[REVIEW] 3D Dot Game Heroes

Nostalgia at it's finest. 3D Dot Game Heroes has to be one of the most pleasurable games I've played in a very long time, simply because it speaks to the Zelda nerd in me. Once I initially heard about this, I figured that Nintendo may reign down some sort of C&D letter upon Atlus, but, alas, they didn't and we are able to partake in such a wondrous entity that is 3D Dot Game Heroes.

From the logo to the title screen, the music to the action, the characters to the enemies, this game epitomizes what it is to be a Zelda clone. There are some faults in this game, and with that, I can safely say that, to many, 3DDGH is to The Legend of Zelda as Heavenly Sword is to God of War. Both entries pay their homage-dues to their respective fathers in many ways, and it's here that 3DDGH excels at having it's way with your emotions, as if you were 5 years old again playing through the first Zelda game, aimlessly wandering around an unfamiliar land without any sort of direction.

Well, I should back up a smidge. There is a sense of direction in this game, as it does give you a map, something Zelda didn't. It's not as flourished as one would expect, but venture into the areas enough times, and you will start to see the environment in it's 1/8th size. The gameplay is your classic top-down camera view, looking around, swinging your sword at anything with - and without - a pulse, mowing your way through the game. It's hard for me to paint a picture of this game, because, as many gamers, including myself, have said before, all you have to do is picture classic Zelda gameplay, replace the names and you've got it.

Turok: Evolution's Hot Sauce

Seen at the Try My Nuts store in Corolla, NC.

Check after the break for the FEAR-inspired concoction.

New Design...Again

Since Blogger updated overhauled their template and customization tools, I decided to take it a whirl, and I've been tweaking features in it around to see how I can get a good feel to the site, and I think I've gotten something that I'm most comfortable with. Gone are the huge post widths and a few sidebar gadgets, and I made these decisions to streamline the site and make it more navigable and easier on the eyes.

You'll notice that everything has flip-flopped, that all gadgets are now to the left, with those ads at the very bottom of the site. Sadly, I can't figure out how to edit HTML through the new customization tools, so the CC License and SiteMeter thingamajigs will have to wait. Also, with the lack of HTML customization, I can't add in the Disqus commenting system, so the old school system is here until then. [Going into 'Design' surpasses the HTML editing, so I had to do a bit of digging to get back to the OG layout to add in these features. Disqus comments are back online, SiteMeter and CC-License tags are up and functional again.] The post archive is now smaller, now archived by month solely, rather than each individual post; this helped with the sidebar width-constrictions in place by Blogger. You'll also notice the sectionalization of each gadget, and the posts are grouped by date in the main portion of the site.

There are still some customization things I'm still looking for, but for now, this is what you'll be seeing from now on. There will be a few tweaks here and there, but nothing drastic from what you see now.

Hope you enjoy.

[E3 2010] Truthiness in E3 Predictions : Multiplatform

You can check out my first-party predictions, as well as my third-party/multi-platform predictions to refresh your memory. To see my other Truthiness posts, check out the Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft posts to see how I fared. To do this, I'm color-coding each entry to correspond to my prediction: Green is spot-on, Orange is half-right, and Red is Fail.


Most Likely:

