Saturday, October 11, 2008

RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 Fan Creation Video - Massacre

I'm not much of a PC gamer. That's mostly because my PC isn't nearly as powerful enough to run the best games. However, I do very much enjoy playing simulation titles that are much easier to control with a mouse than a controller. I'm talking about games like The Sims series, the SimCity series, and the RollerCoaster Tycoon series which the latter is what this video is. I cracked up laughing watching this the first time since I never tried to torture my park guests. All I did was torture their wallets by jacking the prices of everything up.



Also, a little announcement here. Tomorrow I will have up a new review (which will be written tomorrow as well) for a game that I wasn't even expecting to play this month. I picked it up at Blockbuster and played through it completely. I'm talking about Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood for the Nintendo DS.

Friday, October 10, 2008

SuperPhillip's Favorite VGMs - TGIF Edition

Yes, it's Monday once aga-- waaaaaaaaaait a minute! Something's off here! Oh, yes. I forgot. I was MIA for the past week. No worries. It's a special Friday installment of my favorite VGMs-- TGIF: thank God it's Friday. Or if you're atheist or agnostic, thank Godzilla it's Friday. Or if you don't believe in giant dinosaurs destroying Tokyo, thank Good Burger the Movie it's Friday! Now with that, it's on to six videos as Volume 175 is a two-parter.

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The first time I listened to this song was during Amuro's last mission where all of a sudden Char Aznable returns in a new mobile suit. I raced with full confidence that this shmuck would be just another pushover. It was then and there that I realized one-on-one boss fights in Dynasty Warriors Gundam were damn difficult. Char destroyed Gundam effortlessly. How did I finally beat him? Simple. Like a man! Hit once, then run the hell away out of his range of attack! Boo-yah!



This beautiful, sultry, romantic jazz tune is performed by the sensational Elisa Fiorillo whose done a lot of work in the jazz field singing and performing since her career jump-started in 1987. Her voice is magical, and her hitting that high note at 3:25 gives me goosebumps. Then again, I am weird like that.



"Boss Battle"... that gives the game right away, does it not? I kid, of course. This theme plays during the boss encounters of Jet Force Gemini. Such an engaging track. Makes you tense when you're taking on a huge boss while you're this small little insect compared to them-- and the bosses are all insects, so go figure!



A short track, but it plays through once at the very least. It's "Nell's Theme" from the Advance Wars series. Of course, Advance Wars has been around in Japan far longer than the rest of the world under the name of Famicom Wars, but that doesn't stop the series from being appreciated over on this side of the world.



This is a two part video since the whole piece will not fit into one nice package. What we have here is the Smashing Live performance by the New Tokyo Philharmonic (they played the music of Spirited Away). It's called the "Smash Bros. Great Medley", and it's full of many themes from the various characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee. An interesting note-- Earthbound was not represented in any shape or form during the entire concert. Thank God Mach Rider was though!





Direct Linkage:

Direct Link - One For All
Direct Link - Don't Be Afraid
Direct Link - Boss Battle
Direct Link - Nell's Theme

Direct Link - Smash Bros. Medley Part One
Direct Link - Smash Bros. Medley Part Two


Da. Da. Da. Another week bites the dust.
Da. Da. Da. Another week bites the dust.
No concerns for next week's VGMs as they will return to their regular day this Monday.
Perhaps you're yearning for more VGMs right away. Well, why not check out my Youtube channel for past and future editions of my VGMs?

SPC Mailbag - Fall One Edition

It's an opportune enough moment to reach down into the still fresh SPC Mailbag to answer three more questions sent in by various readers both casual and subscriber. This edition's topics include game journalism, ads on my blog, and more! Let's get right into it!

- I've read many slams made by you regarding game journalism. Do you really think its current state is so bad? - Mark

Hm... in a word, yes. In a rant, yes, game journalism is a joke, and it probably won't be considered a legitimate form of journalism for at least another decade at this rate. Let me begin by dissecting this by outlet.

