* / * N o t e     :    t h e    f o l l o w i n g    i s    c a n o n . * / *

In billiards circles, Ray Steiner is a legend. The "King of the Slate" broke into the national play circuit in 1987, underpinning his notoriety throughout the years prior in a way only he could conceive: he showed up a local pool halls and bars near major tournaments and goaded long-standing pros into cash games that he won more times than not.

Eventually, Sega approached Steiner in 1990 to feature him in an American port of their PC-Engine billiards game "Lord of the Color Balls, Corner Pocket Destruction and Slayer of the Wicked Ball of 8." Executives at the company quickly opted to change the port's title to "Ray Steiner's Hot Shot Billiards."

The franchise grew wildly popular in the years that followed, earning Sega-outsourced ports to the PC and Neo Geo Pocket Color. In 1994, the gaming giant, at its peak, decided it was time to synthesize the best elements of each version into a full Sega Genesis release. At that point, Steiner had become a John Madden of sorts in the billiards gaming world, a point he leveraged to wield a portion of creative input. Thankfully, most of his considerations were limited to mechanics related to the sport itself, the color of the bourbon his digital counterpart was to be drinking in the game, and how his hair looked best in pixel art form.

The title remains a popular one among Genesis fans and the soundtrack received wide praise for its jazzy feel and implementation of new techniques to maximize the game's sound. Now, without further ado, enjoy!

* / * Note: the following is ho-hum description. * / *

The tracks on this album were made for Winter Chip XX, a major creative competition on Battle of the Bits where folks submit entries to various visual and audio formats that members later vote on to select winners.

I had a lot of fun with it, and down the line a fellow member, as well as exceptionally talented 'pixeler,' asked if he could make Genesis-style title screen mock-up. With that kind of enthusiasm in the air, I arranged the two non-Genesis titles in that format to assemble this little EP for our bud, Ray.

The final track (in the Bandcamp release) includes a Gen 1 hardware render of the original Sega Genesis titled submitted for the competition. It uses DualPCM (a software mixing technique often employed by Electronic Arts in the mid-90s) to manage a lot of sample output, which took the CPU to town, hence the tempo changes where elements of the songs don't line up. Still, I felt it appropriate to see how well, or not, the creation managed on the genuine article. Thank you so much for listening — and cheers to the King of the Slate, Ray Steiner!  

Don't Forget About Ol' Ray Steiner

Heavy Wager

Check Mate!

Center (Boss Select Theme)

Endgame (Magnus's Theme)

The Cow Opener (Anna's Theme)

Blitz Armageddon (Main Menu)

Deep Blue (Nelson's Theme)

Epic Pawnage (Banzea's Theme)

The Funky Knight (Gotham's Theme)

commission us! haberchuck.music@gmail.com — two dudes who can't get enough of the video games we grew up on and their music

New tracks tagged #Ym2612