Why review scores are pointless. Or are they?

As far as I can remember every time I read a review in a gaming mag (which I continue to spend money on, by the way) or on a website it’s always been adorned by a number, a few stars, a letter etc. I’ve always refrained from looking at any of the aforementioned symbols before I got through the body of the review. Sometimes I would just ignore them completely, which, admittedly is kinda hard since they almost always are very prominent on the page. I guess, what I want to discuss here, is why the scores are such a prominent part of the game review (or the review of a movie or a CD for that matter), and why I think they shouldn’t be.

Mirror’s Edge Review

Before I start, I’d like to point out that I played the game on PC

Run, vault over a fence, run onto a solar panel, jump from it on to a small building, slide down a tightrope, run, wallrun, turn and jump on to the rail to your left, run over a pipe hanging at 10th floor level between two buildings, jump down, roll, wallrun again and take a leap of faith from a piece plywood on to a pipe on the other side of the road,climb up….. What I just described was the first 30 seconds of the first chapter in Mirror’s Edge. And trust me, it doesn’t slow down. In fact, quite the opposite

Slayer performing their new song Psychopathy Red in Moscow

If you’ve probably heard this already, but still it’s cool to see them perform a part of it.

Top 5 of my last.fm for 31.01.2009

I’m coming back with this installment of my last.fm series. Seriously late (because I’m lazy, and generally writer blocked most of the time, and seriously aware that this blog won’t really have a big or even small following because of those two things) but it’s here. Enjoy

1.Blind Guardian – Fly

Fly is a song from controversial-amongst-fans CD “A Twist In The Myth”. It went with what I percive as a trend of writing and recording music with playing live in mind. It’s much less complex (in terms of production, guitarwork is still stellar) with less overdubs and fixing in post. There are also some nicely used synths, which are prominent in the beggining of  Fly. It starts out fast and energetic and keeps it that way. Obviously very fitting for a live show.

2.Styles Of Beyond – Superstars

I’m normally a person prone listen to or enjoy hip-hop/rap, but Styles Of Beyond won me over after their perfomace on Fort Minor’s “The Rising Tied”. Great lyrycism, great beats, great delivery. Can’t give you much of a critique here, since I don’t many points of comparison. Also – a remixed version on the song appeared on the soundtrack for Need For Speed Most Wanted, and I reccomend that one.

3.In Flames – Drenched In Fear

In Flames’ “A Sense Of Purpouse” is also influenced by the “we write to play it live” trend, or “pussyfication and dumbing down of metal” as some might say. I have seen In Flames in concert, and I have to say – the new songs work in a live enviroment brilliantly. Drenched In Fear is a song bound to be played mid-set. It stomps in with a heavy lead, then slowing down in the verses, giving the audience a breather (or not, if you’re like me and know all the lyrics and sing along), before launching into a melodic chorus that’s rememrable so the crowd can sing along. Generally it’s a songs lifts the foot from the gas a bit, while still remaining energetic so the adrenaline flow doesn’t die down.

4.Byzantine – All Hail The End Times

Byzantine is a band I got turned on to by a few editors of Metal Sucks mentioning it on their top ten list for 2008. After the little taste I got on the bands myspace I couldn’t not get the whole album. It’s a nice balance between metal and hard rock (which I guess would be called hardcore, by I don’t feel the title fits the music that well) even reminding of Sabbath and classic Metallica at times. Regretfully I didn’t really listen to “Oblivion Beckons” enough, to know the songs really well, but they generally follow the same general formula (why fix it if it ain’t broke?) of screaming and singing switching off inbetween of fantasic riffage and soloing. Do yourself a favor and check them out.

5.In Flames – Moonshield

Remember what I said last time about real death metal and face melting – it’s basically the same. Moonshield strongly accents the melodic and it’s Swedish roots by the use of acoustic guitars in the intro and outro of the songs. But the rest of the song? It will melt your fucking face off, and the put it back on again just to rip it off your skull once again. Understood? Now go listen to it. NOW!

Top 5 of my last.fm for 31.10.2008

I want to get in a habit of updating the blog at least once every week with something. This was the first idea that came to mind so sit right back and I’ll tell you about 5 great songs of this week:

In Flames – Take This Life

Not much to say here. Great, energetic, fast paced song that does not slow down. I loved it anew after when IF played it at the end of the show in Dresden, after Anders announcing it said “It’s Take This Life, and it’s our love song to you [the fans]”.

