February 22, 2012

Gaming in Stereo: Sephiroth Wednesday

Stan­dard Pod­cast [ 5:25 ] Play Now | Play in Popup

I started this fea­ture with one of gaming’s great­est hero’s, now we look at one of gaming’s great­est vil­lains. Sephi­roth is just one of those vil­lains you either love because of his bad fac­tor, or hate and weep because he is evil and killed Aerith. Today’s song is off of the same BadAss: Boss Themes album that last week’s Shred­der tune came from. Sephi­roth (Final Fan­tasy VII) BadAzz by Pro­to­type­R­aptor is full of pulse pound­ing beats that make me want to pop in Advent Chil­dren. I was going to do this song a few weeks ago, sorry for the delay. SEPHIROTH!

http://badass.ocremix.org/

February 22, 2012

Borderlands 2 on Android?

Dur­ing last weeks PDXLAN Gear­box Soft­ware demoed Bor­der­lands 2, this in and of itself would have been an inter­est­ing activ­ity, what makes it stand out though is the fact the demo was being run on a Tegra 3 pow­ered Android Tablet.

Tegra is Nvidia’s mobile CPU solu­tion and has the Tegra 3 is the lat­est quad-core vari­ant. It is already in a hand­ful of tablets such as the Asus Trans­former and is about to hit a large num­ber of Smart­phones. The fact that Bor­der­lands 2 was run­ning on this mobile proces­sor is not only impres­sive and says alot about its heft but also shows promise in the way things are going in the mobile com­mu­nity. If a tablet can run a PC grade game it wont be long before mobile gam­ing is taken to a whole new level.

Does this mean you will get to play Bor­der­lands 2 on your new tablet or quad-core smart phone? No, this is entirely up to devel­op­ers, we may see a mobile opti­mized ver­sion of Bor­der­lands, or a cut down mobile ver­sion, and a slew of other games for Android and iOS, but its too early to tell what exactly is on the hori­zon of mobile app devel­op­ment. When the quad-core mobile devices start hit­ting shelves at a more stan­dard rate well have a bet­ter idea of where things are going. This year will be a big one for mobile devel­op­ment and may very well pave the way for hard core gam­ing on the go.

February 21, 2012

Gaming in Stereo: Kirby Tuesday Redux

Stan­dard Pod­cast [ 3:23 ] Play Now | Play in Popup

Last Tues­day we fea­tured Kirby and we are going to do it again, because I say so. Actu­ally I came across this song while lis­ten­ing to last weeks and fell in love with it. Gen­er­al­ized Veg­e­tal –Theme of Star Gen­eral by Tren­thian is just awe­some. The soft brass and strings come to a crescendo mid­way through to cul­mi­nate a great melody that just gives the pic­ture of Kirby march­ing along into an adven­ture. A soft flute fin­ishes the tune and takes us back into dream­land. I really enjoy these remixes, espe­cially the Nin­tendo trib­utes. There is a cer­tain mag­i­cal feel to Nin­tendo that can’t be described, only felt in that joy­ous smile while play­ing some­thing like Kirby. The song is off the Rise of the Star: The Kirby’s Adven­ture Remix Col­lab­o­ra­tion, same as last weeks and I implore you to check it out. Enjoy.

http://ocremix.org/album/6/kirbys-adventure-rise-of-the-star

February 20, 2012

Gaming in Stereo: Metal Gear Monday

Stan­dard Pod­cast [ 7:26 ] Play Now | Play in Popup

I am finally get­ting around to fin­ish­ing Metal Gear Solid 4; I have had the game since 2008, and now for the out­cries of hate. I love the game, just oth­ers came out and well the rest is his­tory. I am almost fin­ished with it but I have always loved the music of the series and today we are cel­e­brat­ing it with a fan­tas­tic remix. Today’s track is a treat, Metal Gear Solid ‘The Price of Free­dom’ by Evan Arnett, Janna McKin­ley, and Jonathan Mills is a com­bi­na­tion of themes from Metal Gear Solid. So now go and spend you Mon­day morn­ing enjoy­ing the sounds of Tac­ti­cal Espi­onage Action and wait, Snake? Snake? SNNNAAKEEE?

http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02368/

February 17, 2012

Gaming in Stereo: Robot Master Friday

Stan­dard Pod­cast [ 4:14 ] Play Now | Play in Popup

Two Mega Man days in a row how great is that? Today’s song comes from a unique album that came from Over Clocked, its mixed bag of music but every piece is dif­fer­ent. Mega Man: The Robot Museum is a col­lec­tion of remixes high­light­ing one robot mas­ter from Mega Man 1–8 and includ­ing Bass from Mega Man 7. Today’s track Power Stone (Mega Man 5 – Stone Man) by Joshua Morse is full of fun dance beats and a hint of gui­tars here and there. This is a really fun track, great way to start the weekend.

http://ocremix.org/album/28/mega-man-the-robot-museum

February 16, 2012

Civ V getting expansion; Gods and Kings

The Civ­i­liza­tion series is a widely known and pop­u­lar turn bases strat­egy game allow­ing the player to build a civ­i­liza­tion and com­pete on a global scale for supremacy. It includes many of the worlds his­tor­i­cal great lead­ers, each with unique traits and abilities.

