As some of you may have already seen in your own raid groups, Paladins were able to capitalize on an unintended interaction between Seal of Righteousness, Seals of Command, and the Tiny Abomination in a Jar trinket after the Cataclysm Classic pre-patch launched. This allowed Paladins to deal unfathomable amounts of damage, to the point where the number calculations would often freeze or crash the game. While this isn't the only bug that the pre-patch launched with, the Seals of Command bug was quite literally game-breaking, both in terms of causing performance issues when triggered, as well as completely trivializing content (with some Paladins even going as far as being able to solo mobs in Icecrown Citadel).With the bug already fixed by Blizzard, we wanted to break down exactly how it functioned, and what the cause of it was.
Why is the X-Men theme song so catchy? ‘It just rips,’ say X-Men ’97 composers
17.04.2024 - 17:01 / polygon.com
Taylor Stewart and Andy Grush have been scoring movies together as the Newton Brothers for 15 years. They’ve worked with contemporary greats like Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman, they composed the scores for Five Nights at Freddy’s and The Fall of the House of Usher, and they just spent who knows how long marinating in the music of X-Men: The Animated Series in order to craft the music for its sequel, X-Men ’97.
So what, in their professional opinion, makes the original, indelible X-Men: The Animated Series theme so memorable?
“The lick is just super catchy,” Grush told Polygon via video. “It repeats multiple times. Even when it modulates it’s playing the same thing — we’re moving up and then moving back down. And then I love the triplets section that it goes to. It’s brilliant. It changes everything up, feels very dramatic and dynamic, and then you get right back into [the lick]. And it just, like...” He paused, considering. “It just rips. [...] That’s the only way I can describe it. It just rips.
“Taylor and I feel really lucky to have been able to work with that material.”
That material was the work of composer Ron Wasserman, who also scored such 1990s standbys as the opening theme to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and Stewart and Grush both hold it in fan reverence. Nevertheless, the first question they had to answer was whether to simply replicate Wasserman’s driving, synth-forward theme, or to reinvent it for a new show and a new decade.
Stewart said they prepped seven or eight different takes on the Animated Series theme for review. Some were fully orchestral, some synth-heavy, “some were way more modern, a couple sad and more minimal.” From there the process was all about balance.
Nostalgia, or an update? “We wanted to keep it based in the original that we all love, because that’s what we remember as kids. That’s what we all get excited about,” Stewart said. Original analog synth machines, or modern digital ones? Grush said he relished a chance to use a plug-in version of a Yamaha DX7 in the show’s “Summers” theme, a ubiquitous instrument of ’80s pop music that he’d never been able to afford as a kid.
And how much sound was too much sound?
That question was at the heart of their most notable digression from Wasserman’s original theme song: minimizing the counterpoint in the song’s final section. You can hear it by comparing the two tracks below — the underpinning of synth strings and a final bell note is much more muted in the new theme.
Far be it for Polygon to nitpick the choices of a couple of experienced composers, but as a former mallet percussionist and player of the tubular bells, this writer had to ask.
To Stewart and Grush, the difference was in the weight and power of modern
Two Beloved Star Wars Video Game Characters May Soon Get The LEGO Treatment
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Todd Howard Explains Why Bethesda Plans to Keep Fallout Set in the U.S.
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James Gunn Won't Give a Fan-Favorite DC TV Show the X-Men '97 Treatment
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Fallout’s costume designer explains why The Ghoul looks so hot
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Manor Lords Dev Explained Why The Price Hasn't Been Revealed: 'It's a Bit Complex'
Manor Lords brings its in-depth medieval city-building to early access in just two days, so publisher Hooded Horse took the time to explain why it hasn’t announced pricing information yet.
‘It’s been really painful’: Ex-Lionhead devs explain why they’ve announced, and shelved, a new game
An independent UK developer says it’s been forced to announce and postpone its game on the same day, and lay off more than half of its staff, due to the sharp downturn in investment in the games industry.
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Dev Says Combat Will Be More Accessible, Explains Why The Game Still Uses CryEngine
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Fallout TV show production designer explains why they made a big last-minute change to the episode 1 ending, and shares shooting plans for season 2
Warning: Fallout season one spoilers ahead!
This is Why The Fallout TV Show Is Accurate And Canon To The Video Games
By now, you’ve probably heard that the Amazon Fallout show is accurate to the video games, down to the last detail. In fact, Fallout: New Vegas happened in this universe, and they’re all part of one big Fallout continuity.
Melissa Barrera and Radio Silence explain why their new meta horror movie is more Ready or Not and... The Breakfast Club than Scream
Given that they worked together on two Scream movies beforehand, it's impossible not to compare Melissa Barrera's newest horror collaboration with directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett to the Ghostface-fronted franchise. Abigail, the trio's latest, is similar in tone, too, as its characters try to make sense of the bonkers situation they've found themselves in through vampire pop culture.