I need to get better at this thing called blogging

So even though no one really reads this. I still need to be better at updating this thing. It can be an awesome tool for me if I do it right. I think I'm going to shy away from reviews and focus more on game design. One reason for this is the fact that I am too busy and too poor to have reviews for games in a relative time frame. The only game I have gotten on its release day in, the past 9 months is mass effect 2. It came out a month ago and I still haven't beat it. I'm 40 hrs into it. And its been the only console game I've played in the past month. So if that is any indication of how l much time I don't have to play games maybe you'll understand why its kind of useless for me to review games. So one idea I have had is doing different kind of segments. One that I will start today hopefully will be titled "epic game design choices". I will take one game design element from a game and go into detail why its epic/awesome, and maybe ideas to further advance the idea for future titles, or just geek out :). Sorry if my grammar is worse than usual, I'm doing this on my phone :)

To Review games... Or to discuss the games design aspects?

So I have been thinking. Should I be reviewing games, or going deeper and talking in depth about the actual gameplay design in the games. Since I am going to school in hopes of being able to become a game designer. I know my teachers would definitely say the later :). I like reviewing games, but with time as crunched as it is i would like some input. What do you guys think? (all 5 of you that read lol)

More LP song reviews! :)

Hello everyone! sorry its been so long since the last post. My laptop has officially broken and finals were 2 weeks ago, so I have been busy with all of that. But I will still post with my wife's lappy :).

So on to the title :). So as you saw I got insanely hyped for linkin park releasing the first single "The Catalyst" off their upcoming album "A Thousand Suns". But since then they have released 2 more songs on their myspace page. The 2 new songs are "Wrenches and Kings" and "Waiting for the End". I am just gonna get it out of the way, These songs have completely gotten me in a frantic craze counting down the hours i can go to best buy and buy the album. Both songs are able to keep linkin park's "old" sound in grasp but somehow feel so new and amazing that its like hearing linkin park for the first time. The band has really evolved into pure musicians. They are no longer holding anything back. Just from the 3 songs we have been given you can tell that they are willing to try and put anything into the music they create.

So lets start with "Wrenches and Kings". The song starts with a very emotional speech about men rising up against machines in what seems like "the final days". Then the song kicks off into what is the best match of guitar and beats that the band (or anyone else in my opinion) has ever done. You can tell there are loud blazing guitar but it perfectly matches the heavy hard hitting beat, listening to this song was the first time i felt like i could head band to a song that sounded like it was pure beat. Then Mike comes in rapping about the theme that the person at the begging is ranting about. The biggest thing that I noticed is that mike put a huge accent into his rapping, it feels very jamaican. Then Chester comes in with the chorus, again putting what seems like a jamaican accent into his loud screechy vocals. What he sings is the bone of the song "Steel unload, Final Blow, We the animals take control, hear us now clear and true, Wrenches and Kings we come for you". Every time I hear the chorus I get chills all down my body, this song to me is linkin park taking on political views, like "Rage Against The Machine" did, but in their own way. Its not taking on anything happening yet, but could very well happen if mankind doesn't keep control of their ambition. The whole new album is a concept album. Meaning that the whole album follows a story or a theme. It seems that the theme for the new album will very cyberpunk and dystopian. Think Fallout meets the matrix.

The score I give "Wrenches and Kings" is...

9.5/10

Now for the song they released today on their myspace page, "Waiting for the End".

The song starts out with a feeling that it might turn into a more hard song. Mike starts the song with a very good blend of singing with a rapping rhyme. Once again using auido tone, but I don't want to sound like a broken record, but somehow they use it to sound amazing. Its serene and beautiful, also having a jamaican feel to it. I guess the dystopian world they are trying to show us is in jamaica :). anyway, Then Chester comes in and completely blows away everything he has done in past records, in terms of just emotional beauty, that i have heard so far. I guess there is another song on the record that the bands bassist Phoenix says is the most beautiful thing he has ever heard. So I am really exited to see what is in store. I don't know how to explain what he does, he has never sounded so clear and just natural. There is such a calming feeling to his voice. He has done really amazing in past albums with "shadow of the day" and others. But he really has reached a new height with the new album. And in the middle of the song they even have a vocal solo that sounds like they put Chester's voice on a guitar. Obviously not, but it is a cool effect :). This song i feel shows what new ways linkin park is evolving. Just amazing.

10/10

once again Linkin Park's new album will be out on sept. 14th, just one small week. And duh i will review the whole album. :D

Linkin Park's "The Catalyst" review!

Like I said on my side tab for the new linkin park album that I am super psyched for, I would probably go nuts when i heard the new single from the album "The Catalyst". Well i've heard it a few times now and here's what I think about it...

Its very different from anything they have done in their past albums. Which isn't a bad thing. Its always a good thing when a band start's experimenting around with new sounds and new styles. It reminds me of the remix album they did for "Hybrid Theory" which was called "ReAnimation". I love that cd, it was fused with all the awesome energy that the original songs had and smashed more hard hitting electronica beats.

