Well, it’s out.

Trent Reznor, aka Nine Inch Nails, having freed himself from corporate stupidity has released a 36-track instrumental album in the form of four nine-track EPs. There are many purchase options; many more than would accompany a typical record label release.

The album was released without any prior advertisement; and in mere hours after its release, the incredible thing is that, of the 2500 $300 deluxe special editions made available, there are now no longer any left to buy. It’s funny that. People will pay good money for music, without even having heard it, when they can see value for money. Yet, the record companies don’t seem to understand this. Hmm.

I personally tried the (sans-DRM) free download; immediately fell in love with the songs, and bought the $10 2CD set. Even after paying for shipping direct from the US, the total cost ended up just shy of $26; about $10 cheaper than I would’ve had to pay had I purchased this from a shop somewhere nearby and as a bonus, it’ll be delivered direct to my door. Typically bricks and mortar stores charge through the nose ($50 for a 2CD set is not unheard of) for ‘obscure’ foreign music. Of course, Trent knows this, having spoken-out at a show here in Australia in late 2007.

Fuck the RIAA. Fuck the labels. I want to see more bands getting onto their own thing and doing what Trent Reznor has done here. It’s a beaut idea that I, and many others worldwide no doubt, will dutifully embrace.

Woah!

Midnight Juggernauts’ album Dystopia was released Saturday the 4th. I went and bought it on the day and have had a few days time to listen through it. I have to say, it has some standout tracks, but overall… I feel it’s fairly mediocre! Which is a shame. I hastily handed over the $30 and gleefully accepted the brown paper bag containing my prize from my local Music Shop, but was thoroughly nonplussed after my first listen.

I thought to myself, “Remember Owen, this happened when you first heard Shadows from the Shadows EP on JJJ…” and remembered how utterly confused I was by it. It sounded nothing like Raised by Wolves or any of the other tracks from their self-titled EP, though after a few listens, it definitely grew on me; Tombstone is definitely the best song on that EP; if not one of their best.

Unfortunately though, I think that’s part of the problem. You see, on the thirteen-track Dystopia, there are eight previously unreleased tracks; one of which is an intro track, one of which is a noise/filler track with no substance, and one of which is a very short two-minute experimental track. So basically, of the thirteen-tracks, you’re only getting five new songs for your money. Well, if you include the bonus CD, you’re actually getting nine new tracks (two of which are remixes, and one live) for your money, from a total of nineteen.

Stand-out songs are Ending of an Era (heard it on JJJ), Road to Recovery (been on their MySpace for months), Nine Lives (a new track that impressed me by being more electronic than trance), and Jump The Gun (quite dancy, very much a bop-along song), from the bonus CD.

So, I’m going to listen through the album a few more times over and hope that the other songs which don’t seem to grab my attention at the moment manage to grow on me. I dearly hope that they do. If not, seeing them play live at the end of the month is sure to galvanise my appreciation of the tracks I already love, and perhaps improve my opinion on the ones I may not grow fond of. Hearing Midnight Juggernauts live impressed me so much last time I listened to their two EPs over and over and over again for the millionth time.

I hold high hopes.

The Introduction

New Super Mario Bros. for the DS is a return to a familiar for Mario and Nintendo; the new two-dimensional platformer is a feature-filled quest with the purist of intentions and gameplay.

The Background Story

The Mario series of games is synonymous with the Nintendo moniker. Indeed, much like Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario is one of the most well-known computer game characters of all time. Despite Sonic being inherently ‘cooler’ with many young people because of his speed, cool tricks and care-free attitude, Mario’s affection and undying devotion to Princess Peach earns him some points in the hearts of guys and girls alike. New Super Mario Bros. is a return to the grass roots for Nintendo — one of their first and most popular titles, Super Mario Bros., was released on NES back in the late eighties.

The series has come full circle after detouring slightly into three dimensions with the release of Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo64 some years ago. Mario has returned to his two-dimensional ways, with a bang, and as usual, Princess Peach has managed to get herself kidnapped by one of the Bowser family –this time Bowser Jnr., and it’s up to Mario to save the day.

First up: the box and its contents

The box art is typical of the Mario series; it shows Mario prominently, and displays some of the other characters in the game. This particular image though seems to allude to the effect that the Mega Mushroom has on Mario, with him towering over everything else.

