MusikTek

All good things must come to an end...

2008-06-20T20:29:00.000-07:00

This blog, due to too much other stuff, will be taking a break. For how long I don't know. I am truly sorry.

What's to come for Guitar Hero in 2008: Part Two

2008-06-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

Two days ago (sorry I had to post the article today. I had no time last night), I talked about two "side" games in the Guitar Hero series. Well, with the extreme success of Guitar Hero III, why not Guitar Hero IV?? Well, thanks to Neversoft, RedOctane, and Activision, we are getting that, and then some!! Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you Guitar Hero: World Tour (Otherwise known as Guitar Hero IV).

First of all, why would it be named World Tour?? Well, to compete with Rock Band, Guitar Hero has added two new instruments, drums and vocals, alongside the 3 they have already (lead guitar, bass guitar, rhythm guitar). Also, they changed the guitar a little bit, adding a so-called touch-sensitive Neck Slide that's great for solos. And no details have been revealed about vocals yet. But, what about drums? Well, the drums have a snare, two toms, a bass drum pad, and two cymbals on top of the drum pads. These cymbals make the drum look a little more realistic than the drums for Rock Band. Also, to activate Star Power on the drums, you smash both cymbals at the same time. Speaking of realistic, the drums also have "velocity sensitivity'. This means that the harder you hit the drum, the louder it is.

The career mode for this Guitar Hero is also reworked to fit the extra instruments. First of all, if a player is on a hard song and can't seem to beat it, they can drop a level for that song and still be in the same career. On the topic of difficulties, there will be a "Easy Rhythm" difficulty added to Guitar Hero: World Tour for young children to get into the game. Also, a player can switch their instrument in a career without having to restart the whole career!! Isn't that great? And, there's Band Career Mode, in which you can advance by yourself or with other people online. Finally, on the Band subject, Bands can battle against each other online!!!

Now, isn't that such a great game??? Can there be any more possibly added to it? My answer is, yes. Guitar Hero: World Tour has an "Advanced Studio" mode in which you can create your own songs (besides vocals)!!! And even further, you can share them with friends via GH Tunes!! Also, all of the songs in the game will be master recordings!!! Also, besides for GH Tunes, you can download licensed songs if you are playing on a Wii, PS3, or Xbox 360. By the way, this is the first time the Wii can download anything in Guitar Hero.

Well, that's Guitar Hero: World Tour for you!! The game is slated for release on October 27th, 2008 for the US. Hope you have fun with it!!!

By the way, I know I haven't been up to par with my posts that good, but I am in a busy time. And tomorrow, I have graduation, so I cannot post. I'm really sorry, but I will be sure to post the rest of the days!! And as for some good news, I am leaving you with the trailers for each of the games I mentioned\:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_QrPaI-nYA - On Tour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyWM0zsjq6E - Aerosmith
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QE-NSxGS4M - World Tour

Hope to see ya back here on Thursday!!!

What's to come for Guitar Hero in 2008: Part One

2008-06-15T19:01:00.001-07:00

In the rest of 2008, many things are coming for the Guitar Hero franchise. And by many things, what can I mean besides video games?? That's right, three more games will be added to the lineup of Guitar Hero games this year.

Remember that game for the Nintendo DS called Jam Sessions?? Well, this first game brings a much better guitar experience to the DS. It is Guitar Hero: On Tour, which comes out in exactly a week from now, on June 22nd, 2008. But wait, how can Guitar Hero get onto the DS?? How would you hit frets?? Well, the game comes with an accessory called the Guitar Grip. This grip fits into the GBA slot of the DS and has you sliding your hand into it and then hitting the four frets on it. Oh, by the way, note that the DS would be in book mode while playing this. So, to play on the DS, you hit frets on the Guitar Grip, strum using the touch screen, and look when to press frets and strum on the display screen. What about Star Power?? Well, to activate Star Power, all you have to do is blow or yell through the microphone on the DS.

Guitar Hero: On Tour has 25 different songs, with over 85% of them being master recordings!!! Along with that, 5 of the songs in the game are from Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Besides those, the playlist has quite a number of recent songs for any Guitar Hero game!! By this, I mean songs such as This Love (Maroon 5), Are You Gonna Be My Girl (Jet), All Star (Smashmouth), and All The Small Things (Blink-182)!! The career mode is split up into five tiers, each including five songs. Also, the career mode lets you choose from six different characters. Four of these characters are ones from previous Guitar Hero games, while two are all-new to the Guitar Hero series. As you proceed through the Career mode, you unlock new venues and new looks for the characters.

