Do yourself a favor and see Jack’s Mannequin live; here’s why (from their most recent stay in Philly):
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Anthony
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Anthony
New Halo Reach multiplayer demo is up:
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Anthony
Jack’s Mannequin Setlist and Thoughts
Below is the setlist from last night’s Jack’s Mannequin concert at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia, PA (I created this on setlist.fm earlier today).
Jack’s Mannequin is one of those rare bands that you don’t have to like in order to enjoy live. Aside from the standard piano-exclusive ditties that are what they are, their entire set is pure energy. For the two times that I have seen them, the cornerstone is Bloodshot, which is played like a masterpiece – loud, interactive, and even has Andrew standing on and jumping from his own piano keys. I could have gone without the U2 cover. though.
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Anthony
“Those guys must be noobs then. The blood attracted the sand which was causing the jam. Since the bullet is so powerful the chamber and breach have such tight tolerances to prevent detonation of the firearm so and dirt or debris would jam it.” – The “Oh Snap!” rebuttal from the Jman, master of all things that explode or shoot.
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Anthony
Re: The Hurt Locker – A group from the 2nd Infantry Division laughed uproariously, recalling the scene where a blood-soaked bullet jams a massive .50-caliber rifle. “A fifty cal? Blood would just lubricate it!” (via this article tweeted by @mark_r)
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Anthony
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Anthony
Pearl Jam set as the musical guest for Saturday Night Live on March 13: http://bit.ly/d2jEOc
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Anthony
Laugh Company
I normally don’t do this, but the list found here – Fast Company’s Most Innovative Gaming Companies in the World – severely needs to be called out. If you’re a gamer (or a person with a relative amount of common sense), I do hope that you see the issues immediately after reading the article. If you don’t see the problems with its selections, allow me to elaborate.
The fact that Apple holds the official title of Fast Company’s most innovative gaming company in the world is simply absurd. Moreover, it is a direct slap in the face to the number of brilliant game developers out there who continually push the envelope for game development. The article argues that, because Apple recently released an updated version of the iPhone – and that a lot of the company’s App Store sales actually come from the games category – they are, somehow, an innovative force in the gaming industry (and to be more specific, the greatest innovative force in the gaming industry). Oh, and they just announced the iPad, which is an obviously innovative decision that is sure to rock the gaming industry. Okay.
There’s more. Infinity Ward, the developer behind Call of Duty (most recently, Modern Warfare 2), brandishes the number 4 spot. The reason? Because, according to the author, they made a lot of money from MW2 – and they listened to gamers on Twitter (are you kidding me?) to tweak the game itself. Since its launch back in November, a fact apparently unknown to the list’s author, MW2 has been horribly marred by bugs and glitches completely destructive to gameplay – shotguns that have the range of a sniper rifle (only more powerful), unlimited care packages, negative experience points, the now-infamous javelin glitch. And the list continues. But these clowns are innovative? MW2, let’s be honest, is an evolutionary product – not revolutionary. There are no gameplay mechanisms that will change the way developers look at their own products in the future. If it teaches other studios anything, it is that actually releasing a multiplayer beta of a game (which IW failed to do) will help you avoid a potential slew of glitches when the final product ships. And hell, I thought that was common sense. But – hey – they made a lot of money, I guess.
Rockstar Games. This is classic. Here is a direct quote:
To continue the momentum of Grand Theft Auto IV, this game developer created two downloadable add-ons that not only provided a variety of new game play, extending the value of the game, but also pushed the storytelling capacity of the medium.
It’s like I’m having a bad dream. Rockstar created 2 (count ‘em, baby!) “add-ons” for a game, so they are obviously an innovative company. If this author ever played a video game past the 16-bit era, he would know that downloadable content is probably one of the most standard things to package with new, popular titles. What’s more, this selection actually mentions the “storytelling capacity of the medium”. I like that; but, if we’re going by that measurement (which I think we should), why are the studios behind Fallout 3, Mass Effect 2, and BioShock 2 excluded from the list? These are the developers creating the innovation within the industry through storytelling and game design. Rockstar has done absolutely nothing recently, and the sales of GTA IV, which was released back in May of 2008, do not count.
This article has completely ignored the true pioneers of the gaming industry and, in effect, the actual innovation of which to speak. Number 10, Muteki Corp., just continues to twist the knife:
Evans and other young game makers can build an entire iPhone game start-to-finish in about a month and make millions for a publisher.
So, if Mass Effect 2 was made in 2 months, BioWare would be allowed on this list? Is Topple 2 really more of an influential force in gaming than ME2? I can ask obvious and stupid questions like this for hours, but I’ll pass. The point of this angry essay is self-explanatory – the aforementioned article is an ignorant look at innovation in the gaming industry from an uninformed, outsider perspective.
The creators of the Unreal game engine, the network engineers behind Halo’s massive and personal online realm, Cliffy B – the visionary design director at Epic, the storytellers behind the recent sequels to Mass Effect and BioShock – these are the innovators in gaming. These are the ones we should put on lists.
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Anthony
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Anthony