• The Music Force (Guitar Hero 6 and Rock Band 3) : Keytars and shitty story elements galore.
• Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 Unvealed (story prediction at Joystiq as a comment) : Nothing at all, but remember, it was delayed into 2011.
• The Force Unleashed II Full reveal : With it's wicked awesome gameplay
• Dead Space 2 Unvealed : At Microsoft's conference.
• LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars Revealed :
• Red Faction: Armageddon Demoed :
• Call of Duty: Black Ops is the biggest thing on the show floor (if Halo Reach isn't there) : First thing at Microsoft's conference with a brand new trailer, and Mark Lamia gave a live demo of a jungle level, plus showing off the controllable Hind-D level; buddy flies, you shoot.
• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 gets hyped up for it's release in a few weeks : Yup
• FEAR 3 inexplicably shown off (with an explanation on the '3' in the middle of the title)
• Rage engine and game shown off : Oh yea, and it's gorgeous
• Rockstar Trifecta (Max Payne 3, LA Noire, Agent) : Guess I didn't catch the memo that they weren't even showing up.
• Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood makes it's debut, showing everything : Totally. At Ubisoft's conference (with Joel McHale, again), it was the second thing shown. Taking place in 1503, a few, short years after ACII's ending, you're back in Rome, the coup de grâce locale in ACII, starring as Ezio, and showing that he's not the only assassin in the luxurious Italian city (facts we already know). Launch date is November 16 (predicted!). Monteriggioni was attacked by Cesare Borgia, Rodrigo Borgia's son (the main antagonist from the previous game) in 1499, and the game starts you off escaping by word of Mario, your uncle (who, sadly, is killed by Cesare later on in the level, who is holding a Piece of Eden, too). There is more emphasis on horseback riding, as well as the ability to fire canons (this is shown during the defense of Monteriggioni). Sorry, but this seems to be more than just a simple "milk it for what it's worth" sequel, guys. Get used to it.

[E3 2010] Truthiness in E3 Predictions : First-Party

There was a lot that went down, so I'm separating Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony into three posts to help with ease-of-use, then giving the entire third-party post it's own. You can check out my first-party predictions, as well as my third-party/multi-platform predictions to refresh your memory. To see my other Truthiness posts, check out the Microsoft, Sony and Third-Party posts to see how I fared. To do this properly, I'm color-coding each entry to correspond to my prediction: Green is spot-on, Orange is half-right, and Red is fail.

I apologize for the horrible formatting, but Blogger seriously fucked up all of my prediction posts' formatting, so were you think there should be spaces, there are, but they're just not being rendered properly. And yes, the HTML code is right.

WILD CARD: Shigeru announces Ocarina of Time remake

Most Likely:

• The Legend of Zelda XVI Unveiled : Oh yea. Subtitled Skyward Sword, out next year.
• Golden Sun DS Unveiled : Subtitle is Dark Dawn, and comes out later this year.
• Retro's New Game : Yup. They're back, and guess with who? (go ahead, guess. wanna hint? look below)
• Donkey Kong is Back! (DKC4 or Jungle Beat 2) : DK's back, and he's rollin' with Retro. Yea. Retro. And it's of the Country variety.
• 3DS Unveiled : Definitely. And a TON of third-party support.

[WEBCOMIC] Penny Arcade on E3 2010

I'm not sure how Santa's handjobs would be, but if it's anything like Christmas, it must be magical.

[Originally seen on Penny Arcade]

Sony Conference Round-Up

The Sony media briefing took place on June 15, 2010, at 3:00 PM EST. Television broadcast was made available (and commercial-free, thank god) by G4, which I watched the entire hour-and-a-half thing (I'm starting to get used to this).  

Jack Tretton is up, and joked at Kinect and the ponchos. He said that bringing Kevin Butler on stage was a serious thought after everyone had suggested it, but, sadly, he won't be appearing today. Damn.

Killzone 3 is up, and what they're seeing is gameplay footage, and in 3D. Oh, and Move support, too.

A lot of games with 3D support (Ghost Recon, Shawn White Snowboarding, Mortal Kombat), and The Sly Collection announced in the spirit of the God of War Collection. One final 3D video: a giant sampling of various 3D supported titles. Motorstorm: Apocalypse, EyePet, MLB 10 The Show, The Fight, Killzone 3, Tumble, Crysis 2, Mortal Kombat, Gran Turismo 5 and The Sly Collection.

Now they're onto the Move. They're showing developers reactions to the controller.

