Rayman Origins

Rayman Origins
A review by the Space Janitor, aka King Nerd (Nerd King is also recognized)

Rayman has been around long enough that most gamers are familiar with our propeller headed, limbless friend or they have at least heard of him. For those of you who still have no idea what I’m talking about, here is a brief history. Rayman has been around since 1995, at least. That’s all you’re getting out of me. If you want to know the skinny on Rayman and all his multiple console adventures, including a limited series of educational games, check out http://www.rayman-fanpage.de/history/storye.htm .

Now that the familiarities are over and done with, we can crack this bitch open and see what’s cookin’. My immediate attraction to this game is the abundant use of colors and artistic style. I remember following this game since I first read a preview in one of those nerd magazines and they were breaking down how they were giving artists full creative control to just be able to create masterpieces and breathe animated life into them, using some fancy new technology, the UbiArt Engine. (I don’t know all the details of this engine, but I’m sure this guy, the creative director, does. http://www.gamespot.com/rayman-origins/previews/rayman-origins-qanda-with-michel-ancel-creative-director-6336549/ )

All of this control and freedom gave birth to some of the most beautiful games I have ever laid my eyes on.  Yes, that includes epic games of madness like Skyrim or Gears of War 2, or Crysis 2 or  ( I didn’t play 3 yet, so suck it) or or or whatever game you may consider visually stunning, just not in a 3D or technical way (meaning you won’t be awestruck by the lighting and reflections and shadows and all that technical crap that looks so pretty for us nerds). The colors bounce off the screen from the very beginning. The title screen and intro, hums with creative energy. The jungles are super lush, actually look soft in some places, and the use of greens are outstanding. The sky in various levels is brilliant, the clouds of marshmallows are touchable. Underwater levels are sights to be withheld. Blues and the ancient feel of lost civilaziations is enough to make you feel like Jacques Cousteau when traversing through a maze of illuminated jellyfish, avoiding their hunger and dodging falling rocks, eager to crush you.

Initially, like any classic platformer, you do a lot of running and jumping and the like, but as you progress, you learn new abilities, like hovering, running upside down on ceilings and up walls, you know, all the cool shit that made people fall in love with Rayman to begin with. And it all works lovely. The controls are as simple and basic as any early Mario game and just as much fun. As I mentioned earlier, the art design is just phenomenal. Floating through the sky with your propeller during desert sand storms while avoiding orange birds that look more like abstract street art than enemies, is a blast to see. Speaking of the desert, it’s alive with music. Native drums haphazardly tossed in the sand provide opportunities for super jumps, enemies sit on music line and horns are known to blow when they please.

While I’m on the topic of music, let’s visit this superb soundtrack for a few minutes. Whoever put some of these songs together, is a complete genius. Some of the underwater songs are so breathtaking that they literally make you feel submerged. Not only submerged but exposed to a new alien world of communication as songs in unimagined languages fill your head while you avoid spikes, oversized monsters do back flips while collecting yellow and red lums, Rayman’s version of coins. Collect enough lums and you unlock new characters to play as, new areas to explore and bonus levels. Collecting lums seems easy peasy at first, but believe you me, it gets tough. And although this game looks like an animated masterpiece and has just as much wacky fun as the 16 bit Earthworm Jim series, it packs a punch in the challenge department. Like most platformers, it starts out simple enough, and then the next thing you know you’re cursing like a sailor and getting ready 2 stomp a hole in your floor in frustration. I’ve been there, it happens, and I’m not afraid to admit it. You know what though; I fucking love that about this game. That it looks harmless, the mechanics of the game play are smooth like butter, it’s an absolute treat to see the artwork throughout the levels and yet it can kick your ass. I have been trying to beat this one boss for a while now. He’s a bastard. A relentless, reptilian bastard and I hate his guts, and when I’m done writing this review, I’m going to try and kick his ass again, and will probably be so frustrated that I end up playing something else, but damn it, I love the challenge. And that’s all it is, a challenge. It’s not impossible, it’s just a challenge, and that’s what games should do, and Rayman Origins does it well. They provide an absolutely gorgeous world for you to play in, and a soundtrack to match the never ending creative energy (although I feel it could have used some more songs). Some of these tracks come straight out of paradise, in the most ironic of places, which just takes scene setting to new heights. Being in an arctic environment and seeing slices of fruit floating in the water with blossoming purple plants, and being soothed by tropical island music was awe inspiring for me. As was listening to Mexican music so spicy it makes me want to have a fiesta or raid a village of mamacitas while flying on the back of a pink mosquito that shoots stuff.

