Album Review - Conversation Piece

Review

When Kurt Travis got unceremoniously dumped from Dance Gavin Dance for the return of former vocalist Johnny Craig I was definitely upset. Had I known that this album would come as a result of that event, I would instead be delighted at Travis' departure from DGD. While DGD stands as my all-time favorite post-hardcore band (although A Lot Like Birds is in a position to threaten that title), Kurt Travis far transcends anything he could have done with DGD in his debut with A Lot Like Bird's in their sophomore album Conversation Piece.

A question that really begs to be asked is what genre does A Lot Like Birds fall into? While they bill themselves strictly as a progressive band, upon a full listen-through of Conversation Piece they prove to be far more than that. In fact, Conversation Piece more or less represents three different genres: progressive, experimental, post-hardcore, and indie (yes indie). It's incredible how smoothly and easily the band makes the transition from genre to genre from song to song. As as example, while Properties of Fiction would strongly be considered post-hardcore with a fantastic interchange of Travis' singing and the screaming of Cory Lockwood, the next song, Truly Random Code, with it's guitar noodling and it's atmospheric electronics is, despite the presence of screams, essentially what I would strongly consider to be indie. Post-hardcore and indie being among my all-time favorite genres, this fusion is nothing short of bliss. Adding Kurt Travis and his top-notch clean vocals into the mix just takes the album to another level altogether.

Instrumentation certainly deserves discussion as well. As mentioned above, Conversation Piece proves to be a representation of various styles of music and with those differing styles come a vast range of instrumentation that is without a doubt impressive. From the chill guitar noodling of indie on Truly Random Code to the intricate and technical guitar-work of progressive and post-hardcore in tracks like Orange Time Machines Care and What Didn't Kill Me Just Got Stronger, A Lot Like Birds never fails to impress. Accompanying these varying guitar styles is the usage of various other musical elements to add to the experimentation, most notably tribal drums and electronics. It all comes together to create a musical package with an overall massive amount of variety, treating the listener to something different at each and every turn.

Verdict

After getting dumped from Dance Gavin Dance, Kurt Travis seems to have found a new home in A Lot Like Birds. With his addition came a complete style shift to something akin to a fusion of post-hardcore and indie, and it definitely proves to be among some of the best music I have ever heard. If you're into either genre (particularly post-hardcore) I strongly suggest that you look into this album.

Score

[5/5]

Top Picks

Truly Random Code, Vanity's Fair, Properties of Friction

Album Review - Odd Soul

Review

Mutemath's third effort, Odd Soul, sees them take a fairly significant, although seemingly natural, departure in sound and overall style over their first two albums. Rather than continue down the path of electronica infused indie and alt rock, though those elements of their music are still present every now and then, they've instead opted to assume a pre-dominantly blues influenced sound that is incredibly groovy and classic evoking thoughts of music from the sixties and seventies.

A genre shift can be a tricky proposition, but Mutemath make that transition flawlessly creating music at an equal or even higher level than of their past albums Armistice and Mutemath. For that excellence you have to look no farther than tracks like the title track and album opener "Odd Soul" and "Prytania", as well as first single "Blood Pressure". "Odd Soul" in particular is perhaps exudes plenty of swagger and groove, serving to open the album in a big way. "Prytania" follows, offering an infectious groove and an incredibly catchy chorus to tie it all together.

As noted earlier, the bands indie/alt rock/electronica roots are not completely left behind. In particular, the songs "All or Nothing" and "In No Time" sound as if they could be right at home in Armistice, slowing things down with their incredibly chill and relaxing mood and sound. Both tracks are nothing short of absolutely fantastic, both tracks prove to be standouts on the album with their dominant and beautiful usage of electronics accentuated with drums and guitar. While "All or Nothing" sounds akin to what's found on The Dear Hunter's Violet EP of The Color Spectrum "In No Time", takes a much more atmospheric approach that, paired with the beautiful lyrics and beautiful vocals of Paul Meany, accomplishes musical bliss.

Verdict

Despite the genre shift Odd Soul proves to be Mutemath's best effort to date, exuding excellence from beginning to end. I highly suggest anyone with a remote interest for music check this album out.

Score

[5/5]

Top Picks 

Odd Soul, Prytania, All or Nothing, Allies, Equals, In No Time

Game Review - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3: Defiance

Each year Activision releases a new installment in the Call of Duty series, and this year we're graced with the latest Modern Warfare. And as has come to be expected over the past couple of years, a handheld version of the game with an alternate storyline accompanies the console offering. Some are puzzled and outraged that Activision opted to contract n-Space to develop for the DS rather than the 3DS, other reviewers seemingly blaming n-Space for something entirely out of their control. n-space simply do not deserve to take the blame for a decision that was completely out of their hands. With that said, I'll first delve into the single player experience.

The campaign is quite short, but what little there is offers a decent amount of variety and overall is is quite fun. The player goes from defending a pipeline in Alaska, battling through a suburban neighborhood in Nevada and subsequently fighting to reclaim the Hoover Dam, assaulting an airport both in the air and on foot, to battling through battle-scared city streets in a Russian tank. Along with the tank mission, on multiple occasions the player assumes the role of a gunship providing cover fire for a team making it's way through the landscape down below. These levels go a long way towards fostering variety, and preventing the action from getting too stale or repetitive. There are some issues with these levels, however. Most notably the tank level. When there is a lull in the action, the level can feel really dead and lifeless, as you're driving through portions of the city with absolutely nothing going on. Not only that, the level of challenge in that level is a little suspect. At no point did I feel particularly threatened or near death.

