I love to dance. Don’t we all?

Old yes, but I was reminded of the kung fu stickmen “Xiao Xiao” yesterday and I love them far too much to not post them here. Ka-pow, Ka-pow!

I’ve added a new category for arty stuff and generally impressive things and to kick it off, here’s a video that I came across that had me fixated. Apparently, it’s by the French…

What do ya reckon? Master-piece? or Sheisse-piece?

I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to an album as much as Evil Nine’s latest - “They Live!”. It’s due out October 22nd (I’m sure it was due out by now but hey!) and it has a whole cross genre, thriller-esque zombie feel to it, inspired by John Carpenter’s film of the same name presumably which I really must get round to watching. Anyway, from what I’ve heard so far it’s sounding bloody marvellous. Gritty, trademark beats and basslines with stylish vocals often provided by guest indie/punk artists. Check out four brand new tracks here:

http://marineparade.net/

Also

http://www.myspace.com/evilnine

Evil Nine played at the V festival this year and although I wasn’t there (thankfully - I’d have had to shower once I got back), the people that I’ve spoken to were very impressed even those that have never heard of the them before.

One to keep an ear out for I say. Yes, even you!

They Live! (Radio edit doesn’t do it much justice though)

That’s all my girlfriend hears from me whilst I’m playing the side-splittingly hilarious Team Fortress 2 as the flamethrower weilding pyromaniac. Along with a few profanities when I don’t get my way, of course. 

As the game approaches it’s first birthday it has millions of players, myself included, completely hooked. Here’s how I like to think it all came about (and my opinions on the game too):

Imagine, if you will, the lead designer from Pixar Animation Studios (Wall-E, The Incredibles) sitting alone at a bar. A chap heads over to sit next to him and introduces himself as the creator of Team Fortress, one of the most popular computer game mods ever available. Pixar man is drained after completing another animated not-just-for-kids movie, while TF man is unhappy that his new game isn’t turning out to be as fun as a Team Fortress sequal should be. In walks a man from Valve who is currently in a team that has developed some of the most successful games of our time and certainly the best digital distribution network on the planet. After a few drinks, the conversation would go a bit like this:

Valve Man: “We’re all separately good at… stuff. How about we take our ideas…<hic>… and put ‘em together!”

Pixar Man: “Ha! That’ll never work. Think of the logis..logist-…money!”

TF Man: “We’d have to start from stratch!”

Valve Man: “Okay, that’s settled then!” 

After a few moments of blank staring, they would put a deal together, throw bucketloads of cash in and spend years making what is now Team Fortress 2 (widely claimed as the best multiplayer game of the year) and make millions of people very happy because of it (and a tidy profit of course).

In short, Team Fortress 2 has something to please anyone remotely interested in gaming; humour, great looks, explosive carnage, popularity, efficiency, player bonuses and regular content updates for free (in your face Xbox Live). They’ve taken the time to highlight the humourous visual style by releasing short introductory videos to a number of the characters too. You’ll find a couple below, but youtube will offer up all manner of TF2 goodness should you want more.

Speaking of the characters, although you’re bound to find a favourite (The Pyro is mine), they’re very cleverly designed so you can pick up and play as each of them very quickly and actually be useful to your team. There are always two teams, blue and red, often with 16 players each and although there are a number of different game modes, you usually only have to concentrate on a simple objective and kill members of the other team along the way. Easy for beginners to pick up. However, the more you play, the more you find out the intricacies of each map and character and once you start to apply your own tactics to the game based on how it’s playing out, you can really start to gel with your team and get the most out of the experience. Also, playing with or against your friends adds to the experience hugely, which is partly why I’m banging on about it!

The game runs on the Source engine (Half-Life 2, Dark Messiah) so if you have a relatively decent PC, something that happily runs The Sims 2 or WoW for instance, then I’m highly recommending TF2 to you. It’s a bargain as well for around a tenner ($19.99) over on Steam, but if you’re gonna go for it then I’d have to suggest the acclaimed Orange Box for absolute value for money. Just click through to the website yourself to see all the info on what you get for one price (6 games!).

