My end of year blogging grind concludes with the long list of my top 100 songs of 2010. It will be a familiar format like how I did it last year. Also, the majority of the songs will have their video attached, so enjoy.
This song was just too sick when it came out at the beginning of the year and still is today.
4) Rihanna - "Only Girl (In the World)"
Let's face it, this song is what Rihanna needed for her latest album Loud to be successful. Plus, I just go nuts every time it gets played, so just imagine me at the clubs going off. Oh, the video is just perfect for this song too.
3) Wiz Khalifa - "Black & Yellow"
This is like the catchiest song I heard in a long time. I was late to the "Black & Yellow" train, but now I know why everyone loves the chorus because "Uh huh, u know what it is." Of course, this song has spawned many remixes especially LA's favorite "Purp & Yellow" in honor of the Lakers.
2) Kanye West - "Runaway" feat. Pusha T
From the moment he premiered it at the MTV Video Music Awards, Kanye's "Runaway" is just one of those songs that are pure genius. So let's have a toast for the u know what.
The Playstation Store had to go nuts on this week's update since Christmas is just around the corner (well this weekend!) as they put out a lot of games to download, a PS1 classic I remembered loving with Front Mission 3, the Neo Geo station (that's a whole another story), lots of DLC, and of course, there big demos. It is appropriate we do a Demo Showcase post with these three big games that are out next month.
We start off with a sequel to one of the better original games of this console generation with Dead Space 2. Honestly, I didn't play the original at all and this demo was first time with this rising franchise. Playing through it late at night, I can see why this game is pretty crazy and the sequel will take things to the next level. The way Visceral Games does the HUD in these games is still pretty cool for today's times as more and more games are trying to have as limited a HUD as possible. What I classify Dead Space though is a survival shooter, as Issac Clarke, you are trying to survive the Necromorph threat with some weapons at your disposal, but with limited ammo at times. We'll see with the sequel if they made the game more shooter-y, but so far they have retained the survival aspect as any enemy can just swoop on in and kill you if you're not careful. Plus, this is a very atmospheric game with dark backgrounds, so you're expected to get a little spooked when enemies pop up. The initial scare does kick in, but it depends how much you can take scares in a game like this. I didn't get a chance to play the multiplayer beta, which is another big feature for Dead Space 2, but it seems like another of those games that is willing to take a chance having some sort of a multiplayer component to an otherwise single-player heavy game. Dead Space 2 is out next month and already shaping off to be the first big gaming hit of 2011.
Mass Effect 2 finally comes out for PS3 next month and good thing EA decided to release a pretty lengthy demo to give PS3 newcomers a chance what they're missing out on the Xbox 360 versions. They already gave you a scenario that you didn't decide on for this demo as there are two main sections to play through, which are the introduction to Jacob and Miranda as well as the part you're recruiting Mordin. This was also my first time with the game as I didn't play it on 360 in hopes of maybe getting it for myself to continue the story and get ready for Mass Effect 3. The BioWare choices model is still in place as well as making easy Paragon/Renegade decisions especially on the spot when an icon appears on the corner. The camera angles were still fixed in the dialogue-heavy cutscenes as some were just weird at times, so I'm assuming they're fixed for the final PS3 version. I can't make exact comparisons between the two console versions graphically, but the PS3 version so far looks fine to me. As far as gameplay is concerned, it still felt like Mass Effect with the shooting, which seems to be improved, and biotic powers along with the wheel to access different weapons and powers (I rolled with my class that I rocked from the first game, which was the Vanguard class). We'll see in the final game if people were right of Mass 2 being more shooter-heavy and as much RPG elements as they wanted. After playing through the demo, I'm more likely on getting Mass Effect 2 on PS3 next month as I enjoyed the first game a lot on 360 and I never had the opportunity to continue the story of Shepard till now.
Now for a little more cutesy as a demo for LittleBigPlanet 2 came out yesterday too. This demo is pretty much a story mode introduction as many people had their opportunity to mess around with the new create tools making any game they want to with the beta. Three story levels are available to play here as they demonstrate Sackboy's new toys with grappling hooks and Robo-buns. I haven't noticed any significant changes to the platforming as it felt the same to me for now, but now there are crazier levels to go through in this new entry. Despite the demo being story mode only, this game is pretty big and loaded with content like the first game with all the user-created levels. Honestly I didn't get that much into the first LBP, but I still have high hopes for LBP2. Maybe its not for me, but we'll see if I get it next month.
With the games part done, now we continue on with my top 10 albums of the year...
