Hey kids, Excremento here.
I am planning to make a list, not just any list, a list to end all lists and potentially get me a little notoriety and some front page lovin'.
I've been kicking around an idea for a Weird Kid's Top 100. "Top 100 what," you might ask yourself. Well, pretty simple, the Top 100 Video Game Icons of All Time.
This is promising to be quite the daunting task and has taken up many nights and billable hours already, and promises to take up even more. If my last epic blog is any indication of length, it should be near 60 pages long if you put it into MS Word and have over 100 pictures.
I wouldn't be doing such a thing as essentially committing writer suicide by writing a novel length post in a blog, if it weren't for you lovely people out there who look at each of my blogs and leave me such positive statements.
Shit, the one main reason I stick around every single day is because of the sense of community I feel with you all. It's not the game reviews, it's not the game news, not the contests or even the petty squabbling is enough for me, it's all of my homies here in the Community Blogs.
I've tried writing at other sites, there was just something about those places that felt a bit off, almost like the bicycle repair man on that episode of Diff'rent Strokes that scarred me as a child. If you ask Jim Sterling what it feels like, he'd probably start talking in length about his Uncle "Reg" and the naughty things he'd do to little sunny Jim.
Alas, I digress. What I'm trying to say is this, I've been working on this list for over a few months and have over the last few weeks gotten serious about finishing this project of mine. I have over 200 names of characters, game developers, producers, composers, companies, bloggers, journalists, and key individuals who have made this game industry what it is today.
I know with the ratio I have right now it'll be just a matter of offing 50% of the list...that's not good enough for Destructoid, we need a massive genocide of characters to make this list truly what it should be, epic. This is where you come in my dearies, I want each one of you to submit your own choices for who you'd like to see in the Top 100.
It doesn't have to be a huge list of people you'd like to see, it can be one name and one name alone. I want to give you, the community that I visit and spend time with each and every work day, a chance to have a part of something larger.
I'll be collecting and writing all of the suggestions along with who submitted them down in an spreadsheet and will then go to the task of having each person, character, or individual fight it out in one-on-one battle (ala Thunderdome).
Those that wish to submit their ideas can do so by leaving comments below OR by emailing me at my gmail account. Some of you out there already have my email but for those of you that don't its Xopher [dot] Reed [AT] gmail [dot] com (only without the all the spaces, gotta keep the spam bots working for my email address). Please put in the subject line Top 100 Idea and your Destructoid name if it isn't painfully apparent.
My thanks to all of you that participate, and here's to the community that has sustained me all of these past couple of months. Long live Mr. Destructoid!
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This week, I started packing some stuff up this week in preparation for me and the wife getting our own house. I had a lot of time to spend in front of ye olde bewbe toobe on Friday because of me and my wife's differing work schedules and thought that I would root around the cluttered room we use for storage for some sort of retro gaming experience.
When you come over to our apartment, you'd notice very quickly (if you're a gamer) that I still have my NES and my SNES attached to my 55" HDTV in the living room. You see, I am one of THOSE type of gamers that holds onto every single game that comes into their possession, including the copy of Bubsy for the SNES that I paid $80 for back when it came out. I still play my 'retro' systems just about every week and enjoy every minute of it.
Anyways, back to rooting around in the cluttered storage room.
I have most of my equipment/games in one corner of the room; the rest of the room is being utilized by my beautiful wife Mrs. Excremento. My most recent acquisition was from my friend who gave me his entire collection of NES gear including 20+ games I didn't own, the rest of the stuff got shipped to Mr. Adejuyigbe (aka Electro Lemon) so no I don't have anything else to share.
In his game collection were a few games that I adored playing when I was younger. I decided to crate his whole collection into the living room to spend some quality time with the awesomeness that is the NES.
Many of our younger gaming brethren are used to putting a game in the system and having it work the first time you switch on the power. Any of us from the NES generation know that to get games going and playing correctly on Nintendo's first American console, you need to have a bit of finesse. Whatever the trick may be: blowing, half inserting, slamming, or wedging, it is truly akin to sex how practiced the skill it is.