Nintendo Conference Round-Up

The Nintendo media briefing took place on June 15, 2010, at 12:00 PM EST. Television broadcast was made available (and commercial-free, thank god) by G4, which I watched the entire hour-and-a-half thing (I'm starting to get used to this). 

Reggie's on stage. He doesn't sound like a robot like Don Mattrick or Joel McHale did yesterday. Simply put, I love listening to him talk.

ZELDA!!! Great way to start off the show. New short teaser, artwork seems less gritty than Wind Waker, but it's still TP-esque Zelda. Showing Link on horseback in the clouds, then Majora's Mask, then Wind Waker Link in the King of Red Lions, but no Twilight Princess references (MM and WW are down the same timeline, so they are connected; perhaps this is a sequel to Majora's Mask) Titled The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Miyamoto is explaining, via video, how the design came about. English dubbed over his Japanese. I'd rather listen to Kojima again. MotionPlus support for sword mechanics, nunchuck is the shield, just like in Twilight Princess. Miyamoto is on stage now, complete with English. He explains that you actually have to hold the controller combination like a sword and shield. The sword really looks like 1:1 control. It looks like he's having trouble with controls. The Sword Beam is back! 1:1 sword play seems to play into enemies, as the Deku Baba needs to be killed by slicing it in the way it's mouth is opened, a door with an eye needs to be confused, as the eye is focused on the end of the sword; rotate it in a circle over and over and you can approach is safely and kill it. Shield Bash rocks back at Octoroks to kill them. Holy shit, you can dash now! Having Bill translate Miyamoto while he's still talking is confusing as shit. Miyamoto having some problems taking out some Skulltullas on a vine with the slingshot (you no longer point at the screen, just move the Wiimote). Different mechanics for the bombs; overhead and underhand tosses. Wii Remote is acting up, and they're asking to turn on their wireless devices (HA! Apple...), but there's still some issues using the Bow. They gave up, and moved on to a remote-controlled beetle. Skyward Sword will not come out this year, but next year (sadly, not making history by having the three flagship series, Zelda, Mario and Metroid, have new entries in the same year). They're off, but a gameplay trailer is up, showing many uses for the already shown items. Awesome.

Xbox 360 Slim Photos, Details Outed

Thanks to both Major Nelson's Flickr Photostream and Kotaku, we've got our first look at the new 360 Slim (not the official name; however, it's being called the New Xbox 360 (think along the lines of New Xbox Experience, "NXE," so I guess the new abbreviation will be NX360), spec sheets list it as Xbox 360 250GB still, but the original 360 is called just that, the Xbox 360 Original) as well as a brief, rough-n-dirty tech spec sheet that came with the free slims Microsoft handed out after the conference.

The photos don't do much, but they do show off the back of the unit, where there are some much welcomed additions. Built-in optical audio support, three USB ports on the back (two on the front behind a hide-away panel) and a port labeled "AUX," which, according to the spec sheet, is solely for the Kinect. Now, I won't have to keep my HD-DVD to be used as a USB-hub. Thanks, Microsoft!

I can only derive one thought: DO WANT.

UPDATE: It appears that the 360 Original won't be produced, and that once the available stock is gone, it's gone. The Arcade seems to be getting a refresh (probably white, smaller capacity HDD) and that should fill in the $199 void that the 360 Original is currently at. The exact date for the 360 Slim is this Friday at the earliest, and Sunday at the latest. The price changes for the 360 Original should take effect Tuesday (that's tomorrow!). [Via Engadget]

Check past the break for the spec sheet and the image gallery.

Microsoft Conference Round-Up

The Microsoft media briefing took place on June 14, 2010, at 1:30 PM EST. Television broadcast was made available (and commercial-free, thank god) by Spike, which I watched the entire hour-and-a-half thing (I'm starting to get used to this).

Don Mattrick unveils a multi-year agreement with Activision that all map packs for the next three years for Call of Duty will launch first on the 360. Damn.