10) Bruno Mars - Doo Wops & Hooligans
No one had a bigger year in music like Bruno Mars from his breakout cameo in B.o.B's "Nothing on You" to his debut album featuring hit songs that everyone loves to bust out their own cover version on YouTube as if they are trying to impress some girl. You can not have the radio on and not hear "Just the Way You Are" or even "Grenade" once on a normal day. Doo Wops & Hooligans is a short and sweet album filled with hits that you have been hearing for the past six months. The thing is that Bruno Mars has that "it factor" as an artist and a writer to come up with catchy stuff that everyone loves as I think he will be around for a while in the mainstream music scene.
9) Gorillaz - Plastic Beach
Gorillaz had a crazy year with their recent album, Plastic Beach, and their tour in support of their new material. New and more Gorillaz is always a good thing with the music they put out being a mixture of hip-hop and rock as their own style.
8) Swedish House Mafia - Until One
Now, time for the house music portion of my top 10 and if you know me, you know I love my house/clubby music. Swedish House Mafia's Until One is pretty much a best of house in the past year mixed by them. From "Miami to Ibiza," Axwell's "Leave The World Behind," "Show Me Love" (another nightclub smash), and "One" featuring Pharrell, you got one of the best club mixes out this year and make sure to blast this loud at a party from beginning to end. Great, now I feel like going to Vegas again to go nuts.
7) Deadmau5 - 4x4=12
The house phase continues with Deadmau5's 4x4=12. The mysterious DJ had its breakout year with his hit song (not in this one though) "Ghosts N' Stuff" propelling to the masses to an appearance on the MTV Video Music Awards. I caught on this year like most of the people and surprisingly he dropped out a new album just last month. There are some dubstep stuff at the end which I also enjoy from otherwise a house-heavy album as expected. "Some Chords" and "Sofi Needs a Ladder" are great party starters as well. Now it makes wonder, will Deadmau5 ever do an American tour for this album? If so, I'm so down to experience it for myself.
6) Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
One of the bigger pure hip-hop albums around in a while that is probably not getting as much buzz as it deserves is Big Boi's latest. Well, we are still awaiting an Outkast reunion in the future, but this is the closest thing for now as Big Boi has been holding it down especially with such hits like "Shutterbugg." If you want just straight out hip-hop that does not need any overblown stuff like auto-tune, you can't wrong with Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty.
5) Cee-Lo Green - The Lady Killer
It is also been a great year for Cee-Lo Green with The Lady Killer. I seriously hope he gets the Grammy wins he deserves because this album is pretty good and it is straight up soul goodness. He has been one of those under-appreciated artists in the game too as every know and then he puts out bangers from his older Cee-Lo stuff to the success of the Gnarls Barkley album. With "F*** You" (or "Forget You"), written surprisingly by Bruno Mars, he is back on the mainstream scene especially with that catchy phrase. It is one of those songs that sounds like pure genius as who else could of thought of something like that. However, the album is not all about that breakout single, his other singles, "Bright Lights, Bigger City" and "Its Ok" are amazing songs and personal favorites of mine too. This is one of those can't miss yet under-appreciated albums out this year.
4) Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid
If I had to name my best new artist of the year, it had to be Janelle Monae because her ArchAndroid album is just amazing. This is one of those artists you want to see them succeed because they put out straight up good music rather than succumb to the mainstream pop world where you have your annoying stuff there. "Tightrope" is still one of those bangers that you wanna dance too and the video for "Cold War" is totally something else bringing out our emotional side. Janelle put out a complete album from beginning to end and it establishes herself as one of the better new artists today. She definitely has a future with her sound and hopefully she is allowed to do so.
3) Kid Cudi - Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager
Even though it is not as amazingly good as his debut album's Kid Cudi's sophomore effort is still one of my favorite albums of the year. If treated on its own, The Legend of Mr. Rager is pretty genius as Cudi goes deeper into talking his demons and basically his darker self with where he was at. "Erase Me" is your poppy single in hopes of getting people's attention for the album, but the rest of it is its own beast and you're getting some deep stuff. I thought he would get the sophomore slump with this album, but he proved me wrong putting out another superb classic especially for those that feel like getting high.
2) Daft Punk - Tron Legacy OST
I already have gloated about how amazing Daft Punk's soundtrack for Tron Legacy for the past several weeks, so I don't need to ramble about how amazing it is again since I even mentioned it when I talked about the movie itself. However, I'll say that the soundtrack is a a completely different experience during the movie than just hearing it at home or on your iPod. Some tracks like "Rinzler" and "The Game Has Changed" are just filled with intensity and hearing them in the movie in the right scenes are just crazy. As I already mentioned in the past, Daft Punk has completely changed my view on movie soundtracks now as they set a new standard on how they should be epic.
1) Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
High expectations were definitely set for Kanye West to blow everyone away again after some felt disappointed with 808s and Heartbreak and he managed to do so with MBDTF to the point he exceeded those expectations. This is a masterpiece from beginning to end as you can tell Kanye worked his u know off to make such a classic like this. It definitely deserves its critical praise it has been getting for the past month because it shows how much a genius he is artistically and of course we could not say about his ego. From "Power" to "Runaway," he has outdid himself again putting out one of the greatest albums in the past decade. The "Runaway" film is also a great showpiece for the album and how everything just clicks for what Kanye is going for. Even though some songs feel overblown like the numerous cameos in "All of the Lights" and the Chris Rock bit in "Blame Game," Yeezy can back up his talk being one of the greatest artists in music past, present, or future.
2010 was another great year for games as all three consoles have their shining moment from Microsoft entering the motion control arena with Kinect, Nintendo with more hardcore Wii games, and Sony trying to maintain pace with the other two. Honestly, I missed out on a lot of the third-party blockblusters like Call of Duty: Black Ops, Red Dead Redemption (early candidate for GOTY by others), Mass Effect 2, and others. So my top five games of 2010 (would be ten, but I didn't play enough big games) will be somewhat of a different list than the usual some would expect.
5) Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
This is easily my favorite downloadable game of the year as Namco Bandai managed to top themselves from the original Pac-Man CE to this DX version as the new additions made the game more crazy and better. Setting up a ghost train to chase Pac-Man and them eating them all after eating a power pellet is indeed one of the most satisfying gaming moments of the year. The increased focus on competing for high scores also matters again as you want to go beat that certain score or target in the various mazes the game offers is also amazing and where the addiction truly takes shape. If you want something that is quick to play in short sessions, Pac-Man CE DX is the best of the bunch on the downloadable front.
4) God of War III
God of War III definitely lived up to its expectations of being an epic experience from beginning to end. Sony Santa Monica had to go balls out for Kratos' main finale with huge bosses that scale as big as modern skyscrapers with the Greek titans. The core formula wasn't significantly changed and the quicktime scenes the franchise originally modernized have never been better on the Playstation 3. It is still one of the best looking games this console generation without resorting to CG trickery and has an epic orchestral soundtrack to boot during the game's big moments. Sure, it does not have the same dramatic impact the first game had, but this trilogy had to end in a bang and it did that this year.
3) Donkey Kong Country Returns
As an old school Donkey Kong Country fan, I had high hopes for Retro Studios to deliver the same and perhaps even better goods than what Rare did on the Super Nintendo with their previous experience with the Metroid Prime Trilogy. DKC Returns is the comeback of the gorilla and his signature red tie maintaining its old-school greatness for some of the best 2D platforming in recent memory. The level design is top notch and the fair challenge is up there for being one of the harder games out this year, but it is as not insanely hard as people exaggerated it to be. Everything just flows together from the jungle to the volcano seeing the levels click as you transverse them despite some control issues. DKC Returns is just simply that good and another superb Nintendo game in all aspects.
2) Super Street Fighter IV
It is no surprise that Super Street Fighter IV is very high on my list this year considering it is my most played of this crop of games. The new additions to the game (which is at a discounted price) that brought back the fighting game genre to the mainstream have been great from the improvements to online play, new characters, and so on. Plus, it is still as fun as it gets playing it at any level whether you're new to the game or a tournament player. I could ramble more in-depth about certain things since I talk about this game a lot being around the competitive scene, but I'll leave it as it is now. There's Arcade Edition to deal with now here at SoCal, which is a whole another story, but console SSF4 is as good as it gets no matter which system you're playing it on.
1) Super Mario Galaxy 2
If you read my review of this game back in June, I have claimed that it is my favorite game of all-time. Surprisingly, I still stand by that claim as Super Mario Galaxy 2 is pure perfection as I thought Nintendo outdid themselves with the first game, but this one is truly special though. There's just something about these levels throughout the game that blow my mind each and every time I play through them. I have never experienced a game since The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time that has achieved that certain spark from beginning to end. The level design feels like it is still ahead of its time with Mario and gravity and many moments just made me smile realizing why I love this hobby so much. Nintendo still manages to make masterpieces in today's world of video games where first person shooters like the Call of Duty franchise are all the rage. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a reminder to the modern audience that today's games don't need to be some crazy Hollywood blockbuster that has to appeal to the mainstream or have guns to be cool, they just have to be simply games that anyone can enjoy like the 8-bit/16-bit days.
