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There are times when people pull insane stunts in multiplayer and make me feel like a 90-year old impotent, senile loser, me playing the way I play (which isn’t too bad, but its no monster kill streak) and them doing stuff that I thought was damn near impossible. And then there’s Chris Chike (known in the legendary Guitar Hero III circles as Iamchris4life) who make me feel even worse, if such a thing is even possible.
The teen, known for setting a GH3 Guinness World Record of 840,647 points, on what is unarguably the hardest, damndest song in the game, “Through the fire and the flames”, has now managed to beat his own record – this time, scoring a perfect 100% on the song on Expert, earning 987,786 points and an obscene, heart-attack-inducing, finger-stiffening 3722 note streak. As if that wasn’t enough to make you (and me) hide under the nearest rock for the next billion, billion years, he’s gone ahead and recorded the whole thing on video, so you can now commit seppuku with your guitar controller and end the pain once and for all. That is, after your eyeballs pop out of their sockets and start behaving like bouncy balls.
Talking about the video, which is one of the most viewed videos on YouTube (with over 1.6 million views and still counting.. fast), Chris has said:
I was almost in shock when I finished the song and had hit the 100%-I am so glad I caught it on video or even I wouldn’t have believed it happened. It feels great to have accomplished it, and it is exciting to see so many people online watching me get a perfect score on the hardest song in the game.
Which I suppose explains the two loud swears I heard at the end – the one in the video itself, and the louder, more profane one escaping my own mouth as the unreality of what I’d just seen set in. Go ahead, watch the video and meet me back at my place so we can all emulate Heaven’s Gate. Gamer-style, of course.
Everybody seems to be celebrating this time of the year. Except us, of course, who’re working harder than ever on the Game of the Year awards and getting those awesome prizes out to you guys. But it looks like the Valve team wants to wish us a very Orange-y Christmas this year, especially if you look at the nice little security camera footage that’s being aired from inside the secret Aperture Science Holiday Vault – complete with the Gnome, the Weighted Companion Cube (aww!), the cake, lots of supply crates and a cute little turret hiding near them all, just begging you to go for the cake.
You can watch the video online here, or download the Flash Video file (Flash Player required) straight off our site here.
Download Aperture Science Holiday Vault 07 Surveillance Video (FLV/20.5 MB)
And that’s not all, you can also buy the official Orange Box OST off the Valve Store now, with great music from Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal, along with a special version of “Still Alive” by songwriter Johnathan Coulton and singer Ellen McLain, which isn’t available anywhere else. Or if you want to spend just on your games, they’ve even got the greatest holiday promotion going where you can pick up great games at 10% to 50% off their usual prices. Good tidings for everyone!
I’ve always felt sad for people with Erectile Dysfunction. Especially if they happen to be married to sexually active women just writhing with unbridled lust. Well, now me and the rest of the Indian gaming community know just how those poor guys feel! After months of poking and prodding, it looks like Rock Band is finally available via Microsoft India’s eBay store for INR 1999 / $50. Good news, right? Nope, not really! We get the game, but we don’t get anything else – no guitar, no drum kit, no microphone!
Sure, all you guys elsewhere could just plug your GH2/GH3 guitars in and thrash away, but we don’t have those either, so we’d be expected to play with just the Xbox 360 controller, which frankly, sucks big time! If I don’t get the drums, I don’t want the game! Thank you very much, but you can have your copy back! We’re going to be contacting Microsoft India about this and try to find out whether the distributors at Redington will be importing the accessories and the Special Edition bundle as well, but with Country Manager Mohit Anand letting it slip at the Delhi Game On event that Guitar Hero 3 could cost upward of INR 6000 or $150, one wonders how much the Rock Band Special Edition would cost. Way more than what we can afford, that’s for sure!
Right, so y’all already know how I’m completely head over heels in love with Portal, GLaDOS, Jonathan Coulton and Ellen McLain after that great “Still Alive” ditty. And, obviously, I’m not the only one. Jonathan Coulton, the genius behind the best damn end credits song ever made, reveals the inside scoop on how the song came about and how Valve might be planning to make it officially available through Steam – maybe even with a version of him singing it. Hey, don’t look at me. I’m just as eagerly waiting for the Weighted Companion Cube paperweight and the Portal turret toy to end up on the Valve Store. Or I could just lose patience and make one of my own from all these cardboard boxes that I, strangely, seem to have lying around…
Transformers was a true summer movie in all respects after a really *long* time. Straight in the league of Armageddon about 8 summers back, which was the last summer blockbuster that I truly enjoyed. The movie was made on a mega, multi-million dollar budget. And the result was a highly polished, taut presentation of our beloved Lego heroes’ story. But this is not about the special effects or the slick cars used in the movie. This is about what the tittle says. Yes, the music, which I believe is the major yet least talked about aspect of epic movies. Imagine STAR WARS without the classic John Williams score! Imagine Superman without the hugely orchestral yet very pop like theme by the same genius! Imagine Black hawk Down and Pearl Harbor without the ‘To die for my Country’ scores! You guys must have gotten the drift I guess.