Word to mosquitoes. I would like to take a moment to give props to the Mosquito levels of this game. While we all love running and jumping and diving and hovering and climbing stuff, there is nothing better than a good, old-fashioned shooter side mission, and there are quite a few of these gems scattered about the game. In my opinion, the developers borrowed heavily from Earthworm Jim here. For those of us old enough to remember Earthworm Jim’s 16 bit glory, think back on the sequel, and the level where you had to fly through a field of hot air balloons that had been armed with bombs and make sure you didn’t get weighed down by the catapulted obese island people. Well, it kind of reminded me of that, but then again, Rayman always had awesome level design now that I remember it.

I feel that I’m getting to ramble mode so I’d like to bring this latest transmission to a proper closing. In order to do that, I need to remind all of you that Rayman Origins, a highly slept on game that performed weak in the sales department is a gem. Its simple gameplay, brilliant colors, gorgeous level designs, satisfying soundtrack and a solid challenge ( I still haven’t even beaten this game yet, I’m definitely close though, and if I’m not close, well then that will just make this game even fucking better) make this game a definite keeper. It’s also being sold for about twenty or thirty dollars brand spanking new at your local store, so I implore all lovers of platform games, music and art to support this game and the creative team behind this amazingly simple and fun game. I hear that there is co op mode too, where you and up to three more friends can all play at once, and kick the crap out of one another while its done, but like an idol of mine once said, “I’m a loner Dottie, a rebel.”

Space Janitor

Graphics: 10 I’m giving this a 10 point rating because of the artistic design implemented in the levels. Sure it’s a 2D game and it doesn’t push the hardware to its limits, but its breathtaking and a true joy to look at.

Sound: 8 I love this soundtrack, I only wish there was more of it to hear.

Overall Fun: 9 As I mentioned, I haven’t even experienced the multiplayer and I already have a blast playing this game. It accomplishes what good games are supposed to do. Allow you to have fun while progressing through challenging experience.

Final Thought: Buy that shit, its classic, inspiring and will go down in history as a timeless game experience in an age of gorgeous, visually capable consoles. And it’s affordable.

I always loved Casiopea, I've mentioned them on here many moons ago, and they have once again blown my mind with their song "Smiles." When I hear this song, its like being in love. My heart literally moves. Call me corny, call it what you will, but this song has that power behind it. If I close my eyes and listen to this, it transcends me. The obvious bass guitar is like warm butter, but the organs that come and go are just fantastic. The whole song in general plays my chakras like a musical instrument. I can just meditate on colors and breathing and focus and happiness. Almost like doing drugs to stabilize a deficiency or to remind you to just slow down and realign yourself physically and mentally. Re-listening to this while I write this, just gives me the sensation of dropping weight, spraying colors and energy like a wet dog shaking away the rain water. Life is good. We just tend to not realize it because we are so distracted by what its supposed to be and look like. What it smells like and tastes like and is acceptable by others.. Casiopea does a superb job of making all of that noise go away for a little while.

Sharif don't like it

A man who dressed like a sheikh stood amongst the broken stones on top of the sun baked hill. With his sunglasses and binoculars he spots an armadillo running in the desert and these guys with guitars are jamming in front of an oil rig. For reasons currently unknown, the man flees with a red boombox in hand....

That is all I saw and all I needed to know when I first saw this video and heard this song. I was only 5 and it made a huge impression on me and how I saw the world. There were these guys on TV who were dressed like they were from the future, and it dawned on me that there is a whole world out there, and it listens to music and is expressive and creative and different. I was too small too understand the messages in the video or behind the lyrics but I didn't care. This was the early 1980s, there were people from the future on TV playing music in the desert with that armadillo and I loved it.

Fast forward to 2012 and you find me listening to this song before the sun comes out to play. The love is still there, the music is still there, the only difference is now I watch the Clash on YouTube and I love the messages I never saw as a kid. To me, this song, and video is timeless and will forever kick ass.

So what if this shit isn't new?