That then brings up the issues of the AI's utter lack of any real intelligence, which can tend to be very frustrating at times. The enemy AI makes itself a sitting duck, simply crouching in the wide open and firing at you, allowing you to easily mow them down one by one. While you can get away with that on the lower difficulties, it isn't that simple on Hardened. While the AI remains astoundingly stupid, the increased amount of damage that you take with each shot requires a little bit of patience and strategy to take down the enemy/s standing between you and the next area.

Technically speaking, past the AI issues, the game is absolutely impressive. Animations look nicer for some returning guns (M40), the scenery is fantastic, and the amount of activity that goes on during battle such as jets or helicopters flying by overhead is a nice touch. To further emulate the console experience and add further production value and quality, n-Space made the addition of of bullet time events that can be found interspersed throughout the campaign. These events are where, after a door gets blasted open with a charge, you and your team enter the following room or area in slow motion. As has become an expectation, the game is impressive aurally as well. Oodles of voice work accentuate and add to the action, and the music is suitably dramatic when in tense and close-call situations.

With Black Ops last year, n-Space made great strides towards improving the multiplayer experience with the addition of features such as perks, join in progress, and the ability to freely select your secondary weapon (confined just to a pistol in previous installments). Defiance continues improving the multiplayer experience, adding a couple key new features and refining a couple others. The two primary new features introduced by Defiance are macros and load outs, allowing you to preset your preferred match set-ups and weapon and perk configurations. Another notable change is the ability to customize availability of certain weapons and perks, rather than simply having to choose general match parameters like "Pistols-Only" or "No Explosives" the host now has complete control over what weapons the players in the match use. This proves to be a significant change, as if there is a specific weapon that particularly bothers the host (shotguns immediately comes to mind), they can disallow that weapon. Further refinements can be found in a new tier system for both weapons and perks. Previously in Black Ops, a player could assign any weapon and any perk to either slot, which would often lead to incredibly overpowered set-ups (such as dual assault rifle and the perks Stopping Power and Body Armor). The tier system lends much needed balance, limiting the player to carrying around only one powerful primary weapon and preventing the exploitation of multiple high-powered perks. Not only does this give much needed balance, it forces the player to really strategize and put more consideration into their set-up.

Along with those general improvements some newly introduced modes (Gun Game, One in the Chamber, Sharpshooter) provide a fun twist on the typical run-of-the-mill deathmatch. The real highlight proves to be Gun Game, a race through twenty levels, each level represented by a weapon and a kill with each weapon progressing you on to the next level. The inclusion of the ability to decrease your opponents level by knifing them adds a layer of strategy on top the mayhem.

Overall, Defiance can be seen as a step forward in one regard (multiplayer) and as a step back in another (single player). Clearly to make way for the multiplayer improvements, n-Space really cut down on the variety of single player modes. Where Defiance has only campaign, Quick Play, and Challenge Mode, Black Ops on the other hand had Arcade Mode, the Killhouse, and Zombie Mode in addition to those three. It is understandable why those modes/features don't make a return in Defiance, but that doesn't mean that it isn't frustrating. When it's all said and done, though, the multiplayer and the replay value that it grants the game is what truly matters.

Album Review in Brief - Children of Fire

[5/5]

Oh, Sleeper certainly seems to have an affinity for concept albums. Their previous release, Son of the Morning, told of the battle between god and satan. Children of Fire picks up where that album left off. With a subject like this, intensity and aggression is to be expected. That could be observed in select tracks on Son of the Morning (World Without A Sun, The Finisher) and can be observed to a greater extent in Children of Fire, that increase in aggression making Children of Fire stand out amongst Oh, Sleeper's other albums in terms of overall energy and heaviness. This can be seen in tracks like Endseekers and The Marriage of Steel and Skin. To balance out the aggression, melody is infused throughout the album. Not only does melody excellently co-exist with heaviness in tracks like Hush Yael, Oh ,Sleeper goes so far as to calm things down with a couple purely acoustic tracks. Overall, Oh Sleeper continues to step up their game with their best effort yet, Children of Fire.

Top Picks: Endseekers, The Marriage of Steel and Skin, Hush Yael

Album Review in Brief - In The Mountain In The Cloud

[5/5]

Portugal The Man is one of those bands to consistently release excellent music, and In The Mountain In The Coud is yet another excellent album. Some were concerned that the jump to a major label (Atlantic) would have a negative effect on their music, that the label would push them to make more conventional and mainstream music, and it's abundantly clear that they provided plenty of freedom in the creative process to preserve their sound and musical identity. With that in mind, ITMITC is fundamentally a further evolution of Portugal The Man's sound. If you've listened to Portugal. The Man you'll know that they never like to maintain a certain sound from album to album, they always like to change it up. ITMITC is the same in that regard, this time around seeing a noticeable slight increase in the use of electronics. Highlights of the album include Got It All (This Can't Living Now) which feels quite reminiscent of Satanic Satanist, Share With Me The Sun with it's incredibly catchy chorus and sublim guitar work, and the album's closing track Sleep Forever which is perhaps one of the best tracks that Portugal. The Man has ever recorded, as such the song's only conceivable flaw is the fact that it has to come to an end. While there was little doubt before, with ITMITC Portugal. The Man have absolutely proven themselves to be one of the best indie bands that I have had the pleasure of listening to. As a testament to that fact, I swear every time I listen to In The Mountain In The Cloud I get hooked into listening to it over and over again, it's undeniably addictive.