While "The Catalyst" isn't linkin parks hardest song, actually its more between the lines of shadow of the day and what i've done. It is pretty much all beat based. There is a little bit of electric guitar and drums going on. But they are probably the quietest they have ever been in a linkin park song. Vocally tho it has both mike and chester singing at the top of there lungs, while the chorus does have a rapping feel to it mike definatly brings it out more, but still he is singing, hitting some pretty awesome notes too.

Also Linkin Park decided to go the way a lot of artists are going with the whole autotune/auto tone thing. Which I will be perfectly honest kind of made me a little uneasy the first time I heard it, because I am sick and tired of it. Seriously EVERY rap song has to use that somehow now and its getting very boring very quick for me at least, but apparently not for everyone else lol. But the second and third times I heard the song I definatly started to grow to like how Linkin Park used it. Its more electronic than what everyone else is doing, which fits LP very well.

But lets hope they don't get too excessive with it. But I do like it, Somehow it add's something new everytime you listen to it. Like I said, when a band like linkin park start's to experiment around it is always a good thing, I can't wait to see what the harder songs are gonna sound like, and the more mellow songs.

So with having all that said, Idk how I should review music, I am sure I could go into deep detail about every aspect and give a score for each part, like I do with games. But I'm not well versed with the technical side of music, I recognize it and appriciate it. I just don't know what its called or anything. So let's give this a try

Final Score: 8.5

p.s. I know most of you that know me are saying "WHAT john giving a LP song that low of a score!?" (LP is my fav. band of all time) But its just one of those songs that I'm not instantly amazed and hooked like a drug to at first. That's how "shadow of the day" was for me, I actually didn't like it the first few times I listened to it. But now its one of my fav. LP songs ever. I bet that's how "The Catalyst" will be.

ummm.... yeah

So i started this blog when i had way to much free time on my hands. Then all of the sudden i got super busy. It seemed like i didn't even have enough time to think about updating this. Well we have internet at our appartment. So that helps a lot. So i am gonna try and start this up again. I am still very busy, but i should be able to write them while i am donating plasma or on breaks at work. So stay tuned!

Rock band 2 review!

I remember a year and a half ago buying rock band 1, getting to the closest place i could go to with a tv. I opened it up as quickly as possible and set it up. Then me and 2 other friends started rockin. It was the most fantastic music experience i had do date. I was a huge fan of the guitar hero series, and rock band stepped it up by adding drums and a microphone into the mix. Then a year later harmonix released rock band 2. And i just had to have it. The set list is amazing, just with what's on the disk. Not to mention the song's you can download from either the Playstation Network Or Xbox Live. And Harmonix released a import key so that you can import all the songs from the rock band 1 disk and play them with rock band 2, which can end up giving you hours of play time, and i mean hours. 

The game mechanics haven't really changed at all from the first game, which in my opinion didn't need to change at all. the biggest difference from rock band 1 and rock band 2 is the set list menu and what is going on in the background with your characters. The new set list menu is really attractive, giving you the album artwork, info on the cd and a difficulty rating on all instruments. Your characters look better and the animations are smoother now, altho still not perfect, if you watch them you definatly feel that they are not real. And yes some games now are getting to that point. But its nothing to complain about, just something to notice. 

                                    

a look at the new set list menu 

While I am a husband and recently a father, i was so broke to buy the bundle. I was only able to buy the game. But from what i hear Harmonix listened to what people had so say about their first peripheral's and improved them a lot. The drums aren't as loud and are impact sensitive, which means that if you hit the drums softly they will sound softer on the game, and if you hit them like Animal from the muppets they will be really loud on the game. 

The tracks are a lot harder this time around to. The songs that are on the impossible level are really freaking hard. I myself can play all the instruments on hard, sometimes i can get through on expert on the easier songs. But the difficulty like i said has definitely stepped up a notch. Songs like "Almost Easy" are so hard to play it makes your eye's bleed on expert. 

While I haven't completed the "World tour" mode in the game. I still feel that i can review the game with just about all the knowledge i need. Truth be told I don't think I ever could finish the world tour mode. Trying to keep fans while playing on expert is too much for me and my band mates :)

Overall Rock Band 2 is by far the best, and I mean best music game out to date. Nothing compares to its expansive library of songs that has something for everyone. The gameplay is finely tuned for precise and exact note hits. It has had a huge graphical overhaul from the 1st, but its still not the best looking game out there by far. It is so much fun to play with a group of people it is well worth the $180 smackers for the whole set. Do not pass it up

Graphics- 8

Gameplay- 10

Sound- 9 

Replay Value- 10

Overall- 9.3

Greetings and welcome!

Hello everyone! welcome to my blog. So on my site I will review stuff, on a scale of 1 to 10. 10 Being the best thing ever, and 1 being painfully the worst thing ever. I will review mostly Video games and music, once in a while i will go off the norm and do movies or maybe TV shows. I will take requests :).  for example you can post on my blog saying "Hey Little big planet looks really cool! will you review it for us?". So thats what it is up.  Soon i'll post my first review :) have fun! :)