It's election day, I should probably be saying something political, or showing crazy pictures of people occupying things like toilets on a train but I honestly could not give a fuck. I've been slowly unplugging myself from the matrix of mainstream media. Televisions are only for nerd box or to watch game shows in the morning. If I need to know the weather, I can ask the sky and if I think she might be lying, I ask the internet. Everything else is mind numbing poison, negative signals and concentrated beams of controlled confusion, orchestrated in a symphony of overexposure and mental radiation. Look at me, talking all fancy... what a fool!
(believes)

Must be time for the farmers to fuck with our heads again. I thought it was twenty after 6 about ten minutes ago, now my computer tells me its 530 AM.  Which seems to be the most retarded shit ever... I mean really, maybe I'm the retard, and there is some super logical reasoning behind why this whole time shift works. I mean there has to be more to it than man's massive ego as he now dictates time to change at his whim. "Change for me time, bend and submit because the word of man is so awesome!!" Get the fuck outta here with that shit.... how the hell are people just changing time. Simple Don, because time, like all language, is a metaphor and I guess since its just a metaphor for what we call 'time,' I guess we can alter the numbers too, since numbers are also just metaphors. You don't see whales and crocodiles meeting up together at 11 o'clock at night to go hunting or practice some mating calls. I mean I guess in a way, the animals have their own internal clocks and stuff, but I think that will have to wait, because I do feel I'm rambling now, and quite a bit too.. so on with the music.

Today I come to spread the sweet sounds of soulful fly goods like orange marmalade for your ears. Lately, I have been listening to the lovely and hypnotically sexy, Teena Marie. A talent that music lovers of all ages will surely miss for many years to come. Although this is one of her more popular songs, I must say that I've been connecting to "Ooh la la la" quite a bit over this past week. The beat grabs me immediately, and it already has me hooked. Then her voice just pours like honey, making me feel like a kid at dance in a school gymnasium. Same sensations of purity and good times. Not only does this song take me to a completely different plane, but its also where the Fugees' and Lauryn Hill, reintroduced the hook of the song to an entirely new generation in the golden era of 1990's hip hop with their mega successful track, Fu-gee-la. Now without further a due...


Let's not forget about this classic, either.

George Marauder and the Cosmic Triggers

Every now and again, some fly shit happens in life. Loved ones have babies, nature gets wild with its weather, you see a kid somewhere and they make you smile and feel inspired to be just as ill as they are, then when you finish looking at the world you start to peep sounds. Birds, animals, the gas in ypur own stomach. Taxis, bus engines, weak drum patterns that blast from other people’s earbuds on the train. Laughter, crying, screams, anger, it’s all chaotic symphony when properly tuned.

We all know that lately, the music that gets the most exposure, is glorified garbage, muddled down hollowness and generally plastic and lifeless. There are always exceptions to the rule, and this case is no different. Over the past few years I began to get to know the music of one of the most slept on talents in the music game, George Marauder. I don’t even know if he recognizes the fact that he’s a player in this game, but he is killing it, and I’m tired of me being one of the only people who know about this slept on giant.  If the style of music, “experimental synth,”  could be described in a few short words, I would have to go with sophisticated and metaphysical therapy.

That’s how it hits me.  I know a lot of you hip hop heads and haters of electronic music and the whole techno, digital nerd scene of soft dance music and bubble gum vomit are raising your eyebrows right now, like wtf?! But there is no need to get skeptical, when its time for Marauder to get busy. Some tracks sound like they came from distant transmissions broadcasts from the depths of oceans, on strange planets. Main Theme, for instance, made me feel like I was a japanamation character, running across some desert against a colossal, blossoming sun. Sweat on the brow, running to or from mysterious forces, dodging alien birds with leather skin and jewels for eyes.  Another personal favorite, for its healing powers, is Freedom.  Made with a Roland JX-10 and an Arp Axxe, this song is just one of the many reasons I have to endorse this album.  

Grape Koolaid, another star child of Marauder, sounds just as good as the title suggests. This one is definitely a banger, and makes me want to surf the cosmos like Norin Radd (that’s the Silver Surfer for all you lames asleep at the wheel). Things You Do, (listed as a J Dilla tribute on the Marauder youtube page) was another one of those powerful songs,  that remind me of warm lights and being underwater. I was feeling the underwater vibe so strongly, that I even made a video for this song with some borrowed aquatic footage. In case you haven’t caught on yet, I think the general theme for this kind of music is metaphysical, therapeutic and healing, in a very psychedelic and natural way.  On the flip side though, a few songs do stand out as being something out of movie, actually… short films should be made to some of these songs. Cathedral, a shout out to the classic super Nintendo game, Chrono Trigger, is a perfect example, as is Mystery Link 1 and Uncertainty. 