On to the videos, all use in game graphics by the way:

The Heavy:

The Engineer:

The Sniper (what is that accent?!):

The Demoman (this accent is worse than Shrek):

Crikey, whilst freeing up my homepage and beginning to use Google Reader, I clicked through to a World of Warcraft feed that it recommended to me (presumably based on my current news feed content or my eating habits over the past week or something similarly scary). I won’t link to it because the guy will probably trace it back and leave me abuse or something but here it is:

hmm.

Now, as a casual WoW player, I needed to post this as I feel it doesn’t represent the bulk of the game’s players or the enjoyment that goes with it. Yeah, I play a few hours of World of Warcraft with a couple of chums (of the real life kind) when I can, so I understand bits of that quote more than non-players, but even then it’s still largely gobbledegook. To us the game is about playing in a team, identifying each of our strengths and weaknesses and pulverising any enemy player that dares to cross our path in the vast expanse of the world (although we’re still pretty bad at that). But personally, I like the exploration side. I’ll sometimes travel through the game until the early hours discovering magical lakes within thick misty forests and dark haunted lands, or simply clambering to the top of the tallest mountain I can find just to dive off and probably miss the life-saving pool at the bottom, only to resurrect in a spooky graveyard miles away. When playing like this (solo-ing) I’m not aiming for high scores or to finish the game in the traditional gaming sense, the media has evolved since Pacman. I’m playing for the rich and inspiring experience, the laughs that go along with it and the social aspect of multiplayer gaming, not “re-gemming”, “power-levelling” and “boar-grinding”.

Oh, and dancing.

Go to Part 1

Right, I’ve had a think about another 5 tracks (making it 10! ooooh) and you’ll find them beneath the cut. I’ve quite enjoyed choosing these tracks and finding their videos on the web, especially when random folk have thrown together their own video for it. Much hilarity indeed! Please feel free to comment and offer up some of your own dance based “Top Tunage”.

Pendulum - Slam (love the video to this)

Azzido da Bass - Doom’s Night (timeless classic)

Bomfunk MCs - Freestyler

Stanton Warriors - Pop ya Cork

Daft Punk - Around the World (what a video)

Go to Part 1

Or CHOOOONZ if you’re that way inclined.

JimHB’s recent crate digging has inspired me to offer up my own dance classics. So here are a few of my favourites. DJ’s take note: play any 1 of these tracks to see me jump about like a loon. Play any more than that and you better hope you can run faster than me if you don’t like big sweaty hugs!

Go to Part 2

The Prodigy - Narayan

The Freestylers - Painkiller (and Security but I couldn’t find a decent video to embed)

Modjo - Lady (Hear me Tonight)

Hybrid - Just for Today (seriously, give this a listen)

Evil Nine - Restless (also a cool remix and vid here.)

Go to Part 2

I’ve decided that there’s no way i could write about anything for long before referring to games so I may as well embrace it!

Some of you may not know that as a geek, I am so uber-tricked out that I don’t even need to find the latest gaming info any more… it comes to me. One day I will become the “go-to guy” for the real factual news about games. So much so that the developers themselves will have to come to me to learn how their own game is coming along. Oh yes, one day…

In the meantime, I’ll continue to offer up gaming titbits in my usual, excitable way but perhaps with a little more of my own opinion than in the past.

This time of year is generally dull when it comes to new games releases, however, the coming Autumn months are looking rather splendid indeed. But I’ll go into that another time :).

Right now though, I want to show you some spanking new shots from Batman: Arkham Asylum announced only this week as being developed by Rocksteady (of Urban Chaos “fame”… hmm). Only a few details have emerged so far so why don’t we just coo over these images like good little fanboys.

After using my initial design to learn the ropes, I’ve revisited photoshop and coded a simpler, cleaner interface. I hope you like it

Now I can stop fannying about and get on to the important stuff!