AICN Games: Monki's Weekly Wrap-Up! Video Games Live! Rock Band! Teen Wolf Quotes!
Greetings humans, Monki here with your weekly handful of gaming news.
This past week was an absolute perfect one for me when it comes to my life in video games. On Tuesday I got to visit one of the ultimate video game Meccas; Lord British's (Richard Garriot) Manor, and then this weekend I was honored to do some color-commentary for a video game tournament at a local library here. I'll get more into the tournament thing a bit later as it gave me some fuel for a rant.
Have you sent in your attempt to win a Wii signed by Steve Wiebe from King of Kong? You've only got a couple more weeks left to take a stab at the hardest console to get your paws on for free! Best of luck.
Every week in September means one more week closer to Halo 3! Are you prepared to finish the fight? Are you planning on ripping it open and just immediately going multiplayer? Or are you going to be like me and find the first three people I find online and plow my way through the campaign mode? I want the story! I want plot! I'm fucking psyched for it!
Just a couple more weeks...just a couple...I'll bide my time until then. Alright, maybe writing this column a couple more times will make the time go by faster. Let's see!
Press Releases of the Week!
I got the chance to go see the Video Games Live! concert this Summer and I've been meaning to do a write up on the whole event, but things have just been nuts. Briefly though, I absolutely recommend it as a FANTASTIC event for anyone in your family. Even if you've never played a game in your life, you can enjoy some truly incredible music and a fun evening. I plan on getting a copy of this disc as soon as it hits.
EMI Classics has collaborated with Video Games Live and IMG Artists to release an album celebrating some of the best known, most popular video game music of all time. Video Games Live: Greatest Hits - Volume One highlights some of the best show segments exclusively created and uniquely arranged with the original composers, most of which have previously never been released. The album is available from 15th October 2007.
Video Games Live: Greatest Hits - Volume One includes medleys from some of the biggest games ever released, including Zelda, Mario, Halo, Warcraft, Sonic, Tron, Myst, Civilization IV and Final Fantasy. The anthology CD was compiled by renowned video game composers and Video Games Live co-creators Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall. The album features the Slovak National Orchestra as well as the Crouch End Chorus and the "Video Game Pianist" - Martin Leung. The album was mixed and recorded at the world famous Abbey Road recording studios in London.
The album release coincides with the Video Games Live event on October 19 at the Nokia Theatre during the EForAll Expo in Los Angeles and on 22nd October as the opening event of the London Games Festival where it will be performed by members of the Philharmonia Orchestra at London's Royal Festival Hall.
The album is the first global campaign of its kind, linked to the Video Games Live events planned in North America, Europe and Asia over the coming months and aims to appeal to a broad audience of gamers, non-gamers and music lovers of all kinds.
Music in the interactive entertainment industry has come far in the past 35 years, from beeps and electrical impulses to early digital synthesis and sampling to pre-recorded soundtracks. As the games themselves have become more sophisticated, so has the music that drives them and a generation of composers are devoting their energies to writing for the video game medium.
Video Games Live is the largest and most successful video game concert in the world, having already been performed around the globe to over 100,000 people. The debut performance took place on July 6th, 2005 at the world famous Hollywood Bowl with the LA Philharmonic. Over 11,000 people attended making it the biggest video game concert in the world. Video Games Live followed with the first ever game concert performances in countries such as Brazil, New Zealand, Spain, Canada and England.
The spectacular visuals, lighting effects and interactivity have drawn audiences worldwide with multi-thousand venue seats selling out in hours or days of being announced. Confirming their growing popularity and the increased demand, Video Games Live in partnership with IMG Artists (Europe and Asia) and the William Morris Agency (USA) will host the event from over 21 locations around the world from Munich to Manchester, Indiana to Milan.
I promise I'll do a write up of that event and upload the photos and what not I shot at the show! It was a blast.
Up next is a brief note I received regarding Quake Wars: Enemy Territories. It seems that the demo is up and ready for download!
The Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars PC demo is now available from the game's official site: http://www.enemyterritory.com/. Head to the "download demo" tab for a list of local mirrors. You can also view a list of available mirrors at this site: http://community.enemyterritory.com/index.php?q=node/130.
The Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars PC Demo (Multiplayer & Single-Player) comes with the final version of Valley, one of the larger battlegrounds in the game. Set in Yosemite, California, Valley has the Global Defense Force on the attack, as they attempt to foil a Strogg contamination plot centering on a water treatment facility. Valley features a great blend of close quarters infantry action, vehicle battles and aircraft dogfights, and the varied terrain combining mountains, waterways, tunnels and industrial structures allows for many different playing styles. To top it all off, there's a multitude of optional side missions and plenty of opportunities to try out the various defense turrets, artillery and radar deployables - Valley is a prime example of the frantic and diverse action you'll find in Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars.
If you want to learn more about Valley, read our Valley Map Guide (http://community.enemyterritory.com/index.php?q=node/91) for a full run-down of the team objectives, secondary missions and a host of tactical tips for getting the most out of the various GDF and Strogg weapons, items, deployables and vehicles.
The Demo also features ETQW's bots, so you can explore the map and gameplay in single-player mode with computer-controlled opponents, or use the bots to fill up empty slots on multiplayer servers. We are also including the standalone server as well as the server launcher tool, so you can host your own online and LAN games.
The full game will be in stores 9/28 (Europe and Australia) and 10/2 (North America).
I've never really gotten into the massive shooters online...I've never had a rig that could run anything at decent speed to make it worth installing something like this, but from what I've seen of this one I'm very interested. Who would have thought that medieval masterpiece that was Quake would have spawned something of this nature. Pretty crazy, huh?
Pretty Images of the Week!
I caught this trailer for Rock Band this morning and I dig the shit out of it. It's fun, it's crazy and it reminds me of Teen Wolf. "No Styles, these waves are mine."
BOOF!!
Someone bitched at me today along the lines of, "Why don't you just spend the money you'd spend on an extra guitar, mic and drum set on a REAL guitar and learn how to play?"
Why? Because even if I didn't have a real job and dedicated myself entirely to playing guitar for the next three to five years...I'd be no where near as good as the people that perform the ACTUAL songs on Rock Band or Guitar Hero for that matter. Why don't you stop spending money on racing games and buy a Nascar racer? Why don't you stop playing Doom and buy some guns? Oh...okay...scratch that one.
Why don't you quit buying video games and go to medical school?
Co-op operation!! Sweeeet! "START THE OPERATION!"
Those of you who haven't played Trauma Center: Second Opinion on the Wii yet...you should...it's a hell of a lot of fun to slice people up and then put them back together again. Check it out if you get a chance.
Monki's Six Most Important Stories of the Week!
So, Steve Jobs dropped the price of the iPhone $200 after only 69 days on the market. As someone who bought an iPhone on day 1, this was upsetting. But, being the showman he is, he is offering $100 to early iPhone owners for use at the Apple Store. Thanks Uncle Stevie! Free Leopard here I come!
Another PS3 title slips dates...and I'm quite sad. I loved the look of the L.A. Noire trailers and I can't wait to see more...in a couple years.
Apple updated all of their iPods this week. Refresh for the Shuffle and re-dos for the Nano and "Classic," with a newcomer in the iPod Touch. 160 gig Classic sounds pretty sweet.
Just got pushed back from the 12th to the 14th...not a huge deal. This game is pretty sweet. I've played the demo on Marketplace a few times and I'm really digging the absolute difference between this and the Tony Hawk series. Imagine SKATE being Madden and Tony Hawk being Blitz. That's what it feels like.
Oh come on! Look at that box and tell me you don't want to buy this game! Even if it has absolutely nothing to do with the ORIGINAL Duck Hunt from when we were all just babies in front of our TVs with the zapper. I wonder if you can shoot the dog? Didn't you just want to shoot that god damn dog??
I've been really keen on this one ever since I saw video of the Japanese version way back when. As someone with no music talent whatsoever, I think this game will provide people with an opportunity to actually learn a little bit about chords and progression and maybe introduce people to a musical world they hadn't been accustomed to. Kinda cool!
Hola tres! Seriously, why haven't you pre-ordered this game? I mean, Jesus Christ! Do yourself a favor and take the 25th off from work and meet EVERYONE ELSE WHO OWNS A 360 on XBox Live for some Halo 3 action.
This has so far been the only game that I've heard nothing but praise about. (Yes, I had friends who bitched about Resistance.) This is the "official boxed" version of the game for those of you who haven't had the chance to download it yet. Remember when they used Warhawk to demo the Sixasis at that awesome keynote last year? Use your Sixaxis for massive damage!
I've been a fan of this series since Dynasty Warriors 2 caught my fancy on the PS2 a few decades ago. Something about running into a group of 200 guys and just clearing their asses out makes me very happy.
