It is time now for the second wave of '08/'09 reviews with today's column covering video games.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (2008, Xbox 360)

There was quite a bit of hype surrounding this game when it came out. It was supposed to be a Star Wars IP that the world hadn't seen since Shadows of the Empire. Did it live up to the hype? Depends on who you ask. I didn't buy it until recently, but I definitely had fun playing it. That said, there were also many points where I was frustrated out of my mind to the point of controller throwing (something I've not done in years). Some of this was due to faulty game mechanics, but mostly my own incompetence. Sadly, the game is fairly repetitive in terms of combat and I found myself relying on Force lightning to handily finish off every enemy I came across. There are plenty of options for combat such as push and choke and, of course, your lightsaber, but none of these were as handy or wholly satisfying as lightning. Oh, and for all the hype about Euphoria, never once did I see a stormtrooper grab another in mid air. 7/10

So, I've been out of school for nearly two months now. Of course, it took them this long to get me my diploma. Now, I am usually a fairly patient person, but there is one exception to that rule: mail order. Waiting for this diploma was like ordering something from Amazon and then having to wait two years for it to get here. But, it's here now and all is right with the world.

Well, it would be if I had a job. I've applied to three places now, those being ConocoPhillips, Griffin New Media (both web dev jobs), and a contract motion graphics job out in Florida with Feld Entertainment. Phillips I didn't hear back from for a month and a half and at that the only contact I had was a short note saying I'd been passed up. I got calls from both Griffin and Feld (on the same day even), but Feld never called back after their initial call.

Griffin, on the other hand, has taken an interest in me and I've had two interviews there now (both of which went pretty well, in my opinion). The people I've interviewed with have been extremely nice and seem to have my interests in mind as well as theirs. My first interview seemed mostly to quiz me on my web development knowledge in addition to establishing what the position I'd applied for entailed. The second was more formal in terms of the questions asked and the environment in which it was conducted. Also in that interview, I had to take a skills test in which was given an hour to design and code a small contest entry page. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish everything on the list, though my design was good and my HTML validated first crack out of the barrel. So, at this point I'm waiting to hear back from them. I'm really hoping for this job because it's everything I've been working towards the last several years and the environment and people working there are really nice.

Outside of job hunting, there hasn't been too much more going on in my life. So, instead of wasting precious bytes telling you how awesome the Taiko no Tasujin series of games is, I'll wrap it up here.

[video=http://www.youtube.com/v/B3Vh--awqmQ]

Now, I realize that the "system specs" spewed forth in the above video were probably intentionally skewed so as to follow the whacky, 80s style zaniness, but as an uber nerd and somebody who's intimately familiar with NES hardware, I feel compelled to correct their errors.

Claim #1: 3.58Mhz video core clock speed

The NES video processor, a Ricoh 2C02 "Picture Processing Unit", or PPU, is actually clocked at 5.37Mhz. The CPU is exactly one third of this, or 1.79Mhz. The figure they're quoting is the timing of a color NTSC signal.

Claim #2: 240x226 resolution

The PPU actually worked with an internal resolution 256x240, though most old TVs did not display the first and last eight scanlines effectively making the resolution 256x224. This was the same for both NTSC and PAL models.

Claim #3: 16 sprite pixel depth

I don't even know where to begin on this one. Firstly, the NES had enough sprite RAM (object attribute memory, or OAM) for 64, 8x8 or 8x16 sprites. Secondly, every sprite could have three colors (four if you include transparency) from a palette of 53 colors. Every scanline could hae a maximum of eight sprites, and when this limit was exceeded some sprites were not drawn causing the infamous flicker. Finally, you could have a total of 25 colors per scanline. What the hell they were talking about to begin with baffles me, but there were no 16s involved there at all. Except maybe that internal 16-bit PPU register that could be written to through dual writes to address $2006....