Along with the Career mode, Guitar Hero: On Tour has Cooperative and Competitive play, thanks to the DS's local wireless capabilities. One mode in Competitive play is called Guitar Duel, in which you throw obstacles at your opponent, similar to Guitar Hero III's battle mode. These obstacles include having to blow out a virtual fire on your guitar, having to sign autographs, and having to fix a string on your guitar. People who have tested this game have said that this is their favorite mode. Speaking of autographs, Along with the game being sold separately, On Tour will be sold in two different DS bundles with the Guitar Hero insignia on the DS. So, that's Guitar Hero: On Tour for you!!

The next game doesn't really introduce new concepts, like On Tour. I am talking about another side game in the Guitar Hero franchise, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, which comes out June 29th, 2008 for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, and PS2. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is basically the same as Guitar Hero III when it comes to gameplay (except for modifications on Hammer-On's and Pull-Offs). Although, when it comes to everything else, it is totally different. The game's career mode follows the history of Aerosmith, starting from high school to their Super Bowl performance in 2001. And to go along with that, this game has mostly tracks from Aerosmith, but also tracks from artist having to do with Aerosmith, like Run-D.M.C. and Joan Jett. Also, the venues are one's that are vital in the history of Aerosmith. All of the tracks in this game are master recordings, by the way. And if that wasn't enough, Aerosmith used motion capture to literally "put themselves into the game". Guitar Hero: Aerosmith will be released in a bundle pack, as well as a single game. And that is all for this game.

Now, there is one more new Guitar Hero game coming out in 2008, but I'll talk to you about it tomorrow. See ya then!!

How Far Wii've Come: A Look at the Wii's Success in the Past 6 Months

2008-06-14T19:45:00.000-07:00

There's no doubt that the Nintendo Wii has been extremely successful over the time of its release until now. In 2007, games such as Wii Play and Super Mario Galaxy propelled the Wii. In 2008, three main games did this for the Wii.

First up is Mario Kart Wii. MK Wii came out on April 29th in the states and since then, it has been doing great. In its first week, Mario Kart Wii sold 1.12 Million!!!! Along with that, it brought a new way of control to the Wii, via the Wii Wheel. Lastly, Mario Kart Wii got great reception from reviewers, due to the large amount of content, as well as the smooth online gameplay.

Secondly, there's the revolutionary Wii Fit. Due to the limited shipments, Wii FIt sold out before even making it to stores!! Wii Fit uses a great system of control, using the Wii Balance Board. It has never been seen anywhere else before Wii Fit!!

Finally, Nintend's ace in the hole was released this year, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Brawl received 9's and 9.5's all over, and sold 2.7 million copies in America from release to April 1st. People were waiting years for this game to come!!! And now that it has come, everyone wants it. Therefore, it has that many songs.

Overall, the Wii has had quite a selection of games this year, with all of them doing great. I hope for this success to continue for Nintendo's sake!!

Sorry about Yesterday

2008-06-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

I'm really sorry for not writing anything yesterday. My mind just blanked on me, I guess. So, I wrote two articles for today!! Enjoy them!!!

My version of MTV's Hottest MCs in the Game 2008 List

2008-06-13T14:42:00.000-07:00

In Mid-May, the second annual MTV's Hottest MCs in the Game List was revealed. The list was made with material from the second half of 2007 and 2008 until then in mind. There's some stuff about the list that is 100% correct in my opinion. But, I have some disagreements with MTV's Brain Trust. So, today, I am going to review their list and make my amendments. First, let's start with the list, from bottom to top:

10. T.I.
9. Andre 3000
8. Young Jeezy
7. Lupe Fiasco
6. 50 Cent
5. Snoop Dogg
4. Rick Ross
3. Lil' Wayne
2. Jay-Z
1. Kanye West

Now, I will state my opinions about the list:

T.I. - If he hadn't been under house arrest, T.I. would have been higher on both this list and my list. Personally, I disagree with him being on the list this year. The only material he has put out himself is No Matter What, which didn't even hit big. He may have also been on Superstar (Remix) and Love In This Club's Unofficial Remix, but To be on my list, T.I. would have had to put out more material. Or at least make his latest single hot.