Top Picks: So American, Got It All (This Can't Be Living Now), Share With Me The Sun, Sleep Forever

Game Review - Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

Story
Inside Story carries on the tradition of the Mario and Luigi franchise's hilarious writing, the likes of Fawful and his minion Midbus really standing out. In terms of the overall story, however, it's pretty much the same old same old. The Mushroom Kingdom is under attack, Princess peach gets abducted, and it's up to the brothers (and Bowser, the one exception this time around, as he's usual the villain) to fight back and put everything straight. While Fawful took the role as the lead villain's minion in Superstar Saga, and made only a small cameo in Partners in Time, with Inside Story he finally gets the limelight as the lead villain. The game begins with the spreading of an ailment called the blorbs, which balloons the Mushroom Kingdom's citizens to immense sizes and it's up to the brothers to set out and locate a cure. At this point Bowser steps in in an attempt to abduct the princess once again, but the brothers will have none of it and soundly defeat the Koopa King. Angry from the defeat, Bowser comes across a rather shady merchant deep in the woods and without much thought as to any possible negative side effects gobbles up a supposedly "Lucky" mushroom. What ensues is Bowser uncontrollably inhaling anything that comes in his path, and that unfortunately includes the brothers along with most of the castle staff. At this point the adventure kicks off, and finding out the rest is up to you.

Presentation
Inside Story is without a doubt the best looking installment in the series to date, making full utilization of the DS's graphics capabilities. While the game is still strictly two dimensional smoothly animated pixel art, there are nice and flashy transitional effects when entering major battles as well as some nice visuals when you perform and execute special attacks.

Gameplay
This isn't the first installment of the series on the DS, it made the jump six years ago with Partners in Time, but Inside Story is definitely the first one to truly utilize everything that the system has to offer. In Partners in Time, there was only one interactive element throughout the entire game. Inside Story, however, has too many for me to count of of the top of my head. The interactivity ranges from controlling bowser with the touch screen and the microphone in the occasional gargantuan battle between him and some structure, to performing little mini games with the brothers to assist Bowser in his quest to reclaim the kingdom as his (including initiating the aforementioned gargantuan battles). Past this interactivity, the gameplay remains true to the series' past installments. You explore the field, solve various puzzles, and engage enemies in timing-oriented turn-based combat. As usual the bros have their share of complex and timing oriented special attacks to perform, which can definitely take some time to perfect (if you've played the game, I'm sure that you're well aware of that). While some are easy to perfect right of the bat, others take quite a bit of practice, and even some luck, to perform well. While to brothers continue using the face buttons for these attacks, the newly playable Bowser utilizes the touch screen. His attacks vary from lining up and directing Bob-Ombs to tracing a line of Magikoopas to unleash their magic, and each attack is very well executed and really easy to control.

Replay Value
Previously in the series, there was very little reason to return to the game once you made a complete play through. Granted Superstar Saga had mini-games sprinkled here and there throughout the Bean Bean Kingdom, but that offered very little in terms of staying power and creating that urge to pick up the game once again. Inside Story reverses that trend, which saw essentially no real replay value past playing through the game once again in Partners in Time. Now the special moves that Mario, Luigi, and Bowser use in combat are turned into mini-games with lucrative rewards if you reach certain score. And these special moves are no piece of cake either, demanding quick reactions and a quick eye to succeed further on as the pace gets increasingly quick and frantic as you play longer and longer. Also of note, while it may seem odd and a little out of place, located somewhere in the kingdom is a character that offers a puzzle challenge to Mario and Luigi. You get rewarded for initially completing all of the puzzles, but you can come back later on and race against the clock to complete the puzzles as fast as you can.

Overall Score - 9/10
Overall, Bowser's Inside Story is without a doubt the best installment in the Mario and Luigi series. Not only does it bring far more innovation through it's excellent utilization of the DS's features, it brings an good amount of replay value and reason to come back to the game time and time again.

Review/Impressions - OS X Lion

Polish - Feels incredibly slick, the animations certainly impress. The new look for the Address Book and iCal are certainly off-putting, being a desktop operating system that isn't exactly a theme that one would expect to see. iCal is bearable with it's smooth animations, but Address book is a little too out there for me.

