Sword & Sworcery is a bit more art than video game. In fact, the game itself is more of a container for the synth-heavy soundtrack and pixel art animation. The art style is a cross between the blocky designs of early Sierra 3-D adventure games and the limited color palette and vistas of Another World. A lot of reviews describe the sound track as being “prog rock.” It’s not. It has much more in common with a mid-eighties Golan-Globus action movie score (Rob Walsh’s Revenge of the Ninja OST comes to mind) than Yes. Generally, a good thing, and one of the benefits to buying this game on Steam is that the digital soundtrack is included in the package. I guess the prog rock associations come from the way the game feels like the weird, fantastic stream of conscientiousness of the movie Heavy Metal (without the shiny boob lady). But back to my first point. No, this isn’t the greatest game playing experience. Clicking on trees in a specific order is not a brilliant game mechanic. However, like minimal interaction of Photopia, the game elements serve as a carrot to keep you exploring the environment and experiencing the unique narrative and music.
In the past, most people’s introduction to Raymond Scott came when some hipster nerd told them that the music from Looney Tunes was okay, but you should really listen to this guy who Carl Stalling totally ripped off! Nowadays most of us have heard these songs in various modern cartoons from Ren and Stimpy to the present. I remember bringing this CD into work at Tandem Press and it immediately got the thumbs down from the staff because they had all been inundated Scott and other music from the 78 era when Art Spiegelman had been artist in residence the month before. Indy comic guys apparently love this stuff. Well, it’s fun, happy, creative music, so I guess that makes sense (I don’t know how that really ties in with the whole mouse holocaust thing, but just go with it for now).
Phantasy Star II and III are probably the only 16-bit era JRPGs that I actually completed when I was a youngster. Even then I had very little patience for the stupid plots and inane mechanics (especially when compared to the Ultima games that I played on my Apple ][+) of most JRPGs. However, for some odd reason, these Phantasy Star games were able to hold my attention.
End of the Millennium is very much the same as its predecessors. You march a little formation of characters around towns, dungeons and a massive over-world and face random, turn-based battles every thirty seconds or so. Normally, these random encounters annoy the crap out of me, but I don’t mind it so much in this case. Combat is straightforward and you can set up macros to speed up the grinding and I always felt like I was getting stronger with each battle.
The thing that sets Phantasy Star IV apart from the other games in the series (and most late 80s JRPGs) is the comic book style cut scenes that make the plot somewhat understandable to my anime-adverse sensibilities. The pixelated 16-bit Genesis graphics are great and were especially crisp on the Wii Virtual Console version which I played here. The music is also really good, albeit repetitive to the point where every family member was able to whistle along with the upbeat “merchant music” from across the house.
John Stossel is awesome. I’ve been a fan ever since I was in the seventh grade and watched him debunk pro wrestling and, in the process, take a couple slaps in the face from David Schutlz.”You think it’s fake?” Boom. A childhood fantasy destroyed. Sometime between that fateful smack and today Stossel shifted from consumer reporter to free market advocate. He’s a rare commodity in the media who unapologetically wears his biases on his sleeve. No, The Can’t lays out the libertarian position on a slew contemporary political issues. It’s not the most in-depth analysis but provides a good jumping off point for just about any policy debate with lots of footnotes and references to point you the right direction.
The English title of this one is Lust of the Vampire. Thankfully, these are just titles and there are no vampires in this 1956 Mario Bava co-directed film. It’s not completely devoid of fantasy, but for the most part this feels more like a proto-giallo that only hints at Bava’s visual style. There is one amazing transformation effect that is achieved with a combination of lighting and subtle makeup that almost matches the believability of modern CGI.
I enjoyed the first half of the book in which the Discworld is introduced to the first all-powerful sorcerer they have seen in thousands of years. However, maybe I have been reading too many of these novels back-to-back, because the last half of the book began to drag on for me and I found myself not really caring what would happen next. Time for a break from Discworld (at least for a little while).
It looks like these days Richard H. Kirk is only releasing his music via iTunes. Personally, I prefer the way Amazon handles digital downloads, but I held my nose and bought this anyway. This is another collection of electronia meets dub reggae. The songs feel a tad bit more electronical and less authentic dub than they did on Chant to Jah which, surprisingly, I think I don’t like as much. But that is just nitpicking. Overall, another great record.
Satan’s Pilgrims are one of the better surf bands to have emerged during the 90s surf revival. Despite the album title and the soulful organ on the opening track, this is more of the same Astronauts-like surf sound that one has come to expect from Satan’s Pilgrims. The CD ends with the excellent “Haunted House of Rock ’95″—featuring a great, slow-pulsing vibrato drenched rhythm guitar—and the peppy vocal number, “Let’s Go to the Beach.”
Please let me know how you reached this page in the comments below. I keep getting page not found errors at this URL. Thanks. Here’s a photo to look at:
Kill List starts off as a relationship drama then soon morphs into a British gangster film following the antics of two hitmen as they cross names off of their “kill list.” It’s gritty, violent and well-acted. If that were all that there was to this film that would be plenty. However, there is more to the story which is best if I didn’t spoil it here. Let’s just say that this is an anti-hero version of this classic film (click/hover the link at your own major spoiler risk).
