Wicked Video Game OST's Part one: Rusty Hearts

Soundtracks associated with video games can sometimes be beautiful, masterfully done and memorable, yet are rarely recognized widely.  Not entirely, thanks to wonderful things such as Video Games Live, The Ohio State Marching Band, and other rare but appreciated concerts and other events, but they still need a lot more love.

In an effort to shine light on the mad talent involved in bringing video games to life through music, I want to do a series of posts highlighting some of my most memorable encounters with Video game music.

Starting us off, we'll stay a while and listen to the soundtrack from Korea developed MMO/beat'em'up (a rather unique genre!) Rusty Hearts.

First off, the main theme of Rusty Hearts:

A very dreamy piano theme that just wants you to stay on the title screen.  There's nothing very advanced going on in this piece but the melody is incredibly smooth, a beautiful piece.  I won't hold it against you if you just leave this track on repeat.

Stealing pets from popular people!

Mass brain cell harakiri possible:

If you lost your pet, perhaps check with this chick first, also be less popular!

Edit: Yup, she's pretty awesome.  here's another!

 

Review: Defender's Quest

Released: Nov 2011 ? I have been looking hard to nail it, but I'm not entirely 100% sure.  Bust my balls if I'm wrong, here.
Developed by: Lars Boucet
Published by: Lars Boucet
Demo: http://www.defendersquest.com/play_demo.html

Defender's Quest throws you into the soles of Azra, a victim of a plague, who somehow gains magic talents and spirit world powers from a plague related near death experience, letting her tap into power from the beyond, being half dead from the plague but not quite and everything.  She's very frail but quickly finds out she's able to fight this plague from her half spirit realm, through spells and summoning companions into the "half way there" realm, the only place plague zombies, snails and acid spitting serpents can be put down for good.

Seriously, though:

It's weekend!

Enjoy a song from the lovely and wildly talented Sarah Donner!

Once that's done, feel free to check out Motherfucking Pterodactyl by the same artist.  Isn't she great?  Thanks to fellow motherfuckers Stan and Chris for getting me into her in the first place!

Have a great weekend everybody!

On a more serious note:

I still have a ton of games I'd love to do indepth reviews on.  I may already be spending unhealthy amounts of hours playing these things, but putting down representative and honest reviews for them takes time, as well.  Currently I am working on my review for a lovely indie game called Defender's Quest, which is half traditional Tower Defense, and half RPG/Story content.  I'm enjoying my time playing it a lot so far.  Until the review is done, there is a demo available here which may be of interest  It is a rather enjoyable game for anyone liking TD style games.  http://www.defendersquest.com/play_demo.html

Short list of definitely happening reviews: Borderlands 2,  Darksiders 2,  XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Longer list of reviews I want to do when I can:  Warhammer 40k Dawn of War 2, Serious Sam 1+2+3, Torchlight 2, Magic The Gathering, Duels of the Planewalkers 2013.

The world has officially gone crazy.

That's it, Earth's fate is sealed, we are setting sail for insanity frolics.  For today, I recieved proof that the race of man is as I have suspected for a while, is still sailing hard towards its doom.  I have heard stories of my revelations before, but I have most healthily discarded these stories as wild superstition, but unfortunately  I am here today to tell you that the end is, indeed, coming.  For today, outside of my house, I found myself  at a coffee bar, and I had a woman in front of me in the line, who ordered a "frappuchino", with extra chocolate, extra cream, and no coffee.  And the barista responded that it was coming right up.  So this person went to a coffee bar in order to get herself a fashionable cup of coffe, that has no coffee in it.  Furthermore, this woman who has allegedly studied and taken an actual education in coffee making, said sure, coming right up.

So that's it, then!  Next we'll have babies made without actual sexual intercourse involved!  Hold the press, thats already happening, too.  This is DEFINITELY it, then.  It's been good y'all !

Today's post may be exaggerating certain points for humour.  As much as the author would like it, the world will most likely not end for a good while, yet.

Is being hello!

Words are moot.  You're welcome!

Is being hello ?

Please to direction Moxxi Underboob Palacio ?

Here you go luvs!

xoxoxo

(Jesper Kyd rocks)

(Maybe more Borderlands soon)

Review: NFS Most Wanted PC

Released: Oct 30, 2012
Developed by: Criterion Games
Published by: Electronic Arts

Jumping in with both feet, here.  There's no story involved in Most Wanted.  As soon as you launch the program and it's done loading, you're thrown head first into a big city with no clue what's going on, apart from event locations plotted into EasyDrive.  If the developers can't be assed writing any form of story that puts you into the game, then neither will I, sorry.

(I was going to write this review for players unfamiliar with the original Most Wanted, but it just can't be done, my apologies)  If you played the first Most Wanted game, you will probably know what's expected of you, but I suppose Most Wanted rookies might like to know just what is their incentive for burning rubber and getting chased by police as soon as they round the first corner. No such background is given.  To briefly fill in those blanks for you, you play a fresh arrival in the city the game takes place in, and for unknown reasons get into the underground racing scene with an ambition to become the most wanted by the police.  Why you would want to be that is anyone's guess.