Andre 3000 - Andre's case is very similar to T.I.'s, except for the whole house arrest part. What material has Andre put out this past 12 months!?!? The Art of Storytelling Pt. 4?? Royal Flush?? Even though he did great on both of them, they aren't his singles!!!! So why is Andre 3000 hot this year??

Young Jeezy - This is a good spot for Young Jeezy. This year, he's had a major hit as a featured artist (Love In This Club), a few remixes (Dey Know, I'm So Hood, Umma Do Me, etc.), and his own single, which was starting to get attention (Put On). With all of this, he could have been higher, except for the lack of an album. IF he had an album out, then there would be no doubt that Jeezy would be higher.

Lupe Fiasco - Just like Jeezy, this is a good spot for Lupe Fiasco. This year, he has had a hit single (Superstar), and a hot album. And if that wasn't enough, he's on one of, if not, the hottest tours right now (Glow in the Dark Tour [Kanye West, Rihanna, N.E.R.D., and himself]). There's not much else to say.

50 Cent - Once again, the Brain Trust hit the nail on the head. 50 Cent, this year, has had one of the most successful albums, and a hit single to go with them (I Get Money would also be counted, but it was counted for last year). Along with that, 50 has been big on the mixtape scene lately, releasing such mixtapes as Elephant In The Sand. Finally, he scored two hits with G-Unit (I Like the Way She Do It and Rider Pt. 2). This has been a big 12-moth period for 50.

Snoop Dogg - What?? I mean, Snoop Dogg had a smash single (Sensual Seduction), and an album to match, but he didn't even write the album!! He let others write for him!! And for that, he doesn't deserve to be hot. The writers do. But still, he did have some hit material, so all I am saying is that he should be lower on the list.

Rick Ross - Now back to the correct channel. Rick Ross has been one of the hottest MCs of the year. I mean, two hit singles belonging to him (Speedin' and The Boss), an album with some pretty hot tracks (ex. Maybach Music, Luxury Tax), and a plethora of other songs and remixes (I'm So Hood and its remix, Beam Me Up, Umma Do Me's remix, Down in Tha Dirty, Out Here Grindin', and more)!!!

Lil Wayne - To have reclaimed the #1 title on the list, Lil' Wayne needed Tha Carter III out by then. Besides for that, he killed it this year!! He had a mega-hit single (Lollipop), some other hot tracks (A Milli, I'm Me, Gossip), and a ton of featured singles and remixes (Pop Bottles, Sweetest Girl, Duffle Bag Boy, Girls Around the World, In The Hood, I'm So Hood Remix, Love in This Club pt. II, and much more). Now, if the album was out by then, he would have definitely claimed the spot of hottest MC in the game. But, without an album, Wayne isn't as hot.

Jay-Z - In my opinion, this has been a pretty good year for Jay. He's had an extremely hot album with three hit singles and headlined two tours (one with Mary J. Blige). But, I don't think he's has as good of a year as Lil' Wayne.

Kanye West - Kanye has had an astounding year. First of all, his album went platinum within less than ten days. Secondly, He has had three major singles from the album since last year's list. But most of all, he has possibly the best one-man hip hop show ever. And yes, I am talking about the Glow in the Dark Tour. Along with that, he's been on a selection of songs, like Lollipop (Remix), Put On, American Boy, and Everybody Nose (Remix). He definitely deserves to be one.

Now, with that, here's my amendments:

10. Flo Rida
9. Snoop Dogg
8. Plies
7. Young Jeezy
6. Lupe Fiasco
5. 50 Cent
4. Rick Ross
3. Jay-Z
2. Lil' Wayne
1. Kanye West

I'm sure there are two you don't get by now, and those are Flo Rida and Plies. So, here we go:

Flo Rida - Flo Rida has established himself as a hot MC. He has had the biggest hit of 2008 so far with Low, and also has Elevator and In The Ayer. Also, he has some featured songs, like Speedin's remix, the Ayo Technology Poe Boyz remix, and more.

Plies - Just like Flo Rida but even more, Plies has made his place in the game. He's had such songs as Shawty, Hypnotized, and now, Bust It Baby Pt. 2. Along with those, he's had some featured songs too, like Ain't Sayin' Nothin', I'm So Hood, Dey Know (Remix), and Out Here Grindin'

Well, do you like my list?? Comment with your opinion!!!

