miffy495

Actually, I'm netless at the moment. I'm writing this on an iPod touch using the university's wifi connection. For whatever reason my cable modem stopped working two days ago so I haven't had the chance to download the patch yet. Hopefully I'll be back up in a couple of days, but until then, no Harmonix store for me.

Is that in the Earache pack? I haven't downloaded that one. Listening to that sort of metal isn't really my thing, but if the songs are fun, who am I to argue? I'll definitely look into it. Also, announced yesterday was the 6 song Boston pack! I'd buy the pack for "More Than A Feeling" by itself, but with 5 more songs, I'm unbelievable psyched for Tuesday's pack to drop.

Well, we're going to need a thread for this one sooner or later, so I thought I'd start one up. Just got it today, have put about 5 hours into the Subspace Emissary mode (but still haven't unlocked Sonic. Grrr... ) and cleared classic mode with Samus. This means I have about 25 (I think one or two more than that) characters available to play as and a bunch of stages. I've also been playing the multiplayer at friend's places since release, so I have quite a bit of experience with that as well. Verdict? Multiplayer is the same as it ever was, Subspace is infuriating at times, fun at others. What's wrong with Subspace? The character choices. I like that you sort of get the option to pick your character before each level. The game dictates that a certain few characters are playable in each level and tells you to pick from them. When those characters are, for example, Fox, Diddy Kong, and Falco (all of whom I'm terrible with) I get incredibly pissed off as it means a whole lot of dying that wouldn't happen otherwise. Also, Smash Bros is not a platformer. Nintendo, please stop trying to force platforming into it. When it just sets you up in straight-up matches, it's great, and the cutscenes are wonderful. They're just the minority of the experience. New characters? I'm actually very fond of Olimar right now. Pulling a bunch of Pikmin from the ground and using them as projectiles is great fun, and when they get beaten on by opponents, watching their ghosts rise away from the stage is a very nice touch. Snake kicks all kinds of ass. If you can get yourself to a safe spot, the homing missile is like Ness' PK Thunder with splash damage and longer range. Beautiful. His triple jump (grabbing a Cypher robot and flying up) doesn't do any damage, but is easily the highest vertical jump I've seen in the game. He's a bit slow, but as I figure out how best to use him I'm reasonably certain he has the potential to be unstoppable. Sonic, as I said, I have yet to unlock. I did play as him for about an hour last night at a friend's though (what prompted me to buy the game today) and learned very quickly that if you can't control high speed movement, you're completely screwed. All of his attacks seem to be variations on the spin dash, whether it's the standard dash from Sonic 2 or the homing one introduced in Adventure. The homing dash is great for irritating your opponents, as it zooms you towards the closest person and bounces you off their head, allowing you to keep performing it ad infinitum until someone can throw you off your rhythm. His side B move sets him dashing around the stage kind of like Yoshi's egg-ball-thing from Melee, but significantly faster. I lost a match yesterday because of a suicide from not reacting quickly enough to that move when both I and my last remaining opponent had one life and I was far ahead in percentage. Quite annoying to lose a match that was pretty clearly mine due to being too slow to react to my own character. Still, like Snake, Sonic could quickly become a favorite if I work on my timing. Eep. That's a lot of text. As I wouldn't mind some matches against other thumbs, I'll throw up my friend code here, knowing full well the potential irritation that this could lead to. (see: the pokemon thread) I'm (as always) Miffy at 4124-4854-3796. See some of you out there.

Well, I picked up Brawl on the way to class this afternoon and was going to pop it into the Wii as soon as I'd given a quick read to the new stuff going on here, so I'll be seeing how much the ennui has set in very shortly. Luckily, over the past two years my free time and disposable cash have slowed pretty much exactly in pace how often games that excite me come out. Back in '04, for example, there were a ton of releases that caught my interest. I was working, but still living at home and going to high school, so I had enough cash to get them and time to enjoy them. Now, I'm in third year university, on my own, spending time with work, school, and my girlfriend, and can afford to get a brand new game (still pick up the occasional XBLA or VC release, and used game if it's really cheap) about once a month. Sometimes I don't even do that, because nothing came out that month that interested me. Thinking back, January was Drake's Fortuneand Ratchet and Clank, (both used, so the total came to about the same as one new game) February was No More Heroes, and now it's Smash Bros Brawl. And I still haven't really had the time to beat Heroes. I guess I never really noticed the slow in excitement because it coincided so perfectly with my life's pace ramping up.