I started my retro gaming experience with Duck Tales, which is from the golden age where Capcom did great things with show licenses. The story involves the two main things that Scrooge McDuck was known for in the cartoon series: makin' himself richer, and getting into all sorts of trouble. The moment that the music started playing on the title screen, I found myself humming along to all the wonderful chip tunes like I was some sort of 8 year old that had a glass of Kool-Aid and some Handi-Snacks.
The people that think that games like this were for kids were out of their fucking minds. The difficulty for this game is just insane. You have 3 lives, each with 3 hits you can take until you die to finish this game. Sure you can pick up health restoring items, invincibility, and extra lives but you should know...there is no continue.
I got done playing Duck Tales fairly quickly and decided to move on to bigger and brighter things, such as PunchOut!!. Putting the game in my NES, I started to wonder how well my skill would have held up over the years. Amazingly, I got through the two tiers of opponents quickly (only King Hippo fucked me up), and enjoyed the laughable 'cut-scene' that happened after each major belt was won.
I got tired of trying to get to Mr. Dream (the final boxer instead of Mike Tyson) by myself so I decided to cheat and find a code that I could use from the internet. I entered the code with baited breath fully expecting to do somewhat well against the final opponent. I had my ass beat in less than 30 seconds...this point just hammered home what I already knew, that games have become much easier.
After my little bout (haha) with Punchout!! I decided to play a game that I didn't even realize I had in my collection, Double Dragon II: The Revenge. Anyone who was around for any of the Double Dragon games in the arcade can tell you that the series wasn't just any generic beat-em-up, it was THE beat-em-up. This great game's storyline furthered the exploits of Billy and Jimmy Lee and was a major departure from the first game where the damsel in distress isn't captured, but killed.
Unlike my the other NES games that I played on my retro day off, I spent more time playing Double Dragon II than both of the other games combined. I had a blast making my little 2D sprite guy beat the living hell out of other 2D sprite peoples. There were a few parts of the game that pissed me off, such as how easy it was to fall off ledges, and a battle inside a helicopter that has its door open at regular intervals to suck you and your opponent out.
This game was fun as hell to play, but ultimately frustrating because just like Duck Tales, there is no continue. Once you lost all 3 of your lives, it was truly game over. I haven't seen a "Game Over" screen in a long time, much less one that won't give you the option to continue.
I was just having a grand time re-living all of my childhood frustrations and joys. The great thing about the frustrations is that now I am an adult and have adult ways of working out frustrations that don't involve me throwing or biting my controller (beer and wanking take the place of those two), not to mention that I can go to any other game in my library at any time if I really get mad. All in all, I'd say that I had a really good day. Next time I'll have to preach on the greatness that is Super Castlevania IV for the SNES. Thanks for reading.
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Man…where should I start? Never, in the year that I have been attending Destructoid have I been as mad as I am right now. I gave myself to the count of 10, I even tried walking it off. No go, I have to do this or it will bug me all week. Most people on this website know me as a pretty mild mannered and nice guy but I've just about had it with some people.
Consult the 10 Commandments for Community Bloggers
CousinIke...
Your blog, is inflammatory, you need to fix some things. Let me teach you some simple English here; its called PARAGRAPHS, use them to separate your thoughts.
“You know for years I have been sitting by and listening to countless people whine about how the 360 sucks so bad, and how I got red ringed...”
Actually I don’t ‘know for years’, you need a comma there. What have you been sitting by? Are there really countless people ‘whining about the RRoD these days? The 360 has been on the Market for only a little more than 2 years so I think your ‘for years’ is bullshit.
“I remember a time back in 2000 when a little system called the PS2 came out and not to long after that people started crying about how there PS2 won't read discs... countless gamers had lost there systems due to this issues. Hell even I remember having to buy a PS2 cause of this issues... TWICE!”
