♫ New Mario, New Music, New Player!

This past week of posting has reminded me of a couple things. 1) I love writing about games. 2) My wrists don’t. The last several days of rampant posting has left my wrists and fingers as achy and numb as they were, well, last time I was posting this much. So I’ve decided to cut down on the number of posts and refocus on the sensory stuff; the music and visuals, the stuff that only we’re offering as opposed to the news that 12 other sites also posted today.

That little dewplayer we were using before was nice and tiny but it always bugged me not having a volume control. So I went out this morning and found a new flash player, the results of which you probably already saw as this post loaded. It’s as full featured as a plugin can be with playlists and the ability to manage multiple streams of audio (I’m going to try my own commentary track at some point) as well as load up images, videos, and sound all in the same little window. I’ve already got some ideas but since I spent the majority of the day getting it set up, you get a straight up audio post for its debut. Enjoy and please let me know how it works for you, what you think, and any multimedia posts you’d care to see!

New Super Mario Bros. Super Sampler

One of the things that kept me playing this game was the music. It’s a fusion of the famous themes with new beats and arrangements as well as several surprising new tracks. Fun at the Beach, for example, feels just like Super Mario Sunshine with that steel drum sound but adds in its own wonderful little 8-bit melody. The Mushroom Waltz also churns up those fond memories of Super Mario World’s credit sequence but it’s original, catchy and toe-tappingly unique at the same time. Too bad it’s taken this long for someone to record it all!