You can learn more about the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act here and here. There is also an available list of companies and websites that have shown support against PIPA and SOPA. To keep informed, you can watch a live video stream of the House hearing where multiple people from the community will be testifying SOPA/PIPA on January 18th. Please help us raise awareness against this despicable attempt of Internet censorship and take action.
Do you remember your childhood? Viciously trekking across a kingdom to save a princess, throwing up punches and ka-pows to beat fierce thugs into submission, swimming across the open sea to avoid squids while desperately tapping A because you’d plunge to the bottom and magically die (multiple debates have sprung up at ThaSauce headquarters — is the loss of one life really that necessary?) Imagine these burdening, yet somewhat nostalgic dilemmas of your tiny eight year old self. Kind of awesome, right?
For those of you yearning for the fond memories of sitting in front of your NES for hours on end, look no further. Abobo’s Big Adventure is the perfect Nintendo Entertainment System parody game that pays tribute to the games you have come to know and love. Adapting to a variety of NES gameplay styles, the protagonist Abobo beats his way through a multitude of familiar characters and territories in search of his son Aboboy.
Just released, Abobo’s Big Adventure had been in development for over six years as labor of love as head developer Roger Barr explains, “A lot of love went into Abobo’s Big Adventure. We had no bosses to report to, no budgets to meet, no rules about what we couldn’t do… we simply took the time to make the kind of game that we had dreamed about when we were kids.” With the superior quality of Abobo’s Big Adventure, we firmly believe that Team Bobo’s commitment to this wonderful tribute may easily set the bar for prospective and future Flash games. If this hasn’t piqued your interest, you’d be delighted to know that ABA is free on the web and ready to play. So what are you waiting for? Get to it!
Image credited to BonusJosh
OverClocked ReMix overlord djpretzel has recently released a new policy to announce the source material and directors of private album projects in order to tackle problems with other potential projects of the same game:
We’ve recently decided (duh) that it’s not fair to the community to have these private projects be COMPLETELY private – at the very least, we’re going to announce the names of games being worked on, so would-be directors can decide for themselves whether to start their own projects from the same games. Again, to be clear, these are private albums being run by directors who prefer to do things that way, which IS an option that we respect & allow, so we’re not going to release any additional information about these projects OTHER than the game name, and we ask that everyone respect the wishes of the director(s) who choose to run their projects this way. By the same token, though, we decided that keeping the actual names of the games private was problematic & not transparent.
Currently, the two private projects  that have been approved by OverClocked ReMix are Final Fantasy VI and Banjo Kazooie. To keep up-to-date on the list of current OCR projects that will be released , you can view the thread here. If you happen to be interested in the starting an official project for OCR and/or project approval,  guidelines are also available here.
For those who didn’t attend MAGFest X, otherwise known as one of the largest video game music festivals in the country, we will be posting a few exclusive videos over the next few days to recap one of the best VGM events of the year. Among our favorite moments this year is a short clip of Ellen McLain’s wonderful singalong of her smash hit, “Want You Gone” with her husband John Patrick Lowrie, a fellow voice actor and overall awesome dude who happens to play a banjo. Nevermind the fact that Mrs. McLain has won numerous awards for her performances as GLaDOS from the highly favored Portal series. Although most of us are familiar with her wonderful voice performances in acclaimed Valve games such as Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress, Ellen McLain is also an established opera singer.
As we say our sayonaras to 2011 and wake up groggily from massive hangovers to greet the new year in turn, one of the biggest VGM festivals of the year has arrived to hit Maryland in full force! The 10th Annual Music and Gaming Festival, also known as MAGFest X, has commenced today at Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center with panels and Q&As from big-wigs such as OverClocked ReMix, Happy Video Game Nerd, Robert V. Aldrich, Ellen McLain (GLaDOS!), Blue Core Studios, and more! Music performances are also top-notch this year, with special appearances from Metroid Metal, The OneUps, Random Encounter, and ultimate Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu with his new band EARTHBOUND PAPAS.