...yup. Glad I declared Guitar Hero to be dead about a month and a half ago. These are just very profitable twitches from the mangled corpse of quality gameplay and brining the fun back to games. Pay them no mind, there's Rock Band to worry about.

Listen to "Frank's Wild Years" off of Swordfishtrombones, it's totally spoken word and pretty dark. Bloody brilliant. Not to be confused with the full album Waits released that is also called Frank's Wild Years.

Toblix, you are one of my favorite people EVER for that. I haven't laughed so hard in a while. Cheers, man. Also, I miss your thread titles: :tup: :clap:

Sorry twmac, but no idea where the name came from. Although I have a friend who DJs for the local campus radio station who knows the guys, so I'll ask her if she knows next chance I get. The New Pornographers are great. Managed to catch on to them while they were still playing the smaller pubs touring Western Canada, it's always fun to get in on the ground floor with something like this. While we're on the subject of people just picking up big contracts, they're more standard rock than indie, but my buddy Matt is the new(ish) bassist for Hot Little Rocket, who recently got a huge break in their album How to Lose Everything being produced by Steve Albini (producer of Nirvana's In Utero, The Breeders' Pod, and Gogol Bordello's Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike, among others) and getting a major release. Great album. Pretty much all I listened to for a month or two after it came out last summer. They just got back from playing the SXSW festival in Austin, which is fucking amazing for a little Calgary band. If you dug Sunset Rubdown, you should also click the link for Frog Eyes and this one for Wolf Parade. All three are different projects from the amazingly talented Spencer Krug. Tally Hall was pretty good. I dig, and will keep an eye out. Any idea how often they get out to areas where I'd be able to see them? If your location thingy is correct in telling me you're from New York, it's unlikely they get North of the border and damn far West all that often... One last thing, major props for mentioning Mule Variations, as it's one of the best albums I own. Personally though, I find Waits more consistently stunningly brilliant in the mid 80s, having peaked with my personal favorite album of his, Swordfishtrombones, and to a lesser extent Rain Dogs. But yeah, the gist of this is to listen to Hot Little Rocket. When the myspace page loaded and I started listening again, I remembered why this was all I listened to for so long. I think I'll be bullying my friends into throwing that CD on a few times tomorrow on the drive to Spokane for a Buckethead/That1Guy show. 11 hours on the road requires music no matter how much you love your friends.

If you hear a rattling noise mixed with hissing, FUCKING RUN! I hate the poison headcrabs. Hate them SO MUCH. Creepy little bastards scare the living hell out of me every time, even when I know they're there. I very rarely get legitimately scared by games/movies/what-have you, but those things get me on some basic level that just repels me from the screen. ...so yeah, have fun with them. Glad you're enjoying yourself. You have a few more vehicle segments to go, so I hope you don't hate them too much. "Highway 17" is actually a really well done chapter, despite your spending much of it in a car.

No, I'm definitely indie/quirky as well, which is one of the main reasons I've stayed out of all the techno conversation. Don't worry, you're not alone. What I listen to is largely Western Canadian indie rock, as I work downstairs from one of the main indie venues in the city and I get to drop in on a lot of amazing shows after my shifts end. Usually end up with a new band discovered every 2 or 3 weeks that I'm in love with, often from within a 6 hour drive of my house. That said, I'm also heavy into blues and punk (origin sort of punk. 70s and 80s sort of stuff.) and occasionally listen to Leonard Cohen and/or Tom Waits when the mood strikes, as they're just fucking great. Here's some links to indie/quirky stuff I've been listening to over the past month or so to help balance out all the techno/trance links that have been posted. Beija Flor: From my hometown, so I see them often enough. Just put out their second album "The American" in January, although I still prefer their debut "The Quiet One And The Lonely One." All the tracks you can hear on their Myspace page are from "The American" though, so you gotta take what you can get. Listen to "Life of a Salesman" or "The Birds" for some of their best on that album. Run Chico Run: A two piece from Victoria. They each will typically play 2 instruments at once when performing live, meaning yes a two piece can actually sound like that without sampling. A friend introduced me to them about two years ago, and I haven't missed one of their Calgary shows since. Give a listen to "Smitten" or, if you can find it, "Jacques and Madeline." : Victoria again. First time I saw them, they were opening for another amazing band called Frog Eyes (give a listen to "The Oscillator's Hum"), which was founded by Sunset Rubdown's vocalist Spencer Krug before he left to start a new project. They're now bigger than Frog Eyes, but I recommend both. Sorry about the shitty youtube link for these guys, but it was the best I could find and I love that song.So there you go. Four links to some indie bands from my area that I'm really into. Hope you feel less left out now.

