Nostalgia Bomb - Video Games Edition: Portal and Shadow of the Colossus

These games are pretty old but as your grandfather may have inappropriately yelled when picking you up from kindergarten, "Older is always better. I hate you kids."

The problem with puzzle games is that a lot of the time they lack replayability. Portal mostly got around that with novel gameplay mechanics, a challenge mode and excellent writing which is nearly as rare as sober me.

This is the other way you get stunted puzzle game replayability: make it an ACTION-puzzle-platformer-thing with a concrete story, incredible soundtrack and characters whose motives you can comprehend. This is Shadow of the Colossus and it's really great.

There's an HD remake coming out on the Playstation 3, bundled together with Ico, Team Ico's other classic. Its existence is near-reason enough to pick up a PS3.

Alternatively, listen to the soundtrack while you climb playgrounds and hit the structures with a stick.

Albums/Songs You Might Like: Team Teamwork's Videogame Mashups

If you like videogames and music you'll find this post interesting! The same can be said for most of the blog actually. Oh well!

So basically Team Teamwork is this gent who mixes rap and hip-hop with videogame music. Thus far he's done Ocarina of Rhyme and Vinyl Fantasy 7, which should give you a good idea of how much mileage you're going to get from this. They're really great.



All the tracks are fantastic, but this is one of the better pieces off Ocarina of Rhyme. Jay-Z is pretty badass. Is heavy vocalizing a phase pop music is going through that we're going to look back on and laugh, like the 80s?

Anyway so he's got a new album out. Super Nintendo Sega Genesis. Hit that shit.

Thing You Might Like: Nanowrimo

Hoo boy!

Nanowrimo - or National Novel Writing Month for long - is an ingenious annual event which takes place from November 1st to November 30th. It'd appeal to all you budding (Heh.) young writers out there, looking to get some pages under your belt.

The challenge? To write a 50,000 word novel in a single month.

It's a great idea, emphasising quantity over quality. Just getting all your words and concepts down on a page all at once, then cleaning it up afterwards. Writing a novel is one of those things that too many people want to do but never end up doing, so participating in a mass challenge is one way to motivate yourself to get it done. Who knows? Maybe you'll get picked up. You'll definitely get an inimitable sense of accomplishment. Even if you don't finish, you'll still have something to look back on with pride.

Basically, give it a look. You might like it!

And if you had no vested interest in all of the above, here's a song.



It's like warmly melting in electric marshmallow paradise.

Artists You Might Like: Dhsu

If you like:

-Piano
-Videogame music
-Sombre sombreness

then you might enjoy Dhsu! So read on.

There's a lovely website called Overclocked Remix which hosts plenty of videogame remixes. Dhsu is a musician who posts his artworks there.

He reworks classic tunes into tranquil arrangements that have that similar quality to Hans Zimmer's work: they make you feel something; usually nothing in particular, just emotion. It's also rather excellent chill music.

Here's a few stellar tracks. This one's all Mario Karty.



Download here: http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01188/

This one's my favourite. GrayLightning helped out with this one. If you have fond memories of giving the dusty cartridge the "kiss of life" before booting up Ocarina of Time on your 64, this song should earn bonus points in your books.



Download here: http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01417/

Activities You Might Like: Paintball

There really is nothing in the civilian life that can be compared to the primal fear that is aroused when the instructor asks who has been here before and your motley crew of first-timer friends sit on your sweaty palms while surrounded by grizzled 40-somethings, hands raised.

For those less informed, the game/sport of paintball consists of people running around arenas with guns that fire small balls of paint (DURR) at deceptively painful speeds. Your only protection - depending on where you play - is a visor and a grill for your mouth.

When playing paintball you can generally count on three things:

1. You will be scared.
2. You will be bruised.
3. You will enjoy it.

The adrenaline rush that comes with being let out onto the course and the instructor yelling that the match has begun is immeasurable. Where I played, you could shell out a few extra dollars if you wanted to upgrade from semi-automatic to automatic and when you heard the roar of that mechanical lion you stopped whatever you were even thinking about thinking about doing and hid wherever you could. People generally stop shooting when you've been eliminated - hit - but with the automatic they will not stop. Many, many bruises. I couldn't use my left leg properly for a few days as a consequence of an ill-timed rush.

Bolting from cover to cover, inventing creative new curses as you stumble across the uneven ground before sliding behind a slightly-too-small tombstone as paint spatters off the corner is absolutely intense and I recommend it to anyone who is vaguely interested by this review.

You will not be disappointed.