ThaSauce Meet Up
FRIDAY, 1/6, 10AM-12PM – Panels 3
ThaSauce is a news portal for the video game remix community. Additionally ThaSauce features a “compo” system to encourage users to hone their composition skills in a friendly competitive environment as well as hundreds of video game arrangements not available anywhere else. This year they will be talking about some exciting new features that will hopefully change the way you experience the video game remix scene.
As if shameless self-promotion isn’t enough, all of us at ThaSauce will be making an appearance at our own exclusive panel at MAGFest  X on Friday, January 6th! The panel will showcase some of the finer aspects of ThaSauce, ReMix:ThaSauce, and Compo:ThaSauce, as well as what we have in store for the future of ThaSauce! WE CAN BARELY CONTAIN OURSELVES. Have some questions, concerns, or suggestions for us? Come say hello to some of the best, budding composers of the VGM community and to the ThaSauce staff at the panel. We promise we don’t bite.
If you haven’t had a chance to experience the awesomeness of MAGFest and/or keep putting off this opportunity for VGM overload, tickets at available at the door as single-day passes for $40 or full four-day passes for $55. While MAGFest X will conclude on Sunday, January 8th, a full schedule is up and available for your viewing pleasure.  Did we mention that there’s a giant arcade? If you absolutely can’t make it to what may be one of the best events of the year, we will be posting updates on our Tumblr for all your MAGFest needs.
Dj Mokram, in association with Nitro Game Injection (http://kngi.org), is proud to announce the release of Dynamite Headdy: Secret Bonus Point.
Secret Bonus Point is a tribute album to Dynamite Headdy, a sidescroller-platforming/shooting game developed by Treasure Co. Ltd. and published by SEGA for the Genesis/Mega Drive in 1994. Featuring 26 arrangements in a variety of styles by 14 artists, SBP pays homage to the soundtrack composed by Nazo² Unit (Katsuhiko Suzuki, Norio Hanzawa, Aki Hata, Koji Yamada and Yasuko). The album is divided into 4 chapters, reenacting the story of Headdy and his friends, fighting for their beliefs against the evil Dark Demon King, in order to save the Puppet Kingdom from its oppressive ruler.
Secret Bonus Point was born as a response to this remix request. You can learn more about it and download the album for free at: http://dhsbp.kngi.org.
With a quick listen and garnered feedback, we have a sneaking suspicion that Secret Bonus Point is pretty epic. Peep the trailer above or head over here for more information on Dj Mokram’s fantastic project. Give it a try if you daaaaare.
Any Final Fantasy fanboys in the house? If so, you’re in for a treat. Featuring arrangements from talents such as DJ OMKT & MJ, Hige Driver, Hidekazu Tanaka, Sexy-Synthesizer, Shisotex, (S_S), 203soundworks, Yoshino Yoshikawa, muZik, the3rdmimi, Mitsuto Suzuki, Another Infinity, and Q/11A E0, Square Enix’s highly anticipated album borrows original masterpieces from the likes of Uematsu and Kikuta and masterfully takes each song to a different level. In other words, you are most likely to experience heightened states of euphoria while listening to this stunning record.
But wait, there’s more! Ustream will be hosting a live, worldwide streaming event of Square Enix’s “SQUARE ENIX Presents SQ Party LEVEL1″, to be held at 2.5D in Tokyo, featuring music from SQ Chips this Thursday, September 29th from 8:00 – 11:00 PM JST (That’s Japan Standard Time, folks, so make sure you set your alarms accordingly!).
And remember, SQ Chips features a wonderful list of tracks, including some surprises from Nanashi no Game, Einhander, Final Fantasy XIII, among many others. Here’s your chance to preview one of the most anticipated albums of the year — get to it!
The ‘Quick Look’ series is your biweekly source for videos of emerging artists, rad performances, or just about anything awesome that we can get away with posting that involves the VGM community. Have any cool videos to link us with? Shoot me an e-mail at [email protected]. Be sure to click on the ‘Quick Look’ category below to satiate your visual appetite here at ThaSauce.