Monday, August 5, 2013

Ramblings

Ramblings

I've been in a strange gaming mood the past couple of weeks. I've had a hard time playing one game for more than an hour at a time, they mentioned this on the Giantbomb podcast, that they were feeling this as well.  With all the immediate content coming our way are we getting to the point where if something doesn't keep us engaged continuously we become bored and move on to something else?

I've read a couple of books recently.  Yngwie J. Malmsteen's autobiography Revalations is a decent book and has some cool insights into his guitar playing  He started in the late 80's and early 90's and was amazing, he brought in a whole new sound, classical metal guitar. He wrote that he wanted the guitar to sound like a violin where you hear every note no matter how fast you were playing, and he was successful. Some of the book talked about him trying to achieve that sound that he wanted and he went into detail about creating his own pickups which was interesting.  He didn't have too many wild stories like I've read in other biographies but it was entertaining and I read the whole book in about 5 days. 

The second book I got was This is Gonna Hurt by Nikki Sixx.  I really liked his first book, The Heroin Diaries, which told of his decent into heroin addiction and at one point being declared clinically dead.  The book was very stylized and each page had a mix of text and pictures so it was visually unique. His second book is about his photography, and it's a little weird as you might expect.  The theme is that beauty is dictated to us through media and how that view is a lie, it gives us a warped view of people who don't fit that model.  What makes something beautiful?  The book wasn't as good as his first but it was a decent read and had some interesting stories.  Each book also has a soundtrack that has songs that go over the various topics of the books and both albums are great. 


New Releases - A lot of releases this week. A couple of buys for me.

PC
Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians (download)
Divinity: Dragon Commander (download - $40)
Guacamelee! Gold Edition (download - $15) - Awesome game that I will double dip on.  The music is great.
GunCraft (download - $15) - Build all kinds of guns?
Megabyte Punch (download - $15)
Papers, Please (download - $10)
Spelunky (download) -  Awesome game that was free on PC, then updated on 360, now re-released on PC and has daily challenges.
The Sims 3 Dragon Valley

Xbox 360
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (XBLA - $15)

PlayStation 3
Dragon's Crown  -  Awesome looking 2D beat 'em up. 
ibb & obb (PSN - $10)
Superfrog HD (PSN)
Tales of Xillia   -  Another Tales games.  Tempted.
The Red Star (PS2 Classics)

Wii U
Disney's Planes
Spin the Bottle: Bumpie's Party (eShop - $9)

Wii
Disney's Planes
Tales of Xillia and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team

Vita
Dragon's Crown
Superfrog HD (PSN)

Nintendo 3DS
Disney's Planes
Mario & Luigi: Dream Team  -  Gotten great reviews, all the RPG's have been good.

Nintendo DS
Disney's Planes

--
Shon Holland
Middleware
501-376-5198

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