Claim #4: NES has a Zilog Z80 processor

This one's easy. The NES did not have a Z80. It had a Ricoh 2A03, which was a 6502 without decimal mode and a set of sound instructions. The Gameboy, however, had a Z80 and the Sega Genesis used one as its sound processor.

Claim #5 It's an 8-bit system

Well, that's about the only thing they got right. Though, the system did have a 16-bit address bus....

Well, I'm finished. I'm sure somewhere God has smote a kitten for my nerdy rantingness, but it had to be said and I said it. Caio.

One of the first video game songs I remember really enjoying was Gerudo Valley from Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64. Back when I had a crappy computer and little hard drive space, I would listen to MIDI files and Gerudo Valley was one of the few songs that had a pretty good version out there. Of course, now that disk space isn't an issue, I've moved on to MP3s. However, I still find myself listening to more remixes than the actual original itself (because, let's face it, the N64 instrument library sucked). But, anyways, here are this weeks Gerudo Valley music picks.

Back in August of 1992, Nintendo released unto the world the little gem known as Mario Paint. Bundled with it's own mouse Mario Paint was the equivalent of Adobe Creative Suite for the Super Nintendo. You could draw pictures, do animations, and it even came with a nifty little mouse based game called Gnat Attack. However, Mario Paint's legacy lies not in it's visual abilities (though it inspired a certain internet cartoon). No, Mario Paint is all about its music creating abilities and the amount of high quality Mario Paint remixes on YouTube is absolutely astounding. Narrowing it down to three videos was a challenge not only because of the sheer volume of videos out there, but there are two guys who have the lions share and I wanted to give everybody a chance. Oh, and Mario Paint Composer doesn't count. But, enough rambling, enjoy!

Some time ago, video game news site Joystiq began a weekly series of posts highlighting video game music as performed by the YouTube community. For some reason unbeknownst to me they no longer do this. So in the spirit of all things game and music related, I bring you Game Music Friday. Every week I will select a theme or game and show three videos from YouTube pertaining to said topic. The only stipulation being that the music must be performed or arranged by the community. That means AMVs are out. If you have any suggestions for videos or a topic, please leave a comment below and I'll be sure to check it out.

Without further ado, I bring to you the first Game Music Friday, the topic of choice being Dr. Mario. Enjoy!

It seems that since I began school this blog has gotten more and more deserted. I was reading through old entries last night and I feel that things may be beginning to get empty. So, here I am once again poring forth my soul into the void that is known as the internet.

Last month ended my two month journey that was motion graphics. I am sad to have to leave these classes as I seem to have found my calling in mograph. To be frank, I had way too much fun and I probably created my best work ever in those two months. Of course, just because I'm not in the class doesn't mean I won't be dropping it and forgetting about it. No, I plan on doing small projects through out school that I can dump into my demo reel down. Even now I am working on a small advertisement for a friend. After that, there's a Dockers "make your commercial and have it aired on TV" contest that I'm thinking of entering. The more I can get my work out there, the more chance I have of going immediately into the industry after I graduate.

But enough dwelling on the past (or the future), and let us reflect on the present. This month I have probably what is going to be the easiest class off all time: web development. For anybody who doesn't know me personally, I've been involved in web dev for going on eight years. All that YPN stuff and what not. Of course, for those of us who are already fluent in web dev they're going to try to get us to use modern and clean coding practices (tableless design, emphasis on CSS, etc). Oh, wait. I already do all that. I feel like a jerk talking about this class like it's useless crap, but it's really not their fault. However, I don't want to be talked down to as if I know nothing or am new to the whole web stuff. As with most technologies I've taught myself, I not only learn forwards, but backwards as well. I'm well versed in tricks of old as well as new. Alright, enough of that borderline ego stroking.

My other class, which I haven't actually attended yet, is, or will be, developmental psychology. I really don't know what this class has in store for me, but at the very least it should be more interesting than web dev.

