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.

Dragonball Z Burst Limit & Raging Blast

You know what's funny? The title Ninja Assassin. The assassin part of the title is so redundant. When have you not seen a ninja assassinate something? Okay, maybe in fighting games, but there are rules and regulations; nothing they can do about that except maybe assassinate the chair committee. The point is ninjas are known for killing. If you're signing up to be a ninja, chances are you are going to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of people within the week. Those gravity-defying flips don't come free chief; you have to earn them with the blood (and the occasional body part) of your enemies. Anyway, if you're a fan of ninjas and ninja related injuries, I suggest watching this movie because ninjas make everything awesome. Seriously, is there any game with ninjas that sucked outright? No. There's been some faulty ones (Ninja Blade), but none that were bad, which leads me to my review. Where are the ninjas in Dragonball Z!? How can a franchise like this not feature at least one ninja? Think about it.....flying ninjas shooting shit out their hands, destroying chunks of the planet, all the while being stealthy. That would be awesome. No, Naruto doesn't count (fake ass ninjas).

Too all the DBZ fans out there, it's hard to talk about these 2 games without bringing up the previous games because...let's face it; they're the same fuckin games. Burst Limit is a predecessor of the Budokai/Shin Budokai series, and Raging Blast is a predecessor of the Tenkaichi series. Besides graphics, both games took a step back with their new entries, but only one of them suffers for it. Burst Limit's gameplay remains fun, and something you can put in your system for some DBZ goodness, while Raging Blast's gameplay feels old and stagnant. Granted, I've played all the recent DBZ games, so the formula would seem boring by now, but then again what kind of excuse is that, especially since I still find Budokai fun? Raging Blast may feel like a true DBZ experience, but Burst Limit feels like a true DBZ 'FIGHTER', and fighting is what we came for, but now I'm starting to get ahead of myself. Let's start with Burst Limit. Oh, before I do, I would like to say something that proves I'm a fan of DBZ before I start bashing because after Sonic and NFL 2K5, I really don't wanna hear it. You know how Vegeta can go SSJ4 without going SSJ3? I have 2 theories. One, Vegeta may have had the power, but couldn't pull off the transformation. Goku learned how, but he was dead, and certain rules containing to the body don't apply. SSJ3 is an extremely difficult transformation, and Goku can't hold it for long when he's alive, so maybe Vegeta can't do it at all since he didn't die long enough to learn. My second theory (and probably the correct one) revolves around the mighty Oozaru. When a saiyan transforms into the great ape, their power increases 10 fold. So since Vegeta's power increased so much when he became a Super Ooozaru (created my own phrase there), he had enough power to put him over the edge to transform to SSJ4. This isn't something DBZ fans don't already know, but still....suck it fanboys!

Hey! It's Super Soni....oh...

Burst Limit is almost like your traditional 3D fighter, except a hellava lot easier. Your offense can pretty much be about mashing buttons, but if your opponent knows how to play defense, he'll own your ass, and that's the surprising thing about Burst Limit. It seems like a game where you can do random acts of violence, but the minute the difficulty raises or you're facing someone who knows what they're doing, you'll be defeated by what Team Fourstar (look them up) calls the Wheel of Bitchslaps. The gameplay is so simple, yet demands skill to play. The fights are fast as hell, and at one point, I forgot who I was controlling before getting hit by a dodon ray. The best thing about this game is that moves like the kamehameha wave don't deplete your meter, forcing you to stop and recharge like every other game. In fact, you don't even have to recharge. The game does it automatically, and does it fast, unless you're getting hit. Then the meter stops charging until you you stop getting smacked. The only time the meter depletes is after a ultimate attack (like the Spirit Bomb), transformations (ie Super Saiyan), or when you enter Aura Spark mode which boosts your stats. The one thing I don't like is the drama pieces. Drama pieces activate in mid-fight as a cut-scene (sometimes featuring a partner of your choosing) to help you, whether it be increasing attack power or giving you health. It sounds nice, but in practice, it sucks. The scenes break the flow of the fight and they can't be skipped once activated. It does make the fights more cinematic and truer to the show than past DBZ fighters, but in the end, I always turn them off. One time, I showed this game to a couple of friends, and they liked it. Mind you they hate the show (mainly because it takes forever for stuff to happen, like the fact that Frieza said the planet would explode in 5 minute, yet the fight lasted what seemed like 17 episode, and wow; what a long parenthesis) and didn't think much of the games, which leads me to believe that even non-fans can get into it. It ain't Tekken, but it'll do. A good game all around.