I saw Tron Legacy earlier today and it was a pretty cool movie even though I didn't remember watching the original Tron in its entirety. It did live up to expectations being a visual spectacle and of course Daft Punk's soundtrack showed its brillance in the movie as well (I already talked how amazing it is a couple weeks ago). It is way different hearing the epic tracks during the intense moments than just home on iTunes as they made sense when they played. Of course the movie has its flaws if I wanted to get picky such as the dialogue not being all that and some plot holes here and there, but its still a good movie bringing The Grid to a modern state. I didn't mind the guy who played Sam's acting as it wasn't that bad as I thought of even though there were some cheesy one-liners. There wasn't much 3D as I thought other than the main action scenes, so 3D nuts are probably not going to get their money's worth like most Disney 3D movies. I also didn't mind the crazy exposition and all the philosophical banter by the cast either, but I can see why casual movie-goers would be a little out of the loop what in the world is this digital frontier Flynn is going for. Also, shoutouts to Olivia Wilde for having a better performance in the movie than I thought. The cast as a whole is good for the most part with Jeff Bridges having some good moments even though people love to complain about how horrible CG Flynn, aka C.L.U. is. All in all, Tron Legacy is meant to be seen as the visual spectacle it is intended to be even though the story can be a little cliche as some moments are predictable, but it is still one entertaining movie. It is indeed visually stunning and Daft Punk's soundtrack really shines unlike no other.
Its been a crazy weekend playing hours of Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition as I already written my impressions of the game so far earlier, so here's footage of the game in action featuring Japanese gameplay especially some good Yun stuff.
Yesterday, SoCal was the first of the United States that got Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition and I just had to play it for most of the day at Super Arcade in Walnut. At is core, it is still SSF4, but it is the new additions (two new characters) and the numerous changes that make the game different from what we have on consoles. SoCal's best showed up at both Super and Family Fun Arcade over at the San Fernando Valley to get as much time with the game trying stuff out and seeing the changes to their main for themselves. As a Bison main for an example, he does not any significant changes to his core game other than his Psycho Punisher ultra (ultra 2) being a charge command now and his standing roundhouse damage is dependent on where it hits as it is nerfed from a range from what I experienced, but his priorities are still the same as that's good news for me. Other characters I messed around with are Guile, Chun-Li, Ken, Honda, Rufus, and Dee Jay. I will be definitely playing Dee Jay a little more since it is a better character since he sucked in consoles. A lot of characters such as Cammy, Seth, and Honda though got the unlucky end of the nerf hammer to the point they completely suck now or you have to come up with a new playstyle. Some characters like Vega, Dudley, Makoto, Gouken, and Hakan (Seeing Ultradavid mess around his new buffs is good stuff) definitely got better with their new move properties at their disposal.
The other big addition to Arcade Edition is two new characters, which are Yun and Yang. A lot of people messed around with the twins and they have potential to be top-tier characters with how they played especially when they get in close. They made the transition well from 3rd Strike even though some combos work and don't work from that game. Plus, they're still dive kick characters and of course it is nice to have a dive kick in a game like this. Personally, I didn't play as them and after watching a lot of the sheninegans they can throw out especially the palm, they are indeed fun to use. Yun, for example, can combo EX dash punch to ultra 1 if timed right and his palm is just godly beating many things. Also, Genei Jin as a super still has its uses as you can do easy high damage combos within the limited time. If Yang can keep going on rekka pressure, he is definitely one of the better characters in the game.
After a few hours on its first day, I had a good time with SSF4 Arcade Edition experiencing the changes to the characters, chatting it up with other players about them, and seeing the potential with Yun and Yang. It is too early to tell how the changes (nerfs/buffs) matter right now as most of the players still need more time with the game to mess with stuff in certain situations. I say give it a month or two and we'll see how people really think of it then. Plus, with a limited release at certain spots of the United States such as California, Texas with Arcade UFO, and New York City, it might be a little hard to take seriously now especially with tournaments for the current console version happening every week. It is still nice to have the game out here even though Capcom has not yet announced plans for the Arcade Edition update to come to consoles. In the meantime, I still wanna play more, so if I have anything new to talk about, expect it here.
If you want more details on certain changes of the characters in Arcade Edition, check Shoryuken and iPlayWinner for that.
UPDATE - Here's my Dee Jay (keep in mind I didn't use him that much in Super) vs. Hugo101's Bison (well another Bison main) from yesterday. Thanks to WonderChef for more footage from Super Arcade.
