2009 : Music Review

2009 has been a great year for music and it was hard to narrow down all the great albums released this year into the short(ish) list below;

Pearl Jam “Backspacer” - Pearl Jam return to form with this album and deliver their best in a good few years

Dirty Projectors “Bitte Orca” - A good blend of musical styles (indie R&B anyone) and a great collection of songs

Paramore “Brand New Eyes” - Catchy pop rock that may even top Riot!

Robert Pollard “The Crawling Distance” - Pollards most complete album of the year.

Various “Dark Was The Night” - A great compilation highlighting some of the top bands of 2009

Robert Pollard “Elephant Jokes” - Jam packed with Pollard goodness taking you back to the feelings of Alien Lanes and that era.

Sonic Youth “The Eternal” - The aging art rockers return with some of their best material since their early 90s output

Vivian Girls “Everything Goes Wrong” - Scratchy and lo-fi but catchy basic punk pop

Circus Devils “Gringo” - The Circus Devils almost chill out on their 2009 release.

The Decemberists “The Hazards Of Love” - A rock opera full of great songs and storytelling

Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Its Blitz” - The YYY's go a bit electro but still manage to maintain their energy

Great Lake Swimmers “Lost Channels” - Perhaps the most varied and interesting GLS album so far

Passion Pit “Manners” - One of 2009s biggest trends was a mix of indie/alternative music and dance. This album captured that sound perfectly

Animal Collective “Merriweather Post Pavilion” - A mix of dance, folk and alternative music this was a great album and many critics choice for album of 2009

Neko Case “Middle Cyclone” - Neko makes a wonderful americana/alt.country album full of charming songs

Various “New Moon Soundtrack” - Possibly the best soundtrack collection of the year that suits the movie perfectly

Biffy Clyro "Only Revolutions" - Imagine Snow Patrol with Balls.

Boston Spaceships “The Planets Are Blasted” - The Boston Spaceships first release of 2009 and packed full of garage rock anthems

Japandroids “Post Nothing” - A fuzzed up blast of punky energy

Real Estate “Real Estate” - Lo-Fi and rustic with a great mellow vibe.

John Vanderslice “Romanian Names” - Some great singer songwriting going on here

Mumford & Sons “Sigh No More” - Folky debut from up and coming band

White Lies “To Lose My Life” - Epic sounding Joy Division a-likes
Bat For Lashes “Two Suns” - A great collection of songs and features the best Karate Kid related song since "Your The Best"

Grizzly Bear “Veckatimest” - Spooky and atmospheric downbeat alternate rock

Empire Of The Sun “Walking On A Dream” - Chilled and relaxing mulitcultural chill out music. Nice make up too.

The Maccabees “Wall Of Arms” - Good old fashioned British indie album

Phoenix “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” - Zesty French Rockers do a mighty fine Strokes sounding album

The xx “XX” - Powerful and delicate album

The Boston Spaceships “Zero to 99” - Fantastic Boston Spaceships album that just edges it as ALBUM OF 2009

2009 : Film Review

2009 has been quite a good year for movies and here is my shortlist for some of the best films I saw over 2009;

Inglorious Basterds - Tarantino returns with his take on a World War 2 movie. Very talky but full of great scenes and ideas. One of his best for a while.

Avatar - A Sci-Fi epic. Good story and plenty of action and looks stunning in 3D.

Star Trek - The Star Trek re-boot ticks all the right boxes. Pure entertainment. By a short nose this is my MOVIE OF 2009.

The Boat That Rocked - Whimsical but sort of reminded me of a Wes Anderson movie at times.

Watchmen - My favourite Graphic Novel gets put on the screen with stunning results.

New Moon - Probably the most downbeat blockbuster but a nice romance with some good action too.

Anvil - Great documentary about long lost Metal band. Funny and sad all at the same time.

Slumdog Millionaire - Fantastic Story thats both gritty and mainstream at the same time.

Terminator:Salvation - Not rated by the Critics but personally I found this a perfect 90s action movie throwback that does exactly what it says on the tin.

District 9 - A mixture of Action flick and social commentary. Great stuff.

There are also a few great films that came out in 2009 that I haven't seen yet but wish to see sometime soon; Fantastic Mr Fox, The Hangover, Where The Wild Things Are, Adventureland, Zombieland, The Hurt Locker and Funny People. Who knows one of these may end up being Movie of 2009 instead?

2009 : Game Of The Year Nominations

Its been an on-off year for gaming with me. I've done a lot of gaming but I have also gone through long periods of gaming inactivity. Here are my nominations for Game of 2009;

Borderlands - Great fun post apocalyptic game. Good in single player but excellent in Co-Op.

Left 4 Dead 2 - Takes what made the original L4D excellent and fine tunes it. Kinda tough though.

Modern Warfare 2 - The big one of the year. Great single player campaign and popular online game.

Brutal Legend - You favourite Rock cliches made into a game. Very funny.

Batman:Arkham Asylum - Deep and involving Batman adventure.

Halo 3:ODST - Trimmed down game set in the Halo Universe. Short but sweet.

Ghostbusters - Captures the spirit of the film perfectly. Bustin' makes you feel good.

Resident Evil 5 - The most cinematic and action heavy Resident Evil yet.

Street Fighter 4 - Chunky cool new look to old school scrapper.

Halo Wars - Real Time Strategy in the Halo Universe.

Choices, Choices.

40,000 Barrier Broken!

Done it! Finally! 40,000 has finally been achieved by playing some Avatar last night (not a terrible game).

Coming soon...The end of year Best Of's......

Can I Hit 40,000 Before 2010?

My gamerscore currently stands at 39,820 and my aim is go get the final 180 gamerscore before 2010 hits in a couple of weeks. Any suggestions for games that give good gamerscore? Blood Bowl is impossible to get points from.

Left 4 Dead 2 Review

Left 4 Dead was certainly a big surprise game last year. It did something interesting and fresh with the FPS genre, creating something simple to play but at the same time unique and most importantly of all Fun to play. Left 4 Dead 2 is more of the same.

The gameplay is pretty much the same, the graphics looks a bit tweaked and detailed, and new monsters have been added to the mix along with 5 new campaigns to play through and some new game modes.

The game still plays the same but I feel like they have tweaked the difficulty up a notch or two and in certain maps it is tough to get to the end even on the Normal mode. The hordes of zombies seem to come at you a lot more, and sometimes you are fighting off a couple of Tanks at once and your team will die and have to respawn way back at the start of the level. This can make L4D2 a much more frustrating experience that the original L4D.

However if you are a L4D veteran you will loves the new tweaks to the game and look forward to some new levels to shoot zombies in. Online this game easily beats Modern Warfare.

8.5/10

Blood Bowl Review

Many many moons ago I used to play Blood Bowl. It was a board game and is a sort of violent fantasy American football with lots of rules and dice rolling. Blood Bowl is the board game in computer form and it follows the rules of the original game exactly. You even hear and see the dice rolling and the results. It’s a game of strategy but also a game of chance.

The presentation of the game is a bit bland, menus look like 10 year old PC menus, and the game itself looks okay but lacks any real character or zip. The stadiums are a little bland, the players a bit one-dimensional and lacking in any varying animations however it does capture the board game perfectly.

The game is very tough. I have been playing it over a week and have only won 1 or 2 games. Just when you think you have nailed down the tactics you fumble a ball and the opposing team have scored a Touchdown. It can be frustrating and has one of the steepest learning curves and toughest difficulties I have seen on a video game. If you can persevere and look beyond its presentational faults you can get sucked in and addicted to the game and appreciate it for what it is but it’s not a game for the casual player of faint of heart.

7/10