*sigh* Again with the countless and the lack of commas. ‘There’ is a direction/place, ‘their’ denotes possession, and ‘they’re’ is a contraction for ‘they are’; learn these 3 rules or go Die In A Fire. Comparing the problems that the PS2 was having with the problems that the 360 has had is another bullshit point, the failure rate for PS2s was much lower than the supposed 30% failure rate that most Xbox 360’s were experiencing.
“I waited two years to buy the 360 cause I knew this was going to happen. It happened with the first XBOX it happen with the PS2, shit if I even remember correctly it happen to the Dreamcast also (remember the whole controller port issue) What I'm trying to say is learn from your past. You all set yourself up for buying the system so soon.”
Well whoopteefuckingdoo that you waited two years to buy a system. Do you want a prize for being behind the 8 ball for that length of time? You need to go back to remedial English and learn where to fucking use commas so you can separate your thoughts into cohesive phrases! I set myself up for being an early adopter? Fuck off with that logic you prick. You see yourself as smart for buying a game system when it’s half way through its life cycle? I see you as a pompous ass who has nothing better to do than put up a troll-ish blog on Destructoid.
“I bought my 360 5 months ago, I play COD4 for hours on end, Same with games like Bioshock and Oblivion. Games that push this system to it's limits. I use it as my DVD player, and my stereo in my house. My system stays on for most of the day... and I have never had any issues with it.”
So you’re saying here is that you’ve been burning the candle at both ends, you use it as a DVD player, and a game system. Give it some time and you will probably end up with having issues with it. In this age of optical media games, expect your system to eventually die, RRoD or not. Dude, CoD4 is available on both current gen systems and so is Oblivion, there’s no need to brag about games that aren’t exclusive.
“The 360 is the best system on the market today, it has the best online service, and it has the largest library of games out there.... so get off your Microsoft hating high horse and SHUT THE FUCK UP! you all brought it on yourself.”
You need to take your own advice and keep your fanboy opinions to yourself. This website’s blog is fueled by 2 major fucking rules that you need to learn yourself. First, STFUAJPG. Since you’re new here I’ll spell it all out for you: Shut The Fuck Up And Just Play Games. The second and most important rule of being a Cblogger is DON’T SUCK. You’ve failed on both of these rules and I can’t wait to see the ignorance you are going to be spouting at me for putting you in your place, you little fucking troll. GTFO my internets.
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Dear Microsoft and Xbox Live,
The joy that I have been experiencing with your system playing games like Lost Odyssey and Mass Effect have been rather substantial. This does not however excuse you from providing me with an online experience (that I must pay for) which has seen its fair share of problems in the last couple of months.
I thought that the concept was pretty straightforward. I give you money, you give me uninterrupted service and speedy connections with people who are a joy to play against/with. I do enjoy the fact that you have a great file service for downloading demos and game videos, but your constant lack of being able to see upcoming service spikes has led me to think that you might not know what you are doing when it comes to online connectivity.
This leads me to my conundrum, I enjoy the 1~2 matches that I play against online opponents every month but I don't see why I must pay for a feature that is included with a game. Should not the creators of said game and online capabilities be responsible for paying for the server time that might be used by its customers? Shouldn't all games have a memorable single player experience that I won't need multiplayer like Halo: Combat Evolved? Did I not pay you $60 for a new game that in all actuality shouldn't cost that much considering that I pay $8 a month for online connectivity?
Microsoft, I have to say that after buying my PS3 and enjoying the free multiplayer for my games, not to mention the promise of Home soon, has led me to this. As of this month, you will no longer be allowed to take money from me for a service that should be provided for free. I will no longer buy multiplayer specific games for the Xbox 360, but will instead pick up said game on the PS3. This latest fiasco with the CoD4 maps has left a sour taste in my mouth. The money I save from not paying for your service will go into a savings that will pay for real social activities, not the one that you promised me with Xbox Live.
Regretfully cancelling my Live Gold membership,
Excremento
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There are plenty of others here on D-Toid that do the same. I thought to myself "Wouldn't it be nice to share some sophisticated drink recipes with fellow adults?" That's where this posting comes from, the love I have for all drinks. So if you too are 21 years old or above, stay a spell, crack open a 'cold one' and join me as I share tonight's recipe.