IGN - On one side you have a group of people who follow hype and nothing more-- overrating nearly every blood-soaked, testosterone fest. Don't get me started on GTA IV reviews. Almost every outlet only got to spend five or so hours with the game before writing their review. IGN's took the cake with their perfect ten score. That's okay, but when the review sounds more like marketing shill than actual review, I'm done with you. "Oscar-quality dialogue". Seriously? ...Seriously?!


The other side of IGN is that of the Nintendo team. Oy vey. They underrate a lot of the games-- no, I'm sorry. They "grade Wii games hard because they expect more". Well, tell your bonehead PS3 and Xbox 360 teams to follow that. This is obviously to protect what little credibility they have in the first place. Matt Cassa-- who gives a crap-- said in a podcast that he's going to give Wii Music a 3.0. That was after the E3 showing. No, Matt, that's not a rush to judgment at all, you bitter fanboy. Don't even get me started on Halo DS and Kid Icarus. "It's coming, it's coming, I swear! Soon!" An unauthorized third party project does not Halo DS make. And three years after his Kid Icarus crying wolf, we'll probably finally see it and Matt will go, "see? I was right all along, dudes!" Ugh.

Gamespot - Gerstmann. Pfft. Mr. Double Standard. Mr. Let-Me-Sit-Down-While-Unenthusiastically-Playing-Wii-Sports. I'd respect him for getting fired if he was actually a decent reviewer. He's not. And Gamespot is a joke of a site anyway. Next.

1up/EGM - Refused to review Endless Ocean since they said it had no point or objectives. Then don't review Animal Crossing either as you gush over an even lesser game in Afrika. The reasoning behind it was beyond pathetic.

Kotaku - Posts "news" from CheapAssGamer about a new Xbox, the Xbox Pure. Turns out it was fake, and the managing editor of Kotaku cries and blames CheapAssGamer. Oh, did I mention that the news was posted on CAG in their forum by a non-staff member as a joke? Instead of saying "our bad", Kotaku decided to try to get credibility by blaming CAG anyway. No one bought it.

So yeah, short examples all added up to a rant basically, but the topic of game journalism disgusts me. Nothing but fanboys and bitter "core gamers" who get paid to write. I'll read reviews, but I sift through the crap.

- Are you going to place ads on your blog like others? - Cman

No. Blogger is absolutely free to use. I'm not like the GoNintendo blogger who uses the ads to help pay for bandwidth. I have no bandwidth to pay for. I cannot find a reason to put ads on a Blogger blog without being a cheap and complete douche bag considering there's no cost to run a blog from Blogger. You're just taking advantage of the userbase you acquired. Nothing more. I think it's an incredibly crappy thing to do, and I have no respect for those that do it. Get a job... y'know... go outside to actually earn your money, learn social skills-- things like that.

- What system are you currently playing the most right now? - mike

Now this is a topic where I won't rant... or will I? No, no. Right now I'm really enjoying the Wii. I have Tiger Woods 09, Wario Land, Samba de Amigo, and de Blob taking up my time right now. Soon I'll be checking out Mega Man 9 and WipEout HD on PSN as well as LittleBigPlanet and Saints Row 2 in a week or two. My older brother is playing the heck out of the 360, so all is well on the console front. hehe

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Good questions this edition to all who submitted and to all that I answered to. I hope this installment was enlightening. You rarely see me rant about too many things. I like to keep to myself and maintain a positive atmosphere on the site. Time to put the mailbag away for the time being. Until next time...

~ If you have a question you'd like to see answered (I imagine the mailbag will be a monthly occurence), feel free to drop a question into the c-box or by e-mailing me on my public e-mail at: superphillip32@hotmail.com

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Allow to me apologize for being gone unexpectedly!

Hey, gang. I'm sorry to have been gone without posting anything. Some personal stuff has been going on-- positive stuff-- so I apologize for being away and not updating since last week. If you e-mailed me, posted a comment, etc., don't think that I was ignoring you. I will get back to everyone I missed, so no worries. Everything will now go back to normal on SPC.

Additionally, the 100th review was posted. I had fun looking back at old reviews to post on the blog over the past three weeks. Hope you enjoyed reading some of them, and I hope you enjoy the review. You can find it at the link below. It's just under 3,000 words, I think. That's gotta be close to my record if not the record. Anyway, see you tomorrow, all!