Today, I got to get my feet wet in the field of game testing. EA's Tiburon division, which develops most of their sports titles, resides just seven small miles from my house. Once or twice a month they bring people in to do a couple hours of game beta testing in exchange for a free game. I've been on the mailing list since December after Ian Cummings, lead director of the Madden series, put in a recommendation for me after reading my Rock Band drums post. Of course, that was for a full-time job doing game testing, but being a full-time student as well these two hours sessions were the next best thing. But, I digress.

Anyways, I got to go to the EA building, which I must say is very, very nice looking. I even got to sign a non-disclosure agreement that forbids me from telling anybody what I played or what I saw. Kind of cool, actually. I will say, I enjoyed what I played and the best part of all is I obtained myself a free copy of Command & Conquer 3 for PC. I haven't actually installed or tried the game yet, but I'll probably post something when I do.

Well, I suppose that about wraps things up for now. I'll be putting up a post about my final project for motion graphics soon (currently waiting on something). Oh, and for all those tiny little updates be sure to check out my Twitter account. I've also placed a convenient little box above the RSS feeds that shows my latest tweet. Until next time, keep your staplers running.

I had the great fortune of being able to attend a Video Games Live (VGL) concert. For the uninitiated, VGL is a concert where game music is played. Some people may think it's nerdy, however, but I see it as something that can be appreciated by gamers and non-gamers alike.

People see the words "video game music" and probably automatically think of the bleeps and bloops (more accurately, triangle and square waves) of the Atari and NES days of yore. These may not have sounded great, but because of the limitations more effort was placed on making themes easily recognizable and pronounced (i.e. Mario, Zelda, Metroid). However, since the days of the SNES, video game music has been approached more like a movie score. At the forefront of this movement was Nobuo Uematsu and his work in the Final Fantasy series.

Final Fantasy serves as an excellent demonstration of the similarities between game and movie music. Final Fantasy VI, and SNES game mind you, has one of the best scores of any game. Each character has their own theme, or leitmotif, and these themes are woven throughout every piece of music in the game. The same went for FFX, though the motifs weren't character specific, but specific to certain cultural elements. Star Wars takes this kind of approach: the Empire has a theme, the Force has a theme, etc. It's this kind of music that has the ability to evoke emotions in the listener and, at its core, that's what music is all about.

Of course, not all game scores are orchestral. Koji Kondo dabbles in a little bit of everything, and there are rock and techno type stuff out there. I lean towards the orchestral myself because I find it to be more powerful. I will admit that most of my childhood was spent listening the classical music and John Williams and as such I have a soft spot for this kind of music, but I know die hard fans of vastly different genres who appreciate the vocals of Halo or the trumpet heavy Zelda. Even my mom, a dedicated 80s gal, enjoys much of my game music library.

So, there you have it. The conception that game music is various beeps and just for nerds is a complete fallacy. Video game music these days can be just as powerful, if not more so, than latest blockbuster. At that, it can be appreciated by all walks of life. And I think it should be.

Oh, the concert was awesome (I scream before the rest of the crowd at about 0:31).

(Like the bumper at the top? I'm going to start including these in more of my posts as a design challenge for myself.)

2007 was, indeed, a monumental year in gaming. So many triple A titles, ninety-nine percent of which were released in the holiday season making it very expensive for those who wanted to stay on top. Today I'm going to take a look back at gaming in 2007 (the games I have played, at least).

[header]Wii[/header]

Wario Ware: Smooth Moves

This was my first foray into the world that is Wario Ware and, as such, cannot compare it to previous entries in the series. For the uninformed, Wario Ware is a collection of micro games, meaning each little game has one goal and you have about five (or less) seconds to complete said goal. The folks at Nintendo got incredibly inventive and this game shows off the abilities of the Wiimote excellently. As far as looks go there isn't anything jaw dropping, but the art direction can be hilarious at times and it certainly fits in with the zany, face paced style of the game. I only wish there were some better multiplayer options especially since this is a great party game (especially when over zealous players put their hand through a ceiling fan).