Bought it yesterday on my way to work. Between buying it and now, I have worked an 8 hour shift and studied for and written an exam. I have also beaten God of War: Chains of Olympus. So, first impressions: it's pretty short. Also pretty hard to put down, which is normally a very good sign but in this case seemed mostly to serve to emphasize the shortness. Don't get me wrong, usually I don't like to judge a game based on its length. Some of my favorite games can be beaten in around an hour. Especially if there's replay value, there's no problem with a short game, but after the awesome that was God of War II I expected a little more meat to this installment. The story doesn't even really get going until about 20 minutes from the final boss, who herself is a bit of a letdown. Basically you fight the first half of the Gannon battle from the end of Ocarina of Time without the awesome second half to follow it up. The controls translate really well for the most part, although the standard GoW complaints apply to the attacking, where the animation takes so long you're not quite sure if you've entered the proper combo or not until about 10 seconds after you hit the buttons, though the enemies can interrupt you at any time. Also, the "rotate the stick this way" quick time events don't work so well with an analogue nub, meaning that the QTE bits are if possible a bit more irritating than usual. Still, those are minor quibbles that are only little specks on an otherwise great job of controlling a proper 3D action game on a handheld. Graphics and sound, wow. Just wow. In fairness, it has a bit of a handicap in that it's the first game that Sony has allowed to use the full 333mHz of the PSP, while all the previous games to hit the system have been underclocked, but holy crap does it show. Stellar visuals. As good, if not better, than God Of War II was on PS2. It's just that pretty. Only minor problem was that something just seemed a bit off about the climbing animations. Couldn't put my finger on it. Just looked a bit wonky when Kratos was scaling something. Again, minor thing only noticeable because everything else was so damned pretty. The music is the typical GoW fare as well, meaning nice booming orchestral soundtracks and generally epic music all around. Very good. Of course, this is all by handheld standards. Compared to its PS2 brethren, this game is a very enjoyable slight step down for the series. Expecting a handheld version to live up to it's big brothers on console is a tad unfair though, so on its own merits Chains of Olympus is one of the better games I've played on the PSP. Shame I beat it in less than a day. If you have a PSP and liked the GoW games on PS2 check it out, though if you have the option, renting would probably be a good idea.

Downloading. Damn fast too. Will seed the living hell out of this one.

Yeah, I had a really good laugh at that one last night myself. Especially after reading the other responses as they were posted, that was really impressive.

Ah yes, Lady Vengeance. Good flick.

Oh my god that was brilliant. So powerful for something so understated. Thank you for posting that one.

Agreed about Paprika. I was recently browsing a Blu-Ray rack at HMV to find something new to watch on the PS3 and saw an HD copy of it. Had to buy. Absolutely amazing.

Damn, Seasick Steve is awesome. Been looking for some decent new blues. Thanks for the tip, man.

Which is why I do my best to ignore it. Even though my gut doesn't like it, I do what I can to cognitively give EA the benefit of the doubt. They've proven they can do some cool stuff lately with Skate and now that they're working with Bioware I'm interested in what'll come about. Again though, with regards to this specific situation, I can't see two behemoths becoming one bigger behemoth being all that good in the long run if only for competition's sake. Two big companies fighting with each other through innovation rather than one giant company keeping tabs on everything please. They could still be agile, but the bigger the company gets the more difficult it is. EA has been doing well lately, I won't dispute that, but getting even bigger won't help them to do that, it'll just make them more unwieldy in the hands of anyone other than a complete expert of management. And once again, Take Two is big enough as it is...

I'm not the type to get super pissed off over EA games or anything like that. I'll admit I feel a bit of a twinge every time I look at a recently purchased game with "EA" on the box, but that won't stop me from playing a good game. I just get the feeling that they've gotten too big for their own good and that with a company as big as they are, it'd be very difficult to maintain the agility and adaptive capability that would inspire more creative output. Not impossible, mind, just very difficult. Honestly, it's not like Take Two is much better, pumping out it's own yearly sports franchises (which is oddly often more stagnant than the EA equivalents [see: puck handling in NHL2K7 vs NHL07] yet dodges many of their critics) and milking other series for all that they're worth. Seeing two companies that are already bigger than I'm comfortable with merging into one super-company is a slightly unsettling idea, and I'd rather not see it.