Aerox's Lunchbox
Ok gang, here's the story. I hang out in the IRC a whole lot, probably most of my day that I'm awake. There are a few others that do the same, one of such IRC homies is Aerox. Aerox has been one of the most stoic and vocal members of the community and not to mention a pretty stand up guy. I asked the room one day to let me know what drinks they enjoy. Besides the typical beer and wine responses, there was one voice that came out on top of it all...Aerox screamed at the top of his lungs (which is the same as BOLDED ALLCAPS in chat rooms) The LUNCHBOX!!! I took his silly girly drink recipe and tried it out, then I tried it again, then again, and again. This is probably one of the most tasty girly drinks I've had in a long long time.
The basic recipe is:
2 Oz. Amaretto Liqueur
2 Oz. Beer (An Amber or Lager will suffice)
3 Oz. Orange Juice (If you're nasty like me, get High Pulp)
First, get yourself a glass and pour in about 3-4 fingers of orange juice. Next, just pour in the Amaretto. The final step is getting a large shot glass and filling it up with Beer. Now, take the shot glass and drop it into the glass with OJ and Amaretto, chug, rinse, repeat, you're done!
The drink should look something like this when finished.
What kind of douche puts OJ in a beer glass at Oktoberfest?
There you have it, Aerox's Lunchbox! Depending on your tolerance for alcohol, take it easy with these, if you're uninitiated in the ways of liquor, it might go straight to your head. Well, the funny thing is that the mixture of OJ with beer makes a pretty delicious concoction. If you are having a hard time in the morning shaking off that hangover, this makes a great "hair of the dog that bit you" drink.
*Note* Destructoid assumes no responsibility for the drink recipes posted by Excremento, nor the actions taken from imbibing said drinks, neither does Excremento. Remeber kids, drink in moderation you don't want alcohol poisoning. As always have something to eat before a night of drinking.
Well, I hope you guys all like it, please let me know what you think!
White Russians
Mr. Destructoid's Green Death
Happy Cola
A Pimp Named Butmac
The Electro Lemon
Irish Car Bombs
Neonie's Furry Purple Squirrels
Adios Motherf*cker
Shipero's Italian Martini
Coonskin And Bones
Flaming Dr. Pepper
12-Gauge Shottie
Destructoid Army Green
Miami Vice
The Workman Mojito
n00bmeister's Sneaky Drinking at Work Drink
Necros's Lounge Lizard
The Goomba Smash
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Back in the great days of my youth almost 19 years ago, when the NES was king and I was a portly little quiet kid. A kid who escaped everyday to the Mushroom Kingdom and Dracula's Castle to avoid my boring existence as a grade school child. I had very few friends and a non-existent home life so video games became a coping mechanism to help my personal development and became my best friend.
The NES in today's world is considered archaic, dilapidated, old, and maybe even silly; to me, it was the best game console ever made (until the SNES that is). Many of the games that were there to be enjoyed were ones you had to beat within the time-span from when the power button was pressed to the on position to the time when you either: A> Accidentially Hit the Reset Button, B> Had a Power Outage (prevalent in the south), C> The Connection Between Cartridge and NES Failed, or D> You Hit The Power Button. If you didn't beat the game in that span of time, you had to start over from the beginning, usually World/Level 1-1.
There were some games that did come with more advance features such as Battery Backup (which is now starting to fail in some of my older games ;__:) or Password Features that were great as long as you write it down exactly as it appeared, if not, back to World 1-1 Noob! There was however a way around this problem, the NES didn't generate heat much at all, the power supply did, so many of us started to leave the NES on all night long while we slept.
I can remember going home from school on Friday night playing all day until I couldn't possibly go any further, shutting off the TV, the lights and everything else only to have the square cyclopic red eyeball of the NES stare at me all night like HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey threatening to kill me while I slept. Today's list deals with those few games that forced me to do so on many occasions. It's the Top 10 Games You Had To Leave The NES On All Night To Beat! See you at the end.
