Bruceville

Category: Games

Games we’re playing, or maybe games we have written

  • How do I discover new music?

    How do I learn about new music these days? Aside from the fact that Dallas radio absolutely stinks (unless you’re a country fan, I guess), I almost never listen anyway. My most frequent radio-listening spot used to be in the car on the way to work, but since I almost always work from home, that no longer happens. And forget MTV for music.

    The new music I’ve been turned on to for the last couple of years has come from two places: Video games and Saturday Night Live. Back in 2000, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 set the standard with what I think is still the best soundtrack ever for a video game. Since then, I’ve discovered lots of new artists via video games. These days, racing games like Burnout 3 and Burnout: Revenge have turned me on to the following artists:

    • Franz Ferdinand – There are at least 3 excellent songs on their self-titled CD, and several other good ones.
    • The Von Bondies – Maybe a one-hit wonder, but man, I sure dig that hit: C’Mon C’Mon.
    • My Chemical Romance – “I’m Not Okay” is the song that was actually in the game. “Ghost of You” is a better song, and has an excellent video.
    • Motion City Soundtrack – I liked about 2/3 of “My Favorite Accident” on Burnout 3, but “The Future Freaks Me Out” is fun all the way through.
    • CKY – I already knew about “Camp Kill Yourself” via Bam Margera and his Jackass theme “Quiet Bitter Being”. When I heard “As The Tables Turn” on Burnout: Revenge, I listened to it 5 times in a row.

    More recently, several of SNL’s musical guests have caught my attention. Here’s a list from this season:

    • Franz Ferdinand – I was already a fan and it was neat to see them live.
    • Korn – Interesting performance (and interesting microphone stand), but it didn’t actually make me seek out any of their new music.
    • James Blunt – Pretty good. I guess I can see what the hype is about.
    • Shakira – Holy Smokes! I’ll just keep quiet in case Michelle reads this.
    • Death Cab For Cutie – These guys came out of nowhere from my perspective (I’ve since learned they’ve been around forever). Their album “Plans” went straight onto my Top 10 list. 10 of the 11 songs on that CD are great. It is safe to say that I am a super-fan of these guys.
    • Prince – Obviously not a new artist, but his performance of his new song “Fury” blew me away. I’d forgotten what a guitar wizard he is. I can’t bring myself to delete this episode from my PVR because I watch that one song so often.
    • Fall Out Boy – Holly and Andrew had already turned me on to these guys’ hits “Sugar We’re Going Down” and “Dance, Dance”. This is a fun band and I think they’d be pretty good live, but it seemed like they were having technical difficulties (audio levels) on the show.
    • Arctic Monkeys – I’d never heard of them before they were announced as SNL musical guests. Now I’ve listened to “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I Am Not” over and over again. By far the coolest bass grooves I’ve heard in a while! These guys have knocked DCFC off the top of my “currently playing” list. Back to SNL: At first I didn’t know if I’d fast-forward past their songs or not. The first song “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor” held my attention, then their second song “A Certain Romance” knocked my socks off and got stuck in my head for a solid week. This performance was notable also because at one point the lead singer pointed at someone in the audience and shouted “That man just yawned!” Google that to see what kind of Internet reaction it caused.

    I should also mention the oddest place I’ve found a new song lately: An Olympic figure skater’s performace music. A Japanese skater skated to a song so mesmerizing that I had to seek it out. It was incredibly tough to find. We thought it seemed like something out of a Miyazaki movie, but I finally learned that it was from a 1983 Japanese war movie called “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.” I found a surprisingly good MIDI version you can listen to by clicking here.

  • Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Review

     

    Score 9.6/10

    Graphics: 9 Sound: 10 Gameplay: 9 Value: 10 Tilt: 10

    (Using Gamespot’s rating system (Graphics, Sound, Gameplay, Value, Reviewer’s Tilt)

    This is simply the greatest video game ever created. There’s still room for improvement, but so far, this is the best.

