There’s nothing better on a cold winter’s day than to spend it huddled in your living room, wrapped in a warm blanket with a cup of hot chocolate, and listening to some of your favorite gaming tunes. Or at least that’s how gaming dorks like me spend the holidays (all alone…in a dark…cold…lonely room)  Fortunately, Larry Oji, Brian Arnold (Tweek),  and the team at OC ReMix are here with a fresh, Christmas-themed Mario Kart 64 track to help spread some holiday cheer.

The team at OC ReMix is best known for their work on the remixed soundtrack for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix which was recently released on Playstation Network and Xbox LIVE to a warm reception from critics and gamers alike. (IGN gave it a 8.7, and the game broke sales records with over 250,000 units sold)

“OC ReMix, creators of Capcom’s Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix official soundtrack, have put out this year’s Christmas OC ReMix, Tweek (Brian Arnold)’s Mario Kart 64 “Holiday Frappe”.

The ReMix is a jazzy arrangement of the “Frappe Snowland” theme, and features musical cameos from “Frosty the Snowman” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” Tweek also provided last year’s Christmas mix with the haunting Final Fantasy VII “Frozen Landscape” from our huge Final Fantasy VII album Voices of the Lifestream.

Whether Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or Festivus is your speed, have a Happy Holidays, everyone, from us at OCR! Follow us on Twitter and give us a holler!”

I just downloaded the song and it’s  pretty awesome. If you’re a fan of Mario Kart 64 you’ll definitely appreciate the innovative and fresh take on a familiar, old-school classic, but it is still definitely a must download  for casual  fans who are merely looking for some catchy music to listen to during their late night gaming sessions.

Check out  “Holiday Frappe” at their website here

When people protest, sometimes things get out of hands. Sometimes people end up setting themselves on fire, sometimes they end up shutting down international air ports, and sometimes they end up rioting so much that the national guard has to come down and shoot a few college students to make a point.

Fortunately, Bob Pelloni, an independent game developer who has labored all by himself for five years on the home brew title Bob’s Game, has decided to take a considerably more passive, Gandhian approach to resolve his beef with the head honchos at Nintendo. Instead of taking a gun and holding Nintendo HQ hostage until his reasonable requests are met, he’s decided to lock himself in a room for 100 days (with food and water, but no television or internet) until Nintendo gives him what he wants.

See, Bob is trying, just like everyone else, to live the American dream. He’s worked hard, made his own game over the course of five years and 15,000 hours of hard work (including coding, music composing, etc.) and now all he needs is a silly development kit from Nintendo to finish his work. He’s not asking for a loan from Nintendo, he’s not asking them to publish the game, hell, he’s not even asking them to invest anything into his game. He already has that taken care of, because apparently, there are publishers that are genuinely interested in Bob’s project.

But is Nintendo impressed with Bob’s achievement?

Apparently not. Despite Bob going through all the red tape (filing applications, meeting with people, etc.) Nintendo has decided to repeatedly deny his requests for a development kit. According to Bob, this development kit is the only thing he needs before he can make his game and it would cost absolutely nothing for Nintendo to give it to him.

So what’s the deal Nintendo? All this guy wants to do is prove that he can make games just as good if not better than the myriad shovelware that Nintendo insists on pouring out on a weekly basis, and all you can give this poor guy is a giant “Fuck you?”

If this were a sports movie, Bob would be the underdog, minority football team from the streets and Nintendo would be the Aryan, prep-school dickheads.

Nintendo may have its reasons for denying Bob, but I certainly can’t think of a legitimate excuse for not giving the guy a chance. If his game sucks and no one wants to play it, that’s for the publishers, the critics, and the gamers to decide. It shouldn’t be Nintendo’s call. It’d be like a doctor going up to a parent and telling them that they can’t deliver their baby because the staff thinks it’ll turn out to be ugly or something. Bob’s not asking Nintendo to rear and nourish his baby, he’s just asking them for a chance to deliver the damn thing.

Nintendo champions all this Wii (as in “we -together, all of us) garbage and yet apparently all they’re thinking right now is more about the Mii. See what I just did there? Har har har.

Joystiq and Kotaku have already picked up this story, but this writer also wants to throw in his support for Bob also. This is America where hard work, ambitions, and dreams should be rewarded. Nintendo shouldn’t bend over backwards and make every average joe’s homebrew title into a video game, but that’s not what Bob is asking for. Not at all. He’s already made the game all on his own, and now he just wants the chance to transform his hard work into a viable product that he can pitch to publishers.

Independent film makers don’t have to put up with this crap in order to pitch their reels to studios, so why should Bob’s situation be any different.

It’s an interesting story that I’ll definitely be following, and I think you should to.

Visit his site here for regular updates or
Write to Nintendo and tell them that you want to play Bob’s Game
Check out Youtube for video clips from his game.

No idea if you’ll ever read this Bob, but good luck all the same. I’m cheering for you.

Your thoughts?

Note: Thanks to Tony “Master Jawa” Diaz (or wherever he learned this from) for teaching me the steps.

Edit: An initial search for a news article pretaining to this didn’t turn up anything -a secondary one, however, led me to the guys at 360 Kombo where this handy tip initially surfaced. Thanks!