Explicit Music and Mature-Rated Video Games: A Comparison

2008-06-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

Once again, I'm sorry about the lack of a blog post yesterday. This is what would have been yesterday.

When it comes to Media (Music, TV, Video Games, Movies, etc.), parents worry about explicit content the most. Today, I want to take a look at Music and Video Games. There are several reasons why these two are similar, yet very different. First, let's take a look at music:

The main reason parents don't want their children listening to explicit music is because of curse words and sexual content. They don't want their kids learning about that kind of stuff through songs. But, kids can't really learn about graphic content through songs, in my opinion. On the other hand, they can learn curse words through songs. But enough about curse words. The reason people can't learn about guns and drugs and sex through songs is because it is all graphic content, as in content that is inappropriate when looked at. You can't look at something by listening to music.

The main reason parents don't want their kids getting mature video games is because of graphic content, like mass blood, shooting, and the such. So, unlike music, kids who play mature-rated games can see the material. And usually, kids learn abut things by seeing them, not hearing them. So, in the end, M-Rated video games tend to be more explicit than explicit music.

I know this was pretty short, but I figured that I needed a break after two extremely long articles. Thanks for reading!!

Album Review: Tha Carter III by Lil' Wayne

2008-06-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

Hello again. Today I will be reviewing one of two albums being reviewed over this 14-day span of my blog being back. Both albums I will be reviewing have very good shots at being the best albums of the year. The one I will be reviewing next week after I listen to it has two hit singles and has broken the record for most pre-orders for an album on Play.com (The original record was held by Leona Lewis). But, let's save next week's album for next week. The album I will be reviewing today, when it was still set for release in 2007, was named the "most anticipated album of 2007" by XXL Magazine(a very big hip-hop magazine). If it weren't for Kanye West's Graduation, this probably would have been the best album of 2007 in my opinion. Sadly, the album was moved for a release in late spring 2008. Now, it is here and as good(or possibly even better) than the hype it has recieved. Welcome, Tha Carter III. As you all know, Lil' Wayne is defined as one of the best and most clever rappers in the game. Well, he brings it all on this album, and I am here to tell you about it.

I'm gonna do my album review in a different style this time. This time around, I am going to review each track by itself and then give a final grade for the album:

3 Peat - This track has a solid beat and Weezy starts the album with great lyrics, just as it should be. He even makes a reference to Adam Sandler in the movie "Click"! The creativity in this song is just a little bit better than most rappers. So, as an intro, 3 Peat should sets a level for Wayne to deliver better than. And it does just that. - 9/10

Mr. Carter (featuring Jay-Z) - This is probably my favorite track on the whole album. Two of the best rappers in the whole game collaborating on the same song. In my opinion, you can see the song in two different ways:

1. Jay-Z is basically letting Wayne come into the ring of the best rappers ever, like himself, Notorious B.I.G., and 2Pac. At the end of his verse, he calls Wayne to come.
2. This is the first way I saw the song. Basically as a rap fight between Lil' Wayne and Jay-Z, with Wayne giving the finishing blow at the end and accepting the award of Best Rapper Alive.

Or, you can just see it as a collaboration between Lil' Wayne and Jay-Z. Regardless, Wayne brings some of his greatest lines to keep up to par with Jay-Z:

"Man I got Summer hatin' on me cause I'm hotter than the sun, got Spring hatin' on me cause I ain't never sprung, Winter hatin' on me cause I'm colder than y'all, and I would never, I would never, I would never Fall. I'm being hated by the seasons, so fuck y'all who hatin' for no reason."

