Tagged: computergames

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Incubus have started promoting their new album by releasing a computer game. It's an 8-bit style game in which you control the band as they, erm, punch people trying to leak their album in the face . I'm guessing they've gone with an 8-bit look for the game because their music also sounds like it depends on ideas which were briefly in vogue in the late 1980s. The punchline to their attempts to sell albums through violently patronising fans is that the record has, erm, already leaked. Perhaps Incubus should spend less time punching fans [...]

The PC gaming platform has always been a favorite of mine. There is no doubt that I will sink over $700 into buying a few new PC components before I even think about buying the new $300 console. Something about getting my hands dirty, figuratively speaking, in my own creation, swapping out old parts for new and then booting it back up gives me such an amazing feeling. Until I fail to connect something really important and hear complete silence. That part sucks. Funny that I should mention [...]

If you had an Amiga, then congratulations! You're old now.

Pigeon doesn't really play video games (Robot is the geeky one). So don't ask me how I came to watch this trailer for something called 'Assassin's Creed: Revelations', but I did, and here it is: Aside from the lack of Sonic The Hedgehog, what is it that stands out about that game trailer? That is correct: the music. It took us hours of research to find out what the song was... ...but eventually we followed the paper trail to Woodkid 's 'Iron'. [...]

Courtney Love's much-tweeted threat of legal action against Activision seems to have fallen by the wayside, but Band Hero has still had a run-out in court. No Doubt sued because they say that although they signed up to be in the game, nobody gave Activision the right to make Gwen sing in a bloke's voice, or the band dance "unnaturally". Activision counter-sued that this was a breach of free speech (because the Founding Fathers really foresaw this question when they framed the constitution), calling for the lawsuit to be thrown out. [...]

Having realised that there wasn't really any synergy between MTV and the RockBand game franchise, Viacom have flogged off their games studio, Harmonix . But, hey, it isn't a humiliating climbdown - they made $25m over what they paid, and are able to push out a press release with a bit of dignity: "Harmonix has and will continue to create terrific video games, but for us, it is about focus. The console games business requires an expertise and scale that we don't have," chief executive Philippe Dauman said. Of course, we could have told them [...]

Wish you were here guys! xxx

I remember playing Oregon Trail on Apple IIs in elementary school. Loved it. Right up there with Lemonade Stand in terms of 8-bit edu-tainment . Just in time for Halloween comes the apocalyptic Organ Trail , from a band of developers known as The Men Who Wear Many Hats . How long can you survive ? RELATED : Awesome: Sears Website Gets Zombified TCB: Zombie and Day of the Dead Elvis Busts on Etsy SF: Headin' [...]

Sorry for my relative quietness lately - my girlfriend's been staying, and she's very attractive. I'm fully focused now though, so let's consider MidiMidis , aka London duo Ant Struselis and Marcus Fairley. Are they London's answer to MGMT (two strange-os making fiercely intelligent, bedroom-based electro pop)? No. MidiMidis are a bit less grandiose than their famous fellow twosome. But their songs are just as appealing: as sugary as candy-floss and as innocent-brackets-fucked-up as Alice in Wonderland. Throw in Super Mario electronica sounds and a unexpected gravelly, punkish male voice and you've got a winning cocktail of confusion. Much more in this interview with the excellent A New Band [...]

• Midi Midis - Note To Self

An oldie, but a goodie. No related posts.

Highly recommended is PaidContent's interview with MTV's games SVP Paul DeGooyer . He's firstly trying to put a brave face on the decline in sales of Rock Star type games - "not as sharp" as we might think, apparently; then he ponders where the future might lay: "Songs and music games need to be a part of people's self-expression. Developments in terms of console interfaces are going to make it, literally, more gestural to interact with music." Literally more gestural. My self-expression will literally be more gestural. Frankly, I can't wait for the future. [...]

We can't all wait for our widow to sign papers to make a mis-shapen version of our heads appear in a computer game, but there's good news if you're desperate to be part of the Rock Band world. MTV is planning to allow people to upload their own music to the game . The idea is simple enough: Rock Band gets boring quite quickly when you've only got a limited number of tunes. But developing new songs is costly, and doesn't actually make any new money for the franchise. Solution: Invite people to upload their [...]

Yes, yes, it's era-end days for your Wogan and your O'Grady and your More4News. (Don't you hope Catherine Tate will pop in to the More4News studios to run through a best-of bits as she did for O'Grady?) But another era is also being wound up, as Owen Pallett is no longer going to be trading as Final Fantasy. At legal gunpoint : riends, I began playing solo violin shows in 2004. Although it was essentially a solo project, I named the band Final Fantasy, as the experience-- and the tone of the material-- [...]

mi-sex - "computer games" (download) Another one from the original Bomarr Blog . Released in 1979, Mi-Sex 's "Computer Games" went to number one in their home country of Australia. They had a few other minor hits, but none of them came close to what they did with this song. This record is yet another long lost new wave classic.

Erik Estavilo is upset with World Of Warcraft. Upset to the point of issuing lawsuits: Estavillo believes that the game's monthly subscription fee is too high and that its various other charges are too numerous, and he also believes that the game contributes to his sense of alienation. It's not clear from reports if he's happy to be alienated providing that he doesn't get overcharged for it, or if he doesn't expect to be alienated paying prices like that. You'll have stood behind people like this in queues at customer services in Sainsburys. This [...]

Sweeping The Nation turns the NME best-of into a game.

If I were the games industry and keen for ideas how to protect myself in the face of digital rights meltdowns, I'm not sure I'd turn to the music industry for tips. They have, though, getting Feargal Sharkey in for his ideas. (The Independent piece is a bit vague about who, exactly, it is who asked him.) Sharkey takes pride in what he has done, mind: "We still haven't cracked the problem," he said. "Then again, we're six years ahead of, say, the games industry." Bloody hell, if the games [...]

Of course, it's only a bit of fun, but simply because there were more searches for "Beatles" than "Jesus" on Google for a couple of days doesn't mean that "the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. Mainly because people don't type the things they like into a search box. Otherwise I'd be constantly harrying Google for coffee and kisses. And because The Beatles had something new-ish out, you'd probably expect that to have happened. If Jesus had just issued a remastered version of The Bible, or a computer game ("feed 5,000 people using [...]

The Beatles computer game isn't all about making more money for The Beatles and their estates, you know. Oh, no ; it's going to usher in a new era of world peace, says Yoko: She explained: "I think game is the second revolution. In the beginning they made a splash with their music; with the video game we're going to create a planet of music and art. "Music and art are both very interesting healing vibrations, and with that vibration we can create the world we've always wanted, a world of peace." [...]