Don’t feel like waiting until January to play the highly anticipated, Japanese exclusive Resident Evil 5 demo? Don’t feel like going through all the hassle of setting up a Japanese Xbox Live Gold Account? Then just use these quick, easy to follow steps and you’ll be blasting zombies (either solo or with a buddy) in the demo’s two, short playable levels.

Note: The demo is incredibly on the short side (maybe twenty minutes in total) but it’s a must play for any Resident Evil fan who’s hungry to get a taste of what’s in store for them this March. Also, the entire process is risk and pain free (assuming you can spare a DVD-R that is)

1.) Download the torrent file from the internet (file size is around 470 mb)
2.) Rename downloaded folder “content”
3.) Burn “content” folder onto a DVD-R
4.) Pop disc into your Xbox 360
5.) Go to your game library and the game demo will be waiting for you.

Fast, simple and effective. Enjoy!

Quick Impressions

-Incredibly badass. Control scheme feels a lot like Gears of War 2. It’s easy to use and it’s very responsive.
-Feels like Resident Evil 4. A lot. I swear the handgun sounds are recycled from Resident Evil 4.
-Streamlined inventory system works really well. No more cumbersome and cluttered suitcases to endure.
-The graphics are gorgeous. Zombies are ugly and mean.
-Co-op multiplayer potential is enormous. Just from playing with a buddy for twenty minutes or so, I can already tell that this could be one of the best co-op gaming experiences ever. Trading weapons and supplies, guarding each other’s backs, running in to rescue a downed comrade -the experience felt like a unique hybrid of Left 4 Dead and Gears of War 2.
-From the menu, there’s online cooperative gameplay and split screen offline multiplayer. No system link though?

It has been quite sometime since our favorite acrobatic Persian prince graced consoles last (almost three years since the Sands of Time trilogy concluded with Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones) and Ubisoft has decided to revamp the franchise with brand new gameplay mechanics and a brand new look. But does the Prince’s next-generation debut exceed the stellar expectations set by its predecessors, or does the franchise need some more work before its ready to be finally crowned king?

Surprisingly, Ubisoft has elected to depart from the norms of the Prince of Persia franchise and made the story relatively non-existent. You’re the Prince and you find yourself teamed up with the magical girl/inevitable love interest named Elika. It turns out that a malevolent evil force has been released (which of course threatens the safety of the world) and it is your job to seal it away. There definitely is not a whole lot of depth to the rather one dimensional and bland storyline, which is really unfortunate given the complexity and actually good narratives of past Prince of Persia titles. What more, none of the characters are particularly likable this time around. While it’s true that in the last generation of Prince of Persia titles the Prince changed personalities from one game to the next (from normal, to brooding and angsty, to a hybrid of the two) he was still a genuinely interesting character that gamers could empathize with to a certain degree. In the new Prince of Persia, however, the Prince has the personality of your typical pretty boy, popped-collar, beer guzzling, chest bumping, frat-boy douchebag. He has the annoying tendency to crack the most awkward and inane one liners, promptly destroying whatever immersion you might have had in the game to begin with.

The gameplay itself is a mixed bag. Some will love it. Some won’t. Essentially, the new Prince of Persia has taken the game play elements of the previous titles and tossed it out the window. No innovative time manipulation techniques, no intricate sword play, and no nerve-wracking acrobatics. Everything about the game has been streamlined to become more accessible to the casual gamer, but ultimately, the gameplay feels rather soul less. The combat is dully simplistic and is comprised of spamming the same combo attacks without any need for strategy, and the platforming mechanics are equally as dull. Though they look brilliant and are pleasing to watch (and even execute to a certain extent) the fact that you can never die in this game removes a great deal of the tension and excitement that made jumping over bottomless cliffs so much fun in the old Prince of Persia games. If you mistime a jump or jump when you should have ducked, Elika is always conveniently around to save you. In the old Prince of Persia titles, every jump and trap was an obstacle as you would have to carefully ration your sand. This time, though, you can waltz more or less blindly into any predicament and feel confident you will survive.

There is one department that Prince of Persia nails perfectly -the visuals. The game looks absolutely gorgeous with beautiful cel-shaded graphics and some of the smoothest animations I’ve seen in a game to date. Though playing the game may be a rather simple affair, it is almost worth it just to appreciate the expansive and detailed level designs and stunning effects.

Conclusively, the new Prince of Persia does some things very well. I really can’t emphasize how awesome the game looks. Whether its the character models, or the amount of detail invested into the level designs, everything looks absolutely fabulous. Additionally, it is very possible for gamers to enjoy the gameplay given that they walk into the experience with the right mindset. The game has been altered to be more user friendly and appeal to a larger audience, and with its awesome visuals and simple but effective gameplay, it certainly succeeds in that respect.

However, simultaneously I feel that this game isolates fans of the old Prince of Persia. With a forgettable story, unlikeable protagonist, and the removal of pretty much everything that made the last-gen Prince of Persia titles so appealing, fans expecting more of the same Prince of Persia goodness will be in for an unpleasant surprise. I am not against the new innovations that the new Prince of Persia makes (the game does entertain a non-linear approach and unlockable powers that I found cool) and to a degree I can even appreciate the effort Ubisoft has made in creating a beautiful world that you can freely explore without fear of being killed and restarting at some obscure checkpoint.

But when it strays so far from the very foundations that made the franchise so awesome in the first place, it is difficult not to be disappointed.

Final Verdict: Rent It

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