Here are some of my favourite gaming soundtracks- in no particular order:

Fallout 3

A truly eerie 50’s soundtrack that blasts you to a simpler time, whilst you mutilate corpses. Turn off this chipper radio chatter and you’ll hear the groans of time shiver you to the core as you explore irradiated buildings and caverns as a former Vault dweller.

FIFA Soundtracks

Giving you the best in popular music for… Well years! I’m not even a football fan and I’ll admit that I’ll happily sit and watch the guys play FIFA, just for the soundtrack!

Portal

You’ll have doubtlessly heard “Still Alive”. If you haven’t you may wish to ask Doc Brown to take you back to where you rightfully belong! You’re possibly even a little sick of it, but you’ll agree (hopefully!) that it’s a wistful and endearing soundtrack that sets you right in the Aperture Science mood. Hands up for some cube bloodloss, please.

Mass Effect 1/2

Epic space opera? Check. Epic space opera soundtrack? Double check. A sweeping orchestral array of classical instruments mixed with electronic overtones makes for a soundtrack so badass it sucks the air out of your room and leaves you in your very own gaming space vacuum. SUBLIME!

BioShock

A delicate mix of musicians such as Billie Holiday take you back to a not so simple era, mixed in with Garry Schyman’s compositions that use bone chilling violins to give you a spook in the night. Never before has “How Much Is That Doggy In The Window?” made you want to wet yourself. Now it will.

Halo

Get ready for Gregorian chanting- Halo style! Iconic, catch, timeless- whatever you want to call it- O’Donnel and Salvatori pushed the boat out on this one! Electro-symphony eat your heart out! An epic soundtrack for an epic game!

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/ Super Mario World

The old school era of Nintendo held some of the best musical scores to date- and you have Koji Kondo to thank for that! Not only did he compose the very passionate Ocarina of Time, he also composed the dateless Super Mario Bros. soundtrack! Both amazing games in their own right, but Kondo adds that “je ne sais quoi” element that brings you back for more and makes you hum whilst you shower… It’ll have you slaying Gorons and jumping in mushroom fields in no time at all!

Tomb Raider Series

A lot of you probably played Tomb Raider for other reasons… But what drew ME in was the atmosphere, partially created by the music which drew from whichever culture Lara was happening to explore. It took you to Africa, Nepal, Peru… And all before tea time!

Katamari Damacy

LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA! You get the general gist…

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Not a score in it’s own right, but the gaming soundtrack brought home that 80′s vibe- listening to this soundtrack you really did feel like part of the Miami drug cartel in your pastel coloured high fashion suit. “AND I RAAAAAAN, I RAN SO FAR AWAAAAY…”

Whelp, that’s my compendium of classics I just can’t get enough of! What are your classic gaming soundtracks? Are you geeky like me? Do you dare put them on your iPod?

“Heart to Resist”, “Catch the Garter” and “Oh So Glam!” from their Valentine’s collection. I was playing around with my nails and wanted to create a nifty gamer themed nail set to amuse myself with. With the new release of Kingdom Hearts on the PSP, I lumped for that option and here we are:

You can’t see it very well but the little red “dots” on my fingernails are hearts

Have you seen any amazing game themed makeup applications or created your own? Let me know!

x

At the end of a hard day working, I like to switch on Mass Effect 2 and save the Galaxy from total obliteration. Or hop into Azeroth with millions of others and slay monsters and demons- both I can do with a mug of tea in my hand, being the quintessential English rose that I am!

Yet roleplay gaming (or RPG’s as they are colloquially known) has gotten a bit of a bad schtick in recent times. Go on, envision if you will what the word “roleplay” paints in your mind. Go beyond fishnet stockings and clear plastic mules and I’m willing to bet that you think of an overweight man with a Star Wars t-shirt playing Dungeons and Dragons and making a living from his mother’s basement.

This is not the case at all! So if you’re ready, let me take you on a journey on some of the best existing roleplay games! I’m hoping you’ll be pleasantly surprised and possibly may even consider picking up the controller to play one!

BIOSHOCK:

Set in a dystopian underwater society in an alternate history 1960, the game places the player in the role of an unknown at first plane crash survivor, who must explore and uncover the history of the underwater city of Rapture, surviving attacks from the severely mutated and deranged citizens as you do so! You might be surprised that the game follows a strict morality based storyline, while the Ayn Rand inspired back story lends an eerie overall tone to an already seriously spooky survival horror game!

