video games

Game Music I Love: Mega Man 2

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In Japan, Megaman is known as Rockman. He wasn’t named after rocks you would find on the ground. He was named after rock music. Other characters in the series have rock music inspired names, such as Roll (get it? Rock and Roll?), Bass and his sidekick dog, Treble.

At the time, the developers of Megaman 2 wanted to make a rocking soudtrack. Unfortunately, the technology wasn’t around in the early 1980s to put the sounds of real instruments. Instead, they composed one of the most rocking video game soundtracks ever using 8-bit sounds. As a youngster, I had no idea that was the creative vision behind the music. I just thought it was awesome.
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Fan Expo Day 3: Victory Lap

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Unlike the first two days of the show, there weren’t any must-do events or things we needed to do driving us to the show. Having completed all of that stuff in the last two days, we figured our final day at the expo would be a victory lap of sorts. We’d take on the day as it comes and enjoy what was left at the show.

Because of this, we didn’t rush to get there. We arrived just as the doors were opening. Not the best move. This time, the lineup literally wrapped around the block, and was more than double the length of the line we stood in the day before.

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Fan Expo Day Two: Get Hype

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Day two started much like the first day did. My girlfriend and I found ourselves in a huge line, one that was actually twice as big as the one we stood in yesterday and growing fast. I was hoping that as with yesterday, luck would be on our side. Within 20 minutes of the show floor opening, we were in the building. Showing up as early as we did helped us greatly, as those who ended up arriving later were not as fortunate.

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Dance Central: My Kinect Killer App?

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I am not a fan of motion controls. I’ve made it very clear on this very blog. In particular, I have a number of doubts surrounding Microsoft’s motion controlled solution. While I think the idea behind Kinect is cool, I have concerns about how the technology works, the price (rumored to be $149.99) and the types of experiences being made available for it. So far, Microsoft is marketing this squarely at the casual audience, providing no shortage of Wii-inspired and Wii-ripoff games, such as Kinect Sports, Kinect Adventures and Kinectimals. As Darth Vader once said, “Do not want!”

After watching Microsoft’s e3 presentation, I was ready to avoid the Kinect completely. But if I told you I didn’t want to play anything the Kinect has to offer, I would be lying. I want to play Dance Central really bad.

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Fan Expo Day One: Among Nerds

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An hour after the the Fan Expo officially opened, I received a call from my brother. I was still at work and he had just entered the line, which he said was insanely long. Almost two hours later, he sent me a text saying he just got in.

I was fearing for the worst when my girlfriend and I finally got to the convention centre. There were two lineups facing each other: one for pre-purchased tickets and one for those who needed to buy tickets. Both lines were roughly two blocks long. We got in line, expecting a long, slow, painful trek into the convention centre. To our surprise, our early experience was nothing like my brother’s unfortunate two-hour wait.

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Social vs. Gaming: Why I Haven’t Jumped Into the Social Games Scene

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I love social media. I am a long-time blogger, active Facebook and Twitter user, and enjoy the technologies so much that I pursued a career in which I could work with these technologies on a regular basis. I currently work in the digital/interactive advertising business, where leveraging social technologies to improve our clients’ position in the marketplace is part of my everyday life.

Combined with my love of games, I should be all over social games like FarmVille, Mafia Wars and Foursquare. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. As of now, I have no personal interest in playing any social games. It’s not the social elements that turn me off to the scene; it’s the gaming part.
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Game Design Talk: How Conquist Takes iPhone Risk and Ruins it With a Terrible User Interface

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I really enjoyed the simplicity of the user interface Risk had on the iPhone. I had a lot to overcome, having not played Risk in 15 years, but I picked it up immediately and the user interface worked exactly how I wanted it to.

I picked up Conquist on the iPad because it looked like Risk with more features, iPad support, it had great user reviews and it was on sale for $1. In spite of its strengths, I hate this game. Terrible design choices make this an extremely annoying game for me to play.

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Brothers in Arms 2: Global Front HD Impressions

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For someone who is tired of WWII games, has never played a Brothers in Arms game before and already has too much to play on the iPad, I sure did scoop up Brothers in Arms 2 really quick when it hit $1. I picked it up because it was a brand name, the screen shots were pretty and it was $1.

I haven’t played too much of it, but so far, it’s made a good impression with me.

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Late to the Party: Tron

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Yes, I know. I’m late. 28 years late to be exact. To be fair, I wasn’t alive when the movie came out and by the time I was old enough to understand the world around me, Tron was old news. For as long as I can remember though, it’s been referred to in popular culture countless times and often mentioned as a film that helped bring computers, computer-generated graphics and video games to the mainstream.

I’ve always felt bad as a gamer and all-around nerd for not having seen Tron. Thankfully, my girlfriend and I recently watched it a few days ago and enjoyed it for the most part. I’m pretty tired right now, so I don’t have the mental capacity to write something fully thought out. However, I did want to share some assorted thoughts about the movie.

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