New Super Mario Bros. supports wireless multiplayer for two to four players, and you only need one game cart to access all of the multiplayer features of the game. There are two different types of multiplay: a versus mode where Mario and Luigi battle each other to collect stars in one of five different, circular levels, and a minigames mode where up to four players can play any one of 28 included minigames. Nineteen of these minigames are available in single-player also.

The documentation booklet accompanying the game is very thorough, colourful and informative. It details each of Mario’s abilities and how to perform his special moves, as well as instructing you on the basic Mario gameplay mechanics (how Mushrooms work), for those that are (heaven forbid) new to the series.

Thats all well and good, but how does it play?

The gameplay of New Super Mario Bros. is excellent. At walking pace, Mario moves very slowly and the game is quite easy for the first few worlds; however, hold down the dash button and you are in for a surprise, as the difficulty increases greatly and you are left wondering if your Mario skills really are up to scratch!

The various gameplay elements in New Super Mario Bros. seem to be a collection of everything from all Mario games in the past, with some new additions: there’s all of Mario’s regular moves from the old two-dimensional side-scrollers, plus his Ground Pound and other tricks from Super Mario 64, and now there’s also the ability to wall-jump, which makes for some challenging coin-collecting sequences within the game.

New Super Mario Bros. can be played through quickly — easily within four or five hours — if you blast through the levels without much thought for the real challenge within the game. To unlock various parts of each world, and also to gain access to two of the eight worlds, you need to pay a toll of Star Coins. There are three Star Coins to collect in each level; sometimes they are obvious, and sometimes they are hidden, or require you to perform a special series of tricks to be able to obtain them. There are 80 levels in total throughout the game, set in one of eight different environments: plains, desert, tropical island, forest, ice, mountains, sky, and Koopa Kingdom.

The multiplayer versus mode is awesome fun, but it does lose its appeal more quickly than the minigames. Although most of the minigames are simple, there are a few complex puzzle and card-based games that do challenge your brain, especially when you play against other people. One nice feature of New Super Mario Bros. is that four players need only one game cart to utilise all of the multiplayer features.

How it sounds: new, updated and remixed

The music accompanying most of the levels in the singleplayer adventure is new. Most of the tracks are ‘airy’ sort of sympathetic tunes that accompany the gameplay well; they play in the background and add to the atmosphere, propping up the sound effects and on-screen action to a tee. There are some excellent remixes on the playlist also; with the classic World 1-1 music from the original Super Mario making its renewed aural appearance in Toadie’s mushroom houses you visit along the way; as well as the classic World 1-2 underground techno being brought back to life with some sleek new musical stylings.

How it looks: 20 years of refinement

If you weren’t aware, 2006 is Mario’s 20th anniversary. In such time he has appeared in a plethora of games. New Super Mario Bros. has 20 years of graphic history behind it. The uniquely stylized features of the various graphical elements in the game are instantly recognisable, such as the half-circle hilltops in the background, the cutesy, perfect grass, and the wandering, docile enemies. The main adventure game is presented in “2.5D”; whereby the majority of the background and enemies are two-dimensional sprites, with Mario and select enemies being rendered in a full three dimensions. The animation is smooth and the framerate constant.

New Super Mario Bros. makes extensive use of the touchscreen for each of the minigames, though its utilisation is limited in the main adventure game. Basically all of the minigames (bar perhaps one, which uses the microphone) make use of the touch-screen in some manner.

The Verdict

New Super Mario Bros. is a culmination of all Super Mario games prior; it combines the traditional graphical stylings with all the old moves, and introduces some new ones too. The gameplay is tried and true, the music is superb and does its job well, and the minigames and fully-featured multiplayer round out a top game overall.

If I were to give it a score out of ten, I’d give it a nine.

The Introduction

Sonic Rush for Nintendo’s DS platform is a fast-paced, action-packed platformer that will put the most hardened of gamer to the test, while still offering new players a challenging and exciting gameplay experience.

The Background Story
Anyone who has been interested in gaming in the past fifteen years will have heard of Sega’s chief protagonist, Sonic the Hedgehog; his first appearance in 1991 in the original game “Sonic the Hedgehog” on Sega’s Master System platform concreted his position as Sega’s mascot, rivalling Nintendo’s Mario for popularity. Sonic’s in-game appearances are numerous, though he is most famous for appearances in games titled in his namesake, which have been released on all of Sega’s hardware platforms, as well as PC, and since Sega’s exit from the console hardware market, Sonic has also appeared on Nintendo consoles, and will be released in the future on Sony’s PlayStation 3, Microsoft’s XBox360, and Nintendo’s Wii.

