New Super Mario Bros. Wii
After Mario Galaxy and Mario Cart, Mario Sports, and a slew of other cameos, Mario is finally getting an exclusive side-scrolling adventure for the Wii, and it’s about time.
Nintendo’s game designers seem to have had an easy job with this title as all the best features of the game were ported over from the New Super Mario Bros. for DS. This means the triumphant return of warp zones, secret pipes, end of level flagpole jumps and fireworks to a home system! The developers have also stuck to the time tested level formula, keeping them to eight, each with their familiar themes like desert, ice, water and lava. A lot of the original baddies are back and some seem to have been hitting the steroid bag.
Dating on Demand
So it should come as no surprise to all you readers that I’m single and have been cruising the web for the hotties internet hunnies!!! It’s too bad we don’t have this service where I’m from because I would be allllll up in it.
Vice: News, Nudity & Nonsense
I think I like this book. My problem with it though, is that despite being an archive spanning the past five years, too much of the content is too fresh in my mind. It seems like the editors either played favorites with their writers, or maybe they couldn’t be bothered to do too much digging into the vaults, as much of the content is sourced from 2007 and 2008. Maybe I need to clean out my bathroom more often and archive those old issues that have been hanging around like a grungy toilet brush.
Or maybe I’m being too harsh and belong in a Taiwanese pharmacy in the Douche section (yes this does actually exist). Perhaps the articles are still so familiar are because they were just that good, the best of the best even! This is after all touted as the second edition of “Vice’s Greatest Hits”. According to Vice’s Editor-In-Chief, Jesse Pearson, ‘News, Nudity & Nonsense’ is “meant to be seen as the original Vice ethos being opened up and explained. The difference [from the first edition] is that now when we talk about shit and piss and sex, the articles are a bit longer.” I don’t know if this is an attempt to put a high-brow spin on a low-brow product, but what it really comes out is Vice with minimal photos, glossy paper and not a splash of colour to speak of.
Again, I have to stop shitting on this (or does Vice enjoys the scat?), because there is still great content in here. Applause to a recap of all the ‘Vice Guides To..’, including Iraq, Canada, and Cute Things. Heroin chic will never be left alone as at least three stories cover the topic in the Drugs section, thankfully attention is still given to obscure psychedelics, and a non-focus on cocaine. Writers’ traipses with convicted pedophiles and Montreal Police officers will never bore, and the Sammy Davis Jr story outing him as a Satanist is still classic material.
In the tradition of Vice aloofness, let’s give this book a 7 out of 69.
Rebel Emergency
If you listen to rock and you live in Toronto, then you really should know a thing or two already about Rebel Emergency. But just in case you don’t, I can tell you now that they play a solid mix of rock, reggae and ska, and have even been named ” The Next Big Thing” by radio station, 102.1 The Edge.
Their latest cd was produced by Grammy winning Commissioner Gordon, who has produced albums for Lauryn Hill’s and the Fugees. No small feat for an up and coming group of Scarborough boys. Following sold out performances at the Mod Club for their CD release, LIVE NATION is sponsoring them to headline their big Christmas concert. Most of the info is above, but it seems they forgot to mention that tickets are $15.
Check their Myspace and their EPK (that’s Electronic Press Kit, for all you non-media types) below.
Peter Project Cleans Up
It seems like Toronto turntablist/producer Peter Project has a lot of smelly friends. They smell so bad that he decided to make personal hygiene the theme on his sparkling new release, FRESH.
Many of the tracks have samples about bathing habits, and the ep is being released as a digital download card encased in an ipod-shaped cake of soap! Great idea, and the music ain’t bad either. Actually, it’s really good. The album is reminiscent of old school DJ Q-Bert, or DJ Yoda, self-indulgent, video gaming, ear-popping, sample happy noisiness.
Tracks feature local Toronto stars like Masia One, More Or Les, Laura Barrett, Word Burglar and Maylee Todd. Released and available via Fuzzy Logic Recordings.
Check out the bubbly intro track below, or his myspace, where you can hear another new release, Unorthodox, featuring Hip Hop Karaoke saviour, MC More Or Les.
Nintendo Unveils 2010 Preview!