The Gundam version of this game makes for some really great unintentional comedy in the dialog and cutscenes. I don't follow the Gundam series at all but that doesn't stop me from digging the hell out of this game. Giant robot battles in space! How badass is that?
If you haven't played any of the Dynasty Warrior titles before, this might be a bit of a strange experience at first, but it is really a lot of fun. The controls are relatively simple, purely a button-masher, but its fun!! It really is, and isn't that what games are supposed to be anyway? Fun! Find a friend and just pwn your way through the co-op campaign. You'll thank me later.
The Future of Gaming of the Week!
This week I had the honor of running color-commentary for a video game tournament in Round Rock, Texas. (Just north of Austin.) I had been asked by someone who works with my future brother-in-law and I was pretty quick to accept the offer. If I had known how fulfilling the experience would have left me then, I would have accepted without a moment's hesitation.
The event was held at a public library and had about 40 gamers take a stab at winning a gift certificate to a local games store. These kids battled their hearts out in Mario Kart Double-Dash in 8 player lan-linked matches while I just kept a running commentary going with a few awesomely terrible jokes thrown in.
The kids were excellent, cheering each other on and being friendly after the games were over, even if they didn't advance to the next round. It was incredible. Social interaction between gamers that had no connections except for the love of gaming...for the love of Mario Kart.
Memories flooded my brain as I was spouting out "Player 5 has taken the lead with Diddy Kong and Birdie but it looks like Player 3 has just sent a homing turtle his way..."
When I was a kid, I went through a similar tournament, Blockbuster held a "Video Game World Championship." Thinking back on it, I may have entered a couple. I do remember having to play the awful Clay Fighters on the SNES, but I had rented it the week prior to that round and found a flaw that I exploited the hell out of during the actual event. And then the next week I played Donkey Kong Country and just demolished my way through the game. I ended placing second in that tournament...but I still can't forget the shitty cardboard leaderboard they had made with scores on it with MY NAME up near the top. What a thrill to give a child, their full written name hung prominently at a Blockbuster saying that they are one of the best.
My Dad was with me the entire time as well. That is one of the best pieces of that memory. He was the one who would let me rent the games and play them for countless hours to "practice" for these events. He'd sit in the living room and do his crosswords while I'd be splayed out in front of the TV with that classic SNES controller sitting in my lap as I found new ways to score with Diddy Kong or that Rhino in DKC, or I'd figure out new moves with that Gumby looking dude in Clay Fighters. He may not have been seriously interested in what I was actually playing, but he was interested in what I was doing, and that made all the difference.
Children need that sense of acknowledgment. My dad, by being in the room with me, was showing that he actually gave a damn about what I do. To this day, he still rarely gets out to the movies, even with me graduating from college with a film degree, but he is always quick to pull out IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD when I come home for a few hours.
He watched technology, in the way of video games, grow up with me and he has made an attempt to embrace it. The coolest gift I have ever given my father was for his birthday last year. I bought him a Nintendo DS Lite with a copy of Brain Age...and he still uses it to this day. I can't express how much joy that brings me. Him using his DS and working on his sudokus validates my choice in hobby...at least to me it does. Sitting on chairs opposite each other and playing the same sudoku level on our separate DSes brings back those memories of that crappy Blockbuster and him over my shoulder watching me compete.
That was a really really round about way of saying that what pleased me the most about this tournament I helped with was the amount of parents there with their kids.
These parents could have just dropped their kids off and gone on to the mall, or gotten their nails done or whatever...but there they were, cheering their children on as they rounded Yoshi's Island with Mario and Luigi at the helm of their kart...cheering the entire time.
Maybe society isn't nearly as screwed up as we think it is.
I'll be hosting another one of these events next month. I can't wait.
The Final Minute with Monki!
This has been by far the busiest week for me in a long time. I've got a pile of about three games I need to seriously dive in to, I've got an event I went to that I need to write up, a super-special screening I'm working on for later in the year is suddenly gaining some excellent traction and I just got off the horn with someone who is setting up a really really cool exclusive for us over at AICN. Oh, and I'm giving away a Wii! And the NFL just started this week! At some point I'll get to sleep...I hope.
I'll finish off the column with a buddy of mine starring in a commercial. Check it out!
It took that gorilla weeks to learn those sick licks. So so good...
Alright, check back later this week, I should be posting some really awesome (and sexy) stuff pretty soon...I promise it will not disappoint. Until then though, back up the tree I go!