First and Foremost: The packaging, in-game menus, and out-of-the-box features

As you would expect, Sonic Rush comes in a small square-shaped case like most other Nintendo DS games. The box-art is typical of Sonic titles in that it displays Sonic and Blaze the Cat prominently, as well as the title of the game.

Out of the box, Sonic Rush supports 1-2 players with either one or two game carts; the gameplay style is versus, and each player must race against the other to reach the end of the chosen level. Each player can choose one of the two playable characters, but you have to be quick! Once one player has chosen, the other cannot choose the same character. Using Download Play to verse your opponent unfortunately limits the gameplay to the first level only; presumably if both players have the game cart, more levels are available in the multiplayer game mode.

The documentation accompanying the game is thorough and informing; it details each of the two character’s special moves and explains how to perform some of the more advanced in-game tricks, which I will cover later. The in-game menus are simple and intuitive, and allow for quick and easy gameplay.

The Gameplay

The most important part: how the game plays. My first impression, honestly: amazing. Simply mind-blowing. You know when you were a kid, and you played the original Sonic on the Master System or Megadrive, and you wondered at the possibility of what the game would be like if there were more crazy loops, and what would happen if the Super Sneakers made you even faster, and just how fast could you make Sonic spin in the Spin Dash if you could only mash the button that little bit faster?

Sonic Rush answers all of those questions. As the last Sonic game I played was Sonic 2 on Megadrive a few weeks ago, I suppose I am a little underexposed to the Sonic game repository. However, I have played all incarnations of Sonic on the Megadrive platform, as well as a 3D platformer Sonic game on PC some years ago. None of them come close to the experience that Sonic Rush offers, and I’m going to tell you why.

Sonic Rush extends upon the established Sonic platformer gameplay style by implementing several enhancements to the environment that Sonic interacts with as well as giving Sonic the ability to perform some new tricks. It is fast and furious; and is both unforgiving and sympathetic at the same time. How is this so? At the end of each Act (there are two Acts to a Zone), you are given a rundown of the points you earned in the level, and based on that, you are also given a grade, primary-school style, such that you can achieve yourself an A, B or C. The highest grade achievable is S, presumably that means you are Special.

The game can be played quickly (when you take full advantage of Sonic’s Quick Dash) which increases the difficulty, or you can play through the game slowly. Either way, you will still reach the end, and this lends itself to the duality of gameplay styles I mentioned earlier. Of course, if you want to get an S for each Act and boss level, you must of course complete the Acts as fast as possible with as many rings as possible.

The Music

Special mention goes to the excellent music backing each level in Sonic Rush. Although it’s heavily based on funk and hip-hop style, the music compliments the game perfectly and really sets the mood for each level. It’s comparable to the musical quality and suitability to that of the Red Alert and Command and Conquer series. You can read more about Sonic Rush’s sound track and its writer over at Wikipedia.

The Graphics

The graphics style in Sonic Rush is composed of a two-dimensional background and level with the player character (and certain elements of the level) (Sonic or Blaze) being polygonal and cell-shaded. This is essentially just like two-dimensional platformers of old, with the exception of a three-dimensional player character, which allows for some neat special effects and other nice graphical features, such as in Mirage Road where Sonic steps onto a three-dimensional platform that revolves around and ‘out’ of the level such that it is rendered in full three-dimensional space closer to the player.

Sonic Rush also makes extensive and intuitive use of the DSs dual screens; when the player character drops below a certain point in the level, they will fall into the lower screen of the console. Likewise, when the action moves to higher ground, the upper screen is used to display the action. This is sometimes a hinderence and takes a little getting used to, but it does make good use of the dual screen technology. During the special stages that are reminiscent of the half-pipe ring collection levels from the older Sonic titles, the player character is controlled using the touchscreen, as opposed to the D-pad.

Boss levels are rendered in a full three dimensions and played in three dimensions too. The graphics here are quite nice, with the only detraction being that the two-dimensional sprites used for explosions are apparent and obvious.