Goonies II
While the original Goonies game was never released here in America, its sequel did manage to see the light of day. The story had you playing as Mikey trying to rescue the other Goonies as well as a mermaid from the clutches of the evil Fratellis who have escaped from prison once again.
This game was long, and in most respects a pain in the ass to play when it went to its faux-3D rooms that you had to explore. Other than those, it was a really really fun game to play. If it wasn't for the repeating rendition of Cyndi Lauper's song from the movie, it would be a great game. The game does have a password feature but since it was a bit too complicated like most Konami games, if you messed up one letter or one character...it's back to the beginning of the game.
Clash At Demonhead
One of the more relatively unknown games I own on my NES, Clash At Demonhead was a real acquired taste. The game seemed majorly flawed by its graphics and stunted gameplay, but the story is where the game shined. If you've never had a chance to play this game, give it a little time and it will come to grow on you and become one of the best platforming adventure games you've ever played. Well, at least that's my opinion.
This was yet another game that had no way of saving your game unless you really enjoyed entering a password that could have very easily been transcribed wrong. The risk was always just a bit too high for me to quit the game with a password. I even had a chalkboard in my room (whiteboards didn't exist back then) that I would use to keep track of all of my game secrets and passwords.
Faxanadu
Faxanadu was perhaps one of the first action RPGs that I played while growing up. Sure, I had spent a whole bunch of time playing Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest, but this game provided more for me. The music and graphics used in the game were substantial for the time the game was released. This was perhaps one of the first games that I ever played that used music as more than just background filler.
The worst part about playing any RPG on the old NES wasn't so much that it was hard, but the fact that so many of them used passwords instead of batteries to save your progress. Faxanadu was brutal because it used both uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, AND punctuation marks in its passwords. I guess playing games like this set me up for the job I do today...making passwords for simpletons.
Metal Gear
Oh man the first Metal Gear was a nerdy kids wet dream, it had it all: simulated stealth, cigarettes, c-rations, 15 different weapons and a cardboard box you could sneak around in. The only problem, is that I didn't quite know all that was going on thanks to the lack of good localization (trust me the MSX version was much better). Kojima had a great game even for the 80s standards of Nintendo games, it was released under the Ultra label to get past Nintendo's embargo on game companies making too many games per year. As has been one of my favorite games all throughout my childhood.
To get an example of how retarded the game's save feature was, here ya go. There was NO battery at all and when you called on the radio to get your password you got a string of 25 numbers that you would have to write down. 25 is a lot of stuff to write down and to input into ANY game. Here's the password that I actually used to have memorized so I could start the game with all the equipment if you don't believe how much work old games used to be: 5XZ1C GZZZG UOOOU UYRZZ NTOZ3. Tell me that's not a tad overkill...
Ghosts & Goblins
This game gets one paragraph, and only one because it fucking sucks how this game played me as a kid. I get to the last level and up the the boss only to be dragged ALL THE WAY back to the beginning of the game. At that point I turned the game off and went to bed angry. I got up and beat the game the next morning only to take it back to game store to demand a full return of my money. There, I said it, fuck this game.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
A game that I have only beaten once, ever, in the whole time that I have owned the cartridge. I even got punished because I was so late coming home that night because I was at the last level facing off against Shredder. In case you didn't know, TMNT also has a rather negative stigma as a really tough game that is unforgiving. Whether your hangups be on the level with the electric seaweed and the underwater bombs, or the multiple times that you have to witness screen flicker from too many sprites on the screen at one time, this game could fuck you up quickly.
Do I even need to remind the people here that Raphael was a pretty worthless character because his sais had an attack range of maybe 3 inches? Its not so much that this game didn't have a password or save feature, but it was always tough for me to reach for the power button when I spent 3 hours getting to the 4th stage. At times I miss how tough games were, but then again I remember how mad some always made me and how often I would take all my aggression out on my poor defenseless controllers.
