Let’s see…when was the last time I did one of these? JULY?! Wow. Okay I guess it’s time to update a little. I never even did a year end favorites list. Life’s been kind of chaotic lately and I haven’t been that motivated to write much. Let’s change that today!
Gama Bomb, Sea Savage – I love Gama Bomb. This album is no exception. While I don’t think it’s quite as good as their last two it’s still a pretty good one – and honestly, for me, any Gama Bomb is good Gama Bomb.
Bride, Here is Your God – Someone should really tell these Christian metal bands not to put images of God on their covers. Anyway, Here is Your God is better than their last effort, Snake Eyes. Partly because it’s allowed to be its own thing instead of a sequel to Snakes in the Playground and partly because the songs are just better. It’s decent, but like the last one, still feels like it’s missing something.
Warbringer, Weapons of Tomorrow – Dang. Now this is some thrash. Fast. Heavy. Lyrics about war and what not. Riffs galore. This was a fun one and I’m glad I found it. I think it was Scott Waters from No Life Til Metal that had it on one of his You Tube videos.
Michael Peace, Outta Control – I never heard this one the first time it came out because I think the Christian scene was kind of done with Michael Peace by 1994. At least I never saw it in any store at the time. It’s…okay. I mean you kind of know what you’re getting. I disagreed with a lot of the lyrics for various reason. One in particular where he’s arguing against the legalization of drugs and says something to the effect of “What if your surgeon was high on crack because it was legal?” My response is “I could probably sue him because jobs have regulations about what you can and can’t do on the job. That’s why you can’t work drunk.” But, whatever. It was nice hearing this but it won’t ever overtake Loud N’ Clear or Threat to Society that’s for sure.
Paramaecium, Echoes From the Ground – Paramaecium is one of those bands I’ve warmed up to over the last couple years and now absolutely adore. Echoes is a concept album about a man visiting the Holy Lands in order to find justification for his faith. Goes without saying that I like it. It’s not as deathy as the previous albums but that’s okay.
Corpse, From the Grave – An obscure Christian death metal band. They only put out one album and it’s pretty decent. Not groundbreaking or anything but a solid listen. The mastering is kind of crap though.
Imperial Triumphant, Alphaville – Usually this kind of thing wouldn’t be for me. Honestly, I’m not really sure it’s for anyone. It’s a combination of death metal/jazz/Avant Garde craziness. It’s discordant and chaotic. It’s weird and unsettling. It’s utterly compelling and I’ve been digging it way more than I thought I would. They lyrics are mostly about the how awful the rich are. Gives me total Bioshock vibes.
Detritus, Myths – I’m so glad these guys came back. I’m a huge fan of their first two albums. This new one is a lot less Metallica/UK thrash and a bit more experimental but still very heavy. They also seem to have some LGBTQ supporting lyrics here and there. It’s nice to see since that sort of thing is rare in Christian music and even more rare in Christian metal.
Taking the Head of Goliath, Self-titled – More death metal. Contains Luke Reno from Crimson Thorn and I loves me some Crimson Thorn. Not surprisingly I love this EP too. Can’t wait for a full length.
Trytan, Blood of Kings – Christian music has their own version of Rush, it’s Trytan. Well, that’s not fair. Trytan is a lot more on the metal/hard rock side than Rush is. It’s mostly the vocalist who is a dead ringer for Geddy Lee. However, the music is absolutely stunning. I think this is probably the most progressive album they’ve done, but also the heaviest. However, being the bleeding-heart liberal I am some of the lyrics didn’t sit well with me, but I’m kind of used to that by now.
The Prize Fighter Inferno, My Brother’s Blood Machine – This originally came out in 2006. How in the world did I not sit down and listen to it before now? This is a side project of Claudio Sanchez of Coheed & Cambria. It’s acoustic electronica and it’s just as catchy as Coheed stuff. So if you like Coheed you’ll probably like this too. I know I did.
