[I just wrote this up for NG, but thought it would go well here too. If you have a problem with that... well, not much I can do. Suck it up, it's better than most the crap posted these days :P The Destructoid community is so fucking awesome. Let's blow this thing! - Wardrox]

As we speak, Destructoid's review editor and all round awesome guy Jim Sterling is on a train heading North to my house for SingSterling.

24 hours of SingStar, all under the pretence of charity! Chances are you already know about it, and have donated. But for those people who haven't; wtf dude? Come on! It's like twenty bucks to watch a fat guy you probably disagreed with at some point sing until he causes himself permanent damage!

All money raised goes towards Extra Life, an awesome by-gamers charity drive to help kids with cancer.

Still no? You cunt Well, what if I linked you to the FULL TRACK LIST? See, warming to the idea now aren't you? Now, GO DONATE $20 and make sure to check back here, my twitter, or Destructoid to grab the live feed of the whole thing!

I speak for myself, NegativeGamer, Jim Sterling and Extra Life when I say a truly sincere thank you. Gamers get a bad rep most of the time, and events like this show just how the communities formed by people who never quite fitted in, really can change peoples lives.

You, just sitting there, have improved the life of another, real person somewhere in the world. And that's something to be immensely proud of.

11 SingStar games, 24 hours, 1 Sterling. I can now reveal the full track list available for choosing. Anything take your fancy? leave a comment or hop on the live stream on Saturday and leave your requests!

* A-ha - "Take On Me"
* Atomic Kitten - "Eternal Flame"
* Avril Lavigne - "Complicated"
* Blondie - "Heart Of Glass"
* Blue - "One Love"
* Busted - "Crashed The Wedding"
* Carl Douglas - "Kung Fu Fighting"
* Daniel Bedingfield - "If You're Not The One"
* The Darkness - "I Believe In A Thing Called Love"
* Deee-Lite - "Groove Is In The Heart"
* Dido - "Thank You"
* Elvis Presley - "Suspicious Minds"
* Black Sabbath - "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"
* Good Charlotte - "Girls & Boys"
* Jamelia - "Superstar"
* Lemar - "50/50"
* Liberty X - "Just A Little"
* Madonna - "Like A Virgin"
* Mis-Teeq - "Scandalous"
* Motörhead - "Ace Of Spades"
* Petula Clark - "Downtown"
* Pink - "Get The Party Started"
* Rick Astley - "Never Gonna Give You Up"
* Ricky Martin - "Livin' La Vida Loca"
* Roy Orbison - "Oh, Pretty Woman"
* S Club - "Don't Stop Movin'"
* Sophie Ellis Bextor - "Murder On The Dancefloor"
* Sugababes - "Round Round"
* Village People - "Y.M.C.A."
* Westlife - "World Of Our Own"


* Alicia Keys - "Fallin'"
* Ashford & Simpson - "Solid"
* The Beautiful South - "A Little Time"
* Bill Withers - "Ain't No Sunshine"
* Blu Cantrell - "Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)"
* Bob Marley - "No Woman No Cry"
* Buggles - "Video Killed The Radio Star"
* Busted - "Year 3000"
* Cyndi Lauper - "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"
* Destiny's Child - "Survivor"
* Dido - "White Flag"
* Duran Duran - "Hungry Like The Wolf"
* Elton John & Kiki Dee - "Don't Go Breaking My Heart"
* Elvis Presley - "Way Down"
* The Foundations - "Build Me Up Buttercup"
* Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"
* George Michael - "Faith"
* Jamiroquai - "Cosmic Girl"
* Javine - "Real Things"
* Kylie Minogue - "I Should Be So Lucky"
* Little Richard - "Tutti Frutti"
* Maroon 5 - "This Love"
* Natasha Bedingfield - "Single"
* Pink - "Just Like A Pill"
* The Police - "Every Breath You Take"
* Scissor Sisters - "Take Your Mama"
* Sonny & Cher - "I Got You Babe"
* Spandau Ballet - "Gold"
* Spice Girls - "Who Do You Think You Are"
* Tiffany - "I Think We're Alone Now"


