, the DS experiences very little loading time and next to no frame skips. Occasionally, there will be a camera angle showing the polygonal inside of an enemy, but this only happens in narrow hallways.

I was not blown away by the music in the game and the sounds often became annoying. The most prominent of these is the sound made when Ryu blocks. I suppose it was meant to sound like a movement of the sword but it ended up sounding more like a pot or pan being smacked with a wooden spoon. Ryu’s grunts also got on my nerves a little, but the character dialogue includes a few less irritating sounds made by the characters to go along with each line of text. Some of them are just plain comical. Although the music wasn’t as memorable as the original 8-Bit Trilogy, it definitely did set the mood for the levels and was well orchestrated. I was pleased, however, to hear the Act Intro music from the originals done with strings.

Game and Storyline — There’s not too much to reveal when it comes to a Ninja Gaiden storyline. Evil demons, Dragon Sword, Ryu Hyabusa, high difficulty level. This particular game, however, may be the one exception to the difficulty level.

Most of the challenge is placed into the control, as the player is often required to fight with a level of precision that is difficult to master with the stylus controls. Still, I found the boss battles to be relatively easy and the level-wide fighting to be more frustrating at points. There are also scrolls to be collected throughout which requires the player to either tap on or shout into the microphone to get them to appear.

Conclusion
Overall, I was very pleased with my purchase of this game. I rarely buy games new if I can find them used but this was more than worth the $39.99 I paid for it. Furthermore, with the option to play through on hard mode after the player beats the game, it has a decent replay value.

I give “Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword” — 8.5/10

Hello, I’m Doctor Octoroc.

This is neither my birth name nor my profession, but rather an alias I chose a number of years ago to sum up all my public interests in a title. For more information on this matter, feel free to read the Disclaimer.

Professionally, I am a Search Engine Optimization Analyst for an Internet Marketing Firm by the name of Reciprocal Consulting. I write, submit, link, document, analyze and do website edits for clients. I love my job for many reasons, but mainly because I work from home, make my own hours, make good money and have plenty of free time for my hobbies.

First and foremost, I appreciate Art in all forms. Literature, Visual, Traditional, Crafts, Music, Vocalism, and so on. I love Art and more so I love to create it when I can. Generally, I will exercise the result of my fortunate gene pool (thank you mom) in either the Music or Traditional sense, although I have been known to write a random novel or two.

As far as Music goes, I used to play piano. I still do, but I used to, too. I generally will play in the rock style, as made popular by artists such as Elton John, Ben Folds and Keith Green. I have played with a number of bands in the past, but my finest experience in the live music scene was playing Philly and Baltimore with Patrick Blake in Soul Shack Republic.
I also compose tracks strictly using my computer, combining FL Studio with AcidPRO. Anyone who is curious is free to listen to the tracks I have uploaded to my Myspace page. Many of my tracks are based on or heavy influenced by retro video games, such as those for early Nintendo systems.

As for the Traditional Art, I work a lot with Perler and Hama beads, arranging the soft plastic beads on a gridded pegboard and heat-fusing them together with a clothes iron. These pieces are most heavily based on or influenced by 8 and 16-bit video games, such as Nintendo, Genesis and Super Nintendo. Curious readers may follow the link to my DeviantART account gallery.
I also paint with acrylic on canvas. I have a few dozen paintings all done in half-inch pixels, depicting nudes with country flag overlays.

Aside from my hobbies I enjoy the same simple pleasures that most people do. For more information about me and my many endeavors , please refer to my News section for updates.