8/10 Stars

Super Paper Mario

Previous entries in the Paper Mario series have been more RPGish in that battles were turn based and you traversed the world in three dimensions. Super Paper Mario takes a more unique approach, cleverly blending old school platforming with RPG elements. There is, of course, the flip element to the game which makes you look at everything in a whole new perspective (forgive the pun). About the only caveat to this game would be the mansion level, but the clever puzzles mixed with awesome writing make this a must have game for the Wii.

8/10 Stars

Super Mario Galaxy

I will admit, I do not own this nor have I played it much. However, in my time with it I can see how it has gotten such high praise. The visuals alone are simply beautiful, I'd say the best looking of any game made this year. The music is a joy to listen to with many motifs going back to the days of Mario 3 and some Mario 64 selections as well. Most of it is orchestrated which makes it all the better. The best thing is, these are only the icing on an extremely delicious cake. The game play is simply fantastic. Gravity plays a huge role in the mechanics of this game and you had best be keeping that in mind whilst traversing the spherical levels. There's really not much to say about this game aside from that it's everything a Mario game should be.

10/10 Stars

[header]Xbox 360[/header]

Crackdown

This is probably the must underrated game of the year. If you bought this game just for the Halo 3 beta, raise your hand. (raises hand) If that's the only reason you bought this game and never even played it, then you should be ashamed of yourself. I was originally going to pass on Crackdown and the Halo 3 beta, but after playing the demo I realized that it (Crackdown) was a really cool game. I've never played a sandbox game before and just the ability to go wherever and do whatever I wanted was awesome enough. Throw in being able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and run faster than your mom and you've got one sweet game. The ending does suck, but story isn't the most prominent aspect so I'll let it slide. I spent many a good hour with this game.

7/10 Stars

Eternal Sonata

Eternal Sonata was supposed to be the Final Fantasy for Xbox 360, at least in my eyes. It was simply gorgeous and it had an awesome battle system, however it is missing the one crucial element that a good RPG needs: story. I haven't played very far into this game because, quite frankly, I don't care about the characters. In games such as Final Fantasy VI or X there was enough story to keep me going to find out what happened. The problem with ES is that no real story has been setup after a few hours of play. There's been a little bit of character exposition, but not much compelling me to play through.

6/10 Stars

Halo 3

By far the most hyped game of the year, luckily it delivers. There really isn't much of a difference from the previous games, but enough of an evolution for me to say that it is the best looking, best playing Halo out there. Multiplayer still rocks, they brought back the assault rifle, and the addition of multiplayer match replays is very sweet. If you are a 360 owner and haven't bought this yet, you need to do some deep soul searching and then go and buy it.

8/10 Stars

Rock Band

Rock Band, aka Drum Hero or the Real Guitar Hero III, is by far the best rhythm game ever. Guitar Hero was awesome, but there's not much room left for innovation in that game outside of new songs. I don't know if this is what Harmonix was thinking or not, but they definitely upped the ante with Rock Band. Guitar is more or less the same, same for vocals if you've played Sing Star or Karaoke Revolution, but the drums is an entirely different beast. Getting all your limbs to work separately from each other can be a challenge, albeit a very satisfying one once you get the hang of it. In terms of song selection, there should be something for everyone especially with new downloadable tracks coming every week. The only thing about Rock Band is that, as the name suggests, you really have to play it with other people. Playing the solo tour is fun and all, but the multiplayer is where it's at. Paying attention to our band mates and saving them (or vice versa) adds an extra element to the game. The most awesome part, though, is when your singer can't sing. It can be hilarious and horrible... all at the same time.

