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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Games and That Year End Awards 2011 by Clay

Clay-

GAMES

Best Game of 2011
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
I spent a lot of time playing video games this year, but this is the game I would choose if I could pick only one. With over 40 hours on the main quest (plus many more hours of side quests) this Zelda adventure is definitely worth it. The Collector’s Bundle is an excellent deal too! A gold Wii remote with Motion Plus built in? An amazing symphony CD? Yes please!

Best Handheld Game of 2011
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
I had played OoT before on a remake for the Game Cube and loved it, but the amazing graphics and experience was something else on the 3DS. The moment I grabbed my slingshot and used the gyroscope to aim and look around, I was in love. If you still need a reason to buy a 3DS, this is the one.

Worst Game of 2011
Robo Rush
A Mario-esque adventure on the iPhone sounds pretty great, but the controls make the game absolutely unplayable. The worse part is that the screenshots show a joystick and A and B button control, which is not what the game actually has.

Best Innovation of 2011
United States Predator Drones
A good way of hunting terrorist and protecting civilians. (Seriously though, I had to do a whole debate season about this.)

Best Free Game of 2011
Early Bird
This iPhone game is a fun way to pass the time. With a fun protagonist, huge selection of levels, and a pick-up-and-play feel, it has to be the best free game this year.

Best Remake/Reboot of 2011
3DS Ambassador NES and GBA Games
Bringing back 10 NES and 10 GBA games for people who got their 3DS hooked up to the internet before August 12th was a fantastic idea. With so many great games, the 3DS is very hard to put down. I am currently playing Metroid Fusion, which has quickly become one of my favorite games.

MUSIC
Best Song
Red Hot Chili Peppers- Monarchy of Roses
This is the very first song on their new album I’m With You, which is an excellent album. I’m not sure why I like it so much, but it gets stuck in my head all the time. I don’t really like the music video, though.



Worst Song
Florence + The Machine- Dog Days Are Over
I know this song came out in December of last year, but I dislike it so much I had to put it on my list. I saw them perform it on SNL, and couldn’t believe people enjoyed the performance. It apparently is a pretty popular song, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS97V9RcWw0

Best Album of 2011
MGMT- Congratulations Remixes EP
This 3 track EP has remixes of the songs Congratulations, Siberian Breaks, and Brian Eno. The Siberian Breaks remix gives a new take on one of my favorite songs, and is the main reason to buy the album (only 3 bucks on iTunes). The Congratulations remix is pretty good but the Brain Eno one sucks. Too bad you have to buy the whole thing to get Siberian.

FILM
Best Movie Seen in 2011
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
If you’ve seen the other Potter movies and liked them, then you are going to watch this and love it no matter what. Seeing it in a ghetto movie theatre with friends was awesome, and it does a very good job of ending the series.

Worst Movie Seen in 2011
Game Over
This movie is hilarious if you watch it with your friends, but it truly is horrible. I liked the part when the girl was there at the beginning, but unexplainably absent for the rest of it.

THE INTERNET
Best Website
IsItChristmas.com
Whenever I get confused and wonder if it is Christmas yet, this site sets me straight.

Best Internet Video
HOW ABOUT A GAME OF YOU MUST DIE?!?!?!?!? (On Youtube)
There’s plenty of stupid videos on YouTube (often refered to as YouTube Poop) but this one is fantastic. I love all of the Mario Teaches Typing references.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxv4HHrKANU

Stay beautiful, internet peoples.
-Clay

Monday, December 19, 2011

Games and That's Year End Awards 2011 by Joseph Bush

It's time for 2011 to come to a close. Us three Games and That Podcast hosts are going to give you out our own Video Gaming year end awards.

Categories-
Games-
Best Game of 2011
Best Handheld Game of 2011
Worst Game of 2011
Best Innovation of 2011
Best Free Game of 2011
Best Remake/Reboot of 2011

Music-
Best song of 2011
Worst song of 2011
Best Album of 2011

Film-
Best Movie seen in 2011
Worst Movie seen in 2011

Internet-
Best Website of 2011
Best Internet Video of 2011

Joseph Bush-

GAMES

Best Game of 2011
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
I'll be honest, I only bought two new games this year. The first was LOZ: OOT, and the second was NCAA Football 2012. Understandably, I chose Zelda. This is an excellent port of an excellent game, and I'm glad that I bought this game to be my one 3DS game that I owned for the majority of the year.

