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5.0 out of 5 stars The First Of Many Inspiring Albums, January 12, 2005
By Dark Ninja (Canada) – See all my reviews
There is no way you will ever get closer to the utopia you experience when you listen to this outstanding album. I hope for the sake of every being in the universe that we will see many, many more Macho Man albums in the future. When I first caught a glance of this CD at Walmart, I turned and fell to my knees while time literally stopped. Once I regained consciousness I quickly filled a crate with the album and handed the cashier a flying elbow drop! When I placed the CD onto the tray of my stereo system, I knew at once that my life had culminated to that point, my purpose was to witness the sick, wicked, and nasty beats that were about to pulsate through the earth itself and energize my very life force. When the tray recalled itself back into the stereo console, it was as though the final puzzle piece of human existence had been put into place. Rainbows began to pour inexplicably out of the speakers and onto my terrace. The windows flew open and The Macho Man himself floated in on a winged platinum unicorn. He gave me a $5 gift certificate at Radio Shack and told me that I was the chosen one. He said that He and I would lead mankind out of poverty and strife forever. He said we must hurry, unimaginable evils were gathering and following him and there was not much time before he would have to face them. As we prepared to embark a low rumble could be heard in the distance. Hardly decipherable at first, but it began to grow louder, and apparently closer. The sky darkened rapidly and took on a red-orange tint. The rumble grew exponentially louder and more fierce, and the ground began to shake. Without warning an enormous crack in the planet’s surface appeared and a great mountain of rock and molten lava shot up from the center of the earth with the force of ten trillion mighty buffalo. Satan himself stood before us, in all of his evil majesty. Despite this apocalyptic series of events, Randy was not at all intimidated. He stood fast, and with a mighty cry of ‘OOOOOOHHH YEAHHHHHH!’ he was suddenly 250 feet tall and was made entirely of gold. Satan lunged towards Savage with blinding speed, but The Macho Man was suddenly gone. Satan spun back around just in time for a vicious Macho Man drop kick to the throat. Again, Savage disappeared, leaving Satan dazed and confused. As Satan tried to recover Randy leapt at him from out of nowhere with a punishing sunset flip, sending The Dark Lord directly into a black hole on the other side of the universe. Savage explained to me how his musical talents inspired the Greek God Zeus, and so Zeus gave him super powers and ultrasonic vocal cords. I told him he’s the illest, the true chief warrior. The bottom line is I used to steal cars and buses all the time, but ever since I heard this album I only smash fire hydrants. I no longer sleep or eat or talk, I just absorb the lyrical extremes that this album surpasses time and again and train to fight The Hulkster. Everything that you’ve ever done, are doing now, or will ever do is a complete waste of time unless it directly involves Randy ‘Macho Man’ Savage. If you don’t own this album, I sincerely hope that this review has helped you realize what a clueless and wretched piece of waste you really are. And seriously Hogan, be a man for once in your life. If you just take the beating maybe Savage won’t banish you from the universe….OOOOOOOHHH YEEEAAAHHHHH!!! I just crapped on myself.
THE FAIRYLAND STORY original platform
arcade (1985, Taito)
While not a huge hit, Fairyland Story marks Taito’s entry into the comical action genre pioneered by Joust and Mario Bros. The young witch Ptolemy is basically a one-woman wrecking crew with her magic ability: the power to turn enemies into cupcakes, which she can push off a ledge, where it will crumble on the ground, along with the hopes and dreams of the freshly deceased. The only real weakness of the game is that when the lives are gone, they’re gone – there’s no continuing. This is a mistake that Taito would not make in their more famous comical action games like Bubble Bobble, Parasol Stars, and Don Zoko Don.
The Fairyland Story was inducted on June 10th, 2009.
or…
“Demos and Our Bright Reflections”
(following Beati Paoli’s songs from inception to adulthood)
||MASSIVE CHARM OFFENSIVE||
here’s the demo:
one of our newer songs, it was just released on the split 7″ & mini-album, “Quid Pro Quo” (buy it here). this was among the first batch of songs that were introduced and worked out in studio, as opposed to the live ‘jam’ style that past songs had been pieced together through.
cecil worked out the basic chord structure and some lead lines ahead of time, and recorded them on a digital 8-track at home (i think i might have been in paris at the time). after he played it for us, we went over it a couple times in rehearsal and then laid some scratch guitar on top of a click track.