Damn! Punched Frieza right in the Cooler!

Raging Blast is a lot different from...well....any other fighter you played. Here you can fly freely around the environments and smash people through things. In a way, it's kinda like Burst Limit, except with a list of moves that takes advantage of the 3D shift. You can quickly fly behind people to attack from behind, you can warp from side to side in mid-combo, you can throw people into the wall and wail on them as they're stuck, you can fly away when things get too hectic, and your special moves are handled by the right stick. As an added bonus, you can start in any unlocked transformation you want, something Burst Limit should have done. So, if you want to start off a Super Saiyan 3, you can. This all sounds like Raging Blast should be better than Burst Limit, but there are so many fuck ups that irritate me so. First off is the camera, the fuckin piece of shit camera. Its a fuckin struggle for it to stay on your opponent, especially if he flies either straight up or down. If he's above you or under you, you won't be able to see him, and there's no way to know how far down he is. You could always rush him, but what's stopping him from bitchslapping you once you get there? I shouldn't have to play this kind of fuckin guessing game. When you're fighting near an object like a mountain or cliff, the camera gets stuck, and won't pan the fuck out so you can see. You can change the camera angle by pressing left or right on the d-pad, but while you do, KAMEHAMEHA up the ass! I've lost so many fights because of the camera. Punches and kicks aren't really worth it in my book. They do such little damage, you're better off just chucking fireballs all day long. Yes, they open players up for bigger attacks, but I would like them to be a real offensive threat. The biggest problem with Raging Blast is that it's fighting style just isn't fun anymore. As I mentioned earlier, the formula doesn't age well as I was bored out of my mind after maybe 3 days. It may seem fun to those who haven't played the 3 Tenkaichi games, but for us fans, it's lather, rinse, repeat. Really, the only people I see playing this are those who are really curious about SSJ3 Vegeta and Broly, and if you're really that curious, you can look it up on google images and save yourself 60 bucks.

.....Your aim sucks...

Both games host the same set of problems. The story mode doesn't tell you shit about the story. They just assumed you've seen this before and know what happens next. That's fuckin unfair to those you haven't seen the show before, and will probably be turned off by the fact that they don't know what's going on. Nice job building on your fanbase numbnuts. The roster is short. Coming after the series before them, you would think the roster would be packed, especially since Tenkaichi 3 had roughly 120. I can understand trimming the fat for more balance, but key people are missing. Burst Limit stops at the Cell saga, meaning there's no Super Saiyan 3 or 4, nor is there any fusion or Majin Buu. Raging Blast stops at the Majin Buu saga, meaning no Super Saiyan 4, and even more so, no Dragonball characters either. The official name of the game is Dragon Ball: Raging Blast. The absense of the 'Z' made me believe that it would start when Goku was a kid. Nope. Super moves don't do shit from long range because they're easily side stepped. The guy's gotta be a noob or an idiot to get hit. The graphics suck as the environment is concerned. They look very PS2-ish while the characters are rendered nicely. It looks weird. Speaking of characters, although Raging Blast looks more like the cartoon, I like Burst Limit's graphics better. My biggest problem with both games is that...well...WE PLAYED THEM ALREADY! Really, who are you fooling!? We move on to the next generation of gaming consoles, and Atari makes the same shit we've played last time. What really pisses me off about it (for some unknown reason) is that they have the nerve to market it as if it's something new. You must think really little of us. Actually, I work in retail, and consumers are really that stupid....but still....

He kicked the HD off of him!

Not so fun fact: Raging Blast was not published by Atari, but by Bandai Namco, yet it was made by Spike, the people who made the Tenkaichi series. Hmmm, maybe the publisher does make a difference. Anyway, Burst Limit is simple fun to be had and is a pretty good buy at $20. I've had it for almost a year, and I still play it. As for Raging Blast, don't waste your time if you played the Tenkaichi series or not a fan of the series. I've had it for almost a month, and I'm fed up. This game could have definitely benefitted....with ninjas!

DBZ Burst Limit Rating: Sweet

DB Raging Blast Rating: Ass

NOTE: Idea for a new game....Ninja Hero! Comes with it's own katana peripheral. Ninja Stars sold separately.

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.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

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Rating: Fuckin Awesome

NOTE: See, I didn't have to say anything, and you're gonna go out and buy it.