Best Handheld Game of 2011
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
Once again, this was basically the only game that I bought this year. Thankfully, it was good.

Worst Game of 2011
Dangerous Conflicts 3D
First of all, this was released in early 2010, but I bought it this year. I think (meaning I hope) that this is just a tech demo for pseudo-3D gaming on the XBOX indie game marketplace. It has some potential, but it ends up looking like Wolfenstein 3D without a gun. You need to play it to really experience it, which is okay because it only costs 1 dollar!

Best Innovation of 2011
Gamification (or whatever that means)
I'll never join foursquare, but I understand what it's doing, and I think it's a really good idea. The idea of making basic life tasks more enjoyable is a good idea, and if this idea can continue to grow, it can really be something great.

Best Free Game of 2011
Angry Birds
I downloaded this in 2011, and I feel like it's recent enough to justify putting on this list. It's free on Android marketplace, and it's fairly addicting. I do hate jokes about this game, however.

Best Remake/Reboot of 2011
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
Nintendo did an excellent job in remaking this game. I feel like I've said enough.

MUSIC
Best Song
Gotye- Somebody I Used to Know

Simply chilling.

Worst Song
Hot Chelle Rae- Tonight Tonight

Please do not make a bad song and give it the same name as a good song. Hot Chelle Rae managed to write the most generic song that I've ever heard, and everyone loved it somehow.

Best Album of 2011
The Wombats Proudly Present: This Modern Glitch
I bought the first Wombats Album back in 2007, and I immediately fell in love with it. They didn't release anything else until this year, but the wait was certainly worth it. It only consisted of ten songs, but they're all excellent songs. Six of the songs off of the album were made into Videos and they can all be seen on the band's official YouTube channel.

FILM
Best Movie Seen in 2011
CKY
The Mega64 Podcast introduced me to CKY earlier in the year. When I watched it for the first time this year, I was laughing hysterically. It was made in 1999 by Bam Margera and Brandon Dicamillo, and some of the skits in the film were later used in Jackass on MTV years later. It's really just a hilarious film made by slacker teenagers, and I love it.

Worst Movie Seen in 2011
Game Over
If you've heard of Night Trap, imagine that the people who made that game were to make their own movie using footage from all of their games. The movie features bad acting, bad special effects, bad video games, and an unreleased FMV based game. It needs to be seen to be believed.

THE INTERNET
Best Website

Cracked.com
Three new articles every day? Yes. I love this website, for it is written by many of the best humor writers in the world. It's full of interesting information about all sorts of different topics, such as history, film, music, science, and video games. It's a great website to waste time on.

Best Internet Video
Retsupurae's Wrongpurae of Dark Seed II
Watch it if you have seven hours.
http://blip.tv/slowbeef/terrible-sequel-headaches-part-1-5-5625283

-Joseph Bush

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Games and That Podcast Episode 7

http://www.mediafire.com/?r3u7rwlo8r3iika

Download it here^^^

The 3DS faces another test

This is "Falling For You" by Weezer, off of the album Pinkerton from 1997. The 3DS doesn't exactly create the best conversion to chiptune.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

The Nintendo 3DS is a tremendous piece of technology

I know that nobody has played with the MP3 player capability on the 3DS. It's like the Photo Channel and News Channel on the Wii. You might look at it once, and then forget about it immediately. The one strange thing that I had noticed when I did my mandatory single look and then immediate forgetting of all of the 3DS' new features was that the MP3 player could make the MP3s sound like they were being played through a lo-fi radio, give them a continuous echoing sound, take away the lyrical track, or even turn the MP3s into a chiptune sounding song.

That last option caught my eye. To really comprehend my disbelief about this, you have to understand that creating an "8-Bit" version of a song takes hours of work in some sort of music creation program (I don't do these types of things, mind you.) If a single piece of technology could actually turn a song made by a full band into a chiptune version immediately, it would be incredible. So I tried it out. The first song that I tried with this was one that would seem to be easy for the console to handle. An electronic based song, Indo Silver Club by Daft Punk. Did it work well? Well, I'll just say that this video should speak for itself.



Next time, I try out a different song, one recorded by a full band with an actual singer.

Games And That Podcast Episode 6

This was uploaded a few weeks ago, but here it is anyway. Episode Seven has been recorded, and it will be uploaded once editing is finished.

http://www.mediafire.com/?9h99bu8wjmutw5h