Favorite Music in Gaming

After playing through Portal again (great game by the way), listening to the end song made me think about my favorite music in games. So, as a change of pace, I like to talk about (in no particular order) my favorite songs, soundtracks, and songs based on games. And no, it's not only regulated to Xbox.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 & 3 Soundtrack
If I had to describe the Sonic 2 soundtrack in one word, I would ask you for 2 more words, then I would say "Catchy as Hell!" My 2 personal favorites are Chemical Plant Zone and Oil Ocean Zone. Sonic 3's soundtrack just fit with everything you were doing, and to top it off, it was made by Michael Jackson.....it's true.




Super Mario Bros. World 1-2
Do do do do dodo....do do do do dodo....do do do do dodo....do do do do dodo....dodo do do do do do do do do dodododododo do do do. Yea, World 1-1 is iconic, but 1-2 is just plain hot. You can kick a freestyle off of that if your good enough. Imagine that


Portal: Still Alive
This is was inspire me to make this post. After beating the game, instead of being treated to cake (lying bitch), your treated to a catchy little tune sung by the A.I. GLaDOS who you just blew up. Little note: On the Left 4 Dead 2 demo, there's a jukebox in a shop. If you press X, it plays one of 4 songs. Continually shuffling through all 4 will unlock a 5th song, which is of course...Still Alive. Somehow that song fits while in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.


Mortal Kombat: by some dude
This song was actually made for the movie, not the game, but fans refer to it as the unofficial theme song to Mortal Kombat, mainly because it kicks ass. I don't know what it is, but when I hear it, I'm inspired to just go out....and kick some ass; it's UNEXPLAINABLE!


Mickael Jackson's Moonwalker for Sega Genesis
Yea, the game sucked more balled than what Michael himself was accused of doing, but it featured some of his best songs, and they sounded awesome, especially for a system who's soundchip wasn't that advanced. 8-Bit music has never sounded this good. Plus, it's freakin MJ.


NBA Live exclusives
Now, most of the time, the music is licensed, but when EA asked an artist to do a track exclusive to the game, it almost always comes out hot. My favorite is by Sean Paul in 2004 (think it's calling Number 1, not sure) followed by Still Bigger Than by Dead Prez....which upon retrospect is just a remix of their hit Hip Hop, but who cares; it's HOT!


Grand Theft Auto 3's Game FM
We've been through this 6 times with GTA, and yet GTA 3's Game radio still beats all the other Hip-Hop stations. The songs aren't necessarily better, but the fact it didn't use any well knowns (Rotce the 5' 9 is close) makes it more impressive. Plus, it was the first, and you can never forget your first.


DJ Hero's Poison vs. Intergalactic by DJ AM (RIP)
This entry doesn't count, by I don't care. This mix is fuckin hot. Go to my DJ Hero review if you want to see the vid.

LittleBigPlanet's Soundtrack
It just has that laid back feel no matter what stage your on. It's the kind of music everyone can enjoy....when you're playing the game of course. I'm not putting it into my Ipod anytime soon. My favorite music is when you're in the fake Mexican land.


I feel like I've done this kind of post before, but whatever. It's Just something I threw together because of Still Alive. Also, there is a way to find the cake in Portal. There are plenty of ways shown on youtube, but I've only seen it done on the PC version. I tried on the Xboxlive version....didn't work.

DJ Hero Quickie

It's the 4th Thursday of November. You know what that means? That's right: Dallas Cowboys football. Today's the day families get together, eat big meals, and watch the Cowboys play some damn good football. Some families also like to watch the Detroit Lions lose every year. I don't blame them; I like to watch a good comedy too. For a game like this, no ordinary meal will do oh no. For this, you need to kill a turkey (the biggest you can get) and cook it at 350 degrees for 10 minutes a pound (so Ive been told). Then, if you eat pork, you have to get ham. It's pretty much a requirement. For desert, you break out the pie. You have your apple pie, your pumpkin pie, your sweet potato pie, and if your 3rd cousin from Ohio comes over, your pu-tang pie. The rest of the meal is dealer's choice. Then, and only then, do you have a meal fit for Thursday football. How sweet it is. After the game though, you may need something to do that'll prevent you from talking to your family for an extended period of time. That's where DJ Hero comes in.

Your weapon of choice...

So far we have a dancing game (Dance Dance Revolution), a guitar game (Guitar Hero), and a band game (Rock Band). It's only natural that a dj game would be made, and quite frankly, it took long enough. The hard part about reviewing a game like this (and why it's such a quick review) is trying to describe it, but fuck it; let's try. Obviously, like every other music game, you press the buttons to the beat when the game prompts you, but there's more to it. When you need to scratch, you hold down the required button and move the disc back and forth. On the harder difficulties, the game tells you exactly which direction to scratch. The crossfader (that little thing on the side that slides left and right) is probably the hardest part to master. When the left stream moves to the left, you move the crossfader to the left, and when the stream moves back, you center the crossfader. The same thing applies to the right stream. Just like in Guitar Hero, there are moments where you have to hit the notes exactly to earn power, but instead of star power, it's called euphoria. Euphoria doubles your score and moves the crossfader for you. You press the glowing red button. When you earn a rewind, spin the disc back completely to rewind the track and play that section over. Good for when you miss a note and don't get euphoria. Confused? Yea, so am I actually, but when you see it, it'll make sense. The gameplay is incredibly addictive, and the music is.....well....that's for you to decide, but that's always the case with music games. Some of the mixes make you scratch (ha) your head and ask "...Really?" A perfect example of that is Rick James mixed with Gwen Stefani. It just might be the dumbest shit I've heard. Some mixes are just ridiculously awesome, but to me it seems like the developers just got a bunch of random songs and told the Dj's to work with it, and if that's true, then kudos to the Dj's. Daft Punk don't count since they were mixing their own songs. If you're open minded about the song list, then the gameplay is more than enough to carry it, unlike Guitar Hero. You never played a song on GH you didn't like unless you had to, but you just might in DH. Besides, it's intriguing to see how the Dj's were thinking. The weird thing is some songs are mixes with guitar tracks. What that means is that while one person is mixing with the Dj set, your friend or the computer will be working the guitar...yea. For me, it worked once and only once. If 120 bucks is too much (probably is), I don't blame you for not getting it, but when the price goes down, get it. Happy National Dallas Cowboys Day everyone!

