Katamari Forever - This Schtick's Getting Old

Something about Katamari Forever feels disingenuous. The title endeavors diligently to appear carefree, wacky, and strange. It confronts you at every turn with craziness. The whole affair is supposed to feel simple and lighthearted.

Instead, something about it just feels off.

The first Katamari was genuinely clever and original. Enough time has passed since then, with enough derivative sequels passing through Namco’s pipeline, that it has become impossible to ignore the fact that the foundations of Katamari have not changed in six years.  

This isn’t the good kind of stagnation that Nintendo has down to an art form. This isn’t a case of preserving the essence of what made the original fun and simply delivering more of that with a few tweaks to keep it fresh. 

Katamari Forever is a clear demonstration of how delicate Nintendo’s rehashing really is. Too few new features, too many sequels, too little time between games, and countless other factors threaten to spoil the experience. To get away with making the same game over and over again, developers must tread carefully. Namco has eschewed their responsibility as caretaker of the Katamari franchise’s good name. I am of course not entirely serious when I say Nintendo is “making the same game over and over again”, but Namco is coming frighteningly close. 

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Street Fighter IV iPhone Review

Street Fighter on the iPhone is something that by all rights should not even exist, much less in any form that actually resembles what a normal human being would consider a playable game. It should be a cheap cash in. It should be an abomination. It should have no redeeming value whatsoever.

I mean, come on. It's Street Fighter! On the iPhone! We are talking about a fighting game that represents the ultimate in precision controls, precise timing, and skillful input. Slapping a game like that onto a portable device with no physical buttons should be nothing short of blasphemous.

But yet, here we are. Street Fighter has been released for Apple's touchscreen device, and it doesn't suck. Color me surprised.

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Hellbilly Deluxe 2 Video Review

As a complement to the text review posted below, have a gander at this handy video review, which is essentially the same review as the text version, only read to you and sprinkled with spiffy audio clips so you can actually hear the music. Neat, huh?

Please let me know what you think of it. I'd be quite grateful.

Hellbilly Deluxe 2 - Rob Zombie's Return to Form... Mostly

Okay, so Educated Horses sucked. Rob Zombie fans have had four years to come to terms with that. The stellar American Witch may go down next to Dragula as one of Zombie’s best moments, but it’s also the only memorable thing on the entire album.

Now Rob Zombie is back and he has the audacity to title his next work as a sequel to his most well-known album (if not his best, a title that belongs to The Sinister Urge). 

So is slapping a 2 on the end of Hellbilly Deluxe a blasphemous move or does it manage to channel the dreadlocked Zombie of old?

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Dethklok's Dethalbum II is More Metal, Less Dethklok

Dethalbum II is undoubtedly a great metal album.  

The riffs are both heavy and catchy.  The solos are intense.  The churning beats will have you unable to stop bobbing your head.  

What the album is not is a great Dethklok album.

Dethalbum II sounds to me like what might happen in Dethklok’s fictional universe if lead singer Nathan Explosion were to do a solo album.  The product wouldn’t fall too from from the Dethklok tree, but it would have its own spin to the sound and be, despite the similarities, distinctly un-Dethklok.

Not too unlike the solo album from Serj Tankien of System of a Down, as it happens.

The feeling I get upon listening to Dethalbum II is a little hard to explain.

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