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Only months ago, I never knew that the In the Groove series of panel dance games could be so much fun - more so than the DDR line, for that matter. I don’t know for sure if it’s due to the more diverse step patterns, the great music selection, or just because it’s not a Konami game (or, at least wasn’t); hey, it’s more than just a Dance Dance Revolution clone.

And so, I finally passed an Expert song several days ago on the HUB-Robeson student center’s ITG2 machine. “This is Rock and Roll,” 9-foot. On a side note, if a C+ were my grade for the most recent CSE 297A exam, I would’ve been extremely pleased; too bad ITG2 and computer science can’t trade places. :/

Hard to believe that only a year ago, I wouldn’t even touch an arcade dance machine, nevermind a soft pad. Next goals: get better than a C+ for this song, and pass “D-Code” on Expert (because it sounds great and has equally-good steps). The following screenshot isn’t worth posting on GrooveStats.com, anyway.

Today’s episode of “Another Halo Comic Strip,” hosted on Halo.Bungie.org, made me laugh a little more on the inside than usual. Not that AHCS is humorless or anything (ZZoMBiE13 has made some amazing and hilarious works since he joined HBO in 2003), but this one brings back memories of former enemies from the original Halo: Combat Evolved. I find it rather interesting that only two days from now will be the 1-month anniversary of Halo 3’s release.

“Another Halo Comic Strip #6 - Nostalgia: Evolved“

Similar to a post in RELAy several months back, I’ve continued to make more simfiles and YouTube autoplay videos for StepMania 3.9. This time around, I have a non-lagging version of Animusic’s “Stick Figures” and a brand-new stepfile built around Animusic’s “Drum Machine.” The latter was a lot of fun to make, but I’d say it’s very difficult even for experienced keyboard players; actually dancing to it on a pad would impress me immensely because of the number of 3/4-panel hands involved. Finally, there’s a tricky negative BPM/mine-laced singles file created around Jimmy Luxury’s thumping “Cha Cha Cha” track.

All of these simfiles are Challenge difficulty, with “Stick Figures” clocking in at 12-foot difficulty rating (for a dance pad), “Drum Machine” at 13 (keyboard), and “Cha Cha Cha” at a whopping 20 (dance pad). Each video has a second version where I turn on the assist tick so that viewers can understand the rhythm better; for couple-type tracks such as “Stick Figures,” the tick is enabled for just the left side instead.

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