Hideo Kojima showed up to unveil Metal Gear Solid: Rising, but passed the unveiling off to Rising's producer, because, let's be honest, Hideo's English isn't all that hot, so he would feel highly uncomfortable to keep talking in a language he isn't familiar with. It was mainly a gameplay trailer, and it looks to play just like Devil May Cry. Watermelon cutting never looked so cool.

Cliff Blezinski came on stage, and gave a demo of a 4-player co-op campaign story chapter from Gears of War 3. It showed off the new lambent-infused enemies. Dismemberment galore. New melee kills (bayonet on your Lancer? yes, please). Weapon swapping, omni-directional damage indicator, and those new lambent enemies are shown to be tough as shit (it took all 4 of them to take them down, so teamwork is a must). They even send out baddies; the bigger the tentacles, the bigger the enemies that spawn from them, Berserker included, and a nice little Hammer of Dawn kill at the end. A new mode was hinted at, called "Beast." Uh-oh.

Peter Molyneux was there for Fable III, which takes place 50 years after Fable II, and to be honest, I couldn't care less.

Microsoft Games Studio's new, exclusive partner, Crytek (really?), with the game, codenamed Kingdoms. Looks very medieval.

Here's were Halo Reach comes in, and Bungie's creative director, Marcus Lehto, with a campaign level reveal. Looks like Elites have Spartan tech (Armor Lock, specifically). Seems like Rockets can lock on again (judging by the targeting reticule).

Why Hate on a Potentially Good Sequel?

Yesterday, Creative Director Patrice Désilets left Ubisoft Montreal, and the one thing people are contributing his departure to is Ubisoft's recent announcement that they are, basically, following in Activision's footsteps and release yearly sequels to it's more successful brands. He's not the only Ubisoft leader that has left. Remember Jade Raymond? Sure you do. She worked on Assassin's Creed 1 and left shortly after. Don't forget Clint Hocking, who left Ubisoft recently as well, and this guy was another creative director, mainly working on FarCry 2 and Splinter Cell: Conviction. Yea, that guy.

What my focus on right now is the hate towards the decision to actually make and release Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood this year, which said hate could be deriving from the über-hatred that Valve received when it announced Left 4 Dead 2 at last year's E3; boycotts galore. But the one thing we all did once we actually played the game? We shut the fuck up.

Since Patrice's decision to leave Ubisoft is heavily believed to be due to Ubisoft's decision to ramp-up production release dates for particular franchises (the only one's I can immediately think of that would be affected would be the Tom Clancy brand - Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, HAWX, End-War and Rainbow Six - and Assassin's Creed) and become infected with the "Annual Sequel Syndrome" - or "A.S.S" - something that is currently infecting Activision and EA, the latter of which is oft-believed to be the originator of this disease. There is one draw back to release annual entries in popular franchises, and that is the lack or quality in the overall product, but if there is one thing we can look back on and say "Holy shit, how'd they do it?", it would be The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.

For those who don't remember, don't know, or just don't give a shit, Shigeru Miyamoto, upon completion of Ocarina of Time, didn't want to make his fans wait another 5 years between Zelda games (such as they did between Link's Awakening and Ocarina), so he entrusted his newest companion, Eiji Aonuma, to make a new Zelda game. The only problem is that Shiggy gave him only 18 months to make the damn thing. Eiji was allowed to re-use most of Ocarina's resources, as well as the engine, to make the game. With the time constraint, he crafted the notorious 3-day system, which allowed a level of intense complexity, but gave the game a compact feeling. Majora's Mask was release 17 months after Ocarina's release (November of '98 to April of '00), and was met with univeral acclaim (Metacritic's words, shared by my agreement); Majora's Mask stands at an incredibly respectable 95/100 based on 27 reviews, with a GameRanking of 91.8%. Ocarina is at a very-tough-to-beat 99/100 based on 22 reviews with a 97.48% GameRanking. That's fucking insane. Uncharted 2 has 96/100 based on 101 reviews. Yea, Majora's Mask trails Uncharted 2 by one point. Suck it.