once we had the basic structure down, i began working on drum parts and samples. the majority of the rhythms came from our practice sessions, where i would use the frankendrum through effects pedals to get the delays and sounds that inspired the rest of the beat to come together. from there, i programmed a beat over ceci’s scratch guitar using fxpansion’s BFD. i continued to mess around with it until i was happy with the over all feel, at which point i set up drum mics and recorded it on REAL drums.
after the drums were all edited and in place, i used battery to intertwine other drum and noise samples into the existing part. i also created a beat for the bridge section (using broken glass, metal pipes, bass drops and various other fun noises).
while working in the studio, we were also still rehearsing. cecil and ryan were working on tones and new parts for their respective instruments, and greg was working on lyrics and melody.
we recorded most of the bass and guitar parts next, and then everyone took some time on their own to review the latest version of the song and meditate. i had been listening to a lot of liquid liquid at the time and decided that we NEEDED marimba on it. i got to work banging out a mallet part and corresponding synth part, eventually programming them using fm8 and kontakt. ryan converted the lead on the chorus to a sick fuzz bass, and pretended to work on a cello part for the bridge (which was eventually abandoned). cecil, inspired by the cure, wrote a lead line for the bridge, and greg finished tweaking the vocals, inspired by nothing.
that’s about it. during the mixdown, we used various effects to enhance certain portions or the song, but i can’t remember what all was done, so for fear of misstating or leaving anything out, i just won’t say a word.
and here’s the final product (found on “Quid Pro Quo“):
Crop art. A bit more advanced than what those worthless UFOs do. These pieces were created in rice fields by planting various types of rice in intricate patterns.
this napoleon and warrior can both be found in the Aomori Prefecture
Metal Slug: 2nd Mission (SNK, 2000, NeoGeo Pocket Color)
It’s longer and more challenging than its predecessor but reuses the same engine without any real graphical/audio upgrades so it gets the same grade. B+
Hydro Thunder (1999, arcade, Midway) *as part of PS2 title, ‘Midway Arcade Treasures’
I loved this game in the arcades and I love it at home. One thing I love about this game is that, save for one course, the tracks don’t have laps – just one long, straight shot through. There’s a lot of variety in courses and boats and the action is very arcadey. Annoying rubber banding programming detracts a bit, though. B+
Viewtiful Joe (Capcom, 2003, GameCube)
A great, very original game. I initially hated the character designs and the overall style (”Henshin a go go!” *cringe*) but I got over it and really got into the actual gameplay. Speed things up, slow things down – Joe has a lot of powers to master and fighting becomes really complex but natural. I’m looking forward to playing the sequel some day. A
Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (Square Enix, WiiWare, 2009) “MAIN STORY” ONLY
This game is being released episodically. The initial, $8 download is called the ‘Main Story’ mode and credits even roll afterward, even though it’s only about 5-6 hours long. It’s very much a sequel to FFIV, with all the same characters and crap but with nice changes to combat to keep things fresh. There are 7 short chapters (probably 2 hours each) forthcoming, along with another big download to conclude everything. Not sure if I’ll get them all because, dammit, the graphics and audio are straight out of 1993 and it seems overpriced. We’ll see! B
Mega Man (Capcom, 1987, NES)
Mega Man 2 (Capcom, 1988, NES)
Mega Man 3 (Capcom, 1990, NES)
Yes, I recently played through the first 3 Mega Man games. I think I can see why there have been a million Mega Man games, as the action is really pretty addictive. The first game establishes the action, the robot masters, Wily, all that crap. MM2 expands everything and the levels reflect better planning and introduces some inventory to manage. Finally, MM3 is even longer than MM2, and is much more challenging. There’s definitely a lot of rehashing but each new release is definitely a worthy effort. Soon I’ll see if the same is true for MM4, MM5 and MM6. B, A, A
It appears that on July 1st, Warner Bros. will assume control of the company currently known as Midway Games. This will be the THIRD time that Warner will have control of the old Atari properties and also marks the end of an era for both Midway and the brand once known as Williams. This article outlines a history of these four companies as they relate to each other.
TIMELINE
1972: Atari is founded by Nolan Bushnell.
1973: Midway and Williams enter the arcade video game industry.
1976: Warner Communications acquires Atari.
1984: Atari splits into two: the consumer division is sold off as Atari Corp while Warner keeps the arcade division, Atari Games.
1986: Atari Games becomes independent.