Brutal Legend

Okay, I don't really know much about Metal. In fact, all I know is what I heard on Rock Band and episodes of Metalocalypse (on adult swim), so I was wondering if Brutal Legend would be something I can get into, especially since the game is so metal up the ass I expect the disc to jump out of my xbox, grab Guitar Hero, and just rip Dragonforce on expert...and 5 star it. Luckily, you don't have to know much about metal, but if you don't know the difference between emo and glam rock, then chances are you're gonna miss some of the references. Remember: one style of rock is filled with a bunch of pussies who's gender and sexuality are constantly in question as they parade around stage, and the other is glam rock......I wonder how many people are going to get that joke. Speaking of jokes, every caption under the pictures in this review will feature a line from the video game (which may or may not be accurate). Observe.

AH HA! I knew it! Big ugly demon!

The game stars Jack Black who plays Jack Black who reprises the role of Jack Black as Eddie Riggs who for the sake of this review, we'll call Jack Black, and it just occurred to me that I kinda ripped off Yahtzee from the escapist. Jack Black is the world's best roadie who's working for the world's worst band, and if you played the demo, you know EXACTLY what I mean. You may also know that an accident causes blood to fall on Jack Black's badass belt buckle and summons the God of Rock to come forth and transport him into a new world that looks like the shoebox of a metal fan filled with album covers. The humans in this world are all slaves to the evil dude you see above, and it's up to Jack Black to save everyone by killing everyone else. Metal. The cool thing about the world is that EVERYTHING is metal related. There's even an animal who's skeleton can be used as a gun. Awesome (too bad you can't use it). It's a cool world to look at and explore....for maybe the first hour. Then you realize that unless you're doing side-quests, the open world is fuckin pointless. Actually, no, it's not pointless, just tedious. In order to find news moves or upgrades, you have to drive around to find them, and that gets real boring real fast.

I do this for the fans

The gameplay is simple enough. A is your melee attack, X is your magic attack, B is your block, and Y is the action button. Wait......where the fuck is the jump button? Oh you got to be shitting me. How can he not jump? Sigh* Okay, so he can't jump, but he can fight and that's what important. After you adjust to not having a fuckin jump button (minus one point, guys), the game is your typical hack and slash. You run to an area, you clear house, you rock on. Simple. After a while, you can recruit people to fight along side you for missions, which is cool because going it alone can lead to having your balls ripped out and fed to......

or one of the many many many things that want you dead. Afterward, you can assemble an army to go against other armies to....see....if......what the fuck? Real time strategy? I thought this was an adventure game. Seriously, you build a stage which is your main base, you set up merchandise stands for supplies which are actually fans, you spawn troops from the stage depending on your fans, and...oh, I guess that's it. It's really light on the whole RTS thing. If Halo Wars is an RTS for beginners, then Brutal Legend is for fuckin babies. All you do is amass a large force and point at anything you didn't create. There's really nothing to it, and it's simple enough so that you don't fuck up real bad, but this isn't what I came for. I wanted to kill legions of emos to the sounds of Motorhead, not this shit. The one thing I do like is that when your army is getting it's ass kicked, you can go down there and handle it yourself; an RTS first, although I'm still not sure if this really is an RTS. If this paragraph is confusing you, now you know how I feel. It's so hard to explain. Ah, fuck it. The story is funny, and that along with the fighting is what is important. Too bad you spend most of the time in the RTS.

ASS - KICKERS UNITE!

Honestly, I don't know what to make of Brutal Legend. It's not bad enough to be Meh, but it's not good enough to be Sweet. Having Jack Black in it was good, but the RTS sections weren't that great. The combat is good, but there's no fuckin jump button. The story is funny, but it gets more serious towards the end. The world looks very imaginative, but there's really nothing fun to do in it. Hmmmm......

Rating: Meh with a dash of Sweet

Yea, that sounds about right.

NOTE: Don't let the picture on top of the site fool you. I'm not doing a Borderlands review. I don't have that kind of time to play it. Yes, I purposely left the pic with the metal spider without a caption. No, I will not response to that guy's comment about Madden vs 2K5. Yes, I really am doing an Uncharted 2 review for no apparent reason. No, the Sonic blog is not over and done with just yet. Yes, I am getting DJ Hero. No, I'm not sure if I'll review it. Yes, I am single ladies. No, you don't have to fight over me.