Things I'm Looking Forward To At E3, Part 2

If you caught the original version of this, it was an amalgamated mess of text, with the only signifying parts are games in bold. I've changed this into a single, solitary list for each company, hopefully making things easier on the eye.

Here's a twofer for you: the multiplatform candidates. Here is where the other half of E3 comes, and it should be a hell of a show:

Most Likely:

• The Music Force (Guitar Hero 6 and Rock Band 3)
• Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 Unvealed (story prediction at Joystiq as a comment)
• The Force Unleashed II Full reveal
• Dead Space 2 Unvealed
• LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars Revealed
• Red Faction: Armageddon Demoed
• Call of Duty: Black Ops is the biggest thing on the show floor (if Halo Reach isn't there)
• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 gets hyped up for it's release in a few weeks
• FEAR 3 inexplicably shown off (with an explanation on the '3' in the middle of the title)
• Rage engine and game shown off
• Rockstar Trifecta (Max Payne 3, LA Noire, Agent)
• Assassin's Creed Brotherhood makes it's debut, showing everything 

Probably:

• Metal Gear Solid: Rising better be there (BONUS: Raiden cosplayer actually looks/acts like Raiden, is pure ninja, and is seen all throughout the show floor)
• Left 4 Dead 3 (skepticism: Vegas)
• Condemned 3 makes it's debut
• Mortal Kombat shown off (MK9, not Rebirth)
• Mirror's Edge 2 (finally)
• Doom 4 shows up, doesn't take place on Mars
• Assassin's Creed III debuts, taking place Egypt, and you take on a whole new assassin

Things I'm Looking Forward To At E3

If you caught the original version of this, it was an amalgamated mess of text, with the only signifying parts are games in bold. I've changed this into a single, solitary list for each company, hopefully making things easier on the eye.

E3 is a mere week away, and after giving hardware impressions not too long ago, I want to share what I'm looking forward to - and expecting - at E3. I will be listing things as an overall "things to expect," or in other words, "predictions." Some are an absolute given, others are a bit wonky. This isn't limited to the conferences, but the show floor as well. If there are third-party game mentions, they are exclusive to each company. For a winger, I'll have a "Wild Card" for each company; something so out there that you would never expect in...ever.

Nintendo

WILD CARD: Shigeru announces Ocarina of Time remake

Most Likely:

• The Legend of Zelda XVI Unveiled
• Golden Sun DS Unveiled
• Retro's New Game
• Donkey Kong is Back! (DKC4 or Jungle Beat 2)
• 3DS Unveiled

Probably:

• Square Shows Final Fantasy V/VI DS Remakes
• Konami shows up with new Castlevania
• Wii Remote with MotionPlus built-in

Unlikely:

• n-Space shows up with their new game (not Geist 2)
• Kid Icarus Returns
• StarFox! 
• Easier Transfers of Digital Content between systems (WiiWare/Virtual Console/DSiWare)
• Further social integration (Facebook, YouTube)
• Virtual Console for DS announced, GameBoy support 

What Are You Thinking:

• Metroid Dread for DS Revealed
• Dennis Dyack unveils Eternal Darkness 2 (BONUS: MotionPlus and Vitality Sensor support)
• Vitality Sensor main use: horror games
• Wireless Nunchuck
• No More Friend Codes!
• Netflix Channel
• Club Nintendo Stars-to-Points Conversion

WB's New Mortal Kombat Game Ships Next Year, Loss of Pants Ensues

And just like that, WB has let the cat out of the bag and announced the newest entry in the series, simply called Mortal Kombat (this would be, technically, MK9, there's no superheroes, and no rare diseases). Seeing as the fighting style is back to the Mortal Kombat of yore (read: everything before MK4), expect this to be the series version of Sonic 4.