10/10 Stars

[header]Nintendo DS[/header]

Phoenix Wright: Justice for All

The Phoenix Wright series was already fairly well established by the time I got to it. I originally a half ass purchase as a game to play on my flight to Orlando in May. It turned out to be one of the best things I bought this year. Phoenix Wright was like an interactive Encyclopedia Brown story, only with killing and stuff. The stories are so intriguing that it is hard to put them down, and when you do finish you are saddened because the awesome ride you were just on ended. Graphically there's not much to see, though the artwork is nice. If you're into thinking type games you should definitely pick this one up.

9/10 Stars

The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass

Zelda's first foray onto the Nintendo DS brought some radical changes to gameplay; namely, a game controlled entirely by the stylus. As bad as that may seem it works amazingly well. The game's visuals and sound are near identical to its predecessor, the Wind Waker. Despite all this, I felt the game was somewhat lacking and felt very scaled down. Granted, this is a protable release and the target audience was newcomers, but it still took away some of that Zelda feel. However, they still could've made some better music for the dungeons.

7/10 Stars

[header]Portal[/header]

Just yesterday I picked up a copy of the Orange Box. Five games for fifty dollars is simply too good of a deal to pass up. At this point in time I have only installed/played/completed Portal. Portal is, by far, one of the most awesome games I've played in some time. The concept is insanely clever and forces you to think in a vastly different way. The writing is top notch and there were several things that I laughed out loud at. My only problem is that the game was far too short. I completed it in a few hours. Luckily there are advanced maps to complete yet and hopefully some stuff made by the community that I can get later.

9/10 Stars

If I had to pick one of these as my number one game of 2007 I would have to go with Rock Band. The drums are simply awesome and having a whole bunch of people doing co-op play makes for an awesome time. I would have to say Mario Galaxy would come in at a close second. It's awesome on too many fronts not to give honorable mention.

Well, there you have it. 2008 alredy looks to be promising with Brawl coming up right off the bat. Hopefully we'll see the same amount o quality games, but maybe released over a longer period of time. Happy New Year and keep gaming.

I've said it before and I will say it again: Titles are not my strong point. Especially when I know I'm just going to ramble about random stuff.

Today marks the three week mark until move out day. Excited? Yes. Packed? Partially. I started packing last week and have pretty much gotten to the point where's there's nothing left to pack save what I'm currently using (Xbox, computer, TV, that stuff). I suppose I could pack up my pots and pans and malarky, but eh...

I did wind up trading Pokemon (and a myriad of other games) in and picked up a copy of Puzzle League. It's good, but it definitely is NOT Tetris Attack. Ranked matches... well there really aren't ranked matches. The closest thing is the "Birthday Mode" which ranks you against people with the same birthday. I'm number one... and the only person on the list. Not many people play PPL online. Another thing that cheeses me off is the difficulty level; it's too easy. There's really slow, slow and about what would equate to normal in TA. Nothing in between. The music sucks too. It's just standard ambient/techno type music like you'd find in Lumines or any recent (non-DS) Tetris game. The music from Tetris Attack was awesome. Every single piece. I've got the Blargg music on my iPod for heaven's sake! That's how awesome it is. But otherwise, it is Tetris Attack and I can play online but they've screwed up the best puzzle game of all time.

I took a little Lord of the Rings quiz thingy on Facebook (which is definitely better than MySpace) and I'm a true LOTR fan. The questions were rediculously easy like "What race is Legolas?" Some information I suppose probably can't be gleaned from the movies. But at that even a casual reader of the books could get all the questions right. Either that or I'm a bigger nerd that I thought. Meh.

Well, like a said, general ramblings of random stuff.

The title has absolutely no bearing on the subject matter of this post, but I thought I'd throw it out there. Everytime they say "biscuit" instead of cookie I think to myself "Stupid, buscuiting Brits!". But I digress.

Actually, one thing I hate more than Brits is fruit flies. And, apparently, they hate me too. They've been trying to kill me lately. Over the last two weeks they've sent suicide bombers down my windpipe and up my esophagus. It's really pissing me off. I'll be happily watching Next Gen or something, there'll be a faint "bzzztt" followed by the nast coughing fits. Burn in Hell, fruit flies, burn in hell.

