Today is Super Mario Bros.'s 25th Anniversary!!

Super Mario Bros. is 25 years old today in terms of Japanese release, so it is a momentous day in the world of Nintendo celebrating the game that revitalized the game industry back in 1985. I decided to attempt a warpless run of the game on my Wii's Virtual Console and failed miserably halfway if you saw my justin.tv stream earlier this afternoon. Instead of posting my failure, I rather post up a speed run of the game by a better player. In honor of the game's milestone, Nintendo is releasing the Super Mario Collection on the Wii next month at Japan, which is basically All-Stars on a Wii disc plus more Mario goodies like soundtracks and more. Who knows if it is coming out here in the states, but I won't mind having that around.

Here's some more videos celebrating the milestone... way to go Mario!

Mega Music Roundup for 9/13/10 (VMAs, Trey Songz, Linkin Park, Maroon 5, Weezer, & more)

Alright, this mega music roundup features lots of albums and last night's MTV Video Music Awards as I'll put up my three favorite performances from the show as it was okay having its good/bad moments.

2010 MTV Video Music Awards - More VMA Video

My favorite performance of the night obviously has to go to the showstopper himself Kanye West. He debuted a new song called "Runaway" and boy that song is funny yet amazing at the same time. Leave it to Kanye for his ingenious work using his personality to his advantage with the lyrics. Pusha T from the Clipse also came up to perform his verse as give him props for having another cameo appearance in the VMAs (Remember Justin Timberlake's "Like I Love You" performance from 2002?). I didn't expect Kanye to go autotune at the end, but I don't mind it, but damn that song is just too good right now. At this rate, his album better live up to the hype now.

2010 MTV Video Music Awards - More VMA Video

Drizzy Drake had a surprisingly good performance as I didn't expect him to perform "Fancy," but he did (Oh u fancy huh?) with Swizz Beatz and Mary J. Blige. I expected Drake to perform something else, but I went crazy for a bit when the song came up. Also, the highlight of the performance wasn't Drizzy at all, but it is Mary killing it as always as if its some different remix because without her I think the performance would of sucked, so luckily Drake had her backing him up. Actually, Mary J. brings new light to the song even though the T.I. verse is still good. In the meantime, where's the official music video Drake?

I want to put up the Usher performance too, but MTV's embed link for it is not working at this time, so I'll add it later. He performed "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love" and "OMG" and danced his butt off as he didn't sing enough, which I didn't mind at all. Along with him dancing, the stage lights played a huge role with his performance which made it pretty dope. If only I can learn the dance routine to this someday, but I'll let the performance speak for itself because it felt like he was dancing like its the last night of his life there.

Okay, my mini VMAs recap is done... off to albums that are out this week (one of them is out next week though)

First off is one highly anticipated album and the return of Linkin Park with A Thousand Suns. After the disappointment that was Minutes to Midnight for many, will this new album rebound them to similar success of their first two albums? The answer to that is both yes and no as this new album is better than Minutes, but not that much. There are some hits and misses as there are several standouts. "The Catalyst" is a solid first single for them (video above) as its not that bad to the point its still growing to me. Expect a lot of slow-tempo stuff from the boys, but the songs that are closer to their roots are my personal favorites with "Blackout" and "Wretches and Kings." These songs are the closest for them recapturing the music of the first two albums as "Blackout" is Chester in screaming voice mode to the point he would easily lose it and "Wretches and Kings" is your standard LP song of the past with Mike rapping, Chester singing the hook, and your occasional DJ Hahn scratching section. Other than that, A Thousand Suns is somewhat a return to form for Linkin Park as far where they're at in their careers. I didn't expect them to rehash Hybrid Theory or Meteora for the entire album, but this new album does show off their maturity and being able to experiment with new things yet maintaining their core sound at the same time.

Weezer - New Music - More Music Videos

Continuing up the rock is Weezer's new album, Hurley. Its still awesome that the cover of the album is Hurley from Lost. I like the first single, "Memories" (video above), but its more of the same from the boys for the rest of the album. The only special mention is the deluxe edition having a cover of Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" which is actually pretty good. I have pretty much nothing else to say about this one other than if you like more Weezer, this new album is worth a listen.

Maroon 5's latest, Hands All Over, is out next week and this new album felt like it was under the radar for me even though it has been on the iTunes pre-order list for a while. Specifically, I was like "Oh they have a new album out soon, ok why not." I felt like this band fell off after their breakout album with all those hit songs like "Harder to Breathe," "This Love," and "She Will Be Loved." This new one though retains their core sound of poppy rock and the masses will love it. Their singles so far for the album, "Misery" and "Give a Little More," (video above) are what I expected from them, but it can't hurt to have your Adam Levine fix here and there. If you need your chill pop rock fix, you can't go wrong with Maroon 5's new album.