* Annie - "Heartbeat"
* Ashlee Simpson - "Pieces Of Me"
* Avril Lavigne - "Sk8er Boi"
* Beyonce - "Crazy In Love"
* Black Eyed Peas - "Shut Up"
* Blink-182 - "What's My Age Again"
* The Clash - "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?"
* Dandy Warhols - "Bohemian Like You"
* Eric B. & Rakim - "Paid In Full"
* Fountains of Wayne - "Stacy's Mom"
* Girls Aloud - "Love Machine"
* Good Charlotte - "I Just Wanna Live"
* The Hives - "Main Offender"
* Hoobastank - "The Reason"
* Jamelia - "Stop"
* Jay Sean - "Eyes On You"
* Joss Stone - "Super Duper Love (Are You Digging On Me?)"
* Keane - "Somewhere Only We Know"
* Kylie Minogue - "In Your Eyes"
* Marilyn Manson - "Personal Jesus"
* Manfred Man - "Do Wah Diddy"
* McFly - "Obviously"
* Natasha Bedingfield - "These Words"
* Outkast - "Roses"
* Robbie Williams - "Let Me Entertain You"
* Robbie Willams & Kylie Minogue - "Kids"
* Ronan Keating & Yusuf Islam - "Father And Son"
* Sister Sledge - "We Are Family"
* Steppenwolf - "Born To Be Wild"
* Tom Jones - "It's Not Unusual"


* Alice Cooper - "Poison"
* Belinda Carlisle - "Heaven Is A Place On Earth"
* Billy Joel - "Uptown Girl"
* Blondie - "Atomic"
* Culture Club - "Karma Chameleon"
* The Cure - "Just Like Heaven"
* Dexy's Midnight Runners - "Come On Eileen"
* Dolly Parton - "9 To 5"
* Duran Duran - "Rio"
* Erasure - "A Little Respect"
* Europe - "Final Countdown"
* Fairground Attraction - "Perfect"
* Foreigner - "I Want To Know What Love Is"
* Frankie Goes To Hollywood - "The Power Of Love"
* Kate Bush - "Running Up That Hill"
* Katrina And The Waves - "Walking On Sunshine"
* Madness - "Our House"
* Madonna - "Material Girl"
* Marillion - "Kayleigh"
* Nena - "99 Red Balloons"
* Pretenders - "Brass In Pocket"
* Run DMC - "It's Tricky"
* Simple Minds - "Don't You Forget About Me"
* Soft Cell - "Tainted Love"
* Starship - "We Built This City"
* Survivor - "Eye Of The Tiger"
* Tears For Fears - "Everybody Wants To Rule The World"
* Tina Turner - "The Best"
* Vanilla Ice - "Ice Ice Baby"
* Wham! - "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go"


* Bloc Party - "Banquet"
* Blur - "Song 2"
* The Bravery - "An Honest Mistake"
* Bowling for Soup - "1985"
* The Cardigans - "My Favourite Game"
* Coldplay - "Speed Of Sound"
* Deep Purple - "Smoke On The Water"
* Franz Ferdinand - "Do You Want To"
* Gwen Stefani - "What You Waiting For?"
* Hard Fi - "Hard To Beat"
* The Hives - "Hate To Say I Told You So"
* Hole - "Celebrity Skin"
* Jet - "Are You Gonna Be My Girl"
* Kasabian - "Club Foot"
* Keane - "Everybody's Changing"
* The Killers - "Somebody Told Me"
* Kings of Leon - "The Bucket"
* KT Tunstall - "Black Horse And The Cherry Tree"
* Maximo Park - "Apply Some Pressure"
* Nirvana - "Come As You Are"
* The Offspring - "Self-Esteem"
* Queen - "Don't Stop Me Now"
* Queens of the Stone Age - "Go With The Flow"
* Razorlight - "Somewhere Else"
* The Rolling Stones - "Paint It, Black"
* The Scorpions - "Wind of Change"
* Snow Patrol - "Run"
* Stereophonics - "Dakota"
* Thin Lizzy - "The Boys Are Back In Town"
* The Undertones - "Teenage Kicks"


