Best Game Music I've Heard in a While

If you haven't heard of Super Meat Boy, well, first of all, you suck. Secondly, you should have if you've been reading anything on this blog.

Third, you should really fix that, because not only is the game ridiculously challenging and a breath of fresh air in today's stagnant world of repetitive sequels and similarities, but it has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard.

Take a listen here, and my favorite among them all has got to be World 2: The Hospital. :)

Despicable (part 3): Hey! Listen! (to this person): Jim Sterling

The final part of this series of posts on the asshole-ish Electronic Arts is not about EA themselves, but about this man pictured above who was featured in the video I showed you all a week ago: Mr. Jim Sterling. Thank God for him.

If you haven't gotten the joke yet, go watch some of his videos. He's a seemingly narcissistic bastard of a person, and yet, you can't help but just love him and everything he says. He's outrageously funny, even for the sometimes NSFW videos that he makes. His self-centered attitude is the character he plays in his videos (similar to how Ben Croshaw plays his character Yahtzee), so if you can get over that and realize that he's actually a very intelligent person, then you'll greatly enjoy what he has to say about video games and the industry.

To say the least, this guy has some enormous balls to speak about some of the shit that he does. He's called out many a company (such as EA) on their greedy and pathetic behavior and practices, as well as criticized niches of people for their reactions and behaviors over events in the gaming industry. While it may be strange having this fat guy you barely know standing on his soapbox yelling at you, his vast knowledge and aggressive, yet very well-thought-out arguments back him up and then some, so  he has the right to do so in my eyes.

Yes, he does have a show over at The Escapist. How did you know? Not all of his shows are criticisms either, as he himself this week addressed how seriously gamers take the issue of rape appearing in a video game compared to the endless amounts of murder in games, and he presents a mature, valid argument with many valid points.

If you are interested at all in the politics of gaming, or if you want to be given a straight answer on controversial issues without being fed any bullshit, look for Jim Sterling. Thank God for him, because he may just be a god himself.

Below is the first of three episodes that Jim did a while ago on piracy. They are my personal favorites, and are a great example of his work. You can also find him on Destructoid.com, where he is a journalist that posts regularly about gaming news.

Despicable (part 2)

Continued from last week...

If you're reading this and in case you haven't realized it yet, I love video games. I love what they bring to the table today for your entertainment, and I love how they have the ability to unite people from literally around the planet under one interest, some groups being so awesome as to call themselves families. That's unbelievably awesome.

With all the brightness and glory that I talk about on here, I've never really taken a trip to the dark side, and the first thing that comes to mind is Electronic Arts, a.k.a. EA. (mouthful of letters there)

EA is a publisher, and a very powerful one at that. A huge amount of games are distributed by EA, and if not for them, then the industry today probably wouldn't exist as it is. Interpret that statement however you like, but it's [un]fortunately true, if you catch my drift. I can't say I have any particular problem with any games they have published (except one, I'll get to it later), but that's mostly attributed to me not having played any of them. I admit it: I haven't played any Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Dead Space, or any EA published game to my knowledge in the past 10 years, except for maybe Spore. It was mediocre at best, but it was fun while it lasted.

Anyway, the video from Tuesday created by Jim Sterling (thank God for him) sums up everything very nicely. There is a lot of scumbag practice out in the video game business, but for all that has ever been uncovered, EA has at one time or another done the same thing, but less subtle. So much less subtle in fact that it's blatantly obvious that they are merely doing it for the damn money.

It doesn't stop there though. Pretty much all publishers have done something that their fans disagree with at one point or another, but EA milks it and pours it in your face to make sure you know they're terrible. It doesn't make any sense either! Why would you blatantly do something that makes your company look bad?! Are they just simply oblivious or literally stupid?!

Take for example their marketing:

• Let's hire a bunch of people to pretend they're Christians (nothing wrong with that, right? -_-) and protest about our game to make people notice it. 
• Let's make commercials about people's moms hating our game (because all gamers still live with their moms, right? -_-) to make us want to play it more. 
• Let's create some fake anti-gay and charity movements to distract people from the problems they have with our games.

All this marketing cost them upwards of $700 million. Good to know our money is going somewhere nice. Bastards.

They buy up smaller game studios just to keep competition down.