Smackdown vs Raw CAF Names

So you created a finisher for your guy, and you need to decide on a name, but don't want to use any of the names provided for you. So what do you call your move? I'm here to help, and by help I of course mean come up with bullshit as I go along. Feel free to use these ideas.

Thing of Beauty
Feedback
the Creator
Push (simple, yet can be badass)
the Hangover (I think it's already taken, but fuck it)
Violent Protest
Hellraiser (.....meh, not that original)
Five Below (it's like a reverse F-5, except with a chain of stores)
MTD (Makes Things Dead)
Burst Limit (now where in the DBZ have I heard that name before)
Raging Hormones (....................gay)
Reload
CCS (Concussion Causing Slam)
the Zadane (yes...it's a headbutt)
Stranglehold
ThatMoveWhereYouPickThePersonUpAndSlamHimOnTheFace
Recipe for Success
50/50 or 20/20
American Psycho


........your welcome.

WET

Whoops...wrong game.

Anyway, let’s get this out of the way. Yes, WET has that grindhouse style you see from Quinton Taratino films (hopefully I spelled his name right) with the flickering scene like it was being run on the world oldest home camcorder, and yes it looks cool as hell. I just wanted to get that out of the way because millions upon billions of reviewers have been spinning that line for weeks now. Despite the….film style (?), it doesn’t distract one bit from what this game really is: Midway’s Stranglehold with a few moves swapped out. It’s hard not to make a comparison between the two games. Both have outlandish shootouts that I wouldn’t recommend you try until you have a grudge against certain things like living or keeping all of your blood. Both have insane stunts that nobody can physical do EVER and would only try if he/she gets off on breaking bones. For the final piece of résistance (is that how they say it?), both games make you play in slooooow mooooootion as you dive repeatedly to avoid death long enough to die in the next area and have the game over screen mock you. The only difference is that Stranglehold was actually good, while WET wishes it could keep up.

So Getting in a Car Never Seemed Like a Good Idea?

Although there is a story somewhere, the game just says fuck it all, gives you guns, gives you a sword, and then goes sits in the corner out of the fucking way while you proceed to stylishly murder dude after dude, interrupting only to load, ask you if you want to upgrade, or do a fan-fuckin-tastic quick time event. Yes, QTEs make yet another appearance, and yes, they show up at random with no warning as to when shit might pop off. As for the main character, Rubi, what can I say? Well, she a bitch, an alcoholic, a sociopath, a shitty dresser, stubborn, your sister on the rag, and an all around unlikable person. It’s as if the developers wanted to make her as inhuman as possible, and I have to say “mission fuckin accomplished” Enjoy your medal.

If you take a good look at the graphics, you will notice they’re not that good. They’re not bad, but not good. So why does the game have to load for so damn long? They try to hide it with stupid ass elevator scenes with Rubi just standing there bored out of her fuckin mind just like I was. Remember the elevators from Mass Effect (if you played it)? LONGER!

Do I See Camel Toe?

Like Stranglehold, the main problem with WET is that you spend so much time in slow motion that you think you've made a mistake or the game is glitching for some reason. Bullet time was a great thing during The Matrix era, but now it's time to calm the fuck down on it. Almost every shooter has it now (clearly an exaggeration so don't fuckin email me) and it's annoying, but this may be the first time a person is helpless without it. While in slow mo, you can aim with one gun while auto target takes care of the other guy, which is kinda fuckin awesome, but when you snap out of it, Rubi uses only one gun like she forgot she can fuckin dual wield! You're either sliding and diving all over the place or else you're dead. The same goes for Stranglehold, but at least you can actual do something when not in slow mo. WET is so dedicated to the idea of bullet time that it gets pissy whenever you decide not to use it, and why would you not use it? It's the only way to kill shit. Speaking of killing shit, there's almost never a moment when you're not killing something. If you go 5 minutes without a murder to you're name, then you're doing something wrong. It's fun for a while, but the enemies are dumb as fuck, and provide no real challenge. The only difference between enemies when you begin and when you end is the fact that it takes a hellava lot more bullets to take down (and apparently possess bulletproof foreheads because head shots don't always register). After a while, I got bored and quit, and looked for something more worth my time...like granny porn.

Cocaine's a Hell of a Drug

WET is one of those games that seemed like a good idea....in 2001. This game starts off well enough, but never stays at that level. Rubi, if you're gonna ape a game like Stranglehold, make sure you do it right, and do it better.

Rating: Meh

NOTE: Seriously, Rubi is such an unlikable bitch.