Features - Mission Control definitely impresses, seamlessly combining Spaces with Expose as well as full screen apps. Now having spaces, along with full screen apps, on a single plane it's easier than ever to switch between apps and spaces. Launch Pad certainly has it's utility, but ultimately comes up somewhat lacking and useless for veteran or power Mac users. It will definitely help ease the transition from iOS to the Mac, but it's usefulness beyond that is debatable with the presence of the dock, Finder, and Spotlight to launch applications. Auto Save, while definitely requiring getting used to due to it's casting aside years upon years of muscle memory pressing command-s, certainly makes a step in the right direction. In this day and age a user should no longer have to worry and obsess over saving and just work without distraction. Going in hand with Auto Save, Versions does to single documents what Time Machine has been doing for your system for years. It allow you to view a timeline of the document that you have been working on and either completely revert to a past version or pull bits and pieces from past versions that you've decided that you want restored. Then there is the increased focus on the utilization of the multi-touch interface of the trackpad and Magic Mouse, which overall lend to making to OS X experience feel even slicker. To simply flip between a space or full screen app with the swipe of two fingers is quite satisfying, and impressively no longer do you have to right click on a word and open up the Dictionary app to get the definition. Now all you have to do is perform a three finger tap and the word selected by the cursor becomes highlighted in yellow and out pops the definition.

Performance - While my MacBook is just over a year old, I'm running at the lowest possible RAM requirements for Lion (2 GB) and thus far everything has run smoothly and without issue.

Shortcomings - The increased utilization of multi-touch gestures means the death of prominent gestures found in Snow Leopard. In SL any application that had some sort of navigation (a web browser, iTunes, or Spotify for example) could easily be navigated forward and back with the usage of the two finger swipe gesture with the magic Mouse. Now that that gesture has been mapped to switching between spaces and full screen apps that fundamental system-wide navigation has been dropped and it certainly feels like a step backwards having to drag the cursor up to the forward/back arrows and click rather than easily swiping. Also worthy of note, as with any new operating system, Lion has it's share of bugs and issues to be ironed out with future updates. Thankfully I've only experienced minor bugs so far.

Overall Impressions - Overall, Lion is quite an impressive operating system. It essentially takes Snow Leopard, adds an infusion of iOS, and sprinkles on some extra polish through a nice step forward in terms of aesthetic and animations. If you're machine is capable and you haven't upgraded yet, trust my word and do it now. The outrageous price of only $29.99 is only the icing on the cake.

Album Review - Leveler

[5/5]

August Burns Red never really fails in delivering metalcore masterpieces, they certainly raised the bar with Constellations and with their latest, Leveler, they've managed to set the bar even higher. As to be expected,  August Burns Red's technicality and musicianship take center stage. They even take that musicianship to a higher level with excellent spanish guitar interludes within the album's second track "Internal Cannon".. While one might think that a bit of acoustics like that would feel completely out of place on a particularly heavier and technical metalcore, they would be wrong in thinking that. They meld and fit into with the surrounding metalcore perfectly. In fact August Burns Red completely fleshes the usage of acoustics within the song out with a fully acoustic version as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of the album. As they demonstrate their softer more melodic side in Internal Cannon, the increased aggressiveness of the album really shines straight away within the third track of the album, Divisions. The track starts out mercilessly, but tastefully concludes with a melodic guitar solo. That aggressiveness is well evident throughout the majority of the album, featuring numerous bass drops and even death growls from Jake Luhrs. As mentioned previously, the deluxe edition of the album features an acoustic version of Internal Cannon. Not only that, it also features an indie band's interpretation of Pangea and a piano version of Boys To Fall. Those three tracks collectively represent quite a juxtaposition with metalcore stylings of the album itself. It's quite refreshing to be honest.

Top Picks: Divisions, Internal Cannon, 40 Nights, Leveler

Album Review in Brief - Scurrilous

[5/5]

Protest the Hero never cease to amaze me with their endless energy and technicality, and their latest effort Scurrilous certainly seems to take those two factors to a yet higher level over their past efforts. As to be expected fro Protest the Hero, from beginning to end the album is just packed with beautiful technicality. Certainly the album doesn't quite have the same level of stand out as Fortress with a decrease in screamed vocals, a complete lack of that custom percussion that I love oh so much and the lyrics aren't exactly anything to write home about, but those two negatives ultimately never really detract from the album because in the end its the music that really matters and impresses. As previously mentioned, the album is just packed with technicality and that is certainly Protest the Hero's calling card. The level of musicianship here, as with their past albums, is absolutely awe-inspiring. Some real highlights of that technicality can be found in Tapestry and The Reign of Unending Terror. Overall, while not exactly upstaging their previous efforts, Protest the Hero have managed to release yet another truly fantastic album.

Top Picks: Tapestry, The Reign of Unending Terror, C'est La Vie

Album Review in Brief - Beast

With each album DevilDrover never ceases to amaze me with their capacity to step the energy and brutality of their music up another notch, and Beast is without a doubt no exception to that trend. In fact, the album's sheer amount of energy and brutality just about puts that of their past work to shame. Because of this it is quite fitting that the album is titled Beast. Dead to Rights kicks things off with a bang and the album just builds from there, never losing momentum, never relenting. It will grab a hold of you and refuse to let go until it's conclusion, a live recording of Fury of Our Maker's Hand track Grinfucked. While the whole album shines, a couple tracks that really stand out are the likes of Talons Out (Teeth Sharpened), Coldblooded, Blur, and Lend Myself to the Night. Each of those four tracks really showcase DevilDriver's brutality and increased technicality and musicianship.