1988: Williams acquires Midway. RIP MIDWAY
1990: Warner again acquires Atari Games.
1996: Williams acquires Atari Games from Warner.
1998: Midway becomes independent, taking all of Williams‘ intellectual properties with it.
2001: Midway closes its arcade division.
2003: Midway closes Midway Games West. RIP ATARI
2009: Warner acquires Midway.
NOTES
Williams and Midway were fierce competitors in the pinball market before and after their entry into the video game world.
The 1984 split of Atari was really weird, as the intellectual properties were similarly split (for example, Atari Games could make Centipede games in the arcade and Atari Corp. could make Centipede games for consoles/computers).
When Williams acquired Midway in 1988, they only retained the services of two Midway game designers. Although Williams kept the Midway name alive and used it even more than the Williams brand, the original Midway basically died with this acquisition. This wasn’t really a huge loss, though, as the original Midway was really much better at importing Japanese games than creating games of its own.
Williams decided to leave the video game business in 1998, turning over all of their original intellectual properties to Midway and then spinning Midway off into an independent company.
Midway’s decision to close its arcade division in 2001 is significant from an Atari Games perspective, as the arcade was the only arena in which Midway/Atari Games had the rights to use pre-1984 properties (although they never really used them, anyway).
In all the hubbub surrounding Street Fighter IV over the last year, you may have missed the news that Capcom released another fighter titled Tatsunoko vs Capcom in Japan. I guess it pours when it rains, considering Capcom hadn’t created any original SF-style fighting games since about 2001.
Tatsunoko is not a retread of SFIV and unlike past Capcom vs. titles it doesn’t borrow its gameplay or graphics engines from any other title. The graphics are 3D but with cell-shading and other effects that give everything an animated feel. If you’re like me, you’re not that familiar with Tatsunoko, but they’re a famous Japanese animation house responsible for the likes of Speed Racer.
This game is a Wii exclusive and originally was not scheduled for a US release considering no one here knows Tatsunoko and several different companies are currently licensing their various properties here. However, the nerds were vocal enough that Capcom is bringing it over and I, for one, am glad for the addition to the small pool of high quality, 3rd party games on the Wii.
At the beginning of the year I wrote about some then-forthcoming games that I was looking forward to. Most of the games on the list have now been released. I’ve only played a couple of the games and won’t play the others until they’re much cheaper but here’s what the critics think of them (courtesy of aggregate scorer Gamerankings.com). As you can see, some seem to have turned out quite nicely while some appear to be disappointments.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Rockstar)
DS: 93%
Street Fighter IV (Capcom)
Xbox 360/PlayStation 3: 93%
Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost & Damned (Rockstar) *downloadable expansion*
Xbox 360: 90%
Punch-Out!! (Nintendo)
Wii: 88%
Resident Evil 5 (Capcom, Xbox 360/PlayStation 3)
Xbox 360 score: 86 (59 ratings)
PlayStation 3 score: 87 (52 ratings)
Madworld (SEGA)
Wii: 83%
Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Atari)
Xbox 360/PlayStation/PC version: 78%
Wii/PlayStation 2 version: 72%
DS version: 56%
Bionic Commando (Capcom)
Xbox 360/PlayStation 3/PC: 73%
The Lord of the Rings: Conquest (EA)
Xbox 360/PlayStation 3/PC version: 55%
DS version: 53%
Conclusion: Well, LOTR, Ghostbusters and Bionic Commando look like stinkers, especially when you consider the nerd reviewers probably gave them free points for nostalgia or fanboy reasons. I’m most intrigued by Madworld as the scores are really love-it or hate-it, much like God Hand, created by the same development team. The End.
GHOSTS ‘N GOBLINS key personnel
Tokuro Fujiwara (design), Ayako Mori (music) original platform
arcade (1985, Capcom)
After his beloved is kidnapped by Lucifer himself, the hero Arthur embarks on the original super-difficult, side-scrolling, platformer-shooter. His enemies are merciless and many of the platforming challenges he faces are only slightly kinder. Armed with seemingly inexhaustible projectile weapons supplies, Arthur cuts through the underworld hordes only to learn at the ‘end’ of the game that the preceding events were merely a dream and that he must repeat the whole adventure to truly free his one-and-only. At times the challenging action is nothing short of cheap but the devilish designs, level varieties, haunting score, and an addictive quality pull the experience together.
Ghosts ‘n Goblins was inducted on June 10th, 2009.
scott
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