Music for Nerds, Vol. 1337

Simon over at GameSetWatch has posted a number of cool music-related things in the last week or so. First was the four-disc nerdcore compilation, which contains a whopping 80+ tracks of hit-and-miss geek rap. With subjects ranging from World of Warcraft to Emma Frost's hard outer shell, there's bound to be something here to tickle your fanboy bone. Next is the extremely nerdy Cave Story remix project. This is remixed music from the soundtrack of a homebrew sidescrolling freeware PC game from a Japanese developer. That's so hardcore, it's like adamantium-mixed-with-vibranium hardcore.

By the way, all this music is made available for free by the artists, so there's no reason not to check it out. And if you haven't played Cave Story (also free), then you really need to. The game has been making waves in the game community for its quirky style and high level of polish. Seriously, it's awesome. R2 called it "one of the best platformers I've ever played." Again, no excuses!

Wherever Particular People Congregate

Yes, the old Pall Mall cigarette slogan is highly appropriate for the salon of the future: MySpace! If you've been reading the news lately (or watching pedophile sting operations on Dateline), you've probably started to think that online communities are a sordid cesspool of sex and other deviant activities. Not so! Why, just the other day, I received this message in my MySpace inbox:

"Hey Matthew!

I don't mean to bother you.. I just moved out here around Atlanta for work a couple of weeks ago. It sucks cuz I don't know AnYBoDY out here ;(. My friends back home suggested I start a myspace and look for people in my area. I just started today so here I am! :D

Well I'm lookin to meet a guy and you are pretty cute Hehe. About me... Well I'm 24, single, and I love to have fun. I'm into older men. Since you're cute and 33, you fit the profile! LoL

I just started this myspace stuff today so my profile is pretty thin to say the least. If you wanna see some of my pix, I have a homepage @ houseofvicky.com/kris - there's a bunch of photos and stuff... I also left you a PeRSoNaL message on the front page so come check it out k?

XoXo KriSty"

What an enterprising young lass! With her clever use of online lingo, not to mention her tenuous grasp of punctuation and capitalization rules, I knew "KriSty" was legit. I responded immediately, and we met this morning for a coffee at a little after 7 am. Early? Yes. But, like, she just started her job, you know, and is trying to make a good impression by showing up on time. Anyway, KriSty is a fine looking young woman, to be sure. She was eager to learn about the Atlanta environs and wanted to know what I did to "kill time". Being a married man, this seemed to be a bit of an inappropriate question, especially the way she twirled her hair and pushed out her pert young breasts when she asked me. So I sort of dodged the question and suggested visiting the aquarium.

Anyway, if that doesn't prove that online communities like MySpace are excellent social networking tools and vital outlets for today's young people, I don't know what does. Long live the web!

P.S. Give KriSty a call; she gives awesome head.

Daily Show: Congressional Video Game Hearings

Thanks to Chrissie for the link!

Massively Multiplayer Academia

Are videogames worthy of academic study? Sure they are! Here are some people from Trinity University who prove the point. (Although academics who still insist on hyphenating "on-line" deserve some skepticism.) With papers such as "MMOs as therapy: A therapeutic tool or barrier to psychological growth" and "Aesthetics and gratification: Sexual practices in virtual environments" you have to give props to the depths to which these scholars were willing to sink in order to shed light on these complex issues. Humankind will undoubtedly benefit from their collective efforts.


(Okay, so maybe you detect a little sarcasm here. In all seriousness, it's nice to see the academic community turning to games as a subject worthy of study, although I don't think a paper entitled "Violence in MMOs: It's not only adolescent boys who like this stuff" is really tackling the tough issues.)

Thanks to Kotaku for posting this!

Happy Birthday, Sonic

Sonic the Hedgehog turns 15 this year (wow), and that means SEGA's favorite mascot is probably gonna try pot for the first time, listen to annoying rap-metal and act all surly around the grown-ups. It also means that GameTap is celebrating with some interesting new additions to its library.

Bright Red Nonsense

Here is an amusing local news story about Cartoon Network's latest outdoor ad campaign.

Toy Discount

Since the three people who read my blog might care about this, check out Toyzz.com and use the code MYTOYZZ to receive a 20% discount on your order. They actually have some pretty obscure crap!

The Angry Nintendo Nerd

I met two nice fellows from ScrewAttack.com when I was at E3, as they were kind enough to stop by for a GameTap demo. In any case, they got plugged on Kotaku today, so I was just checking out their website. And this made me LOL: the Angry Nintendo Nerd.

Witness his review of Castlevania II, which he colorfully describes as a "horrible steaming pile of goat shit." Absolutely priceless.

MGS4

You want to talk about the future of entertainment? Instead of debating whether or not video games are the medium of tomorrow, simply watch the extended Metal Gear Solid 4 tailer, and witness the argument come to rest before your very eyes. Seriously, this thing is incredible...and I don't even LIKE the Metal Gear games.