They speak of high prices for games, and they keep continuing to sell at the same damn prices, let alone with DAY ONE DLC that turns a $60, incomplete game into an $80 hey-now-it's-all-good game.

They include multiplayer in games that don't need it. While I've heard that the mode in Mass Effect 3 is pretty fun, I honestly wonder what sort of game it would have been if the resources and time were spent developing the single player campaign instead.

They enforce online passes, they revive old games as generic, mediocre new ones, and they seemingly don't give a damn about some of the policies they stick into their online service Origin. Two year ownership of a game before you have to pay again? Forum ban means you can't play any of your games? Luckily they retracted these statements, but only after hundreds of thousands of gamers called them out for their shit.

THEY STICK A NEW YEAR NUMBER, A NEW COVER ATHLETE, AND UPDATED ROSTERS AND STATS ON A DISC, AND THEY SELL YOU A NEW MADDEN FOOTBALL GAME FOR $60 GOD DAMN DOLLARS. New features or not, that doesn't justify the price.

EA is a bunch of assholes. I'm sure they have very talented developers and I'm sure that not everyone who works there is the scum of the earth, but the business practices that the company is...well, practicing...are just despicable and downright hateful. There is no reason to take any of this shit from them, and that is the reason why I haven't played an EA game in so long. In my opinion, they do not deserve my money, no matter how great their games may be, and honestly, even with that said, correct me if I'm wrong, but their games are even starting to go downhill. I wonder why?

They need to get their shit together or just die, because we gamers, let alone the whole industry, doesn't need the moronic shit that they're currently offering us as a business.

Next week: Mr. Jim Sterling (thank God for him)

Despicable (part 1)

I'm just going to leave this here. I trust this guy a lot, and while he can appear a little dick-ish, he's probably one of the most intelligent people I've ever seen. More details later this week, as well as a Hey Listen! on Him too. Seriously, thank God for Him.

Games on Steam You Should Be Playing (3)

It's that time again where I remind you all out there that your wallet is not safe from this gaming monster, so let's get to it.

Beat Hazard

For those who like playing their own music when gaming, except the entire point of this game is your own music.

Basically, think "Asteroids", but with random bosses and enemies, and the music you select changes the difficulty of the level. If the music you pick is slow and mellow, the enemies will be the same, hardly being a challenge. If you pick something fast and beat-heavy, you'll be in a hellish world filled with bullets and death. It gets more and more difficult the longer the song lasts, so those 7 minute death metal songs you want to give a shot at will probably leave you mentally exhausted. Did I mention that the heaviness of the song beats determines how much your ship fires? Holy hell.

With power-ups and special abilities, it's some great fun, especially since your difficulty is determined entirely by the song you choose.

BIT.TRIP BEAT

It's Pong, but you're playing against a robot, and the robot is chucking tennis balls at you at the speed of sound.

Seriously though, little bits will fly at your "pong paddle" and you have to stop them from passing you. Easy enough right? Well, some of them bounce after you hit them and return again, some stop before they hit you, and some are even invisible! Luckily, there's a beat in the background that all the bits will strike your paddle to the beat of, so it's usually easy to keep track of when you have to move where.

Cool music, fun gameplay, though it is a little on the short side.

Super Meat Boy

Ignore the name of the game and the above picture for a second and read the following line:

This game will drive you insane.

It will kick you inbetween the legs, punch you in the face, and then proceed to stomp on your injured torso while you lie on the ground in pain. With that said, it's REALLY FUN.

I love platformers, and this game brings so much to the table that you will never be bored. The gameplay is so basic, yet so challenging that it will made my sense of nostalgia explode out of sheer excitement. I wouldn't say it's for everyone, but if you want a challenge, finishing this game is worth it.

If you want a description of what the game is, read this: You are Meat Boy. You must save Bandage Girl. Your enemy is Doctor Fetus. Don't die.

No, really. That's it, especially that last part. Don't die. You will die of course, and you'll do it A LOT, but just don't and you win. Easy.

If you still have questions, refer yourself to the following video:

By the way, those parts where you see a TON of Meat Boys doing the level? You get a replay after you beat every level of every time you died in addition to your one success.

...Oh god...

