For goth metal, picking the best comes easy as pie : Nevermore. Starting in the ashes of the band Sanctuary, 5+ octave singer Warrel Dane
took the remains of his band when his amazing guitarists and drummer jumped at the then-booming Seattle grunge scene (it's ok if you
throw up a bit in your mouth when I mention that), and with then-tour-used-only God-Guitarist Jeff Loomis, formed what would go on to be a gothic and technical metal masterpiece, Nevermore.
Since then, they've put out 6 untouchable albums. Well, make that 7 this coming June 8th, when their newest album is due out. Dark. Brooding.
Viciously angry. Sorrowful. Elegant. Beautiful. Snarling. Death and ecstasy combined. All are good adjectives of this soon-to-be-released album. Give it a listen, I'm sure you'll agree. All I have to say, is Poe would be proud.
To this day, when I look back at the landscape of western RPG's, few satisfy with the likes
of Ultima. The series ended with the somewhat maligned Ultima IX, dumbing down the depth of the series a bit, but nonetheless, a great game in it's
own right. You see very few 3D RPG's these days with an entire world of hand-placed items, right down to each individual fork. And the dungeons
(isn't this the point of these games?) are nothing short of wicked and devious. The whole series, most notably Ultima Underworld I and II, Ultima VI,
Ultima VII (providing the base for Ultima Online), and Ultima IX, are just some of the best RPG's you could ever hope to play. So, throw your dice in
closet and break out about 300+ hours to finish the notables I mentioned. You're going to need it!
Chris Poland : Best thrash guitarist ever Posted May 4, 2010
Looking back at the history of various guitarists in thrash metal, there's a number of clearly memorable shredders out there : Dimebag Darrel, Chuck Schuldiner (one of my personal favorites), Marty Friedman, Dave Mustaine. The list goes on. But one of the most unnoticed, and ironically most melodically dangerous, was ex-Jazz guitarist Chris Poland. Between his noteworthy stint with Megadeth on thrash metal "Went down in history" albums "Peace Sells" and then later "The System Has Failed", he went off and recorded a solo album that's wall-to-wall guitar wailing; chock-full of melodic hooks and catchy rhythms. Just an amazing album for fans of scorching solos and mind-bending fretwork. Shred!
Post-Apocalyptic Gaming Goodness Posted May 4, 2010
There's nothing that brings out that pure sense of inner glee like the death of the better part of the world's population. Of course, that could just be me though. Post-apocalyptic movies rank right up there in lists of top scifi movies ever. Weirdly, post-apocalyptic games, especially good ones, have been few and far between. I have yet to see one that better captures the raw "fighting to survive" aspect like Fallout 1.
You start out in a bomb shelter who's water supply unit has malfunctioned, forcing you to go out, after years of isolation, into the radiated wilderness to locate another chip. Right away, you're sucked into a land where hordes of idiot mutant rednecks are looking to bend you over, Deliverance-style, just for your guns, ammo, and 5 minutes of fun. The game, like real life, is unforgiving, morally ambiguous (killing children gets you the childkiller label), and forces you to make choices that end up being the lesser of two evils. It's gritty, obdurate, hardened. Not for the faint of heart. But for those who have their twigs and berries still attached, it would be difficult to find a more believable and memorable RPG.
To get Fallout 1 going, download, install, and before running, install the 1.1 Windows patch from here. If you have trouble running or the screen blacks out, go to the install directory, and right-click on FALLOUTW.EXE and go to Properties. Click on the Compatibility tab, and check the box next to "Run this program in compatibility mode for : " and "Run in 256 colors". Be sure to also grab the "Fallout1 Hi-Res Patch" patch, install, and in the Options screen, click SCRN at the top, and change the resolution to any known resolution (1024 x 768 for instance). Happy non-radiated-to-death and cornhole-intact gaming.
Domine : Italian Metal about Elric of Melnibone Posted April 2, 2010
Fantasy series don't get much more evil than Elric of Melnibone; a story about an indifferent albino emperor
of a dying kingdom, forced to use magic and potions to keep his strength up, who, through a pact with the Lord of Evil Arioch, finds an evil entity black sword;The black sword that every other fantasy series copies, but fails miserably; later betrays his own people to their absolute destruction, and gets swept into the epic hands of fate as a pawn in the the gods of evil's giant worldwide chessgame.
The sword, called Stormbringer, that has influenced countless bands and games and controls Elric more than he controls it, leads it's wielder on a series of unparalleled dark epic fantasy.
Well, now power metal fans get an entire band devoted to this completely outstanding series. And for fans of both metal and fantasy, this gets the devil's horns straight up!
The start of Tactical Strategy Games Posted April 2, 2010
Any fans of the great series Advance Wars (and, technically Famicon Wars before that)
should know, or at least heard of, the amazing tactical strategy games Military Madness for Turbo Grafx 16 (known outside as
Nectaris). For those that have been living under a rock,
since gaming arrived, or those who only play games with the latest "flash and dazzle" (aka Trendy Gamers), these games are like Chess on steroids. Great games to push your brain against, or better still,
have a friend over and play hotseat against each other. Pure intellectual fun.
And, in the best combination of metal and gaming I've quite possibly ever come across, I found this guy's Metal rendition of the Metroid soundtrack. Geek metal. Awesome...