    I loved GTA3 on the PC, and often while playing Vice City on the PS2, I’ll find myself wishing that it, too was on the PC. I had gotten totally spoiled by 1280×1024 resolution on a 19″ monitor in GTA3. ~640×480 on a 50 inch screen is comparatively fuzzy. Maybe this is the incentive I need to finally go HDTV.

    Even though I’d rather be playing it on a PC, that won’t happen for several months yet. So right now for GTA:VC, the PS2 is the only way to play. And play I have! I’m almost embarrassed about the number of hours I’ve logged playing this thing. (Probably more than my top 2 Xbox games combined.) It is the epitome of addictive. The open-ended, non-linear gameplay means that if you’re having trouble with a certain mission, you don’t put the game down and come back to it later, you just avoid that particular mission for a while and go do some jobs for a different scumbag boss, or play any of the myriad of side-missions like Vigilante Mode, Taxi Driver, Stunt Driving, the Rampages, or just explore for Hidden Packages, or Unique Jumps. The things to do are nearly endless. I am truly amazed at the scope of this game. The number of characters, vehicles, weapons, missions, and just the size of the city are staggering.

    Is this really that much better than GTA3? Oh yes. The motorcycles are a blast to ride and are probably my favorite improvement. The airplanes and helicopters, both real ones and bomb-dropping, remote-controlled toys are super-cool. You can while away quite a bit of playing time just flying over the city and taking it all in. Indoor locations (and being able to hold them up) add an interesting variation. You also have the ability to buy property and after completing the location’s required missions, have it generate more income for you. Finally something to spend your hard-earned fake money on.

    I don’t have DTS on my receiver to enjoy the surround sound that this game offers, but the voice acting and 80s music soundtrack are so excellent that I have to rate the sound a “10”. There’s nothing wrong with the engine, weapon, and ambient sound effects in normal stereo, but I’d sure like to experience them on DTS someday.

    As far as controlling the game goes, I got used to it pretty quickly, but that “spoiled by GTA3 on the PC” syndrome really kicks in when I get in a gunfight with multiple assailants or when I want to do some zooming and sniping. The mouse control on the PC is pretty much perfect. I was really used to switching between my Wingman Rumblepad while driving and my mouse/keyboard controls while on the street. I don’t really know how they could improve the control much when using the PS2 controller, so I can’t complain too much, but maybe the developers could take some notes on how Halo does it on the Xbox.

    What about the adult-ness of the game? Well, If GTA3 was the equivalent of PG-13 movie, this one is almost rated R. I don’t mean you should expect to see full frontal nudity, cartoon sex, or anything like that (though a strip club and an adult movie studio are featured), but the humor is more “adult” and some of the missions involve worse things than just driving dancing girls to the policeman’s ball or picking up girlie-mags from the street. Even the radio DJs use more “blue” language, and the pedestrians and drivers you deal with curse much worse. Honestly, it’s nothing you wouldn’t hear in a PG-13 movie, but I personally preferred GTA3’s clever, suggestive style over VC’s let-it-all-hang-out “adult” language and situations. I think it takes more creativity to be funny without 4-letter words, and that it’s lazy writing to just toss them in. It may be more realistic for people you’re terrorizing in the streets to let the expletives fly, but I sure preferred GTA3’s way of doing things in that area.

    I recently told a friend who had just purchased an Xbox that he had made the right choice in picking it over the PS2. Knowing him to be a fan of GTA3 on the PC, I said that GTA:VC was excellent, but not worth $250 (console+game). I’m nearly tempted to go back on that. If a game’s worth is measured by how much time you spend enjoying it, $50 for the game is one of the world’s best entertainment bargains. Is it worth buying a PS2 just to play this one game? Well, for normal working-class Joes like me, that’d be awfully tough to justify, but as I’ve said previously, if you can afford both an Xbox and a PS2, I highly recommend it. If you can wait a few months for it to come out on the PC (and your PC is powerful enough), that’s another fine way to go, but whatever you do, you’ve got to play this game.

  • Games Link

    Right now the Games link is about the only one with any content. And when you get to that page you’ll see that the custom game content (tracks, levels, paint jobs) that is meant to be there isn’t there yet.