The Verdict

All things considered, Sonic Rush to me is what the Sonic games of old should have been: really fast, really bright, and really fun. With more loop-the-loops and fast-paced areas than any other two-dimensional Sonic platformer, I would say that Sonic Rush takes the cake as the best Sonic game available in two-dimensions.

If I were to give it a score out of ten, I’d give it a nine.

Further reviews:
Sonic Rush review @ Gamespot
Sonic Rush review @ IGN

About a year ago I bought myself an iPod mini. I figured, after doing some research, that the standard headphones simply wouldn’t cut it. They were simple earbuds, and being bundled with the iPod, were guaranteed to be cheap. Everyone knows that earbuds bundled with electronics equipment are always cheap and nasty.

So I decided I’d replace them with something a little better. After scouting around a little on the OCAU forums, I came to the conclusion that a set of Koss KSC-50 headphones would do just the trick.

The place I bought them from has this to say about the headphones:

The Koss KSC-50 is a clip-on headphone designed for portable use, it has fantastic sound for the price and often surprises people by outclassing far more expensive headphones with it’s big sound and small pricetag.

First of all, the good things:

• ● The headphones are as advertised. The packaging is simple, and the headphones arrived in a plastic shaped carton that contained only the headphones and the lifetime warranty information.
• ● The lifetime warranty is an awesome feature of the product (well, it’s an awesome feature of the company who makes the product).
• ● Being an ‘open’ design, the casing of the speakers on each headphone allows the speaker inside to breathe. As can be seen from the photo above, the outer casing is a metal mesh material which allows airflow in and out of the speaker. This helps to achieve an ‘airy’ sound. This saves bass from sounding ‘muddy’ and muffled, and also helps to deliver higher tones in better condition.
• ● The sound itself is clear: defined, they were probably the best headphones I have ever used. They were crisp and responded well to all the music I put through them.
• ● The price: available at around $64.00, these are not expensive headphones.

Now, the bad:

• ● The lifetime warranty is good, but you have to send the headphones back to America to redeem it. This can potentially leave you without music for several weeks, and if you’re like me, this simply isn’t an option.
• ● The open design allows outside noise to ‘leak’ into the music. Usually this can be remedied by simply increasing the volume, but if you are faced with particularly loud, high- or low-pitched noises or continual sounds, you will always hear them through the music. This can be considered an advantage in a way, as they are portable headphones you are potentially going to be using them while walking somewhere — the leakage of outside noise can potentially alert you to dangers such as large vehicles moving past.
• ● Upper-range and mid-range tones are fine, though as you move lower through the frequency spectrum the bass response of the speakers is reduced. Music from The Prodigy and similar artists that rely on a lot of deep, slow bass sounds not so great on these headphones. While the speakers are able to replicate the frequency of the bass, their small size and low power preclude them from being able to make any impact on your eardrums with the bass tones. This problem affects all small headphones however.
• ● The clip design is flawed. After several months of heavy usage, the bluish-grey rubber portions of the clip have actually snapped off my set of headphones. Inside them is metal wire much like you find in children’s bendy toys that allow you to shape the clip to your ear. My headphones have actually rusted and broken in this part.

So all in all, well worth the money for what I paid. Since breaking I have ordered a pair of the Koss KSC-75 [1], [2], which is effectively the same headphone with an upgraded clip design and an aesthetics facelift.

I would give the KSC-50 a definite 7/10.

Music used to test headphones: Fear Factory, Devolved, Chimaira, 36 Crazyfists, Analog Pussy, The Prodigy, Cog, Karnivool, Dry Kill Logic, Korn, In Flames, Jerk, Pendulum, System Of A Down, Trivium (just to name a few).

• ■Model number: KSC-50
• ■Weight: 28g
• ■Impedance: 60ohm
• ■THD: <0.2%
• ■Sensitivity: 101 dB SPL/1mW
• ■Open/Closed: Open
• ■Transducer type: Dynamic
• ■Ear Coupling: Supraaural
• ■Frequency response: 15-25,000 Hz
• ■Cable length: 1.2m

Although this review was written some time ago and is published on OCAU, I’ll link it from here anyway. It took me about four hours or so to write the review, and I tried to be as artistic/creative as possible in my writing while maintaining a degree of objectivity and reviewing fairly. I think that my review is a damn good one.

Here you go: review.