Super Maro Bros. 3
Ok, ok, I'm sure there are some of you calling bullshit on this one being here on the list, but lets face the facts here. Mario 3 is a simple game if you cheat and use the warp whistles, but what about the people like me who wanted to play the ENTIRE game themselves? I can recall with great joy the moment I made it above the clouds in World 5 and the triumph I felt after beating World 7 all by myself. If anyone was going to be tapping that sweet princess peach it was going to be me!
Man, is it just me, but does it not take forever to beat every single stage in SMB3? What's worse is the fact that Nintendo in their infinite short sightedness decided that this game didn't need any kind of save feature! Thankfully when I bought Super Mario All-Stars, it remedied the problem and had a save feature for EACH Mario game on the cart.
Little Nemo: The Dream Master
It's no surprise that most of the games that I've put on my top 10 are some of the most despicable examples of hard games, and Little Nemo was no slouch in that department either. The game seems somewhat of a kids game until you get to the train on the Topsy Turvy level and spend the next 2 hours trying to figure out the whole pattern to it all to get to the next stage.
I loved this game for the mere fact that you bribe the animals you come across to let you "borrow" them by throwing candy at them. Bee Mario? Sorry it was done back before the Wii ever thought of it when Nemo could become a bee himself. Oh man, there is just something about Capcom games from back in the late 80s that will always warm my heart to think about them.
Bionic Commando
I creamed myself when I saw that this game was being remade in glorious HD and in 3D graphics. It is a retro-gamer's dream to have a game like Bionic Commando be remade. This is one of the most classic examples of a quality game, it had great graphics, sound, music, animation, and a somewhat plausible story featuring everyone's favorite punching bag: Hitler!
There was no chance of me ever turning off my console once I started playing Bionic Commando when I was young. After spawn camping one spot in the first area to build up my life points (it took collecting 300 bullets randomly dropped by baddies), and collecting all of my equipment to cross the big span between the first areas to the final areas...I became a zombie. I would purposely leave my NES on just to prove to some of my friends that I had in fact beat the game. You see, back then it was easy to say that you beat a game, it was another point entirely to prove that you did.
Battletoads
Ah, what can I say about one of the best games to ever grace the good ol' NES? It was one of Rare's first in a long line of awesomesauce that the company became known for so many years later. But there is a catch with Battletoads, this game was really fucking hard, not just a little hard, really really fucking hard. The game's length is pretty extensive too, I have yet to see a game like this where there are so many varied elements of gameplay. If there was one thing I could leave behind with Battletoads, it would have to be the speeder bike level.
The game had NO password settings, NO battery backup, and was quite possibly one of the meanest games to ever allow multiplayer. There was friendly fire in this game in a time where friendly fire wasn't even defined outside the military. That never stopped my and my friends from just beating the shit out of each other though. I can remember playing just that first level almost like it were my very own version of Street Fighter II. With a game as brutal as this though, who could blame me?
The Simpsons: Bart vs The Space Mutants
If there's anything I hate more than poorly designed games, its poorly designed games that have no apparent way of beating them. That's were this awesome example of licensed gaming comes into play. The game looked great, but was nigh impossible to win at it. I can even think of the area in the game that always hung me up. It was right where you have to run up the dinosaur skeleton and make this unbelievable leap of faith. The game was very sparing with giving you extra lives but you go through them at an insane rate.
To this day, I've never beat this game but I can recall having to leave my NES on overnight only to lose every SINGLE extra life that I had within 5 minutes. Jim Sterling can get mad, but his hate for Mass Effect comes nowhere close to the amount of hatred that I held in my heart for this game. With all being said, I would still pick up a copy.
Well, this concludes yet another Weird Kid’s Top 10 list. I hope you all enjoyed reading it. I know for certain that there are many of you out there that will disagree with some of my choices for this list, but keep in mind that this is in no way a definitive listing nor is it meant to be taken seriously. Its all for fun, just enjoy reading and take something away with you or leave a comment if you so wish.