Video Games
Kingdom Hearts 3 – For some reason I got it in my head to play the Kingdom Hearts series again. The good thing was that I was able to enjoy KH2 in a way I hadn’t before. KH3 is kind of a mixed bag though. Like…they added a little too much to the combat. KH2’s was pretty much perfect. The environments are gorgeous, however. The story is… a story. I kind of resent that the series makes the player be familiar with twenty-some odd games across several platforms to be familiar with the story. Also, after a while, bopping around these worlds just wasn’t that fun anymore. I’m glad I played it but KH2 is still the best in a flawed series.
Neir: Automata – The concept of this one is cool. You’re an android in a post-apocalyptic world destroying machines for humans on the moon. There’s more too it, of course, but I never got to see it. See once you beat the game once it wants you to beat it again with only slight variations in the campaign. I think you have to do this three or four times to get all the story. I don’t have that kind of time and combat wasn’t fun enough to motivate me to care.
CTR: Nitro Fueled – I’ve owned this for awhile but haven’t given it much attention. I decided to beat the main campaign to unlock some racers. This version suffers from awful micro-transactiony stuff and some horrible rubber band AI. I don’t remember the original being so bad about that. I’d stick with the original if possible. Though the upgraded graphics are beautiful.
Resident Evil 3 – I never played the original but this version is awesome. Loved every minute of it. If they ever remake 4 with modern controls I will be there in a heartbeat.
The Legend of Zelda – This game is 35 years old! Nintendo didn’t feel like doing anything to celebrate so I did a vanilla run. After doing two swordless runs this was like playing on easy mode. It also inspired me to download a randomizer and do a randomizer run for You Tube which I still have to finish recording.
Super Metroid – I’d been watching a lot of one You Tube person’s Super Metroid runs and got inspired. I wanted to see if I could do some sequence-breaking tricks like he did. I’m proud to say I’ve figured out wall-jumping, mid-air morphing, and was even able to pull off the mock ball and skip Spore Spawn. I ended up with 91% of items collected which is my highest amount ever. May do a run of this for You Tube.
Mega Man X Collection – I’ve had this one for awhile but hadn’t given it much attention. I finally sat down and really dug in and learned some new things:
Mega
Man X: Still awesome and wonderful and pretty much perfect.
Mega
Man X2: Just as awesome. And if you have the skill you can really minimize backtracking (I do not have the skill).
Mega
ManX3: Ugh. This was way worse than I remembered. Too hard and too much stuff
to collect. You’ll have to revisit stages several times to get everything. The
upgraded X-Buster sucks too.
Mega
ManX4: A nice return to form. You get to play as Zero if you want. Gorgeous
graphics. Liked this one a lot more this time through.
Persona 5 Strikers – I loved both Persona 4 and 5 (even though I never finished 5). It was great to get to spend more time with these characters. I also enjoyed the action-oriented battle system. Honestly, it was nice to play Persona without the stress of the time crunch and worrying about building skills and confidants. Story was good too, serving as a direct sequel. No option to carry over your romance option from the original though. I had to settle for asking Ann on a chaste date to the Ferris wheel instead of a real romance. I spent about 45 hours with this one but if you really wanted to grind the post-game I could see someone putting in 60-70 hours.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Just started playing this one. I’d always heard about this series but never played it. Never really played any kind of “visual novel” game period. This one is pretty engaging – especially the trail scenes. It’s also fun to figure out the holes in the witnesses’ testimonies and see what you have on hand to disprove them. Looking forward to going through this one all the way.
Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh – I really loved Hyperbole and a Half and have read it several times. This one, however…yeesh. It’s…depressing. I know she has struggled with depression so of course that’s going to come out in her writing. But man…this is just bordering on nihilistic at times. Which, honestly, wouldn’t be a problem if it was funny. Unfortunately, I didn’t find a lot of it funny – just really depressing.
Star Trek, Voyager: To Lose the Earth by Kristen Beyer – Kristen Beyer’s run on the Voyager books has been nothing short of amazing. I would say that I almost like the book versions of the crew better than the show. Beyer knows exactly what makes all these characters tick and she’s got a knack for putting them in compelling situations to boot. I’m disappointed that this will probably be her last Voyager novel and that this continuity is invalidated by Picard. I mean, I’m glad we got Picard but still. She was also involved in that show and I hope she gets to do more in the future.