This line just shows pure creativity. I mean, who would think of comparing themselves to the seasons?? And Wayne did it perfectly. The Fall part shows that he never loses or does bad. And the last part is saying that Wayne gets enough hate already for thinking he's the best rapper alive and that he doesn't need any more of it from things like using Auto-Tune to reach the top of the charts (referring to Lollipop only reaching one on Billboard because of the infamous "T-Pain" effect achieved by using Auto-Tune). There are other parts in the song that I like a lot, but I won't go into too much detail now. If you were to listen to only one track on the album, listen to this. - 10/10

Milli - It really surprises me that a song with such a basic instrumental (The "A Milli" repeated and two drum pad sounds) could sound so good. To make it so good, Wayne delivers on this track. With lines such as "Muthafucka I'm ill, not sick, and I'm okay, but my watch sick, yea my drop sick, yea my glock sick, and I'm not dead, I'm ill." (Here, Wayne uses terms for being sick as terms for being cool, which is pretty cool), you can see Wayne's greatness as a rapper. Can it follow up Lollipop as a successful second single? We shall see. - 8.8/10

Got Money (featuring T-Pain) - Remember how I was talking about how Lil' Wayne uses Auto-Tune before? Well this is where it starts in the album. You should expect him to use it, especially when the master of Auto-Tune, T-Pain, is also on the track. T-Pain provides a good chorus, as usual, while Wayne tears it up with Auto-Tune!! There's not much to say about the track lyrically, besides for a few lines in the last verse. One of the lines I like a lot is:

"And I cool yo ass down if you think you're hot shit"

In this line, Wayne is basically saying that he's one of, if not, the hottest rappers in the game and because of that, he makes anyone else look cold as ice. Oh. And also, the beat for this is crazy!!- 8.9/10

Comfortable (featuring Babyface) - Babyface, just like T-Pain, has a nice chorus on this song. He says for his girl not to take love for granted and therefore not to get too comfortable in their relationship. In the first lines of the song, Wayne makes a great reference to Beyonce':

"Yeah, to the left, to the left, if you wanna leave be my guest, you can step. Feelin' irreplaceable listenin' to Beyonce', well okay I'll put you out on yo B'Day."

This line also explains part of the song, how Wayne feels irreplaceable, as in, he can be with anyone he wants and if they don't like him, there are others who definitely want to be with him. And if some one Another line I found very clever in the beginning is:

"I got game like EA,"

Once again, this line showcases Wayne's creativity. It's a pretty good track in my opinion, but there's not much else to say about it besides what I have said. - 8.8/10

Dr. Carter - This is one of two songs with stories on the album. The story for this track is that Wayne helps rappers in need of help with their flow and originality. He gets prepared and then gives advice to others. He also gives examples of great MCs, like Andre 3000, Kanye West (100% agree =) ) and Young Jeezy. One of his other lines is this:

"So I stopped writin', now I'm like lightning"

This refers to Wayne's success in the mixtape scene with his freestyles. In the last scene, he saves the "life" of a rapper, making him great. Overall, I find this track to be very intellectual and great. - 9.2/10

Phone Home - This is the other story-oriented track. Phone Home is based around Wayne being an alien from Planet Weezy. The title "Phone Home" refers to E.T. "phoning home". But, the story isn't as oriented as in Dr. Carter. There are only some references, like his voice being sort of altered in one part, and him going back onto his spaceship in the end. The song isn't as good as the others in my opinion. - 7.7/10

Tie My Hands (featuring Robin Thicke) - This track, unlike the others, is more laid back and chill. It has a nice, refreshing guitar in the background and Robin Thicke matches it with his soft, smooth voice. In the song, Robin Thicke refers to "Tying his Hands" as completely limiting him. He asks what he can be when his hands are "tied". Near the end of the song, you realize that Wayne describes it as a trip to freedom from being a refugee to not having your hands "tied". - 8.6/10

Mrs. Officer (featuring Bobby Valentino) - Like other tracks, the featured artist, Bobby Valentino, in this case provides the chorus. This song is more vulgar than the others, with many references to sex. This track, in my opinion, is plain, compared to some of the others. The only plus about the song is that it actually does stay on the subject of one thing the whole time and the lyrics make a lot of police references. - 8/10

Let The Beat Build - This whole song is about improvement and how the beat is at it peak when you are at your peak in rapping in a song. The first verse of the song is very interactive with the title. As Wayne talk about higher status and raps better, the beat builds up. In the end of it, he says "That's how you let the beat build bitch!" Like the previous song, it stays on the theme of improvement. But, thins song is better - 8.3/10

Shoot Me Down (featuring D. Smith) - I find this to be one of the more mellowed out songs of Tha Carter III. But besides that, he lyrics in this song are very clever. Some of the ones I like a lot are:

"I spit Alcatraz bars, I know,"
"And if you shootin' for the stars, just shoot me."
"My picture should be in the dictionary next to the definition, of definition, because repetition is the father of learning"