I'm appalled with the internet. Not a single Leonard Cohen song I've tried yet has resulted in any name other than my own on the leaderboards. Why are there other listings for bands from Calgary that draw blank stares from so many people (Beija Flor, Hot Little Rocket, Tokyo Police Club, etc) but nothing for LEONARD FREAKING COHEN??? Bah! Uncultured *mumble mumble mumble...*

Trying to "beat" the game by finding a track in my collection that has absolutely no other listings on the global leaderboards is proving very difficult. The closest I've come is "I Feel Like Going Home" by Yo La Tengo, which only had one other person on there. Other close calls (3 or fewer other names) were "Way of Living" by Beija Flor, "The Mending of the Gown" by Sunset Rubdown, and "Nantes" by Beirut. So help me, I'm going to have a leaderboard all to myself if it's the last thing I do. My music collection should be eclectic enough that there's one song in there no one else has played in Audiosurf... EDIT: DAMMIT! Another one that only one other person played. "Puke+Cry" by Dinosaur Jr. Actually, a really fun song in the game too. If anyone has it, I'd recommend giving it a play. ...and off the same album ("Green Mind") the song "Hot Burrito #2" has given me a leaderboard all to myself. Personal achievement unlocked, now to see what happens with some spoken word Tom Waits or something. Nothing like trying to break a procedural game to make it even more fun. EDIT AGAIN: And strangely Leonard Cohen's "Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On" (from "Death of a Ladies' Man") also gives me a leaderboard to myself. Damn you internets and your ignoring of Cohen!

Just downloaded the demo off of the Playstation Store and finished it in a sitting. I've got to say though, what a sitting. That is one of the meatier demos I've seen in a while. 10-ish levels from the game at around 5 minutes apiece is very impressive given how many games just give you the tiniest taste of gameplay and send you off to buy the full thing. Especially as this is a portable game (and compared to, say, the Loco Roco demo) this length is very impressive. Unexpected, and very welcome. As for the game itself, I'm now considering it a must buy. The use of different rhythmic button combinations to attack, advance, and defend (I assume there will be more commands, but that's all you get in the demo) is a very clever way to mix light strategy within a delicious rhythm game shell. For $20, I'm definitely in. Wonderful little game, with a bit of a risk of getting stale. I hope it manages to keep on introducing new commands and such throughout rather than just allowing you to equip your varying soldiers with stronger weapons that look a bit bigger but do the same thing. With a price point that low, it's a risk I'm willing to take, but it is something I fear the game will fall victim to. A lot of games with really creative and interesting mechanics like this find themselves quickly getting stale because (if you'll pardon the crudeness of the expression) they blow their load in the first 20 minutes and expect you to sit there happily wallowing in it for an additional 7 hours. I think they made a really good decision pricing it as they have, as it'll convince more people who don't know what it is to try it out, [as worked for the first Katamari Damacy (y'know, back before it got milked to death)] or people, like me, who are interested but skeptical that the idea would have the legs it needs. All that may come off sounding a bit negative, but really that's just because I don't want to get my hopes up for this one as much as I did for Loco Roco. I expected that game to be something akin to the second coming and was mildly disappointed when I was only given a delightful, well made, quirky, and fun platformer. I don't want to play Patapon and feel let down that it's merely great instead of a religious experience. In all honesty, I'm very excited about this one despite myself and can't wait to stumble across it in an EB sooner or later.

Been playing and enjoying, though the fear that it will get old quickly has not yet gone away. There is a very early level (thus the lack of spoiler tags) involving crossing a desert and causing rain to happen that got a bit grating, as every now and then the rain would just stop and you'd have to interrupt the flow of the game to bring it back. Still, hopes are high and we'll see what happens...

Right on. Though I have to say, as of right now, I'm failing spectacularly. I was worried I'd look paed-ish, instead I look like a fourteen year old with aspirations of one day becoming a paed. Not a good look. Add to this today's amateurish haircut that makes me look like the retarded brother Matt Damon keeps chained up in his attic and I'm very glad I already have a girl because there's no way in hell I could get anywhere with one looking like this.

I AM THINKING OF THAT PRETTY LITTLE GIRL ALL THE TIME... () [3 [] [] () [] [3 [] () [] [] [3 () [] [3 [] *groan* % \/ () [3 [] [] ...I can't be the only one who thought that...