Album Review in Brief - Attack of the Wolf King

Though a little late, I thought that I'd start transferring some of my pre-blog album reviews here. So,  without further ado:

[5/5]

After showing an impressive amount of improvement with 2008's Dreamer, Haste the Day make an incredibly noteworthy return with Attack Of The Wolf King. Despite undergoing even further line-up changes (losing the Chaulk brothers, drummer Devin and guitarist and vocalist Brennan), they've only improved. New guitarists Dave Krysl and Scotty Whelan prove their worth with impressive technicality and meaty breakdowns and bassist (and notably only original member remaining) Mike Murphy picks up on the clean vocals, proving to be a little higher than Brennan, but just as good if a little reminiscent of the cleans on Pressure the Hinges. Really noteworthy is the flow of the album throughout. With a few exceptions, each songs flows right on into the next, and while this proves to only emphasize how brief the album is, the transitions in many cases work to excellent effect. Key example, the transition from Merit for Sadness to The Un-Manifest. The quick swap from the closing breakdown of Merit for Sadness to the chaos and discord of the intro of The Un-Manifest is what I can only describe as absolutely amazing.

While there is no changing the fact that Haste the Day is no longer the same band as they were with Jimmy Ryan, there is no denying the strives and improvements that they have made with this latest effort.

Top Picks: Wake Up The Sun, The Un-Manifest, The Place Where Most Deny, Crush Resistance

Album Review - Downtown Battle Mountain II

Over the last couple of years Dance Gavin Dance has undergone several line up changes, at one point leaving only Will Swan and Matt Mingus as the last remaining original members. With Downtown Battle Mountain II it's as if no line-up changes ever-happened, with the exception of the absence of guitarist Sean O'Sullivan. With all these recent line up changes DGD's sound has gone through some considerable changes, evolving largely thanks to Kurt Travis and Will Swan's impressive guitar skill. Now with Travis kicked out and Johnny Craig back you would probably assume that they reverted to their sound as of the original Downtown Battle Mountain. While in a sense they have, thanks to the absence of O'Sullivan Will Swan takes on responsibility for all guitars and for the large part maintains the musical developments of the past two albums and really takes the opportunity to shine.

The main topic of discussion of Downtown Battle Mountain II is that of the vocals. Vocals-wise Happiness found a complete shift for the band, with Travis doing clean vocals and Swan taking on the screaming vocals in Jon Mess's absence. They both performed up to par, proving that they both have what it takes to fill the rather big shoes left behind by both Craig and Mess. Now, as discussed earlier, Craig and Mess are back and they're both just as fantastic if not better (largely in Mess's case) as they were in the original Downtown Battle Mountain. Again and again Johnny Craig has proven himself as an amazing vocalist, and Downtown Battle Mountain II is no different. The most notable highlights of his performance are found in the likes of Purple Reign, Blue Dream, and Elder Goose. While he is an amazing vocalist, Craig doesn't exactly prove himself as a lyricist. Paling in comparison to those of Travis, the main content of his lyrics are of girls, sex and drinking. If you are at all familiar with mainstream music you'll know that those are fairly common and cliche topics, and I expect much more out of a band as extraordinary and of as high a caliber as DGD. Then there is Jon Mess. He is one of the more unique screams that I've heard and he further proves himself here with a marked improvement to his screaming. They're both stronger and shriller, taking a more commanding role throughout the album. Mess writes his own lyrics and they're incredibly strange and completely random as always.

In terms of instrumentals Downtown Battle Mountain II strikes me essentially as a continuation Happiness. To an extent hey are reminiscent of those of the original DBM, but they have taken the experience and growth that they've acquired (they mostly being Will Swan and Matt Mingus) from the past two albums with Kurt Travis and applied it well. Thanks to Will Swan assuming duty for both guitar positions, he is allowed to really shine and show off his skill. I can pinpoint no specific songs that really standout, Swan always delivers his technical and funky guitar work and his performance is really strong and consistent throughout. When it comes to drums Matt Mingus performs fantastically, bringing a high level of skill as has come to be the expectation that fits in perfectly with Will Swan's technical guitar-work.

Though initially hesitant at the spurning of Travis and the re-acceptance of Craig, I couldn't be more happy with how Downtown Battle Mountain has turned out. I may even stray as far as to suggest that this has the potential to rank as my all-time favorite DGD album.

Game Review - Pokemon Black Version

Despite how fantastic each installment is, as time has worn on the series' tried and true formula has begun to get more than a little tired and predictable. While Black and White aren't nearly as groundbreaking on the story front as they should be, the progression that is made in terms of the story and the overall points towards a brighter, more engaging future for the series.