But what I don't get is how exactly the chorus of the song has much to do with the verses. Maybe its just the whole image of jail and guns in this song?? With both of these factors, the track is alright - 8.1/10

Lollipop (featuring Static Major) - Now this is where Auto-Tune plays a big role in the album's probable success. Lollipop, the first single of the album, heavily uses Auto-Tune to allow Lil' Wayne to sing instead of rapping. This leads to the major catchiness of the song, along with a pretty good chorus from the now late Static Major, that is. But, besides for the fact that Lil' Wayne makes great use of the "T-Pain effect", there is absolutely nothing lyrics-wise. It is even more vulgar and also edgier than Mrs. Officer. If it wasn't for the great use of Auto-Tune on the track and the great beat, this would probably be much lower. - 8.3/10

La La (featuring Brisco and Busta Rhymes) - When I look at the album art, of Tha Carter III, it signifies this track. An extremely silly beat suited for a baby and rapping about money and being on top. With that, you get Lil' Wayne's baby picture on the album art. Er, not really on second thought. But seriously, does Wayne expect people to take him seriously with this beat? I think so. Wayne, Brisco, and Busta all deliver on this track. If it wasn't for such a silly beat, I would like this track a whole lot. - 8.3

Playing With Fire (featuring Betty Wright) - On this track, I think you can say that you are Playing with Wayne, because he is pure fire. With great lyricism, a blazin' chorus from Betty Wright, enough vulgarity to not be too vulgar, and a lot of swagger, you can't say this isn't hot. There are quite a few hot lines on this, but I don't feel like picking them out. I think you get the idea that this track is hot. - 8.9/10

You Ain't Got Nuthin' (featuring Fabolous and Juelz Santana) - First of all, the beat for this track is pretty good. Secondly, everyone kills it on this track. Wayne provides a pretty good chorus, thanks to Auto-Tune. Fabolous starts with some clever lines, then gets into an italian food theme. Sort of, at least. I mean, lasagna, pasta?? And he even says " If ya reach for this medallion, ya must like Italian." Then, Juelz brings some hot lines too. For instance, here's one:

"My dough's a bit longer, my flow is just slaughter, my wrists look like frozen Poland Spring water. So tell me boys, tell me boys, who ya think ya messin' with? I get money out the ass, that's some expensive shit."

Can you sense creativity in that line? I sure can. After Juelz and the next chorus, Wayne raps his verse. Just like the others, his verse is pretty clever. He even takes a poke at the way Diddy talks!! Wayne does something in this song in which he "messes up" in saying saying words a few times. It goes along with the rhyme perfectly. I remember he did that in another song, but I forgot what song at the moment. Anyways, this song is also pretty hot in my opinion. It is a perfect combination of rap and Auto-Tune also. - 9.2/10

Don'tGetIt - This is basically Wayne explaining who exactly he is, if you don't get it already. He raps about him self for the first 2 minutes and fifty seconds, but then, he stops rapping and just talks. He talks about things that Bush was talking about one day on TV about black people. Then, he talks about sex offenders, and how his neighbor was sent to jail for sex offense when he didn't do anything wrong. After, he talked about Al Sharpton and how no one likes him because he gets angry on the subject of sex. Then, he says that whatever Sharpton says about Wayne is invisible to him, as if he was Casper the Friendly Ghost. Then, Wayne says that he is no Martin Luther King or Jesse Jackson and that he is just a rule. Finally, Lil' Wayne says "Fuck Al Sharpton or anyone like him and fuck anyone who understands, cause I like being misunderstood." This songs is sort of disappointing because Wayne raps for not even half of it and the rest of the song is basically saying "Fuck Al Sharpton". It baffles me as to why Wayne would not make the song his glory finish. - ?/10: I can't really give this song a rating. I don't know what to think.

Now, If you bought Tha Carter III in stores (not counting the Best Buy and Target special editions), whether it has the three bonus tracks or not, this is the end. But, if you're like me and bought it on iTunes, then there are two more tracks on the album. And I will review them now:

Lollipop (Remix) [featuring Kanye West and Static Major] - You can say that this is Lollipop 2.0. First of all, the track as a whole is much less vulgarity and much more creativity in lyrics. Kanye's verse in the beginning is 100% creativity. He talks about Gold Diggers and then goes to including different types of chips in two lines:

"Don't worry 'bout my wrist, got so free, tell them girls like Doritos that's not yo (as in nacho) cheese. Tell her friends like Fritos I ain't trying to Lay, I can only have one and I ain't trying to wait."