If you can, do yourself a favor and download the 1G HD trailer from IGN. You won't be sorry. Then get ready to put aside $600 for your PS3...

Willie the Warlock

Hellboy Oh Boy

My pal Mario pointed me to this awesome blog about the making of the new Hellboy animated feature.


I had heard this was happening a while ago, but I had no idea that they were so far along. I guess it will be on CN (Adult Swim?) soon.

Mad Props

Sure, they're only about a year late, but Kotaku plugged the MAD "50 Worst Things About Video Games" issue today! That's pretty sweet. Thanks, Kotaku!

Five Alive!

Kotaku was nice enough to point out that GameLife episode 5 is now available for your enjoyment. I salute the kids who make this show, but damn if there isn't a Wesley Willis aspect to watching them.

And is it just me, or is Melissa kind of hot?

CoH vs. WoW

Okay, so you know you're in the right job when your boss tells you: "You need to play World of Warcraft." Well, if I must...

As part of my job helping to design an MMO game, I obviously need to become more familiar with MMOs. Duh. Though I have dabbled in MMO games for a while, my real experience pretty much begins and ends with Guild Wars. So over the last few weeks I have signed up for City of Heroes and World of Warcraft, as well as Disney's Toontown. (Seriously, that's about as much MMO as one person can handle.) So without further ado, I present:


Paragon City in City of Heroes was my first stop. I created my first female character, a hot "magic tanker" named Molly Hatchet. During my initial login, I soloed for a little while to get the lay of the land, and got myself up to level 2 or 3. (I also got myself lost and wound up in a high level area. Whoops!) My impressions were definitely positive; the game has solid controls and the powers system is really interesting and intuitive. When I logged in a second time, I teamed with a bunch of guys on a "sewer mission" -- the sewers are one of the low-level areas near the start of the game, heavily populated with weaker enemies. I spent a couple of hours with this group, and they were all really nice. We were ushered through the environment by a level 32 guy who kept us healed and buffed, so before I knew it, I was at level 7. There was no cursing or noob-bashing. When I said this was my first character, the high level hero told me to add him to my friends list and look him up any time. This was easily the most fun I've had with a bunch of strangers in an MMO environment.

Now it was time to try WoW. After debating Horde vs. Alliance, I decided to go with Horde, as the undead race was too tempting to pass up (I love zombies). Since I almost always go with the "meat shield" warrior class, I decided instead to try a caster class. Hence, my undead warlock named Mordux. He has a big "X" on his face and looks like a badass...for a walking corpse, at least. Moving through the environment for the first time, I was immediately impressed with the design and level of detail in the art. Though it's no Guild Wars, the colorful variety of the environments and monsters (even in the first undead city) was impressive. I tooled around a little bit and killed some guys. Another undead player came up to me and offered me some magic water for a copper. Sure, why not? A little bit later, the same dude came up to me and offered me the same deal. Uh...no, thanks. About five minutes later, the guy challenged me to a duel, which I declined. So he challenged me again. DECLINE. He walked up to me, whispered "pussy!" and took off. Gee, thanks.

So, as you can see, my City of Heroes experience has been significantly more fun than my initial impressions of WoW. You obviously have to give these games time...and I don't have a ton to spare. Complaints about both games: the patches took FOREVER to get me up and running -- in City of Heroes case, over an hour. Also, the essence of any MMORPG -- fighting monsters to level up -- gets old quick. As a single-player guy, I find the combat in both games pretty boring. Perhaps it is the superhero setting, but I liked playing City of Heroes a lot more. The other thing about CoH that I appreciate is the lack of micromanagement of items. Instead, you manage your powers. This is cool. Not so much in WoW. During a few hours of WoW, I collected bat toenails and wolf pelts and worn boots and a bunch of other crap, all of which possesses little, or at the very least, questionable value (until you learn the game's crafting system). It wouldn't matter it I could hold onto all that junk, but my inventory filled up after about five battles. This kind of stuff drives me mad -- I hated it in Guild Wars, too.

Anyway, the MMO genre will never be my favorite, but I can certainly appreciate it more having dug a little deeper into a few of the more popular games. If you have a positive community experience (an MMO's biggest selling point), then you will likely have a grand time and forget how boring the actual gameplay can be.

See you in Paragon City!

It's Awesome Because It Rhymes

Spider Riders: "Discover a lost world where ten-foot-tall spiders battle at your side. Awesome!" P.S. Please buy our shitty toys.

Now That Takes McBalls!

Some guy got up at a UK games convention, and, pretending to be a representative from (the apparently bogus) McDonald's Interactive, declared that a "simulation of the fast-food industry" has predicted that we are heading towards "global calamity". I don't know why they needed a game to predict this, but anyway, you can read the text of the speech here. Talk about stones! Thanks to GSW for the link.

Wakka Wow

This film is lovely and amazing.

Ninja Garnish!

Hey, if you live in New York, you totally have to check out this ninja restaurant. Their special: assassination! Man, the jokes just write themselves...