Many things are pretty much guaranteed when it comes to a Pokemon game: you get set on an adventure with one of three starter Pokemon, the objective of which is to challenge the region's eight Gym Leaders and then the Elite Four and the Champion. Black and White, without surprise, follow suit. The major changes that have been made relate to the villainous team that proves to be a constant thorn in your side throughout the game and character establishment and growth throughout the game. If you're at all familiar with Pokemon then you're certainly familiar with Team Rocket, the villains of the first generation and the anime series. From generation to generation, though there is a new team with a new name and seemingly new ambitions togo with it, little has changed. Their objective always falls down to one desire: to rule the world. Team Plasma of Black and White prove to be a refreshing departure from this series cliche. Their motives are not to take over the world, but a PETA-inspired desire to free Pokemon from their trainers. This brings deeper and darker moral dilemma to series, definitely making it more grown up than any of it's predecessors. To tie in with the exploration of more mature issues and themes is a newfound focus on character development and growth. In previous games you had a rival who showed up every now and then to challenge you, and they all had the same attitude and outlook towards Pokemon and being a trainer. Thus their characters were relatively flat and two dimensional. Black and White more or less throws out the idea of having a rival, in favor of two long time friends by the names of Bianca and Cheren. To begin with, the fact that they are friends establishes a much stronger relationship between them and the player but it goes farther beyond that. As you delve further and further into the story, both of their characters get fleshed out as they interact with you and deal with other characters and make discoveries about themselves. Not only does Gamefreak make great strives with developing the companion characters, they make strives with the Gym Leaders as well. No longer do they simply sit in their Gym doing nothing but waiting for you to challenge them. They now take an active role in the story. Though this isn't one hundred percent, the first Gym Leaders really make no appearance and the Icirrus Leader makes very little impact, the fact that the Gym Leaders have significance beyond simply handing you a badge on your way to the Elite Four is a large step forward.

Not only do Black and White take giant steps forward in terms of story and character development, they also make an exhaustive effort to instill a sense of awe and discovery in the player that has largely been absent in since the start of the series. Gamefreak primarily pulls this off through two factors: the Pokemon that inhabit the region and the region itself. Since the original games, there have always been those certain Pokemon that kept popping up throughout the series. Most notable among these Pokemon, and I'm certain that you'll recognize these names, Machop, Zubat, and Geodude. Every cave that you entered, you were one hundred percent guaranteed to run into at least one of those guys. Black and White really shake things up by doing away with those mainstays and introduces an all new cast of 156 Pokemon, the most ever to be introduced in a generation. Every Pokemon that you encounter is new, and the sense of discovery that this provides totally enthralled me during my play-through. The games are always released about six months prior to their North American launch in Japan, so I was familiar with the designs of the Pokemon but I was by no means familiar with the names. So even though I recognized them when I saw them, when their name was announced before they appeared I delighted when the thought of "Who the hell is that?"crossed me mind. Though there are Pokemon that assume the roles of those mainstays mentioned earlier, Timburr and Woobat I'm looking at you, the simple fact that there are new ones is something to get excited about.

Then there is the region of Unova to consider. I can safely say that no other region that I've travelled through in the Pokemon series has instilled as much awe in me as Unova. Two things really stick out at me when considering the region: how comparatively urban and technologically advanced it is to past regions and how jaw-droppingly impressive many of the sight are. Sure there has been technology in past regions, but can you actually say you've ever caught sight of any sort of transportation beyond a cruise ship or the occasional train? Travelling through Unova, not only do you come across the occasional campers on the occasional route but crossing the Sky Arrow bridge and travelling through the desert of Route 4 you encounter actual highways with semis travelling them. It doesn't end there either, Mistralton City home of the region's sixth Gym Leader features an airfield. In fact the Gym itself is housed in an airplane hanger. The urbanity and technology certainly lend a lot to that wow factor, but it's so much more than that. The region features several bridges, the most jaw-dropping of which is the Sky Arrow bridge leading to the even more jaw-dropping Castelia City. The Sky Arrow gets the nod for the sheer scale of it, and demonstration of that scale through utilization of the dynamic camera. Another factor in the impressiveness of the Sky Arrow is that it ends in Castelia City, the most amazing sight of the game. For once in the Pokemon series, players get to experience an actual city and it's all thanks to that dynamic camera. As you walk, the camera pans around the city, demonstrating the sheer scale of it. It's pressed upon the player further when the head down one of the streets, with skyscrapers rising up on both sides and the street just bustling with people heading on their way through the city.

An area that the series has always excelled in is connectivity, and Black and White take that to an all new level with the C-Gear and all-new online features. The C-Gear is a truly amazing device, it makes interaction as simple as could be, bringing players together easier than ever before. No longer do you have to head to the nearest Pokemon center to battle and trade your fellow trainers, now you simply tap the infrared section of the C-Gear and the battle and trade options are available right there. In fact, the innovation goes even further when it comes to trading. Prior in the series you had only your party of six when you entered a trade, with Black and White you now have full access to the boxing system. The C-Gear's capabilities go even further than simply battling and trading, one of it's greatest features is it's utilization of Tag Mode. Unlike previous DS games where you set the game into Tag Mode and you could do nothing else while it was in the process, with the C-Gear Tag Mode is always on in the background while you're playing thus being much more forgiving on the player and making interaction through Tag Mode much easier and much more likely. In fact, not counting my friends, I've encountered five other players so far. That has literally never happened with any other game I've attempted Tag Mode with, and I attribute this to the ease of interaction that the C-Gear provides as well as the massive popularity of the series. Other notable features of the C-Gear are the Entralink, the Xtransciever, and Game Sync. Entralink allows you to vist other player's worlds and perform missions to assist them, the Xtransciever allows video and voice chat with other players with range and Game Sync allows you to synchronize with the Global Link and send a Pokemon to the Dream World. While the C-Gear revolutionizes local multiplayer, the Pokemon Center's in a way revolutionizes the Global Terminal. Much in the way the C-Gear disinter-mediates local interaction, the Pokemon Center's disintermediates online interaction through it's assimilation of the Global Terminal. Now you simply head to the nearest Pokemon Center when you want to hop online, and with the addition of random battles and GTS Negotiations the series' online offerings are deeper than ever. GTS Negotiations are an especially intriguing addition, allowing you to connect with a random player from anywhere in the world and offer each other Pokemon while negotiating the selection through the usage of smiley icons.