Just got the latest update for Nintendo’s 2010 preview. I’m noticing some strong Greco-Roman themes with this quarter, both in gaming and pop culture. Enter at last, The Glory of Heracles, the long awaited Japanese RPG, Rage of the Gladiator and Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief movie game (trailer here). And has anyone noticed the free demo download of Nyx Quest: Kindred Spirits ? The intro is simply beautiful, full of pathos and glory of the Olympians. Spanish developers, Over The Top, really did their homework. The gameplay is intriguing but the demo still leaves much to the imagination. However, Nyx has been receiving solid reviews. Does all this mean that Pitt, aka Kid Icarus is right around the corner?
The HOT list: Mega Man 10!!! Sled Shred™ featuring the Jamaican Bobsled Team. The return of Cool Runnings?! Tatsunoku Studios release TATSUNOKO VS. CAPCOM™: ULTIMATE ALL-STARS for the uber anime geek! Sadly no Evengelion’s are listed as initial playing characters, perhaps they are to be unlocked?
Also coming up will be your standard interactive kiddy and product placement fare with titles like Sleepover Party (Oooh! Make overs! Make overs!) Build-A-Bear Workshop – Welcome to Hugsville (Awww, snuggle huggle cyber-bear!), or Lets Play Ballerina ( pink tutu’s are the bestest!).
Wii
2K Sports
Major League Baseball 2K10 – March
Activision
How To Train Your Dragon – March 23
Looking For Group – Vol. 2
Looking For Group Vol.2 fills a fast growing niche of web-based comics lucky enough to take flight in RL. Yes, that’s “Real Life” to all you n00bs. For the die-hard fan, there is nothing more fulfilling than actually getting to flip through your favourite web-comic, analogue style.
Getting to the meat of it, Looking For Group is one such web-comic. What started as a joke by award winning Canadian cartoonists, Ryan Sohmer and Lar Desouza, has spiraled out of control into a fully blown saga spanning over six years.
The series tells the tale of your typical merry band of adventures. There’s Cale’Anon (an elven hunter), Richard (a sadistic undead warlock), as well as their companions Benn’Joon (the half-troll healer), Krunch Bloodrage (a Minotaur-like cow/man warrior) and Pella (the salty-tongued dwarven lady fighter). Anyone who has played WoW (World Of Warcraft) or any fantasy based MMO will notice some recurring themes here.
Looking For Group explicitly makes note of their fantasy/sci-fi parodizing. “We poke heavy fun at everything World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, RA Salvatore, Dungeons & Dragons, George RR Martin, Everquest, Star Wars and anything else we enjoy, derived from Video Games, Film, Television, Books and Graphic Novels.”
Unlike most comics or graphic novels, those uninitiated to ‘Looking For Group Vol.2’ may have a hard time reading this book cover to cover. The might even have better luck starting with Volume 1, or catching up on the entire series on the website, as recommended by its creators. Gaping plot holes render the storyline into a series of loosely held together non-sequiturs and inside jokes. The new reader may be left flipping to the good parts where Richard does stuff like banishing woodland creatures to the 9th plane of Hell, or turning a fruit vendors stock into a horde of baby cobras. Not that there’s anything so terrible about that, our evil mage is a show stealer.
Don’t believe me? Watch the animated viral vid the guys produced and you will understand.
Red Dead Redemption – Teaser Trailer
Red Dead Revolver was one of the first PS2 games that I owned, and one of the most engaging for its time. Despite easy game play, the multi-player shoot out mode made for many extra hours of fun. I can’t wait to see how Red Dead Redemption lives up to its older brother.
Here’s what Sam Houser, founder of Rockstar games had to say about it. “This is our vision of the American West: beautiful, bloody and action-packed. The game is a true epic, and has been developed with the same production values and attention to detail we put into all our projects. Red Dead Redemption represents another milestone for us in the development of open world games.”
Red Dead Redemption hits the shops on April 27th.
Secret Girlfriends
Ok, so I was just doing some background research on a less than scintillating Comedy Network show “Secret Girlfriend” and this hidden gem of internet literature from in Yahoo Answers popped up in the 4th hit.
It’s pretty funny how the entire YA community has taken the bait hook, line and sinker. Whoever pulled this prank must be peeing their pants, and bed sheets away. Right-wing, Christian America continues to baffle me.
I’m concerned that my son has a secret girlfriend?
What should I do about this?
Additional Details
H1N1 Fury!
Your very own writer made the national news last week in a chance encounter with the CBC’s ‘The National’.
My original statement was something to the effect of ” H1N1 is a scam being fueled by the pharmaceutical industry in cahoots with the government” but, for the sake of making it to the news, I was forced to put on my ‘media friendly’ face and tone things down a bit. I still think it worth it.