As always, please let me know if you have a particular Top 10 that you’d like to see, and I’d be happy to oblige. For all of my faithful fans that do submit ideas, I promise I’ll eventually get around to yours. Thank you again for reading. See you next time.
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There it is right there, my bebe, your future ruler and master (ALL HAIL LIL' EXCREMENTO)! We still don't have any idea what the gender is but its only a matter of time until we do know, and you'll be some of the first to know along with me. I'm very excited for it to hurry and get here so I can be a dad. I wish the same could be said for Mrs. Excremento, she's been suffering from morning sickness (should be called all-day sickness) and can't wait either, although for different reasons.
Here's a little bit closer picture of the child just lounging away, growing, getting stronger, training to be the next generation of video gamer.
The final shot that I have to share with you all, my kid already ready to pick fights with people 36x times its size. My kid, saying put em up, put em up! Look closely, its a straight ahead picture instead of the profile pictures above.
I'm so happy! I can't wait!
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I love Rock Band and Guitar Hero, even more so than most games I own in my collection. I just have one problem, I was brought up with a vast knowledge of music and appreciation for all types of music. Unfortunately for people like me, most rhythm games fail to include some of my favorite songs and or bands.
While I find it very cool that the game designers for both game series are trying to be all-inclusive and bring elements from modern music and music from the past together in one game, they sometimes fall flat on their face trying to meet my expectations and the expectations of people like me.
I know that I am not the only audiophile in the vast sea of Destructiod readers. There will no doubt be those of you who agree with the songs I post here, and a great deal more of you who won't agree or have never heard the songs I list. Let's get started shall we?
The Mars Volta -- Metatron
Every album that The Mars Volta makes further proves to me that the group is one of the most creative groups I have ever heard, and on The Bedlam in Goliath the group continues to blow my mind. The unbelievably intricate guitar work laced with lyrics that seem innane but are doused with more meaning that a simpleton like me can understand make this song uncommonly beautiful and awesome at the same time.
Matisyahu -- Youth
First, I can't believe that there is a Hasidic Jewish reggae singer...that's just amazing and makes me love America much more. Second, Matthew Miller is an amazing lyricist. Now with that being said, Matisyahu is one of those amazing artists that come around every once in a generation. I first got to listen to the man on his Live At Stubb's which then lead me on to the album this track is off of Youth. Nearly every song on the album is damn good, but might be a little too heavy handed with the God lovin goin on. I generally ignore the message and just listen to the man say words faster than the Micro Machine Man ever did.
Videodrone -- Power Tools for Girls
If you never heard of the group Videodrone before, I wouldn't be surprised. They were brought out under the record label started by Korn, Elementree Records, and were comprised of members of the previous group Cradle of Thorns. Power Tools for Girls features awesome guitar riffs, haunting vocals by the groups front-man Ty Elam, and an amazing bassline. Check them out sometime, they were one of my favorite bands back in 1998.
Kottonmouth Kings -- Bi-Polar
Most of the time the Kottonmouth Kings are a pretty decent punk-rap group from California that rap about weed, alot. However on a few of their albums, like they did on Hidden Stash, Vol 2: The Kreem of the Krop they decide to change things up a little bit and include actual punk tracks like this one. The song starts off strong and ends about the same way, but there is this nice slowdown in the middle with a great bassline. The guitar and drum portions are frantic enough that it would be great to play multiplayer on hard or expert just to watch how much everyone would fuck it up.
Devo - Mongoloid
Coming off of one of the greatest albums of all time Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, Mongoloid was one of Devo's first hits before they got signed by Warner Records. Every song on the album is great and Monogoloid gets my pick mainly because the fact that they're singing about a retarded person. The guitar is wicked good for late 70s rock and the lyrics of Mark Mothersbaugh (maker of the Rugrats theme) make this song totally timeless.
I know, I know, I probably didn't include the group/song that you think would be great, but give me some time, this is just another in my series of many blog posts I've been writing to post about songs I'd love to see in Guitar Hero/Rock Band. Who knows, maybe next time, your favorite song will be here. Thanks for reading.
