Archive for January, 2012

These days NES cover bands on YouTube are as ubiquitous as Duck Hunt guns at Value Village, but this video is a must-watch.

Bit Brigade performs all of the critically-acclaimed Mega Man 2 soundtrack on stage while one member does a speedrun of the game in about 40 minutes.

The performance – behind the instruments as well as the controller – is pretty serious stuff.

In their own words:

Bit Brigade elevates game music to its proper place in the foreground of epic technical rock and plays the games like they don’t need the extra lives. Which, for the record, they don’t.

And with the crowd demanding high fives, screaming and chanting “holy  s–t,”  dare I say the whole thing plays out like a sort of unintentional “It Gets Better” video for nerds.  (I found it quite inspirational, anyway.)

When you’re done, check out their Ninja Gaiden set from August.

The Playstation Vita

Every five or six years we stand on the cusp of a new generation of gaming hardware, a shift that sparks excitement in gamers’ hearts while striking fear in our beleaguered wallets.

We’re not quite there … yet. But it’s within sight. In fact, 2012 will be a transitionary year, when we get our hands on some new gaming gear, hear about what else is just around the corner and possibly witness a few surprises.

Sometime this year we should get preliminary word of new consoles from Xbox and PlayStation, though they certainly won’t show up on store shelves before 2013.

In the meantime, here are four new — or sort of new — gaming platforms to keep an eye on over the next 12 months, and why you should care about them.

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Infinity Blade is one of the top grossing, and best produced, games for iOS.

So you were a very good boy or girl last year, and someone — be it your spouse, your mom or a fat guy in a red suit — got you an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad for the holidays. Welcome to the iParty.

While your new device is certainly great for music, Web browsing, taking photos and a plethora of other useful tasks, it’s also a pretty amazing mobile gaming platform. In fact, there are more than 72,000 games available for download from the iTunes App Store. Start exercising those fingers.

If you’re new to the iGaming craze, here are 10 titles from my own collection that I wholeheartedly recommend as an introduction to gaming on Apple’s wunderdevices. Best of all, you can get all 10 of these for less than $25 total.

Beware, though: These games may destroy your productivity and ruin your relationships. Which could put a serious damper on any gift-getting next year.

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