turrican

Manowar vs. Turrican

Friday, January 21st, 2011 | Games, Movies, Reviews | No Comments

Recently I came across two things, Manowar on Malta and Turrican as one of my all time favourite games. This reminded me of a fact that should not be forgotten: The guys who did Turrican apparently were into Manowar as well – this is a comparison of the album art of Manowar’s “Kings of Metal” and the Turrican title screen (I guess M.T. stands for Manfred Trenz).

Hmm, those were the days … :D

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1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011 | Books, Games, Reviews, Tech-savvy | No Comments

1001 (rather short) game reviews and a foreword by Populous mastermind Peter Molyneux. I simply had to buy this. I totally underestimated its dimension and weight though. This really is something for the display or the couch table. If you want a more serious and comprehensive read try Gamespite Quarterly.

A big heavy book that makes you reminisce. It covers great games from the seventies (Space Invaders, Asteroids) as well as recent hits like Heavy Rain or Mass Effect 2. There is just one thing missing. Turrican. I know that the Turrican series was especially well received in Germany, but it seems that folks abroad didn’t really get it. For me Turrican 1 & 2 are among the best games ever released. A pity they didn’t make it into this book. I wonder if everyone has a favourite game that this book misses and will be included in some re-release if enough people complain. :P

Right now this beautiful book is on sale for as low as £9.40 an Amazon.

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Chiptune Madness

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 | Gadgets, Misc, Music, Reviews, Tech-savvy | 1 Comment

Thanks to my favourite emag Lotek64 I stumbled upon some really interesting music: Chiptune!

I like to listen to OSTs of games and films (favourite game OST: Turrican 1/2 by Chris Hülsbeck, favourite motion picture OST: Avalon by Kenji Kawai). Reading Lotek64 the absolutely stylish cover arose my initial interest, reading the review I decided to give it a try:

(Chip) Comptroller veröffentlicht mit seinem RPM2010-Album auch sein Debüt. Zwischen schnellen und wütenden Chipbeats kommen dabei auch immer nette kleine Melodien zum Vorschein.

Free Download @ http://comptrolleralpha.co.uk/album/comptroller

Listening to this artistic musical creation reminds me of endless GameBoy sessions and the time I connected my GameBoy to my home stereo to listen to the music of Super Mario Land and, naturally, Tetris. The sound of Comptroller is “great” in the sense of interesting/disturbing – sometimes even toothaching listened to at the right volume :P

Lotek64 Issue 33 has more interesting musical reviews, such as an 8bit NES chiptune version of Pink Floyd‘s “The Dark Side of the Moon” called Moon8.

(Remake) … Wer das nur für einen musikalischen Scherz hält, irrt. Mit Moon8 tut Brad Smith Pink Floyd einen großen Gefallen, indem er die Stärken des Albums offenlegt und mit seiner klanglich zwangsläufig äußerst minimalistischen Auslegung der Kompositionen zu einer Entmystifizierung dieses überhöhten Werks beiträgt. Hier wird auf unerwartete Weise hörbar, wie The Dark Side of the Moon klingen könnte, wäre es nicht so hoffnungslos überproduziert und verkitscht worden. Moon8 ist die bessere Version des Albums, dessen Qualitäten endlich auf würdige Art hörbar werden.

Free download @ http://rainwarrior.thenoos.net/music/moon8.html

Crazy shit indeed! :D Thanks Lotek64 for providing these reviews!

Googleing I also found two blogs (The Chiptune Blog, Stadkind: Berlin), just in case you want to listen to some more chiptunes. So far, I like the idea a lot!

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Review: Guitar Hero Metallica

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 | Games, Reviews | 3 Comments

Tonight, I played one of the greatest games ever.

Guitar Hero Metallica.

If you ask me about my favourite game of all frickin’ time it would be Turrican (Part 1 and 2 :) ) The second place is occupied by a dozen games, such as almost every Mario instalment, the Monkey Island series, Zelda, GTA 4 ++, Midnight Club L.A., Blockout, Eye of the Beholder, Ultima, Faery Tale Adventure, Parasite Eve, you name it.

When I came home from work tonight my wife had to leave for a babysitting session. So I took the chance to chuck in Guitar Hero Metallica for the first time ever. It’s been 6 hours since, I had a hell lot of fun and I am pretty pissed right now (5 bottles o’ brew and aching fingertips to my account).

Wow, I’ve been James Hetfield! I’ve been Kirk Hammett. I’ve been live on stage (my kittehs complained or cheered, I dunno)! You may think I am crazy, but if you are into Metal, 30+ o’ age and willing to pay a dazzling 20 bucks you are in! The game is very well done and after the disappointing Guitar Hero 4 and 5 (from a technical point of view) this release is finally something you can just jump into playing. It just works. Once I calibrated the lag (25ms audio and video) I was rocking my shiny metal ass off!

6 out of 5 stars! – if you are into the genre go get it right away and donate to the creators!

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