While further innovation still may need to be made, Black and White prove to be a giant step forward for the series. Whether you're a veteran or a newcomer, you shouldn't deprive yourself by overlooking these titles.

Overall Score: 10/10

Album Review in Brief - Emarosa

[ 2 / 5 ]

Relativity was a fantastic album that really showcased how amazing Johnny Craig's vocals can be, especially accompanied and backed up by technical instrumentals. Sadly, their latest self-titled effort proves to fall far froms the heights that they achieved with Relativity. Replacing the technical and always intriguing guitar work are droning, muddied, simply uninteresting guitars that only go so far as to create background noise and make no attempt to strive any further. This in turn, to a degree, casts a negative light on Johnny Craig's vocals, which come off for the most part as lack luster when in comparison to his performance in Relativity and his efforts with Dance Gavin Dance. Make no mistake, it's still Johnny Craig and even degraded and dragged down as they are here he still never fails to impress me. I sincerely hope that this isn't a sign of what is to come from Emarosa, because if it is I'm afraid that I find little reason to follow these guys any longer.

Game Review - Kingdom Hearts Re:coded

Re:coded is not the first time that Kingdom Hearts has hit the DS, the phenomenon originally came to the DS in 2009 with 358/2 Days. While an overall great game, the story was deep and filled with emotion and the multiplayer Mission Mode was an absolute blast, it had some pretty hard to miss issues most notably repetition through the mission system, gameplay that seriously dragged down the pacing of combat, a character upgrade system that often felt limiting more than anything else and not much in the way of post-game content beyond playing Mission Mode. Now, Re:coded, while it has it's own issues which I will go into detail about later, improves upon and fixes almost every single issue that detracted from Days.

To start off I'll discuss everything, and that's pretty close to absolutely everything, that is fantastic about Re:coded. Most notable and worthy of discussion is the gameplay. It's an absolute blast. There is an  incredible amount of variety, a level of variety that any game will have difficulty matching. You certainly hack and slash away at Heartless as you typically do in a Kingdom Hearts game, but with Re:coded things change up in the boss stage for each world. Traverse Town becomes an auto-side-scrolling platformer, Wonderland becomes a shooter of sorts, and most impressively Olympus Colosseum takes the form of a turn-based RPG of old. With this shift in gameplay from world to world you're forced to stay on your toes, and it's absolutely fantastic. While this shifts in gameplay from world to world occupy most of the spotlight, you shouldn't overlook the regular gameplay whose improvements over Days make it just as fun and impressive. Where with Days to use magic or items you needed to sift through menus, drastically slowing down the pace and the ultimate enjoyment of the combat, Days is a breath of fresh air with the Deck Commands system lifted straight from PSP title Birth By Sleep. Now all commands, attack, magic, and items are all in one streamlined flow that is navigated via the L trigger and the D-pad. This does take away the L trigger's responsibility from camera control as in Days, but it is a necessary and welcome sacrifice. Also worthy of mention are keyblades and their functionality in the game. Where in Days they had stats tied them, ultimately making earlier keyblades obsolete and useless the further you got in the game, in Re:coded they have no effect on your stats and the overclock ability tree, as you battle a gauge fills up and grants you new abilities, means that each has it's own use in different situations.

Stats and character growth proved to be somewhat frustrating with Days, as previously stated feeling limiting and frustrating more than anything else. Re:coded turns that completely around with the stats matrix. The stats matrix is an inventive and enjoyable new way to manage character growth, taking inspiration from from computers and motherboards allowing players to place stat chips on the board and giving them freedom to choose which direction that trhey want to go and unlock new abilities as they go and in awesome bonus connecting two CPU's activates "Dual Processing" which doubles the benefit of the chips between the two. This effectively makes the placement of chips very strategic and important and if not properly utilized can negatively effect the player later in the game.

Another area that Re:coded excels in is replay-value and post-game content. As stated earlier, the only real source of replay-value that Days presented to the player was Mission Mode and while an absolute blast with friends is limited in value to those playing solo. While Re:coded lacks that multiplayer element, it has numerous post-game activities to occupy the single player. From trophies and the Avatar Menu, there are hours of enjoyment to be had after the credits roll. Trophies encourage the player to complete worlds below certain times, collect and complete different items and tasks and more. There is even incentive to collect trophies, with an unlockable secret ending that sets up the next title in the series, Dream Drop Distance. The Avatar Menu brings a more social element to the game and series, utilizing the tag mode feature where player exchange avatars, system sector layers and scratch cards. With literally hundreds available, collecting avatar parts has become somewhat of an obsession for me. In fact, I am about 134 hours into the game, and there is still plenty left for me to do.