Last but not least to mention is Trey Songz's Passion, Pain, & Pleasure. I must say though, this is quickly becoming one of my favorite R&B albums of the year. With Ready propelling him to the mainstream spotlight, the new album will take things to the next level and does. The album is divided cleverly to three sections according to the album's title, so you expect to hear a certain vibe per section like the pain section being mostly slow stuff like "Can't Be Friends" and "The Unusual" featuring Drake in the pleasure section being more up-tempo. Drake is not the only cameo in the album as Nicki Minaj is in the album's first single "Bottoms Up" (video above) and does her usual thing of delivering crazy verses. You're pretty much getting three sides of Trey with the album's title and delivers on all of them well, but I think you'll get full appreciation of all three sides hearing the album in its entirety. Its going to be hard to top Trey's album in the world of R&B for the rest of the year and of course the ladies will like this album a lot too.

Well that's a lot for this music roundup - More to come soon.

Music Video of the Day for 9/9/10

The Ting Tings - "Hands"

So clap your hands if you're working too hard...

New MvC3 Trailer confirms Tron Bonne...

GameSpot just put up a new story trailer for Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds featuring the characters that weren't in earlier story trailers before like Chun-Li, Captain America, Doctor Doom, Amaterasu, Trish, Viewitiful Joe, and Super Skrull. The only new relevation is the confirmation of Tron Bonne as a playable character, which is also expected. We'll see if she retains her MvC2 moveset especially her projectile assist since its still one of the best assists in that game. TGS is pretty much the next big event MvC3 will make an appearance with more reveals as Tron Bonne will likely be playable there and some more new ones yet to be confirmed. (Crimson Viper & Frank West are among the rumored peeps to be in the roster)

PSN Demo Showcase for 9/8/10

This week for the PSN Demo Showcase features two Japanese-developed games as one features a good ripoff of a long-lasting franchise while the other is a horrible ripoff of a popular shooter...

First up is Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes by Capcom as the head guy that was behind Devil May Cry 4 is the head honcho for this project. If you played any Dynasty Warriors games, this one is pretty much that in a nutshell as you mash the attack buttons to pummel hundreds of enemies that just stand there mostly to get killed. Other than mashing, you may have to dodge some attacks here and there by tougher boss-like foes, but it is pretty much what I described earlier if you're into those type of games. There are two characters to play as in this demo and one scenario that is long enough (like 20 to 30 minutes) defeating waves of enemies gaining new allies in the process for world peace. Some of the attack animations look like Devil May Cry 4's which is why you may get a familiar vibe if you played that game to death also by Capcom. Some of the allies you gain feel useless, so you feel like you're doing all the work, which is not that bad. There is a Basara gauge that gets filled up for one powerful attack string that uses the meter when full, which is useful if you're in trouble. Other than some camera control issues that struggle to keep along in the action, Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes is a solid Dynasty-Warriors-like game if you crave those type of repetitive gameplay.

Quantum Theory, on the other hand, is a whole different story. Oh boy, what happened to this game since it was first announced by Tecmo two TGSes ago that has some potential to be interesting being a "Japanese Gears of War?" It definitely feels and plays like Japanese Gears but in worst ways in all areas. Honestly, it is one of the worst games I played in recent years as everything feels bad you feel like why did I wasted all this time to download this and play through the whole demo. The cover-based shooting does not feel as satisfying and fluid as you expected being a Gears clone. In other words, you feel like you have to press more buttons to pop in and out of cover compared to how automatic the Gears games handle cover controls. The weapons feel generic with nothing special such as a single shot rifle, a machine gun, shotgun, etc. Even the melee system feels complicated and disappointing if people expected Quantum Theory to have some Ninja Gaiden flavor. The only redeeming gameplay element is the partner commands in which you can throw her from a distance to take out foes from afar, but even that has its flaws as well.

Besides the overall gameplay being flat out bad, the graphics and sound are more worse. Graphically, it looks like a darker and grittier Gears and yet it is more ugly. Add along poor level design on how the encounters are handled and bad enemy A.I. that just stands there at times to shoot, you have a bad ripoff that even shames the original. To top things off, the voice acting is abysmal with generic one-liners at any moment as the main guy just sounds dumb saying these pointless lines like "mmmm ammo." and the partner chick telling you "nice shot." The main character looks and sounds like the most cliche space-marine dude you're ever meet in any game because seriously its that horrible.

Playing something like Quantum Theory makes you wonder why games like this get green-lit to be released in stores. It is an abomination unlike anything I played in recent times, which is saying something for myself too. Avoid this game at all costs, or better yet play the demo for yourself and see how horrible it is.

Okay... I Want DJ Hero 2 Now. (Demo footage)

In case you don't know, I don't have DJ Hero 1, but I have played lots of it at my cousin's house and master Hard difficulty. I almost bought it for 20 bucks when Toys R Us had that deal, but I was too late, which was a bummer. Anyway, DJ Hero 2 is out next month and already impressing me because it is still up my alley in terms of music and they have been cranking up the features that the first game lacked. A demo came out today on Xbox Live Marketplace and soon on Playstation Network as footage of it in action in below featuring three good mixes (1 of them shows off the new battle mode). Also, you will notice the new gameplay touches as well (vocals are also in too). After seeing this, my excitement meter raised up significantly to the point I would cave in for the pricey party bundle, but we'll see with that. Plus, can't wrong with scratching as Deadmau5 in the game and yes, I want to play this demo now too.

Music Video of the Day for 9/8/10

Bruno Mars - "Just the Way You Are"

Oh hey, its everyone's favorite song out now...