Children Of Bodom – Are You Dead Yet

The title track of their 2005 album. It’s straight up COB. There’s a strong rhythm to kick it off, there’s strong bass, there are riffs up the wazoo, and there’s Alexi spewing out lyrics. The only thing this song lack is more input from Warmann. And don’t forget the solo.

Mastodon – Blood And Thunder

Awesome song from a very interesting album. As far as I can Leviathan is a concept album based Moby Dick (if you think that that’s a porn movie with the bald musician that you should be ashamed). And that basically equals awesome. The songs starts with a nice, rocky/groovy rhythm and keeps is up while the vocalist does his magic. Said magic is preformed with a low, growling, raspy yet still understandable vocals combined with the Moby Dick lyrics. If you’ve heard the song before on the soundtrack for Need For Speed : Most Wanted and liked it, then definitely get the whole album.

AC/DC – Rock And Roll Train

What is there to say? It’s AC/DC. It’s people that could be your grandfather still rocking the f’ out. The song is all classic AC/DC all the time. There’s Angus with a stop/start riff. There’s Brian Johnson rocking his classic taxi driver cap and vocals that haven’t changed one bit and lyrics there are there more to fit the music than to carry some higher meaning. All you can want from AC/DC.

In Flames – Jotun

If you’re into death metal (and by that I mean swedish melodic death metal, not uber br00tal hardcorz Slipknot or some other shit that you kids think makes you a badass) and you haven’t heard this song, then get f’ out and listen to it. Now! I’ll wait….. Done? Is you face still on? No? Good.

Scar Symmetry loses one singer, gains…. two

As some of you know, not so long ago Christian Alvestam left Scar Symmetry. After I read the news I nearly beat myself to unconsciousness for not listening to Scar Symmetry before Holographic Universe. But the world goes on, I’ve stopped beating myself stupid and started to enjoy the band more ( I’m avoiding the abbreviation for obvious reasons). But then the news came. And I can say that “splitting Alvestam into two” was a great idea. The guys do a great job, they simulate Alvestam’s sound quite well, while still preserving their own. I can’t for some new material, recorded with the new vocalists. I hope they explore the gap between clear and growl more.

Check out the audition video after the jump.

Protest The Hero – Fortress

Those who visited the site earlier will notice the redesign. Those who didn’t – well they won’t. But you can share your thoughts on it anyway. On to the point.

Cover of Protest The Hero - Fortress

You don’t usually write a year’s top tens in August so I’m not going to, but I have to admit I was tempted to. This year I set, as a goal for myself, to listen to as much new music as I can. Of course being a metalhead I’m not going to check everything that Rolling Stone recommends so as for a guide for most of my musical travels I turned to MetalSucks , though I of course used advices from other places.

When reading the before mentioned MetalSucks I stumbled on a review of Protest The Hero’s new album – Fortress. So I went to the band’s myspace, and saw the video for Sequoia Throne. And drowned in all the awesome…

Now you what mathcore means

Breakdown in 3.14

Pi was written and recorded only a few days before the completion of the Master copy, at around 10 am, with a couple of serious hangovers. Justin and I had talked about having a classical guitar intro into some sort of heavier riffage, but we weren’t quite sure what that was exactly going to be.

We remembered back to a few weeks prior, when we were throwing around an idea of using the mathematical constant Pi, and incorporating it into some sort of complex breakdown pattern where the kick drum corresponded to each number as the figure progressed. Kinda creating the ultimate mind boggler of a riff. The complexity of the intro is often overheard, because it’s hard to discern what is actually going on within the track, UNTIL NOW!!!

Here’s a breakdown of the….um, breakdown, in the intro to our album, “Pi: The Mercury God Of Infinity”

The actual tempo is 120 beats per minute (bpm). You can hear this by listening for the closed hi-hat that is panned left: it is playing constant eighth-notes.

The snare is on beat three in 4/4 time at 120 bpm.

A crash cymbal accents beat one of the first measure in 4/4. It is repeated every four measures.

Now this is where it gets tricky: the china cymbal.

It’s hard to feel the breakdown in Pi at 120 bpm, and this is mostly due to the china cymbal, which is playing a 4 over 3 (4/3) dotted-eighth note ostinato that begins on the “E” of one.

Confused?

Check it out: A quarter note is equal to one beat in 4/4 time, but so are two eighth notes, or 4 sixteenth notes. It’s all about subdividing note values.

When you count a measure of 4/4 in quarter notes, it’s: 1, 2, 3, 4.

