They’re not a real band, but I think you get the idea. The biggest change in 2012 for me was the rise of Bandcamp and Soundcloud. Sure, I still bought plenty of music from Amazon or Google, but an increasing amount of the stuff I picked up came from the individual himself. I mean, why would I expect the Fez soundtrack to occupy a spot in Amazon’s mp3 store? Thanks to Bandcamp, I can just pick it up almost directly from the artist. ...
Even the Pittsburgh Pirates played video games this year. Knock on wood, you guys, but I managed to get through 2012 without having all my video games stolen from my house while I was sleeping [EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s 2013 now, you dummy. You don’t need to knock on wood]. Should that even be an achievement? 2012 seems to be a shift in the status quo. Perhaps it’s because the new console generation hasn’t yet kicked off, but I feel like fewer and fewer AAA, big budget titles have been grabbing my attention lately. Of the 56 games on this list I feel like very few (about 12) were big, huge landmark games. Maybe that’s not all that different, but it feels different… ...
In a weekend full of grief over some terrible Marlins losses thanks to anemic offenses I finally got around to finishing Dollhouse… Movies Indie Game: The Movie - Steam’s first movie! I didn’t kickstart it, but I was more than happy to support it post-release. It’s not super informative if you don’t already know a bunch about indie video games, but it’s entertaining to see three artists at three stages of their careers and the minds and personalities that go with each. It makes me really crave postmortem analysis of Fez as well. ...
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Robert Downy, Jr. was definitely the MVP of the movie. (Photo courtesy JakesplacePS)”] [/caption] Readership assemble! Min and I made the great sacrifice of seeing The Avengers for you. Our verdict? It’s excellent. Go see it, y’all. Seriously. Movies The Avengers - It does precisely what I thought was impossible by focusing on each individual character for a bit and giving them all arcs. Granted, most of the groundwork was laid in all the other Marvel movies, but it’s still tough to do. High props to Mark Ruffalo for his portrayal of the Hulk. His barely contained anger was chilling and, most importantly, awesome. Joss Whedon’s writing also gels quite nicely with the movie, RDJ version of Iron Man. ...
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“423” caption=“Gomez: The Hero of Fez (Picture courtesy Titolian)”] [/caption] I did a lot more with this week than I thought I would have time for considering how much I played The Old Republic and how late I was getting home for a lot of the week. Fez gets special mention at the top of this article for completely immersing me in its world. Everything from its ambient, minimalist soundtrack to the weird artifacts, perplexing language, and dense, unspoiled mystery has me super intrigued. ...
Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen. I figured I’d start with BlazBlue today, since the game just came out and I sunk an evening in playing it. I don’t have all that much to say about it yet, but it’s intriguing in a very not Street Fighter way. The fighters are all insanely detailed and designed in an intricately anime fashion, leaving no moe niche unserved and the fighting system is deceptively simple, but actually WAY complicated, as most of these things are nowadays. I haven’t had a whole lot of time to sink into it, especially because Street Fighter IV has nabbed my attention yet again, but I will keep posting impressions as I play. ...