Before I get ready to go to work, let me not forget to shine some light onto the beautiful Kool & The Gang tribute and cover to Winter Madness. This one is definitely a timeless classic and also serves as a window into the mind and inspirations of the man behind the synth. I implore all lovers of music to check this guy out, and stay tuned… because he just gave me two new folders of music to digest.

Game Review: Bayonetta (XBOX 360)

“What’s going on? Huh? I’m type confused here, but wow, this looks friggin’ nuts!” These were some of my first thoughts after I popped my copy of Bayonetta into my nerd box. The story is… well I couldn’t really tell you, because it was so bizarre and confusing, in that ‘over the top Japanese* crazy’ way, that I ended up abusing the skip option in about 90% of the cut-scenes I faced.  I know, I know but you love the stories in video games, we all do… but hold onto your complaints for now, because after playing this game for a little while, the chances are pretty good that your bellyaching will be subdued  by some of the most gorgeous visuals I’ve seen in a game in a long time. The backgrounds are pretty and all that, and there are lots of nice details, but what I’d like to really focus on here, are the enemies. The designers and artists of this game really went all out to bring to life some seriously bizarre, mythological beasts that are just breathtaking to encounter. Whether you are facing a two headed, flying dragon which somehow is configured to an upside down, human faced, cement statue  of some sort, or you are going head to head with a gaggle of angels, who look more like golden armored demons than anything holy, you will find yourself being visually stunned throughout this entire game.

The gameplay starts off a bit confusing really, and it can even be a bit overwhelming. Not because it’s so hard to control, but because there are so, so many options for combos, and trying to learn the best way to kick some serious ass while you are being swarmed with enemies who are generally very quick on their feet, can almost make you dizzy. But honestly, once you get your fingers accustomed, it’s a breeze to pull off most moves with no problem. Besides high speed action, button mashing and evading hordes of weird and challenging enemies, you can also slow things down for a few seconds if you can time your evasion moves to basically the very last second before you are about to be hit. These slowdowns will make or break many battles, as you can unload some wild combos and torture attacks. Yes, torture attacks! During your adventures in kicking some major anus, you can periodically pull off a number of torture attacks, which range from guillotines that appear out of thin air, trapping an enemy in a coffin full of spikes, shredding an odd variation of flying sting rays in half with a gigantic chainsaw, and a number of other brutal ways to kill your foes while collecting halos.

Halos? Yes, in this game, although mostly everything you face looks like a crazy beast from the land of make believe, they are actually from some kind of heavenly land and as you kill them, you get golden halos, which can be used to buy weapons, upgrades, items, accessories and various specialty moves to add to your combo arsenal. This is a fun way to customize the way you want to fight. For example, I like to breakdance, which allows me to perform a pretty serious windmill, but all the while my shoes, which are strapped with gigantic guns are spraying the place up in every direction. You can also do special kicks that summon a giant high heeled foot to stomp and kick your enemies in the face, you can even turn into a bird, a wolf and do lots of other really fresh things. Another thing that stands out to me in this game is the variety. Sure, most of the time you are out kicking ass and mashing the controller to pieces, but there are also some small puzzles, and levels that are completely unexpected, like going from fighting a giant monstrosity of a creature, to riding a motorcycle down a highway, and not just any highway, but route 666 which will eventually force you to leave your bike and fight some pretty wild enemies in the middle of traffic, and yes if you aren’t careful you will be hit by a car.. Besides that unexpected and refreshing experience, there are also random mini games between levels that are reminiscent of being at a carnival of all places.

The music is not what you would expect from this game but it works, and it works well. While fighting your way through a number of beautiful and often chaotic areas, you wouldn’t really think you’d find yourself having a huge battle while listening to bubble gum dance music that pays homage to the classic song, Fly Me to The Moon, but you do, and it’s actually awesome. The high tempo and energy make it a perfect score for this game as it works with your own adrenaline as your mashing buttons and holding your breath, hoping to god that you can get another chance to slow down time and shove a boot in some oversized bastard’s ugly face before he decides to rip you in half with claws made of fire and electricity.

With all of this being said, I don’t think I need to remind all of you that this game is so thoroughly enjoyable that you don’t even need to know what the hell is going on, but I will, because to this day, I still have no idea what the heck is going on in this game other than it is gorgeous, fun, challenging, absolutely over the top and basically is one of the best experiences I’ve had on my nerd box. Bottomline here, Bayonetta is out of control and should not be slept on, by anyone. If you don’t believe me, watch these videos. If you still don’t believe 

me, go play the game, and if you aren't convinced by then, well you probably don’t have a pulse.