In fact the game has proved so popular it spawned the successful sequel Bioshock 2 that roughly follows on from the first game, this time placing the player as a Big Daddy- a man who has had his internal organs and skin grafted into an atmospheric diving suit and is sworn to protect the Little Sister (a mind altered small girl with a taste for ADAM, the biological substance that keeps Rapture alive) he has been paired with, yet is unable to locate her.

With games like these, it’s sometimes more about what you don’t see that immerses you into the game.  The soundtrack is cinematic and lends a wonderful overall tone to both games, with screeching violins quietly playing in the background, quickly brought up and teetering you over the edge with a small slew of violins joining in to create what seems like an entire orchestra booming behind you. Simply put- this game is magnificent in ALL ways!

(To be followed on by Bioshock: Infinite: TBC 2012)

FALLOUT 3:

Yet again set in an alternate timeline in a dystopian environment (see a recurring theme at all?), although this time it’s a dystopian FUTURE environment. This game is a little more hands on in term of the roleplay elements- you can choose your clothes, buy a house, interact with those who live in the Fallout Universe and explore a wealthy map with lots to divulge.

The soundtrack to Fallout 3 is an eerie 50’s radiostation, of which about 16 songs play on a loop interspersed by a maniacal DJ. This 50’s soundtrack to me, plays so beautifully with the general maiming and gorefest you can expect with this game, and I admit to buying a few of the tunes off iTunes after they became embedded in my brain!

My favourite part in this game, was stumbling across a small town inhabited by 2 families with a grisly past. As I delved further into their lives, I stumbled across a locked door which I obviously picked to get into. In doing so, the mothers and fathers of the village ran over to me, axes held high as I quivered with a shotgun. I shot the buggers on the spot, and looted their corpses, because that’s just what you do in these sorts of situations when their children are watching. I talked to the children, now under the care of their grandparent. That locked door? Full of human meat- the victims of the townsfolk “generosity”. Delightfully Wickerman, and certainly did not disappoint!

This is the sort of random encounter you begin to become bewildered and excited by in the Fallout universe and is the exact reason why I can’t wait for more sheer madness in the upcoming sequel!

I’d say Fallout 3 is a good RPG for beginners, due to the ease of use and the immersive personality the game lends to you, the gamer. It’s quite wordy (nowhere near the wordiness of the Mass Effect franchise!) so if wordy isn’t your bag, definitely not for you. However, if reading isn’t something you enjoy I doubt any RPG would be suitable for you!

(To be followed on by Fallout: New Vegas: October 22^nd 2010)

DRAGON AGE- ORIGINS:

Set in the mythical realm of Ferelden, you choose what race, class and stats (ie, rogue, warrior or mage…) you which to take on. In doing so, you’ll sculpt out a basic shell for your character, upon which interaction with your “crew” will flesh this out. You find yourself dropped in a period of civil strife and will have to build an army in order to stop the Dark Spawn, a particularly nasty set of baddies intent on blighting the face of the planet as with all good roleplay stories.

It’s no small wonder the game has achieved such critical success, the dialogue is simply superb unlike in The Elder Scroll series whereupon sometimes you may find it easier to eat your console. My particular favourite pieces of dialogue occur between Alistair and Morrigan as they squabble, and Zevran and his horrible cheesy rogue ways. The humour is not to be sniffed at- in fact if anything it endears you to your team, enabling you to care about them and empathise when dealing with their personal missions. In respect to this, Mass Effect 2 could have used some help, because I only found myself endeared to Thane… And that’s only because lizards are pettable!

(To be followed on by Dragon Age 2: March 2011)

MASS EFFECT 1&2

The Mass Effect series plays a bit like your typical space docudrama. You take on the role of Commander Shepherd (male or female!), a soldier starting off in The Alliance and bid upon to do your duty for your people. A Bioware classic, you should roughly expect the same sort of goings on as the Dragon Age series, with a completely different action element which lends itself from shooter classics Halo and Call of Duty.

Out of the 2, Mass Effect 2 is my favourite, even if the Galaxy does seem to have a LOT of crates dotted carelessly around warehouses with dynamite. Conversations are more fluid than in the first, and the ability to choose your path of Paragon or Renegade is greatly expanded upon.  The thing that I marvelled upon in the 2^nd game, was that it took my choices made in the 1^st game, and used these to expand upon the experience you were given. For instance, a member of my team has been sacrificed to save us, and this was mentioned not only once in the 2^nd game but two or three times- all by different characters and all asking why, how and how I felt about doing it.