Rating: Fuckin Awesome

NOTE: My calender doesn't say National Dallas Cowboys Day. It says Thanksgiving Day. It must be a typo.

Def Jam Icon

I noticed that my reviews are getting shorter, but that's because there wasn't much for me to say about the games. Well people this will be another short one because there's not much to say about this game either; a game you can find in a bin for maybe 10 bucks. It's a shame how bad this one turn out because the last 2 Def Jam games kicked ass, especially Fight for NY when they took the series outside of wrestling and into streetfighting (well mixed martial arts when you think about it. Some cats were doing kung fu). Sadly the team who made the first 2 games didn't make this one. In fact, this game was made by the now closed EA Chicago, the same team that made the Fight Night boxing series. That makes this game even sadder since Fight Night also kicks ass. This game is a perfect example of good concept, bad execution, pissed off reviewer.

The game's story mode starts off with a guy (which you will create) kicking ass in a club. Apparently, your random act of violence caught the attention of Def Jam head brass and they decide to hire you. You help with the recruitment of artists to the record label by preforming more random acts of violence until you get a promotion. Then, you control the management of the artists: increase money for promotion, random acts of violence, CD copies, random acts of violence, PR, random acts of violence, random acts of violence, all that shit. The management is simple, but every once in a while (meaning always) you have to bash someone's skull to get what you want.

Nutcracker: the new album by T.I.

Where Icon innovates is its used of music as a weapon. The stages you will be fighting on all move to the beat of the music, so at certain points of the song you can throw your opponent by one of the environmental hazards and wait for the bass to knock. For example, let's say one of the hazards are gas pumps that explodes. Let's say the song you're fighting to is the Game "One blood" featuring....some guy whose name I forget (some research, huh?) You know that the gas pumps (in fact all the hazards on the stages attack at the same time) explodes every time dudeman said "One blooood" in the chorus. You could throw your opponent or knock him into the hazards around that time for him to get smacked. Don't wanna wait till the beat drops? You can control the beat with the game's DJ controls. Hold the left trigger and rotate the right analog stick to watch your guy spin some invisible records that apparently only he can see and touch (DJ Casper). Once he's done, the beat will break and the hazards will activate, kicking any ass in their way. This does alot less damage than waiting for the beat to break by itself, but good when someone is hanging around the danger area. To change the song, Hold the left trigger and rotate the LEFT analog stick first. Then he will switch hands and you can rotate with the right stick to change the song and activate the hazards. What's so important about the songs? If the song you picked is playing, you will do more damage to your opponent.

Only rappers would use a helicopter during a recession

All of this sounds good, right? Well, that's pretty much your whole offense: grab the guy, throw him somewhere, watch him get smacked by music. Punches and kicks (assigned to the buttons) are weak, useless, and don't open up for combos. In fact, there are no combos. Takedowns suck. They're always a suplex or leg sweep. You only good attacks come from rotating the right stick in certain directions (like in Fight Night) to knock ur opponent down, maybe into a hazard. It also doesn't help that the game moves slow as fuck. Everybody has like 1 of 3 fighting styles so there's little to no orginality between artists (just like in real life. Read my post on Neil's blog). Speaking of artists...besides TI, Big Boi, Ludacris, and Method Man, the list of fighters are a who's who's list of who really gives a fuck. Online is a bitch! It takes forever for the game to recognize and register my attacks. I press X and 2 seconds later my guy finally throws a punch. Are you fuckin kidding me? Besides the story mode and online, there ain't shit to do. I know fighting games are mainly 2 player games, but jesus christ guy you could have thrown something down. The Xbox360 version TECHNICALLY can use the music stored in your hard drive to fight, but it sucks at recognizing the beat break, so the hazards pretty much respond at random. Then again, maybe it's your own damn fault for playing the Pussycat Dolls.

No wonder gas prices are so high in Atlanta. Assholes!

Another review, another short one. This game aint worth the 10 bucks I stole to buy this game. As a music game it has some fresh ideas, but since this is a fighting game its a pile of shit. Alot of people think the music and the way it's implemented is reason enough to check it out, but let me hit you with this analogy. Let's say a dog takes a shit on the sidewalk and in his shit is a shiny gold ring. It's still a good ring and can even fetch you a pretty penny or two, but you'll probably not go near it because IT'S SURROUNDED BY SHIT! After looking at this game for a long while, EA went to Chicago and said "Apparently you guys don't know what you're doing so we're closing you down." All well; that's business. If you're really desperate, you can always get a job by random acts of violence. That seems to work. Also, why is it that when I kick someone's ass, they don't go on the radio and talk shit about it. That's all rappers do nowadays: talk shit. At lease let me make a mixtape or something (I'd call it "Random Acts of Violence").

NOTE: Who did I get the $10 from? I got it from your sister while she was asleep in my bed (OOOOOOOOOH!).