Finished with my Pokemon game I decided to have some fun. That's right, I hacked my save file. Actually, I'm thinking of selling the game off and picking up Puzzle League. As much as I still think it's a bastardization of Tetris Attack (which I've been playing like crazy as of late) the thought of ranked online matches is a sweet morsel I may not be able to pass up. Maybe I'll just stick with Tetris DS for now. Maybe I should stop buying games.

At least until Eternal Sonata comes out ;-)

I had the top 5 post all written up and something went screwy when trying to post it. Now it's gone. Lost forever in the digital mines of hell. I'll give you the basic rundown without the commentary because I don't feel like typing it again.

Top 5 Games I Can't Wait For

5. Final Fantasy VI DS (not confirmed, but you know it's coming)

4. Pheonix Wright: Trials and Tribulations

3. Eternal Sonata

2. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

1. Super Smash Bros Brawl

I'm going to have to reserve some money because these all come out within the first couple months of school.

I'm going to do something interesting this week and post all sorts of nonsense top 5 lists. Why? Because I can. That, my friend, is the beauty of the internets.

Top 5 Games I Wasted Too Much Time Playing

5. Guitar Hero (I and II)

I will go on the record and say this is probably the best game of this generation. If I were getting paid per hour to play this game the same amount I'm getting paid to push carts I'd be freakin' rich. I figure I've probably played Freebird alone somewhere around 50-100 times and it's a ten minute song. It never really gets old.

4. Final Fantasy VI

Only the best RPG made for the SNES, nay, of all time. I've fully completed this game three times, partially many more, and I plan on playing through it again before I head off to college. It's that good.

3. The Legend of Zelda - A Link to the Past

I remember the first time I finally made it through this game. I'd been playing it for darn near a year. I probably explored every nook and cranny and thensome. I've since made it through twice on GBA and clocked many more hours on PC via emulation. Defeinitely one of the best games ever.

2. Super Mario Bros. 3

The very first game I ever played. I haven't played this one to completion as many times as other games (due mainly to the fact that there's no save in the original NES version) but I did play it almost every day for pretty much the entire life of my first NES (two or three years). I have it on for my NES now (and I crack it out once in a while) and have the GBA version. This game pretty much set and holds the standard for all patforming games. Nothing's come close since.

1. Tetris Attack

Oh, my gosh. Where to begin. I've clocked more hours on this game than probably all the others combined. I've spent countless hours writing this game on five different occasions (and am currently doing so again). I haven't bought Plant Puzzle League for DS because I'm a Tetris Attack purist. Give me Blargg or give me death! Actually, I probably should buy it just for the online play, but I'd use standard controls. None of this touch screen crap.

I do need to mention that Rogue Squadron, Episode I Racer, Zelda OoT, and Mario 64 are close runner ups. So, there you have it. Day one completed. Stay tuned for more inaninty on here at dxprog.com.

I'm sure you've noticed the archives bar over there so I will swiftly move on to a cooler topic.

As the title suggests I own an Xbox 360. Now I can proudly call myself a Wii60 person. I've been wanting one for a while mainyl for the Halo series but also it's extensive online cataloge of awesomeness. For instance I can download HD quality Headlines clips... FREE! It freakin' owns. The only thing that's going to come back to haunt me some day is the small hard drive. I could've bought an Elite but I got a Premium instead. I stupid. I own Crackdown and Halo 2. I was originally just going to rent Crackdown (for the H3 beta of course) but I tried the demo and was like "Hey, this isn't a bad game" so I bought it. Of course, I haven't necessarily been playing these games. No, I've been playing Phoenic Wright 1. It still kicks ass. In fact I'd go so far as to say that case number four was my favorite yet.

Well, I could go on about such things for a long time, but I think I shall get soome sleep.