Simply Sublime!

If you’ve heard of this series, no doubt it was for the now infamous lesbian sex scene, but don’t get too excited. You don’t see anything.

The only complaint I have ever heard about this game was the lengthiness of some conversations. If reading REALLY isn’t something you enjoy, then this game sadly is not for you. If however you’ve ever daydreamed about saving your planet, grabbing some hot arse and going in guns blazing- do not miss this game!

(To be followed on by Mass Effect 3: TBC 2011/12)

Well there you have some of my favourite RPG’s! If you’ve made it this far, then congratulations! I hope I’ll have persuaded you to try out at least one of these games! The world of roleplay games is a fun adventure, so why not join in on the fun?

If you’ve been living underneath a rock (or happen to be my mother) then I’ll brief you on what’s occuring. As you are probably aware, the Wii console features two remotes that one points at a motion sensor, thereby providing a happy interactive experience for one and all. Due to this interactivity it’s become a big hit with non-gamers (such as my mother!) and gamers alike providing Nintendo with a greater market for which to pitch their product to. Sony and Microsoft, the respective creators of the PS3 and Xbox 360 have seen the potential interactive gaming provides, and as such have begun upon the journey to widen their console market.

I’ll begin by showcasing the Xbox 360′s Kinect, pictured here:

This neat little invention requires no additional controllers to be bought. If you’re wondering how, let me take you to a galaxy far, far away…

When Microsoft recently stripped down their little gadget, it show to pack a lot of punch for its size. Featuring a RGB camera for facial recognition plus video capturing, a depth sensor  for movement tracking, four downward-facing mics for voice recognition, a quiet motor in the bulky base for rotation, and all the circuitry components to link them up this little beauty has a lot more inside than what its casing suggests. It’s my favourite out of the two new bloomers due to the immense creativity it’s bought along with it. My favourite two games so far are Zuma, a rumba-esque dancing fitness video to which I’m going to love to jiggle to, and Kinectimals, a cutsey kids game where you get to mother your choice of animal. In short it’s amazing what technology can bring, never did I think in my lifetime such technology would be available for my budget. At a suggested retail price of £130 it isn’t to be sniffed, especially when you consider the elite model of the 250GB Xbox 360 costs only £200 compared to the PS3′s base model at £250 for 120GB!

Sony’s offering is the Sony Move:

Look familiar?

Yeah, I thought it wouldn’t just be me.

See this is my major problem with Sony’s offering. Where exactly is the creativity? Sony’s major marketing strategy so far has been a point of contention for me. No buttons on the Kinect? SONY IS OFFERING BUTTONS FOR YOU TO TOUCH.

That’s less of a structured argument and more a childish taunt akin to “Yo Mamma”. Much of their marketing is based upon this idea that real gaming requires real buttons. What with the iPhone, a lot of us know this not to be true. In fact I’m willing to bet a drink that a large portion of the gaming community do a lot of their gaming on public transport getting to work- perhaps even AT work! Angry Birds is a firm staple of my bus route to work, I’ll be damned if I change this and it appears as if I’m not the only person to see the flaw in Sony’s grandeur plans;

“I was disappointed with the amount of real innovation we saw. In terms of ideas, it is very similar to what we have seen with the Wii and if you are Sony, you can’t help but want to ape that success,” Guy Cocker, UK editor of gaming site GameSpot told BBC News.

The problem here, is there’s no innovation. It’s just Sony attempting to barge in on a lead market using exactly the same tactics as its major competitor. At least one can credit Microsoft with creating a genuine gaming tool which can be used in a completely different way to that of the Wii’s. Sony have stolen Nintendo’s idea and added toxic bollocks on top of the controllers.

No points for which accessory I’ve put a deposit down on…

No, I’m not talking “Yo Ho Ho” or Somalian’s with only one leg.

R4 card. Ring any bells?

Sure, it’s easy enough to just accuse anyone of downloading the odd game here and there- but the point stands that piracy IS theft. And is actually really hurting the gaming community. Sony calls levels of piracy “sickening”, believing the theft to be taking a particular chunk of the PSP market, and accounting for poor game release as more and more developers turn their sites to consoles that are safer in regards to piracy.

The truth is, there is no safety where piracy is concerned. It’s safe to assume that most of the world is pretty scummy, and scummy people are too cheap to pay for a good gaming experience, but not too cheap to pay for good sex. The logic there should be baffling, but sadly isn’t so. Most gamers are far too consumed in their gaming to attract the opposite sex. You’ve got to get it somewhere.