* Bananarama - "I Heard A Rumour"
* Bonnie Tyler - "Total Eclipse Of The Heart"
* Bucks Fizz - "Making Your Mind Up"
* Candi Staton - "Young Hearts Run Free"
* Charlene - "I've Never Been To Me"
* Charlotte Church - "Crazy Chick"
* Cher - "If I Could Turn Back Time"
* Dead or Alive - "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)"
* Girls Aloud - "Biology"
* Gloria Gaynor - "I Will Survive"
* Kim Wilde - "Kids In America"
* Leann Rimes - "Can't Fight the Moonlight"
* Pussycat Dolls - "Don't Cha"
* Queen - "Radio Ga Ga"
* Scissor Sisters - "Laura"
* Steps - "Deeper Shade of Blue"
* Take That feat. Lulu - "Relight My Fire"
* The Weather Girls - "It's Raining Men"
* Ultra Nate - "Free"
* Whitney Houston - "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)"


* Aretha Franklin - "Respect"
* Barry White - "You're The First, The Last, My Everything"
* Black Sabbath - "Paranoid"
* Blur - "Parklife"
* David Bowie - "Life On Mars?"
* Depeche Mode - "Enjoy The Silence"
* Dusty Springfield - "Son Of A Preacher Man"
* Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong - "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off"
* Elton John - "Rocket Man"
* Elvis Presley - "Blue Suede Shoes"
* Jackie Wilson - "Reet Petite"
* The Jackson 5 - "I Want You Back"
* John Lennon - "Imagine"
* Johnny Cash - "Ring Of Fire"
* Lynyrd Skynyrd - "Sweet Home Alabama"
* Madonna - "Papa Don't Preach"
* Marvin Gaye - "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"
* The Monkees - "Daydream Believer"
* Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
* Patsy Cline - "Crazy"
* Pet Shop Boys - "Always On My Mind"
* The Police - "Roxanne"
* The Righteous Brothers - "Unchained Melody"
* The Rolling Stones - "Sympathy For The Devil"
* Roxy Music - "Love Is The Drug"
* Sam Cooke - "Wonderful World"
* The Smiths - "This Charming Man"
* Tina Turner - "What's Love Got To Do With It?"
* U2 - "Vertigo"
* Whitney Houston - "Greatest Love Of All"


* Akon - "Lonely"
* All Saints - "Black Coffee"
* Ashlee Simpson - "Boyfriend"
* Avril Lavigne - "My Happy Ending"
* Britney Spears - "Baby One More Time"
* Cascada - "Everytime We Touch"
* Corinne Bailey Rae - "Put Your Records On"
* Daniel Powter - "Bad Day"
* Dannii Minogue - "I Begin To Wonder"
* Evanesence - "Bring Me To Life"
* Fall Out Boy - "Dance Dance"
* Girls Aloud - "No Good Advice"
* Goldfrapp - "Oh La La"
* Jamelia - "Beware Of The Dog"
* James Morrison - "You Give Me Something"
* Jennifer Lopez - "Jenny From The Block"
* JoJo - "Leave (Get Out)"
* Lemar - "It's Not That Easy"
* Lily Allen - "Littlest Things"
* My Chemical Romance - "Helena"
* Nelly Furtado - "Promiscuous"
* Norah Jones - "Don't Know Why"
* Orson - "Bright Idea"
* Razorlight - "Golden Touch"
* Rihanna - "SOS"
* Scissor Sisters - "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'"
* Sugababes - "Push The Button"
* Travis - "Sing"
* U2 - "Beautiful Day"
* Will Young - "Switch It On"