Another line I think is very clever is:

"Man the flow so cold, chicken soup won't help, man."

That is pure creativity. And Wayne? Not as good and Kanye, but still amazing. Here's an example:

"I got so much chips I swear they call me Hewlett Packard. I got so much chips you can have a bag if you're a snacker."

This and much more great lyrics make up for the original Lollipop sucking when it comes to lyrics. - 10/10

Prostitute 2 - Like 3 other tracks, this track uses Auto-Tune. The song is about Wayne dedication to a girl and how he would love her even if she was a Prostitute and if she keeps it real. The track's beat is nice and soft, to fit the track theme of love. I can't say much about the track lyrically, cause its not a rap. It's a song. And songs don't tend to rely on lyrics as much as raps do. But, Wayne fulfilled the role of a singer great. Once again, he utilized Auto-Tune to its fullest and greatest. - 9/10

So, without the iTunes bonus songs, I give the album a slight B+ (8.7/10). Its a pretty good album, but after listening to it again, not as good as the first time. With the iTunes bonus songs, the album gets a B+ also, but a better number grade (8.9/10).

Yes, I know this has been a very long review, but with an album with so much material, there's so much to write about. But trust me, the album I'll be reviewing next week is not nearly as long song-wise, and therefore will probably have a much shorter review. Thank you for reading this whole review. It's my first in a long while, and I think I made up for the days I was gone with this review.

Worldwide Developers Conference 2008 Opening Keynote: What happened and my perspective

2008-06-10T11:01:00.001-07:00

For the past few days, I have been awaiting many different things. Those things were supposedly all going to happen at this keynote. Over the weeks (or should I say, about a month or two) preceding this keynote, many rumors have popped up, such as rumors of a new iPhone with 3G internet speeds and GPS, as well as the release of 2.0 right after the keynote. Even such an unbelievable thing as a new OS X announcement. Well, that and more is almost exactly what went down at this year's Opening Keynote.

For me, there were several highlights of the session. Firstly, Steve Jobs announced that Bertrand Serlet would be previewing Mac OS X 10.6, named Snow Leopard. What followed was Scott Forstall, once again (referring to when he first did it at the March 6th Meeting when the SDK was first announced), explaining the features of the layers of iPhone OS, as well as explaining and demoing the SDK. Same old stuff. What really caught my attention to this part of the Keynote was when Scott got some developers to come out an show their results with the SDK. The first one was Ethan Einhorn of SEGA, demoing the application which caught tons of attention at the March 6th Meeting, Super Monkey Ball. Ethan started by announcing that the developers for the game have made an astounding 110 levels and have let you, the user, select from the four monkeys, instead of only being able to choose AiAi. Then, he demoed the app, which looks amazing. He finished by saying that Super Monkey Ball will be available on the App Store for $9.99 when it launches. The rest of applications, with the exception of one, didn't catch my attention as much. Remember though, I am only a 14 year old kid, not a person in his twenties or thirties. So, I won't put as much detail for the next ones. So anyways, next up was Ken Sun of eBay, showcasing an eBay applications, supposedly called "Auctions". After him was Sam Altman, who was describing a social networking application called Loopt. This application lets you post photos, text talk to your friends, call them, and even see where your friends are, using location pinpoint technologies. After Sam was Michael Sippey, showcasing an iPhone application for the blogging service called TypePad, which allows you to post pictures and blog as you go. Then, was Associated Press's Benjamin Mosse, who talked about an application called "The Mobile News Network", which lets you see news for a certain city, or even the city you are in. You can also look at news video using this app. Next was Pangea Software, who ported two of their Mac games to iPhone. Brian Greenstone walked us through these two games, known as Enigmo, a physics based puzzle game with the objective of collecting drops of water, and Cro-Mag Rally, a 3D Caveman Racing game. After Pangea Software, was the other application I was ecstatic about, which is from Mark Terry, who is also known for making instrument applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch (thanks to Jailbreak) under the alias MooCowMusic. The app he talked about was one of his more popular ones, known as Band. Band lets you play instruments as a Piano, a Funky Drummer, a 12-note Blues Bar, and a Bass Guitar. You can then record these instruments and save the work. After, Mark was Jeremy Schoenherr, describing MLB.com's native application for the iPhone, which lets you see game info and watch footage of the game. Next were two medical applications, from Modality and MiMvista respectively, which I'm not going to get into huge detail about. FInally, Digital Legends, a company based in Barcelona, Spain, showcased a heavily detailed RPG that they are developing, which will be released in September. After the whole showcase of Apps, Scott came back on and talked about a new feature being released for third-party applications called Push notifications. This means, even when you close an app, such as AIM, and you go into another application, you will get three different types of notifications whenever you get something, like a message. Those are a badge notification, signifying how many messages you got, a sound notification to tell you you got a message, and a text notifications to do the same, like for the SMS application. Then, Scott Forstall came off the stage and let Steve Jobs back on, who talked about some more new features of the 2.0 iPhone Firmware. These features include better Mail organization, a scientific calculator, Parental Controls, and tons of Language support. He then said that 2.0 will be out in Early July, with a $9.95 fee to iPod touch users. To finish the 2.0 part of the Keynote, Steve talked about other ways people could release apps that people requested for, Enterprise and Ad Hoc. To quote Steve Jobs, "something completely different" was about to be revealed.