Simply watching the trailer, we've got Sektor, Sub-Zero, Johnny Cage, Reptile, Mileena, Kung Lao and a host of others, with stages including the Dead Pool and The Pit (of course). Kung Lao's fatality in the trailer is pretty gruesome, and there appears to be a dash of UFC-inspired bone breaking close-ups.

Expect it in 2011, and hopefully something at E3. In the meantime, check past the break for the trailer.

New Mortal Kombat Trailer Surfaces, Analyzed

FINAL UPDATE: So, here it is, the end of the road for this. Just looked away from Jeri Ryan's Twitter page, and she said she "did [the role as Sonya] as a favor to a friend," and that the promo reel was "made for [Kevin Tancharoen] to sell WB on his vision for a reimagined MK film." There's no telling what WB thinks of it - yet - but one things for sure: testing a market reaction for the movie seems like it was in the cards, and if WB has any Internet Ninjas employed, they should know by now that 95% of the world wants this to happen. Yesterday.

UPDATE 3: Looks like "fan film" was true. Called Mortal Kombat: Rebirth, directed by Kevin Tancharoen, not Larnell Stovall as previoulsly reported (but he did do the fight scenes), this was nothing more than "a promo reel for the upcoming feature film," according to a report by Twitch. However, Twitch does not cite it's source as to who told them it was such. No matter, they do say for the upcoming film, so my hopes are officially still up.

UPDATE 2: It appears the Sub-Zero image seen in the trailer is actually a render by an artist under the name "FoOD" over at ZBrushCentral. The image was posted in March of 2009. It is unknown at this time if he has a helping hand in the creation of the new look or if the image was used without his permission. FoOD finally got back to the questions, and simply put, he was not aware, but says it was "pretty cool" to see it. Either way, this is evidence towards "fan movie," despite B-list actors in it and not your Average Joe.

UPDATE: According to Chud.com, this is real, and it's for the new movie. It's directed by Larnell Stovall, fight choreographer. His most recent work was Undisputed 3: Redemption.

ORIGINAL POST: A Kotaku reader sent this video to them, and it's, quite possibly, the best fucking thing I've seen about Mortal Kombat. Ever.

If you caught it yesterday, I put my theory out there on E3 that Mortal Kombat should make a surprise appearance. Surprise, indeed, as a YouTube account under the name "MortalKombatRebirth" posted the above video, and is starting to spread like herpes.

If you haven't watched it yet, there are spoilers below.

The trailer shows Captain Jackson Briggs (with the '-on' stickers on his office door conveniently missing) walking into an interrogation room, show files from two serial killers - codenames Reptile and Baraka - who are turning the city of Deacon inside out. Reptile is a man who suffers from a disease called Harlequin Ichthyosis (this shit is real), where the skin hardens, almost scale-like, and the eyes have turned inside out, looking like congealed blobs of coagulated blood. He kills his victims, severs the heads and stores them in a freezer. When he's hungry, he pulls one out and eats it. Baraka, on the other end the "bat-shit crazy" spectrum, was a failed doctor. He's killed 25 people so far, but he pierced his face - subdermal and hypodermal piercings - and has surgically implanted two 10" retractable blades into each of his forearms.

Jacks Jax tells our mystery inmate that their last contact with Baraka was through Johnny Cage. He's a movie star who's had his career hit rock bottom. The Deacon City Police Department hired Johnny to work with them undercover. Unfortunately, Baraka killed Johnny via decapitation. Sad, really. They've gotten word that a criminal mastermind, Shang Tsung, is holding a no-holds-barred fighting tournament, and they need their inmate buddy, Hanzo Hasashi to find where it is. Hanzo Hasashi was the top assassin of the Shirai Ryu, the most lethal gang in Japan, before his incarceration. Jax wants to put him back on the streets to find out more info about the tournament, and that Shang Tsung will find him to put him in the tournament (think Balls of Fury and Christopher Walken).

