Stephen Rippy

Stephen A. Rippy is an American composer.

Life and career

Rippy grew up in the Spring area of Harris County, Texas and now resides in Plano, Texas, near Dallas. Making video game music was not Rippy's original career goal. He attended the University of Texas in the early 1990s to study visual art, and only took a few music courses.

Rippy worked for Ensemble Studios as the head of the Audio department with friend and collaborator Kevin McMullan. He is best known for his sound design and scores on the Age of Empires series, its spin-off Age of Mythology, and the Xbox 360 strategy game Halo Wars.

Ensemble was closed down shortly after the release of Halo Wars. Rippy joined Bonfire Studios, a development studio formed from ex-Ensemble employees and led by Rippy's brother David.

References

External links

Halo Wars

Halo Wars is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 video game console. It was released in Japan and Australia on February 26, 2009; in Europe on February 27; and in North America on March 3. The game is set in the science fiction universe of the Halo series in the year 2531, 21 years before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. The player leads human soldiers aboard the warship Spirit of Fire in an effort to stop an ancient fleet of ships from falling into the hands of the genocidal alien Covenant.

Halo Wars was unveiled at the X06 Xbox show in 2006. Ensemble designed the game specifically for the Xbox 360 controller, in an attempt to circumvent issues present in previous console RTS. Ensemble was closed by Microsoft before the game's release, but soon after Robot Entertainment was founded by many of Ensemble's former employees; this new company continued to support Halo Wars with updates and downloadable content.

Stephen

Stephen or Steven /ˈstiːvən/ is a masculine first name, derived from the Greek name Στέφανος (Stéfanos), in turn from the Greek word "στέφανος", meaning "wreath, crown, honour, reward", literally "that which surrounds or encompasses". In ancient Greece, a wreath was given to the winner of a contest (from which the crown, symbol of rulers derived). The use of the noun was first recorded in Homer's Iliad. The name is significant to Christians: according to the Book of Acts in the New Testament, Saint Stephen was a deacon who was stoned to death and is regarded as the first Christian martyr. The name has many variants, which include Stephan, Stevan, Stefan and Stevon.

In Middle English, the name Stephen or Stephan was pronounced as a bi-syllabic word — Step-hen or Step-han — much like a Scandinavian surname. Steve was pronounced as it is in Modern English. This etymological usage began a decline in the mid-19th century.

Steve is the common short form, while various diminutives such as Stevie and Ste are also used. Many family names are derived from Stephen: the most common are Stephens/Stevens and Stephenson/Stevenson (others include Stephen, Stephan, Staphan, Stefan, Stevin and Stever).

Get Off

"Get Off" is a song by American disco band Foxy, released in 1978. Released from their LP of the same name, the song became a crossover hit. It spent two weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart during the fall of that year and also peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Along with the track, "Tena's Song", "Get Off" peaked at number 18 on the disco chart.

References

My Band

"My Band" is a song by the American rap group D12. It was released in March 2004 as the first single from their second album D12 World. The song is a parody of the false concept that Eminem is the lead singer of the "band" D12.

The single became the group's most successful so far (outside the United Kingdom), reaching number two there, number six in the United States and number one in Australia, New Zealand and Norway. My Band was the first song to top the revamped singles chart introduced in New Zealand in April 2004.

Content

The brief introduction summarizes the song's satirical message: that Eminem is the lead "singer" of the "band" and it makes everyone else in D12 jealous and looked down upon. In the chorus, he describes how girls have confidence in the group just because he is in it, even though they “don’t even know the name of [his] band”.

Eminem talks about his own popularity in the first verse. It describes episodes such as him meeting some of his fans offstage, and when group member Kuniva tries to attack him when he claims that Jessica Alba is his future wife.