Now onto the slightly problematic elements of the game. The two that really stick out are the re-usage of worlds already visited in the series and the overall story quality and length. While I don't find much issue with either of these seeing as the only other Kingdom Hearts game I've played in 358/2 Days, they are issues large enough in the community to warrant discussion. When considering the worlds used in the game, it needs to be remembered that this is essentially a revisit of the original Kingdom Hearts so it should be no surprise that it uses much of the same worlds from that game. I do understand frustration over the repetition, Re:coded and Days share some of the same worlds in fact, but seeing how relatively new I am to the series I can take no points away for that. The story issues on the other hand I can understand a little more. In relation to the rest of the series it really makes no contribution and does very little to move the story along, and tied in with that lengthwise the story is somewhat lacking, I myself clocking in at about 15 hours by the time the credits rolled. Though insignificant and short, I still found the story incredibly enjoyable and the wealth of post-game content (as discussed earlier) more than makes up for those length issues.

Overall, Kingdom Hearts Re:coded proves to be a fantastic game. Though it has it's own share of small problems, it makes great strides over Days and proves to start of the year for the DS off with a bang.

Overall Score - 9/10

Game Review - Goldeneye 007

Alright, so developer n-Space released two FPSs for the DS recently. The mighty and incredibly beast Black Ops and then a remake of the game that started it all, Goldeneye. I really built up hype and anticipation for Black Ops, and having an idea of what to expect and the massive number of improvements made over the previous installment of the series on the DS I was more than satisfied with it. In fact, I've now played almost twice as much online in the space of a few months than I did over an entire year with the previous game Mobilized. I think that says something. As for Goldeneye, I was aware of it's release and I had every intent on getting it, but my attention was focused solely on Blacks Ops. Christmas has come, and I now own a copy. Having played through the single player and played a couple matches online I'm having pretty mixed feelings. The question here as I go through and review the game is...has Black Ops tainted the experience for me?

With the exception of occasional hiccups when it comes to hit-detection, the single-player campaign of Goldeneye is absolutely fantastic. It's incredibly action packed and filled with variety. You can be sneaking through an enemy compound or launching an all-out assault, in fact one mission has you piloting a tank through the streets of Saint Petersburg. It doesn't get any more satisfying than rolling over cars, trading fire with other tanks and taking out helicopters. This mission brings to mind the tank mission found in last years Modern Warfare: Mobilized. They're both comparable, but in terms of satisfaction I've got to hand it to Goldeneye. The stealth missions other you plenty of variety in terms of how you want to dispatch your enemies. You can sneak up behind them and silently grab them from behind and suffocate them,  you can utilize elements within the environments (like steam valves and fire extinguishers) to take them out, or you could throw caution to the wind and rush them (though thats far from suggested). Also worthy mentioning are the occasional interactive minigames sprinkled here and there through the game, ranging from swiping a key card and quickly entering a code to shooting the lock off of a door. While critics have stated that these are completely pointless (I'm looking at you IGN), I strongly disagree. These provide the player a means to further interact with the game, and thus makes the overall experience all that much more satisfying.

In terms of multiplayer, Goldeneye, despite a few glaring issues, does several things right. To get the problems out of the way, one real issue comes at how user-friendly the online is. In Black Ops, you get online once and you have access to friends and global matches, as well as your friend roster to see if your friends are online and if so what they are doing. Sadly, Goldeneye is incredibly archaic in comparison. Much like the previous Call of Duties you have to get online separately for global and friend matches. A little cumbersome if you ask me. Then there is the issue of exiting matches. It plops right back at the main menu. The frustration there doesn't need explanation. Finally, there is the distinct lack of any sort of stats tracking in the game. I shouldn't have to keep track of my multiplayer record myself, and with the lack of these records comes a feeling of "whats the point?" when playing online. Beyond those major issues, there are only small things that I've been nit-picking at. As stated earlier, much of Goldeneye's multiplayer is done right. Selection of your secondary, though more often that not your primary, gun and spawn points is spot on and essentially mirror that of Black Ops. Goldeneye does allow players to join in an already established game, but painfully and frustratingly only when it is in lobby. There are several modes and game modifiers to choose from, making for a lot of variety and potential for a lot of fun. That fun factor when playing global matches really depends upon who you play against and how many players you can get in a match. So far, I've only been able to play with more than one other player once, and have only found true enjoyment and excitement out of only a few matches. The quality of players is the true concern, though. It seems that about half the players out there are either giant noobs or douchebags (or even perhaps both), relying on the explosive power of the rocket launcher or of the lethal shotgun blast to get on the board. Thankfully there is a no explosives mod, but when that is employed they simply turn to the shotguns. To find true enjoyment out of the multiplayer, you may want to stick to playing with people you know.

Overall, while there may be occasional hiccups and issues, Goldeneye overall is a fantastic game. It took me a couple days to shake off those negative impressions due to senseless comparison to Black Ops (as evidenced in the intro), but I finally have and now I am truly enjoying the game for what it is. In fact, I have really touched Black Ops at all for the past couple days. Consider me pleasantly surprised.

Overall Score: 9/10