Taking it online (720p all details lowest, best I can play at online, its still too choppy sometimes, tho)

Review: Death Rally

Developed by Remedy Entertainment
Released Aug 3. 2012

If you're as old as me, which you probably aren't, then you may know the name "Death Rally" from the hazes of nostalgia.  But you probably don't.  Death Rally was a top down racing game along the lines of arcade superstar Super Sprint and multiple platforms release Micromachines.  Yes there were a lot more but these examples will do.  But this game also had guns , Rock'n'roll, explosions and Duke Nukem.

Early impressions on Path of Exile beta

Hello there!

I've been fortunate enough to get accepted into beta testing for Path of Exile, and I thought I'd throw out some thoughts on my experiences with it so far.  To the best of my knowledge and from what I could find through forums, PoE testers are not under any form of NDA.  If I'm mistaken here though, let me know and I'll remove this right away.  PoE will also switch from closed to open beta "soon"!

For anyone new to Path of Exile, short and sweet description follows.  PoA is an online only action RPG, with a lot of similarities to games such as the Diablo series, Torchlight and Titan's quest.  It is in closed beta testing for a full year already, with open betas right around the corner.  Once released it will follow a free to play business model, sustaining itself on "ethical microtransactions", hopefully meaning there will be no way to "pay to win" as many F2P games unfortunately end up as.

Review: Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony

Jamestown, released June 2011 from Final Form Games.

Bullet hell shooters, now here's a genre of games that puzzle me.  In these games you control a small craft typically armed with ridiculous firepower faced against scrolling levels chock full of enemies firing swarms of bullets at you, pretty much covering the entire screen in death.  Its your job to find your way through the levels without taking a single hit, preferably while also killing as many enemies and picking up points as possible in the process for a high score.  Why would one expose oneself to such sadistic punishment ?  The answer is of course, because its incredibly satisfying to beat them.  Really, that moment when you've failed over and over, but finally get through a level after several minutes of one hundred percent complete concentration and adrenaline.. That's why.

Don't need no stinking CoD for my FPS fix.

Because these last few weeks I've indulged one of my childhood nerd-dreams, playing some of the old school FPS's online, cooperatively.  I'm talking about the various shooters pre-Quake 1 here.  Prior to my current stint my only only experience with these old timers online has been playing 2 player Duke Nukem 3D via 28.8kbit (or therearound) dial up modem, which was fun at the time but also incredibly unstable and laggy.  These days however, with fast net connections and source engine tweaks that improve net code drastically, setting up a game of say, Doom 2 online is doable even by the most technically challenged such as myself!

Review: Defense Grid: The Awakening DLC's

The main review for Defense Grid: The Awakening was getting lengthy, so I thought it best to go through the DLC's available for it in a separate post. In this post I will be going through all the DLC released so far for the game with short reviews and opinions on value for money.

Review: Defense Grid: The Awakening

Brought to us by Hidden Path Entertainment, Defense Grid: The Awakening was released for PC December 2008, Xbox Live Arcade September 2009 and also ported to Mac OS X in July 2010 by a different developer.  There have been a few DLC's released for it since then, and it wasn't until the Steam christmas sales 2011 I was even aware of the game when the complete pack with all DLC released was offered at a heavy discount.

Defense Grid: The Awakening is a traditional tower defense type of game, where the player is tasked with placing defensive towers to block and destroy big waves of invading alien enemies.  While nothing new is brought to the genre, the game is unique in its high production value presented by detailed 3D levels and enemies courtesy of the powerful gamebryo engine, perhaps better known for its use in games such as the Elder Scrolls III and IV, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, Warhammer Online and Civilization IV.

Ridge Racer Unbounded Track Editors!

I don't know about you, but for me this game went from completely not interesting to potentially completely bad ass in about 1 minute and 43 seconds!  Its extra funny because this very video is causing an uproar of Ridge Racer fans damning the game to oblivion for its rather different approach than the classic Ridge Racer titles.  Come to think of it, they do have a point, there's not exactly a lot left of the awesome that was the first few Ridge Racer games on the PS1.  But.. dat advanced editor!

Aion's Free to play model, and something for former Aion players.

What's Aion, then ?

As you may or may not know,  NCSoft's Aion is in the process of switching from the regular MMO monthly subscription form to a free to play model.  The reasons for this are of course the game not drawing enough subscribers to compete with the bigger MMORPG's out there,  despite the game recieving massive praise near its launch as a potential "WoW-killer".

Review: Trackmania 2: Canyon

A different kind of racing game


Trackmania 2: Canyon is developed by Nadeo and published by Ubisoft in september 2011.  Like the previous Trackmania titles, this game behaves quite a bit different than the kind of racing games most gamers might be used to.

Digging deeper and more greedily into Roguelikes

This morning I thought I'd go a bit more in depth on the phenomenon that is the roguelike genre, seeing as I've recently mentioned it in my reviews of Dungeons of Dredmor and The Binding of Isaac, and also because the genre remains completely unknown to perhaps even most of today's avid gamers.

Review: Dungeons of Dredmor

Dungeons of Dredmor + Realm of the Diggle Gods DLC

Brought to us by indie games developer Gaslamp Games, Dungeons of Dredmor (DoD) is something as rare as a commercial Roguelike game released July 2011 for online distribution on PC/Mac/Linux.  In it, the player takes on the role of an unfortunate soul shoved down into a dungeon filled with monsters and traps, but also the main villain himself Dredmor who must of course be vanquished.