One look at the cover of Exploded Drawing should give you some idea of what to expect. This album is like a Chinese dragon meandering through a parade of fireworks. It is at times beautiful and sly, and other times harsh and direct. At times it is abrasive, lo-fi, and noisy, but it can quickly transition into much more listenable segments, but it never is mediocre. Exploded Drawing opens with "Fast Canoe", giving a good impression of what this album is about: weird guitar riffs, a jumpy drum beat, and a steady bass line. "Bridesmaid Blues" follows with more punk feel and ethereal vocals. The next song, "Flower of Forgiveness" displays Polvo's ability to create driving rhythms and staccato, abrupt ...

With Chuck's review of Fallout 3 yesterday, it makes sense to go back and look at the first two games of the series. Luckily, Chuck has provided us with reviews of them over 4 years ago! I've dug them out of their archived grave, dusted them off, and reposted them for your perusal.

I have been anticipating this game for years. The first two Fallouts are amazing examples of creativity and freedom, and I have been waiting for a sequel since finishing Fallout 2 in 1999. Unfortunately, Black Isle Studios was shutdown by Interplay after going bankrupt in 2003, and the third installment was left incomplete. Then, in 2004, Bethesda Softworks announced it was going to develop Fallout 3. The impressive attention paid to details, humor, freedom, and overall quality of this franchise was going to be difficult for anyone to replicate. Thus, Bethesda was faced with a steep mountain to climb, and I am happy to report their ascent was pretty smooth.

Afrika Bambaataa started a revolution. “Rappers Delight” performed by The Sugarhill Gang in the late 1970’s established early rap/hip-hop. This song created a beat and rhythm that would be used by almost every rap artist until the mid 1980’s. Bambaataa’s 1986 album Planet Rock was the next step in the evolution of hip-hop. He and the Soulsonic Force introduced turntables and electronic drum beats to the genre and pioneered hip-hop’s popularity. His formula inspired and was duplicated by countless rappers. Bambaataa is also responsible for spreading hip-hop to Europe, Asia, and Africa. His contribution garnered Bambaataa the nickname Godfather of hip-hop. Today’s hip-hop still shows signs of Bambaataa’s work, as he is ...

Crush is one of those PSP games that many people aren't going to automatically associate with the portable, and that is a shame. Crush is the type of original game types that the PSP needs more of. It's an interesting mix of 3D platforming mixed with puzzle solving in a 2-dimensional plane. To explain Crush is hard without seeing it, but if you have played Super Paper Mario at any point, the gameplay gimmick is similar. You play the role of Danny, a man suffering from insomnia, and he has been put into a sort of virtual reality world to face his inner demons. Apparently, his inner demons are a series of levels where he has to collect orbs, avoid giant ...

Bender's Game is the 3rd Futurama DVD movie released since the series was officially brought back for 4 direct-to-DVD movies. And while each movie has been different in what it has brought to the table, I think this is by far the funniest movie of the lot to date. This Futurama movie is pretty heavy on the funny stuff despite a weaker premise than the last movie, but contains less serious material than the first movie. The movie has about a dozen subplots, but the main overarching plot point is about the "shortage" of dark matter fuel, and how Mom is exploiting the market for her own gain. There's a bunch of obvious references to the current oil crisis, but probably ...

The Star Wars franchise has a history of some of the most exciting and high-profile games. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, of course, follows this pattern. Being announced for every system available and promising an awesome new physics engine (for the 360 and PS3), the hype for The Force Unleashed was off the charts. Does it live up to the hype and promises? In some way yes, but unfortunately in some ways it is a major let down. The strongest part of The Force Unleashed is by far the story. Filling in the gap between the movie trilogies, the game unravels the tale of Darth Vader's apprentice, Starkiller, along with the formation of the Rebel Alliance. The story is filled with ...

This month, I've inadvertently watched 3 horror-ish movies. So, Leftovers time it is! Alien 3: Assembly Cut I finally took time to watch what is the "complete" version of Alien 3, and this is by far the superior version of the movie. Though this version runs pretty long, it also adds about 45 minutes of new material into the movie that fleshes out what has always been a pretty "eh" movie. I feel like this version gives the rest of the crew of the Sulaco that dies more focus, more characterization of the prisoners (who seemed one dimensional before), an interesting subplot where the alien is caught midway through the movie, and a lot of extra scenes discussing ...

Eastern State is a historic prison which is possibly most known for housing Al Capone for a brief while. It was abandoned back in the 1970s and is now believed to be haunted. You may have seen it on television, as it's been featured on The Travel Channel's "Most Haunted Locations" and MTVs now canceled show "Fear", along with some History Channel specials. ESP now functions mostly as a tourist attraction during the day, but around this time of the year it doubles as a haunted house at night. I decided to check this event out with some friends, as it had been a while since I've done any haunted attraction. So after grabbing the first unsold tickets I could find through Ticketmaster, I was on my way to hopefully have a spooky good time.

Sonic and his rag tag pals have the adventure thing down. Whether it be side scrolling or 3D, Sonic games have a simple formula: speed = fun. However, that formula has gotten stale. Since the fall of the Dreamcast, Sega has been creating Sonic titles at a steady rate. The luster that Sonic once had has certainly dimmed due to a lack of imaginative ideas and over-production. The fine people at Sega perhaps realized this and decided to take Sonic in a new, and bold, direction. Sonic Chronicles is the series' first RPG.