Month: May 2005

New Stuff

– I was pointed to this little gem of an independant game by Quarter to Three, a board I’ve taken to visiting recently. Mount & Blade is a fairly addiciting medieval combat game at the moment.

You create your character, the usuall stats type system, but the game also has a really robust face creator for creating a unique character for yourself. Then you go out and build yourself an army of locals and train them and yourself to take on river pirates and bandits, before moving on to other larger and harder bands of roving bad guys. The game has an impressive combat engine, where you can ride your horse to battle or move on foot to take on your enimies. And all this done buy a husband and wife team from Hungary. Check out Mount & Blade.

– Star Control 2 – one of the best games I’ve ever played has had it’s source code released a few years back by the authors and there is a crew of people updating the game to run on modern computers. The Ur-Quan Masters has just released version 0.4 of their project. Go get it, try out the amazing music re-mix packs as well.

– I’ve heard a few rumblings that George R. R. Martin has finished up the fourth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series that he’s been writing entitled “A Feast for Crows.” After five years of waiting, it’s about time.

– BBS: The Documentary is now shipping. This guy devoted years of his time and hours and hours of footage to interviewing people who were involved in the old days of BBS’s (Bulletin Board Systems) in the days before the Internet as we know it exsisted. BBS’s were usually more community based and you tended to actually know a good deal of the people visiting them. I’ll review it more when I recieve my copy.

Music Files – V1.0

Been listening to a bit of new music recently:

Demon Days Demon Days – Gorillaz I was a big fan of the Gorillaz first release, enjoying both the concept of the fake band of performers, as well as the great mix of styles of music that made up the entire album. Demon Days does not dissapoint as a follow up album at all. With the first single “Feel Good Inc.” stuck in my head literaly for days I knew I had to hear the rest of the album. Even more layers, even more funk, rock, and a bit of hip hop to keep you going. Been playing a ton on the iPod for sure. The new video for Feel Good Inc. made me miss the old videos agian, guess I’ll have to go and hunt them down.

Human After AllHuman After All – Daft Punk Good old Daft Punk. Been a fan since the days of “Around the World” and their last album, Discovery, was one of those albums where listening the whole way through is worth and frequently done. With their third release I’m a little bit dissapointed though. The first single is catchy and growing on me, titled “Robot Rock”. The rest of the album basically takes the same tack and repeats the title of the song in a computer voice, over and over and over. Not that they havn’t done this before (Around the World), but there are less strictly instrumental songs, and no songs that have “lyrics” as much as the few that populated Discovery. Maybe I set my hopes too high, and I have a feeling some of the songs may grow on me, but it remains to be seen.

Hot FussHot Fuss – The Killers Now this has become one of my favorite albums I’ve heard this year in a very, very short time. It sound seems to take the voice of the guy from The London Suede, with a bit of 80’s electronic, and a bit of modern British rock and mix them together. The album has amazed me with it’s songs, it’s sticking power, and the depth of some of the tunes. Where you notice new layers the more you listen. I get the feeling that we’ll be hearing more singles come from the album than the “Mr. Brightside” and “Smile Like You Mean It”. There is just a lot there. Get it. Seriously.

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