I’m walkin’ on sunshine, indeed! OK, so I am completely smitten by this game. I mean, who wouldn’t be? The mother of all rhythm based games, seems like, and that too, with the awesomeness of the Wiimote! I’m sold! And if you needed more convincing, EA has released the official track listings for the game, and it contains some of the my most favorite songs of all time! With over 35 all-time hits to sing, dance and pose to, Boogie is fast becoming a great reason to get the Wii. want the full track listing? Check it out after the jump.
So you think you’re great with that Guitar Hero controller, huh? Be prepared to take your skills to a whole new level with the upcoming Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, available for the PS2, the PS3, the Xbox 360 and the Wii sometime later this year, we hope.
In a recent press release announcing their E3 lineup, Activision has confirmed that GH3 will feature legendary guitar hero Slash, from the erstwhile Guns N’ Roses, will be providing an original track for the game will appear as a boss battle character, allowing self-made GH freaks to shred against the master shredder. Also announced was the news that the GNR anthem “Welcome to the jungle” will be included for the game’s awesome soundtrack, which already boasts of an impressive collection by legends such as The Rolling Stones, Beastie Boys, Muse, Pearl Jam, Kiss, Alice Cooper and Heart. So what are you waiting for, get cracking already and start practicing your skills on GH1 and GH2. That is, at least until Rock Band steals you away.
Before you read this memoir written by Subir Malik, who serves the Keyboard duties in the band Parikrama, go on and watch the videos of Parikrama’s performance at Download Fest. The song “Vapourize” …yes they do spell with a U, has to be the biggest rocker from Parikrama over the years and so was the performance:
Parikrama – Tears of the Wizard
And now, here is the article written for HT city by Subir himself, published on June 25th 2007, to give you an insight of our experience at the Download festival:
2 months of preparations, endless practice sessions, 479 hours on the internet, 1763 email exchanges with Phantom music, 14 hotels rejected for not having electric kettles, shopping sessions for Kohinoor pre-cooked food/clothes/Flat pin adapters/classic milds/Underwears and many other unmentionable miscellaneous items….AND then we were there, standing on the Moto GP Podium, at the legendary DONINGTON PARK, hoping to see Rossi up there, just a few weeks from the biggest day of our lives, the 10th of June 2007 A.D. Yes, we were playing the Download Festival.
The morning chill and fog still settling down,and we, 67 minutes before time (maybe our excitement), still looking for the open truck to take all our stuff to the mainstage. 8:07 am – the stuff is loaded and we are all seated in the transfer coach beaming with confidence, anxiety and waiting to see how the world looks from up there, up there on the mainstage. 08:16 am- we reach the band hospitality area of the festival, we cross a horde of green rooms, and they read Dream Theatre, Evanescence, Stone sour, Lamb of God, Mastodon, Chimaira and finally Parikrama.The room had everything a band needs before a show, big fat sofas, centrally air conditioned, loads of food, water, juices and 48 cans of chilled beer. Though, we used a few of the things provided, we left the beers, post 11:25 am.
08:39 am – We finally reach “up there” and it looks/feels wonderful. What a view man!09:16 a:m- We start setting up our backline backstage. 09:27 am: we are ready to go onstage, but the Maiden crew is doing a tech check, and it’s an experience to just see ‘em doing their stuff. 10:17 am – we finally get the go ahead to “occupy” the mainstage. The Download crew just rolls our stuff on trolleys to the stage. 10:51 a:m – we are through with a line check and ready to rock.
10:57 am – We do a band embrace, backstage, and here we are to start our set. There are about 20,000 people (rest are still sleeping, as it’s a wet cloudy day) waiting and they give us a really needed clap and cheers of acceptance, as we come back on the stage. 11:00
Every single Indian rocker knows that Parikrama opened for Iron Maiden in Bangalore on 17th March. That was some news, but nobody knows about the kind of impact that show left on everybody from the lands of rock that day. The Maidens themselves paid the Parikrama a visit back stage to congratulate them on their unique blend of Indian classical and retro rock of the 70s. Parikrama wasn’t even expecting to see the Maidens, let alone their coming to them personally. Well to sum it all it was an awesome experience for the band that has been singing for more then 14 years and that too without a single album to their credit.. some nerve..
Noticeably Parikrama performed all original set at the gig and also played two new songs. The success of the show and the impact it had was blatantly projected in the article “Maiden India” by Ed Vulliamy which was released online on the Observer Guardian Unlimited on Sunday, April 22, 2007. This is the official say:
“If the support band, Parikrama, don’t soon make inroads in the West, the A&R system is malfunctioning badly. During an entrancing instrumental called ‘The Open Sky’, the violinist, Imran Khan, played a hypnotic solo entwining heavy rock, Paganini and the chromatics of Ravi Shankar, while a huge, majestic but appropriately ominous jet-black house crow hovered above the stage.
Offstage, Parikrama’s vocalist Nitin Malik says with a knowing look: ‘Yes, that number can often change the weather.’ He explains that ‘heavy rock in India has been the preserve of the young intelligentsia until now. But it is filtering down to the blue-collar workers, becoming the music of a new generation in a new kind of country. But,’ he adds, ‘there is nothing in the world like playing on the same stage as Iron Maiden.’