Telling them they have nothing to give him, including his freedom (we see our man is a master lockpicker, has he drops his handcuffs to the floor). Sonya Blade walks in with an FBI file, and lays it down in front of him labeled "Sub-Zero." Our man is immediately intrigued, and states he's dead. Sonya tells him he was photographed the day prior, he actually killed Sub-Zero's brother, and that he will be at the tournament. A clip plays of a man being stabbed in the neck with small harpoon, which expands, and he is pulled backwards. Upon getting up, he subtly agrees to help, and says that Hanzo Hasashi is dead; only Scorpion lives, showing us his pale, white eyes.

Check past the break for my thoughts on the trailer and character evaluations.

[Original Source • Kotaku]
[Sub-Zero's Face Render • ZBrushCentral]
[Promo Reel "Confirmation" • Twitch]
[Film's Reality • Chub]

Microsoft Re-Branding the 360?

Oh shit.

Recently found by Destructoid, it seems Microsoft may be facing a rebranding of the system, with the imminent launch of Natal. Retailers have been using the banner on multiple boxarts on their sites, namely Kane & Lynch 2 and Mafia II on Amazon.

This goes hand-in-hand with the smaller motherboard leak to foreshadow a possible "relaunch" of the system, including the rumored Xbox 360 Slim. First Sony, now Microsoft. Perhaps this rebranding will help curb enthusiasm in the PS3.

Source via Kotaku
Via Destructoid

[REVIEW] A Lot of Games, Part 4

This the final part in a four-part series of multiple, micro reviews. Over the course of the past 5 months, there have been numerous games that have come out that I have not reviewed, save for Heavy Rain and Darksiders. I have sixteen games lined up for reviews, so get ready for a smorgasbord of reviews coming to your face-hole.

Dead Space 2 Cover Shown off by EA's Twitter

Over at EA's official Twitter for Dead Space 2, they've gone ahead and posted the boxart for the game, which, strangely enough, isn't due out in early next year. We're probably going to get some more info next week at E3 - probably even during Microsoft or Sony's press conferences - so showing the boxart off is just part of getting the hype train rolling.

Check the break for the full shot

[MUSIC] Metroid Metal: A Favorite Remastering, Rediscovered

Many years ago, I signed up as a sponsor for a project called Metroid Metal. One man, Grant Henry, aka "Stemage", put his time and musical prowess into turning the classic Metroid music into face-melting power chords that would destroy your view on gaming music. Simply put: Metroid Metal did not leave my CD player.

During the transition between Windows to Mac a little over two years ago, a good chunk of my music got lost in translation, Metroid Metal one of them. I recently got the newest sponsor email, where Grant's new masterpiece, Metroid Fusion's Sector 1 background music, had been put up for downloading goodness. I re-downloaded the music, and got my ears on their first, commercially-available CD, Varia Suite, which remasters various tracks from Grant's MM past, and it really did put an awesome sheen on my face, one that hadn't been there in a while.

I threw everything on my iPhone and listened to it in my car; getting into it like I did back in high school really did put a gigantic smile on my face, one that I haven't had in a long time.

My favorite tracks were Kraid, Ridley, Lower Norfair, Phendrana Drifts and the Boss Medley, a culmination of various boss tracks from Super Metroid, namely, Torizo, Spore Spawn, Kraid, Ridley and Mother Brain. The haunting guitar during Spore Spawn, plus the Awesome-Sauce oozing breakdowns during Ridley, really had me itching for Metroid. Don't forget the eerie voice interjected in Item Room, which is actually Grant reading the story from Metroid's manual. True story.

[REVIEW] A Lot of Games, Part 3

This the third part in a four-part series of multiple, micro reviews. Over the course of the past 5 months, there have been numerous games that have come out that I have not reviewed, save for Heavy Rain and Darksiders. I have sixteen games lined up for reviews, so get ready for a smorgasbord of reviews coming to your face-hole.