PC gaming is where it’s hurting most right now, with Doom 3 creators iD software warning that if the problem of pirated PC games wasn’t stopped soon, the platform could be abandoned entirely.

“Some developers are taking that approach” he told the Game Developers Conference. And you know what? He’s spot on. Working in a video game store, I’m seeing less and less releases for PC. GAME is even thinking of slowly liquidising its stock out, like a gazpacho of the high street. So very tomatoey.

It’s estimated that losses from piracy in Eastern Europe, Asia and South America are around 90%- now that’s pretty darn high!

You might think that piracy doesn’t apply to you. I ask you one question. When the hell did you get made a citizen without authority? This isn’t bloody Mad Max. It’s real life, with real laws. So man up you pansy eating testicle swilling nerd. Buy a game. Ask for student discount if that applies. And buy a Nintendo DSi so I can see you cry when your R4 card chokes on dicks.

On a  serious note, piracy is real. It isn’t just chavs, it’s you at home on MiniNova.

For the love of God, if you can’t afford games, you should probably just a read a book. If reading a book doesn’t make you particularly moist then I mourn the loss of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Go load a pistola.

Yes. You read that right. Peta are faggots and created WoW accounts so they could bust your arse over some stupid seals.

“Thrall refused to ban the slaughter of seals, despite multiple requests from the Alliance to do so, because Orgrimmar stands to make a large profit from the fur,” writes PETA on its blog.

You read that right. They’re targeting WoW players who are attacking virtual seals for their virtual fur, for virtual money. VIRTUAL SEALS!!! I mean, by all means do things for a worthy cause. But when you waste your life on virtual seals, you know something is seriously up.

In a way only Peta can go about things, the campaign focuses on… Mass violence and bloodlust. Only this time it’s virtual. Way to prove a point veggies, way to prove a point!

*headdesk*

Total nerdgasm, right? YAH FOR SURE.

Looks like the Little Sisters will be kept in a papoose like cage thing, so perhaps harder to harvest the little critters? These new Big Sisters look a lot more agile than the Big Daddy counterpart, so expect lots of running around and blind shooting. Frag grenades. Mines. EVERYTHING.

I’m so psyched about this it’s unreal. She (Big Sister…) is like some weird Tim Burton steampunk creation straight out of the deep. I’ve got goose pimples, and that’s not just from my terrifying furry investigation that’s coming next…

Hah! Look at these! Whoop-ee!

Now that is serious drinking for a king. A LICH king! Amirite or amirite?

The beer steins come in 3 different models, Lich King (pictured) Blood of the Horde and Alliance United and cost about $90.  They’re probably only interesting to major WoW fans with too much neckbeard growth, but I think they’re pretty nifty. If you’re not a heavy drinker, then they can always be used as a paperweight, right? Door wedge? Belated Valentine’s gift?

Click to unleash the awesomeness that is the steins!

This morning whilst trudging my day through daily geeky crap to bring you news, I came across perhaps the most HAPPENING thing I’ve ever seen in all my days:

A STAR WARS BOOM BOX!

And not just any old Star Wars boom box either! Nuh-uh! This be popping illin’ tunes AT-AT style, dig?

The boom box is provided via the lovely people at Zen77990, and unfortunately even though the good people at the main Star Wars site advertised it (well, I had to search for fraggin’ hours…), I can’t see anyway to get my grubby little mitts on it. I’ll maybe sell my uterus and try and make one myself. Then I can just lay down the beat and daaaance.

I’m so fresh, I ain’t got no expiration date.

“Take control of someone else’s controller to give them a soothing massage, either locally or over XBox Live. Solo mode lets you use your own controller to relax. Different vibration settings allow you to give the massage you want to give or receive. Supports voice chat so you can request the perfect massage. Great for long distance relationships.”

Go on. Just read that last sentence again:

“Great for long distance relationships.”

HAH. I knew it would one day happen, and I’ve died a bit inside. Someone has invented a way for people to actually masturbate WITH their console. Back in the day, the two had to be remotely separate entities: NOT ANYMORE.

Neckbeards around the world, REJOICE.

Seriously though, the dude that invented this proper needs a shag.

AMIRITE, OR AMIRITE?

I think it begs the question: who pays for an app like this? What is wrong with a vibrator? Why am I so shocked that a nerd actually came up with this!?

If you’re interested in this app, go onto your X360, and look up “Remote Massuese” in Community Games. Then shoot yourself and do the world a huge favour.