* All Saints - "Never Ever"
* Aqua - "Barbie Girl"
* B52's - "Love Shack"
* Barenaked Ladies - "One Week"
* Billy Ray Cyrus - "Achy Breaky Heart"
* The Cardigans - "Lovefool"
* The Cranberries - "Zombie"
* Crash Test Dummies - "MMM MMM MMM MMM"
* The Cure - "Friday I'm In Love"
* Divinyls - "I Touch Myself"
* EMF - "Unbelievable"
* Gin Blossoms - "Hey Jealousy"
* Lisa Loeb - "Stay (I Missed You)"
* MC Hammer - "U Can't Touch This"
* Meredith Brooks - "Bitch"
* M People - "Movin' On Up"
* Natalie Imbruglia - "Torn"
* New Kids On The Block - "Step By Step"
* Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue - "Where The Wild Roses Grow"
* Poison - "Unskinny Bop"
* Radiohead - "Creep"
* R.E.M. - "Everybody Hurts"
* Roachford - "Only To Be With You"
* Savage Garden - "I Want You"
* Seal - "Kiss From A Rose"
* Sir Mix A Lot - "Baby Got Back"
* Spice Girls - "Wannabe"
* Spin Doctors - "Two Princes"
* Technotronic feat. Felly - "Pump Up The Jam"
* Wet Wet Wet - "Love Is All Around"


* Air Supply - "All Out of Love"
* Alannah Myles - "Black Velvet"
* Anastacia - "Left Outside Alone"
* Avril Lavigne - "I'm With You"
* Boston - "More Than A Feeling"
* Boy Meets Girl - "Waiting For A Star To Fall!"
* The Calling - "Wherever You Will Go"
* Cutting Crew - "I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight"
* Cyndi Lauper - "Time After Time"
* Duran Duran - "Ordinary World"
* Europe - "Carrie"
* Heart - "Alone"
* Jon Secada - "Just Another Day"
* Lonestar - "Amazed"
* Marc Cohn - "Walking In Memphis"
* Meatloaf - "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)"
* Mr Big - "To Be With You"
* Mr Mister - "Broken Wings"
* Mr Mister - "Kyrie"
* Nickelback - "How You Remind Me"
* Nilsson - "Without You"
* Poison - "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"
* Queen - "The Show Must Go On"
* Roxette - "It Must Have Have Been Love"
* Roxette - "Listen To Your Heart"
* Starship - "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now"
* Sugababes - "Too Lost In You"
* Tina Arena - "Chains"
* Toto - "Africa"
* T'Pau - "China In Your Hands"


And finally from SingStar Vol. 2

* Aerosmith - Dude Looks Like a Lady
* Blur - Country House
* Bobby Brown - My Perogative
* Eminem - Without Me
* George Michael - Freedom ‘90
* Gorillaz - Dare
* Gossip - Standing in the Way of Control
* Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing
* Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby
* Kool and the Gang - Celebration
* The Lovin’ Spoonful - Summer in the City
* Maximo Park - Our Velocity
* Morrisey - Suedehead
* Nirvanna - Lithium
* Panic! At The Disco - But It’s Better If You Do
* Paul McCartney & the Frog Chorus - We All Stand Together
* Pulp - Common People
* Radiohead - Street Spirit (Fade Out)
* Shakespears Sister - Stay
* Spandau Ballet - TRUE
* The Cure - Pictures of You
* The Killers - When You Were Young
* The Libertines - Can’t Stand Me Now
* The Mamas and The Papas - California Dreamin’
* The Offspring - Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)
* The Police - Don’t Stand So Close To Me
* The Proclaimers - I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)
* Tom Jones with Mousse T - Sexbomb
* Tone Loc - Funky Cold Medina
* Young MC - Bust A Move


Oh My God.