Disclaimer
I know that if I had Audiosurf, you'd probably never see one of these posts ever again because you can use your own music, but please keep in mind that I already know that the companies responsible for both games are looking for mainstream music, this blog just gives me a chance to expose music that I really like.
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Well, I don't know about all of you loverly readers of Destructoid, but I like to eat...it was the reason that I topped out at 309 a few years ago and decided to lose weight. Unfortunately there is an inner fatso that likes to come out every one in a while.
My favorite type of cuisine to cook would have to be Italian, it's so damn easy and all too rewarding with the different tastebuds on your tongue getting hit all at the same time. So won't you come with my into my kitchenette and learn how Excremento makes Lasagna.
This batch was not my best creation, but there was no way in hell that I was going to spend more than 30 minutes to make dinner tonight, especially because its a work day and I have to go to bed soon.
First lay everything out and get ready for some serious speed cooking.
Preheat the oven to 375, it makes a difference people!
Get the slab of your favorite mammal or avian out of the freezer and start cooking it on medium high heat and KEEP THE GREASE! Also, if your name is Wardrox, you can use soy...
Now for all the cold ingredients. Not pictured is the ________ cheese (pick your favorite hard Italian cheese, I prefer asiago)
My betta, Belvedere has watched me cook every single night.
Not so great picture of Belevedere, he's a good fish.
Another close-up of my fish, he let's me pet him.
Ok the meat is at the right consistency for me to add the other things that needed to be heated up.
Add the Mushrooms.
Then add the Olives.
Mmmmmmm, hot mess!
Take all the canned stuff and mix it all together with some garlic powder and 'Italian' seasonings.
Here's all the stuff minus the hot mess.
Now all the mushrooms and olives are tender from being cooked in yummy delicious fat.
All the cold stuff mixed up and delicious.
There's the sauce all mixed up too.
This is a messy dish, make sure you spray the pan you will be cooking in with non stick oil spray.
Layer 1, just sauce.
3 Barilla brand no boil sheets of pasta next.
Then some hot mess on top of the sheets of pasta.
Moar sauce!
Pasta, then cheese, then pasta.
More hot mess, INCLUDING ALL THE GREASE!
More sauce, more pasta, then more cheese, and you guessed it...more pasta.
Then the last of the sauce.
Put some cheese on top of the whole mess of food.
Foil up the whole dish to keep the moisture in so the pasta cooks.
Put in the oven, ignore the pizza stone.
Set the timer for 45-60 minutes and let cook!
Tadaaaaa! Here is the final product!
MMMMMMMMM, I ate like half a dish myself.
And to wrap things up for all you lovely people, here is a dolphin laughing at a SeaWorld employee getting touched on her bum.
Let me know what you all think!!!
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Following the recently unsuccessful bid by EA to buy all outstanding shares of Take-Two's stock at $26 a share, the company has received offers from a few third-party companies that are now interested. You can be rest assured that there wont be any buying or selling of Take-Two stock until after the release of Grand Theft Auto IV at the end of April.
According the chairman of Take-Two Strauss Zelnick, "Our Board, after careful review, has unanimously determined that Electronic Arts' offer continues to provide insufficient value and remains opportunistically timed to capture the value of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV launch at the expense of our stockholders."
To put it bluntly, screw you and the horse you rode in on EA, after GTA4 comes out, you can't afford us!
Zelnick continues his verbal pwnage,"We are effectively working toward a process to review all available options to maximise this value, either as an independent company or in combination with a third party, and are open to beginning informal discussions starting now. Our stockholders' interests would hardly be served by accepting an offer from EA at the wrong price and the wrong time,"
So in short, it doesn't look like EA planned on their offer to buy Take-Two to backfire as much as it did. Fortunately the shareholders of Take-Two are smart enough to realize that the release of GTA4 is going to make the stock surge as long as there isn't any "hot coffee" included.
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