My New Radio

Sorry for this short post, but I'm a little busy with work and school at the moment. Summer school does indeed suck. :(

However, it's nice to offset work with something fun, like listening to music you enjoy, and while I like my fair share of big names and artists, video game music is always the most memorable to me, especially remixes. Where can you find a huge collection of them? Enter Overclocked Remix.

I don't really know the extent of this website yet entirely, but all I know right now is this:

1. There's awesome remixes of video game music from a ton of different video games ACROSS EVERY GENERATION. Holy hell.

2. There's a radio to listen to it all.

You can search for whatever game you want on the website and discover all kinds of music that people have made for it. If you love game music, this is certainly a website worth visiting.

Wreck-It Ralph

I've been telling everyone I know about this upcoming movie all week. It just received it's first trailer, and if you're a gamer, you're probably going to end up watching it. After you see the above video, you might have the urge to just keep continuously throwing money at your screen to make it come out faster.

The list of game characters that I can recognize so far are the infamous Bowser from nearly every single Mario game, M. Bison and Zangief from Street Fighter, Dr. Robotnik from every Sonic game (yes, shut up, it's Robotnik, I don't care), Clyde from Pac-man (the orange ghost), and I think I recognize the rhino on the left as the final boss of Altered Beast. I also see the popular Q-Bert, and if you look hard enough, you might find Chun-Li, and I think the Medusa eye from Castlevania (not sure on that one).

Holy hell. Did Disney really make something like this? It looks like something out of Pixar in terms of coolness. Granted I have nostalgia for the House of Mouse, but I'm somewhat shocked and relieved that they're still alive and kicking!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go to the bank to withdraw some more money to throw at my computer screen.

Rated G for Games

There are many things to be said about the television channel G4. Supposedly it was once known as a channel for gamers with entirely original programming. From cheat code shows to game reviews, it had some interesting shows.

Today, while it does try and create it's own original programming, most gaming content has been condensed in to the still-alive show "X-Play", which acts more as a general gaming news show rather than a review series. I suppose that has its advantages, but as far as I've seen, it's mostly the hosts and maybe a special guest or two talking about what we already know about recent or upcoming games. You'd think that they could offer us some new information or something.

There are some semi-related shows too. "Attack of the Show" is another that is still going, though they mostly talk about technology and geek culture. Also fine, but not every episode has a gaming segment; just the ones that premier close to a major game release. For some reason, we also have a few game shows from Japan (complete with subtitles) that can be interesting, but most of them are reruns, and once you've seen them all, you won't be seeing anything new for about half a year.

Speaking of reruns, I heard that gamers really, REALLY love the show "Cops". I heard they also really, REALLY love the show "Cheaters". No? I could have sworn otherwise, because if it's not the early evening or mid-day, one of these two shows will be always on. ALWAYS. For multiple hours on end.

Is it possible to have a channel with original content for gamers? Maybe, because it was relevant at one time. I'm not sure if it can be recreated in today's world, but it's something that I'd like to see or at least attempted once again.

Can't Play Games? Watch 'em!

A new addition to my interests that I've only recently discovered (and I'm sure they've been around for a lot longer than I think they have) is watching streams. For the unfamiliar, it's basically a live video feed of some professional or popular gamer playing a usually competitive game. If you'd like a comparison, it's like listening to one of your favorite radio DJ's, complete with their personality and appeal, but you get to watch them play a game you enjoy at the same time.

I find it highly entertaining to watch some of the best players in the world play the same games that I do. For one, it's cool to see how different others play, especially at such a high level where players regularly attend national tournaments that award cash prizes. For two, they usually stream by themselves or with one of their friends, and while they earn money by playing ads, you usually learn some valuable tips and see some helpful plays that the streamers pull off.

There are an endless amount of games that people stream, and frankly, it's possible to stream any video game with the right equipment, be it on console or computer. The most popular are competitive PvP games that are big on the eSports scene such as League of Legends, Starcraft II, and recently Diablo 3.

If you're looking into watching some of your favorite games, a few popular sites are own3d, twitch, justin.tv, and my personal favorite, teevox, which has all of the above built into one website with convenient lists and features (pictured above, try it out and you'll instantly love it, though right now I think they're missing a couple of websites because of an update they're working on).

Watching streams has become pretty much a second form of television for gamers recently, and like in other mediums like sports, it's a great way to watch an event that you're interested in.

Now if only some other sorts of gaming television didn't mostly suck...