It may not be very well known, but the Pandora hand-held is now available to pre-order for £200 (current US exchange rate: about $5 million). It boasts hardware on par with the original Xbox as well as the fact that if you buy this, chances are you will never have to pay for software for it.

You see, the whole project is open source. As it stands, Pandora comes with the popular Ubuntu OS and is specifically designed to run free-emulators on free-Linux, using up all of your free-time. Currently the devs say it is able to emulate anything from the PS1 older.

With 2 SD slots you could theoretically have up to 64 Gig of ROMs stashed away in this thing, as well as music/films/other software. I would write more about its excellent features and software, or you could just fap over the picture and read the wikipedia entry.

Yes, you do want one.

Via: \.

As you will be well aware from listening to the most recent Podcastle episode, this coming Tuesday (Sep 30th) will see the return of Podcastle Live.

The show will of course be recorded and available to download a day or two after, but where is the fun in that? Wouldn't you much rather witness the mighty Podcastle come crashing down due to technical errors LIVE!? Better yet, be part of the reason everything will go wrong in the first place!

When are these shenanigans of awesome taking place?
The show will be starting at 6pm UK time which is probably 1pm EST. Though, due to bad maths, just assume it'll be starting at just after lunch o'clock America-time.

We will start broadcasting an hour-ish earlier than the start time to make sure everything works and so you can get yourself comfortable.

You scare me, I just want to watch
That's fine my child. We will be streaming the show over NowLive via a fancy widget type thing. You wont need to sign up and, if all goes to plan, Jim will embed the player in the front page post on Tuesday, so you wont even need to leave Dtoid.

But, oh sexy Wardrox, how does one get involved?
During the show, there will be many ways for you to call us and tell us we're wrong. You can use either the NowLive widget chat, or in the Dtoid IRC channel.

To get into IRC either read ProfPew's guide, or simply go to mibbit.com and select the server to be dynastynet.net and the channel to be #destructoid.

Hmm, text is all fun, but how do I sing Coldplay at Atheistium?
Now, this is where things get a touch more complicated. To call into the show and be a sexy guest you will need to use Skype. Don't worry, it's free. Make sure you add me to your skype contacts list (Skype name: Wardrox).

If you want to get on the show, DO NOT just ring me. Chances are if you do I'll block your account. Instead, send me (wardrox) a PM via Skype, when the time is right, I'll give you a call back to get you on.


And that's that. Expect technical difficulties, lots of drunks, and a very, very fun few hours. Keep an eye out on Tuesday for Jim's post.

Also, Live Cocks.

Sometimes I have ideas at 5am. This is what my brain likes to think about in the middle of the night.

For this month's Monthly Musing I've decided to tackle a topic which is the single greatest anger inducing part of the videogame industry for me. Put simply, I'm angry at the way videogame PR and marketing collaborates with the media outlets and how the media is just as much to blame for the corruption.

To try to keep things simple I will be referring to the PR and marketing companies as Publishers, and also generalise “media” down to Reviewers and the Publication Owners. I am fully aware the whole thing is much, much more complex, but for the sake of brevity and succinctness I feel it's convenient.

As long as we have had videogames, we have had an accompaniment of PR in one form or other. When making a game you need to tell people how good it is and that they should buy it. This I have no problem with at all. The problem comes, as with most things, when money is brought into the equation. As the companies making games grow, more demand is placed on them to turn a higher and higher profit. Soon, the company will realise a higher review score will significantly bump up sales.

This is where the Reviewer comes in. Initially a wide-eyed, do-good writer just looking to tell people about games. Honesty, integrity and all that wonderful stuff is all there. Publication Owners on the other hand tend to care less about the nice stuff and more about the practical, business stuff. They need to make money, and if they are corporately owned, need to make a healthy profit. This is most often done by getting people to read their stuff and having adverts etc. Nothing bad there.