When counting in eighth notes, it’s: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +. (a plus sign refers to the spoken count “and” ex. “One and two and three and four and”)

When counting in sixteenths, it’s: 1 E + A 2 E + A 3 E + A 4 E + A. (Spoken: “One e and a two e and a three e and a four e and a)

So when I say the china starts on the “E” of one, I’m referring to the spoken counting value assigned to the second 16th note in a quarter note duration.

A dotted eighth note is a duration of three 16th notes, an ostinato is a persistently repeated pattern. Basically, the china plays on the bold-capitalized letters:

one E and a TWO e and A three e AND a four E and a ONE e and A etc.

Starting to get it? Cool.

At last, the reason Pi is what it is: the Double-bass pattern.

The formula of Pi for the kick drum was pretty far fetched at first, but seemed to work well once the track was finished. The numbers and rests in the formula translate to 16th notes on the kick drum, and 16th note rests. There is no kick drum beats where there are snare drums. Sooo, here it is:

With the decimal point BEFORE the number, and starting with the first number, move that many decimal points to the right and insert that many 16th note rests. Use one 16th note rest to divide the numbers you passed (when applicable). Continue on throughout the rest of the figure. No repeats.

So basically for the first step, you’d place the point (pt) before the first number, three: (pt)3.14159265

Next you jump the decimal three points to the right: 3.14(pt)159265

That’s where you insert three 16th rests, and insert one 16th note rest between the other numbers you passed: 3(16th rest)1(16th rest)4(dotted-eighth)159265

Now, your decimal lies in between the 4 and the 1. So, following the formula, you move one point to the right of the 1 and insert one 16th note rest. There are no numbers to separate with single 16th rests, so you move onto the next number, which is 5, and follow the same instructions.

That’s all there is to it! The formula extends out to 71 decimal points

Yeah….

Wii Motion Plus against the SIXAXIS/DualShock3

For my opening statement I’d like to ask:

What the fuck?!

Even better, I think this will illustrate my point even better. So if the title of this post and the CAD comic aren’t enough explanation, you’re probably asking yourself, dear reader, “what the heck is this guy going on about?”. Well let me enlighten you.

During this year’s E3 keynote Nintendo presented something they call the Wii Motion Plus, which supposedly enhances the Wiimote’s orientation in 3D space, which is, of course, beneficial for developers of new Wii games, and basically means you can throw a virtual dog a virtual frisbee, and the throwing motion of you’re Mii will be a little more accurate. “What’s wrong with that ?”, you may ask. I’d that at least two things if not more.

1. Obviously, even though the frisbee throuwing is a real miningame in WiiSports Resort, I was sarcastic before. But let’s think realistically, developers are going to want use the new functionality in their games (for example, Ubisoft has confirmed that they will use the ‘Plus in Red Steel 2). And that’s great, isn’t it? No, it isn’t because I and probably a lot of other people don’t think the ‘Plus will be really widely adopted. By the customers, I mean. You’ll get one attachment with Resort, but what if you don’t want to play another WiiSports, or have 4 controllers? Spending 80 dollars (20$ US for one Wii Motion Plus attachment) for some dongle that you don’t even does what it says on the box isn’t really a happy prospect. And this doubt leads me to my next point.

2. Remember when Sony decided to finally come out with the Dual Shock 3? First of all, they got berated for even daring to change the controller during the console’s lifespan. The DS3 is known to be better than the SIXAXIS (it’s sturdier, heavier, and most importantly it vibrates) but since not every gamer would get the new controller, the vibrations couldn’t be used as a vital part of gameplay as it was on PS2, because gamers without the device couldn’t get the same experience and presumably the game would be harder for them. And now (look at the CAD comic again) Nintendo jumps out with something that could be even more important to gameplay, since the lack of it could possibly render games unplayable. And, prove me wrong, but I haven’t seen as many critical comments as at the time of the Dual Shock 3 annoucement.

Of course now I could go on using big market terms like “splitting the customer base” but I think you get the idea.

So, I just wanted to vent my frustration with this situation, if you have any feedback on the topic at hand or on my writing (I’d love some critique) please feel free to leave comments.

Reisinger: Why Nintendo can do no wrong with the DS

The story from The Digital Home

Right of the bat I have to say I can’t disagree with the story itself. Nintendo hit a jackpot with the DS which trumps the sales numbers even of the Wii, and is the handheld of choice for the masses. And with many great games, and series thereof (including, of course, all of the well known Nintendo franchises) there is a reason for it’s popularity. That said, I have to take issuse with two things that Mr. Reisinger said in his article