Late spring of 2012 Civ V will be get­ting an expan­sion pack called Gods and Kings. Gods and Kings will bring with it 9 new won­ders, 13 new build­ings and 27 new units along with 4 new civ­i­liza­tions, Carthage, the Nether­lands, the Celts and Mayans, each with unique traits, build­ings and units. Play­ers will also have 9 new lead­ers to play as, four of which will be William I, the Prince of Orange, Boudicca and Pacal the Great.

It will also add new reli­gious city-state types and mer­can­tile types. And thanks to enhanced diplo­macy and espi­onage options play­ers will be able to stage coups and rig elec­tions as well as uti­lize spies to steal infor­ma­tion from other world leaders.

Play­ers will expe­ri­ence new sce­nar­ios also such as the medieval period, the fall of Rome and a Vic­to­rian sci-fi sce­nario called Empires of the Smoky Skies. Reli­gion will also be added to Civ V through this expan­sion. Gods and Kings will also bring with some tweaks and mechan­ics updates for the game as a whole. The com­bat sys­tem, AI and naval aspects are a few of the things being updated and improved.

February 16, 2012

Gaming in Stereo: Blue Bomber Thursday

Stan­dard Pod­cast [ 3:09 ] Play Now | Play in Popup

Last Mon­day I fea­tured a Mega Man tune that cranked up the heavy metal, this week we go a bit elec­tronic with one of the most mem­o­rable and just one of the best open­ing themes in all of gam­ing. Mega Man 3 ‘Mega Man 2003’ remixed by Gecko Yamori is a fan­tas­tic trib­ute to one of the great­est in games in Mega Man’s NES days. The sub­tle piano open­ing leads into an all out glow stick trib­ute. Gets your blood pump­ing this morn­ing with a bit of Mega Man techno because hon­estly, what else could be bet­ter? As always hit the link to down­load the track.

http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00878/

February 15, 2012

Konami shutting down Metal Gear Online

Come June 12, 2012 MGS4’s online counter part, Metal Gear Online will be shut down for good. This will hap­pen in stages begin­ning March 21^st with the online shop being shut down. A month later on April 24^th play­ers will no longer be able to cre­ate and reg­is­ter new char­ac­ters, also all expan­sion packs will be made avail­able for free on April 24^th.

If your a fan of Metal gear Online get your fix in now because it will end, I would also advise you to take as much advan­tage of the free expan­sions you dont already have and enjoy them as much as pos­si­ble for the month and a half youll have access to them.

This is a bit of a sad day, Metal Gear Online had a pretty large fol­low­ing and this will upset quite a few gamers, but lets face it, the pop­u­lar­ity clearly isnt high enough to keep putting money into it to keep it going. Oh well I sup­pose, enjoy it while you can and keep an eye out for the next big thing with Metal Gear branding.

February 15, 2012

Gaming in Stereo: Bastion Wednesday

Stan­dard Pod­cast [ 2:54 ] Play Now | Play in Popup

Today we get to lis­ten to a song off one of my favorite sound­tracks of last year, Bas­tion. Bas­tion was a sur­prise for me. The game was not on my radar until the games for last year’s XBLA sum­mer of arcade were announced. The game caught me off guard and when I reviewed it I wanted to give it a per­fect score just out of shear love for the game. But, as a pro­fes­sional, I with held and gave it a score based on its mer­its regard­less, though one thing I praised so highly was the sound­track. The sound­track is a gem of its own and should be heard by all. Dar­ren Korb, the games com­poser, did a fan­tas­tic job of cre­at­ing some­thing unique, some­thing that can’t be described in words. So sit back and enjoy Spike in a Rail off the Bas­tion Offi­cial sound­track.

http://supergiantgames.bandcamp.com/

February 14, 2012

Mass Effect 3 demo is here!

One of this year’s most antic­i­pated, if not THE MOST antic­i­pated game, Mass Effect 3 released in demo form today and I must say if this is any indi­ca­tion of the full release then I think no other game will come close to touch­ing it the entire year!

In the demo you get two full sin­gle player lev­els com­plete with cut scenes. The demo also gives you an option to choose the game style you would like to play like straight shooter or clas­sic RPG action shooter. What lit­tle of the story you get it amaz­ing  in keep­ing with the Mass Effect fran­chise it hooks you in the first 5 min­utes and keeps you on the line until the demo is over. With­out rev­el­ing any­thing all as I can say if HOLY AWESOMES SAUCE! This game is going to be amazing!

There is a mul­ti­player com­po­nent that can only be accessed early (Feb 14^th to Feb 17^th) If you acti­vated your Bat­tle­field 3 online pass  and then after the 17^th will be open to every­one. Mul­ti­player is an objec­tive based “Horde” mode that is insanely intense and lots of fun.

The demo is avail­able now on PC via Ori­gin, Xbox live and The PSN for free down­load. If you haven’t done so down­load it now and check it out! For more info check out the offi­cial Bioware Mass Effect 3 site HERE.

Also on Sun­day Feb 19^th dur­ing the AMC show The Walk­ing Dead a new Mass Effect 3 trailer debuts to make you hunger even more to play this years’ best release! But for now check out this trailer with Fem Sheppard…..ENJOY!