Nothing bad until the Publication Owner meets a Publisher and evil plans are born. If a Publication Owner can get a game early and have their Reviewer review it before other people then they get a lot of readers and subsequently, money. But what incentive could a Publication Owner give to the Publisher? Maybe a touch higher score for the rights to the first review? What could go wrong?

Well, very little went wrong for a long time, but now we have the Internet. A series of tubes connecting gamers like never before and allowing the small people to have a voice. Sometimes all that voice does is call you a fag, but sometimes that voice says “Hey.... wait... what the fuck are you doing? That's not right” and gets angry.

(Although I'm going to be concentrating on reviews, I could go on about other shenanigans that Publishers get up to, but that would be a diversion to Angry Town I'm not quite ready to divulge, and one which could take all day)



So who's fault is it? Publishers are cunts, and for a long while I was getting used to blaming them for everything. Recently however, I've started to read more and more from their perspective and have come to the depressing realisation that the Reviewers and Publication Owners are just as much to blame.

We have heard the story time and time again: Publishers are always doing back-handed deals to try to boost their scores and subsequent sales. Everything I could say has already been said. Corporate bullshit completely and utterly pisses me off. When lines are crossed and things become outright corrupt the fallout landing on us, the gamers. We are the ones who put the companies where they are, and I start to get pissed with the blatant disrespect. I am fed up with these companies treating us like uneducated morons who will just buy whatever they give us.

However the blame is not theirs alone. Reviewers, or more accurately bad Reviewers, are at fault here too. More and more we are seeing media outlets who are meant to be serving us doing exactly the same. But it goes deeper than just that, Reviewers are also being compromised by this new “for the money”, or at the very least the "me first, gamers second" approach.

There are a lot of crap Reviewers out there. They have gained the trust and support from gamers and turned that respect into a holier-than-thou complex many now share. The Reviewer Complex is something I wont dwell on, but it's the sense of entitlement that many Reviewers feel they have and is, in most cases, not justly earned.

People who actually make these games poor thousands of hours into a game, spending many sleepless nights working on a title. (Bad) Reviewers then proceed to play the game for an afternoon or two and take it upon themselves to happily rip it a new one. This sense of unfairness is often why Publishers push for better scores, because they feel it's fair.

Often these bad Reviews put little to no critical (or useful) analysis in their articles. If a game isn't fun I want to know why. If the graphics are not up to par, the Reviewer must explain how they could have been better. I understand there are space restrictions in print media, but there is no excuse for online only reviews. Reviewers are becoming less and less methodical and seem instead to be using more emotion in driving their opinions. Passion is important, but so is being impartial. Many Publishers feel like their effort is simply counter-balancing this new trend towards crap, shallow reviews.

Too many Reviewers also don't seem to know their place or their audience. We need a spectrum of reviews, ranging from the comical and light-hearted through the casual and gamer demographics and on to the seemingly under-tapped critical reviews. I'm getting sidetracked.



Reviewer's sense of entitlement is harming the integrity of their reviews. By demanding games for free, all be it under the guise that they are the ones in charge, they are taking the bait given out by Publishers. If Reviewers continue to have this demanding nature, eventually they will take the Publishers' good will for granted. Once the Publisher finally decides they want something, the Reviewer and Publication Owner will be so completely dependant that they wont have a choice. At that point, the Reviewer has truly failed at what they are meant to do. They have lost their independence are are nothing more than a puppet for the Publisher.

I can see this embedded corruption happening all around me in this blogocube we all share, and it is pissing me off. I get angry because the companies continue with their back-handedness. It pisses me off that the videogame media are taking it, for the most part, willingly (occasionally a hissy fit is had, but it's almost always fleeting). And most of all, it pisses me off that gamers let it happen.

(This rant was inspired by Anon on the Sore Thumbs blog and also my “other” blog Negative Gamer. Also, huge thanks to Nintendoll for helping fix my bad grammar!)