Ok, since this month is my birthday, I'm going to be totally unashamed in just flat out promoting my all-time favorite band ever, Running Wild. Four words : Pirate themed metal band. Seriously, there's not enough good things I can say about this band. They've got it all metal-wise : Rebellion (who was more a rebel than freaking pirates? Who? Noone, that's who), amazing melodic riffs, great lyrics (yes, despite being a German band, they do sing in English. Though, I did find out the hard way while seeing them live in Germany that they don't speak in English between songs. Minor issue though... Not complaining.), and 13+ consistent albums. Their music ranges in between hard rockin' stuff like old Motley Crue and fast as lightning Iron Maiden, and usually a bit of both for good measure. All their stuff is good. You could not go wrong to pick up any album by them on any given day and go to a random song and give it a listen. Best band ever! Good enough, that the ex-members went off and created their own spinoff band X-Wild. Unfortunately, they closed up their plundering and pilaging ways in 2009 after the singer/guitarist started his own pussed-out new band Toxic Taste (an apt name), which promptly tanked, and means what's out is all we're ever going to get. It's ok if you get choked up about this. So, for you folks, my kickass readers, I whipped up my personal favorites into a playlist. Enjoy while Running absolutely crazy Wild! Flick the parrot off your shoulder, don your eye-patch, drink your tankard of rum, and raise your fist! Fuck yeah metalheads! Yarrrrr!!!
What A Horrible Night To Have A Curse... Posted August 8, 2010
In a direct nod to Castlevania, the bitchin' American Melodic Death Metal band Black Dahlia Murder, wrote a song to commemorate their love of video games. Metal and games. There is no finer combination. Rockin'! (Note, that you are morally obligated to play Castlevania II : Simon's Quest while you listen to this).
So, uh... yeah! New Maiden comes out August 16th and the entire album is scifi-themed. No, I am not playing with your emotions. Would I do that? Seriously, I don't even think there's anything more I need to say. Feel free to start drooling...
"Platform Hell" is oh.. about fist-fighting polar bears difficulty. "Masocore" is more like naked fist-fighting a bunch of hungry great white sharks that really do have frickin' lasers on their heads. "Platform Hell's" only commercial foray was the Japanese Mario 2. Most people who have played the 2D Mario games
know the second Mario, and have probably thought it's a little weird of a departure from the formula, but
probably have not given it another thought. Well, the truth of the matter is what we got was a port of "Yume
Kojo: Doki Doki Panic" with Mario characters replacing the characters from that game. What Japan received was a
redone Super Mario Brothers with the level cranked up to bastard. I mean.. You've played games, but a game that literally hates you and your whole family?!? Figuring the American market was too fragile
for this kind of bitch-ass-hard difficulty, they gave us the watered down version and kept their beast for
themselves (I theorize they were calling us wusses for that whole pesky Nagasaki thing); at least until Super Mario All-Stars came out and it was released as "The Lost Levels".
Beyond that,
for free, the best example of "Platform Hell" is "I Wanna Be The Guy" with Megaman 2 intro music. IWBTG is
difficulty of slapstick proportions. "Crows developing cold-fusion"-Ridiculous would be a good way to describe it. Everything tries to kill
you. At one point the moon in the sky comes after you. You probably thought it was just a harmless background image.
And then... You're toast! IWBTG spun off an number of sequels, all equally hard, if not harder.
Watch these videos and judge for yourself. The default minimum difficulty is Medium which will label all your
saves to "Wuss" and give you a pretty pink bow in your hair. They go up to "Impossible" which aparently only a handful
of people in the world have successfully completed. I wonder if these people have jobs. It only has a single save point which
comes and attacks you. If you don't kill it, you can't save at all. Yeah... Have fun with that one...
So, in celebration of both platform games and the origin of these games here's a documentary hosted by Tony Hawk on the History of games called "Video Game Invasion". The guy Eric Zimmerman in this I actually shared a cab with at the GDC I went to. Pretty frickin' cool if I don't say so myself!
Oh! And before I forget... here's enough platform games to keep you busy for over a month. I claim no responsibility to any loss of productivity, signifigant other, mobility, pet antfarm, job, or other stuff due to these.