Phil Schiller now came up and talked to everyone about MobileMe, which was described as "Exchange for everyone else". Basically, what it is is a way to keep your Conatcts, Calendar, Mail, Photos, and iDisk synced between several computers and iPhone and iPod Touch devices. It works with both native applications on devices (e.g. Photos, Mail, Calendar, Contacts on iPhone, iPhoto, Mail, iCal, and Address Book on Mac, and Microsoft Outlook on PC) and the applications available for use straight from me.com. Through Push services, it keeps all of the devices in sync. Along with explaining all of this, he demoed MobileMe. Phil's final statement was that this would come for $99 for a one-year subscription, along with a 60-Day free trial before and that it would replace .Mac . Sadly, there was no exact release date announced.

The final part of the Keynote belonged to Steve Jobs. He started by talking about how far the iPhone has come, with such factors as 90% Customer Satisfaction. Then, he listed what people have been demanding in a list of five things; 3G Internet Speeds, Enterprise Support. Third party applications, More Countries, and More Affordable. To solve these problems, he introduced the iPhone 3G, which has a black plastic cover, metal buttons, and finally, a flush headphone jack. Firstly, he displayed how fast its 3G speeds are, compared to EDGE and Wifi. It is much faster than EDGE! Also, Steve talked about a new feature in the iPhone 3G, GPS. Next, he said how he already explained Enterprise and third party apps. Then, Steve played a video with " It's a Small World" playing in the background, showing how many countries the iPhone would be coming to, which will be a whopping 70 countries!! That's 2.8 times as better as their stretched goal of 25!! Finally, he talked about the new price of the iPhone, only $199 for the 8GB model and only $299 for the 16GB model which also comes in white. Then, he thanked Scott and Phil's teams for what they have done and dismissed the crowd.

Now, you all are probably wondering (or maybe not), what would a 14-year old say to all of this? Well, all I can say is that I am amazed at all the content revealed and how accurate the leaks were.

First of all, I can definitely see why Apple would release their next OS X as Snow Leopard. OS X Leopard is phenomenal, and there is almost no point in changing it. So, all Snow Leopard is is an upgrade of Leopard. No new features are being added, only bugs and the such are being fixed, which I 100% agree with doing. Secondly, the quality of the Applications introduced is amazing. I mean, what took place way back in March completely blew me away. These applications, on the other hand, have done even more than that. I mean, who would think that you could view and quiz yourself on parts of the body on a mobile device (Note that I am describing the app that Modality introduced. I really didn't talk about it, but if you want a more detailed explanation of it, you can watch the Keynote from the link I will post at the end.)??? Or even watch News stories and Baseball gameplay videos!! Heck, who would think of playing Super Monkey Ball on a mobile device?!? Well, once App Store comes out, you will be able to do that and even more!! Personally, I think that this is quite a feat for Apple. And after that, Scott Forstall explained Push Notification, which is also amazing, and Steve Jobs explained even more superb things about 2.0, such as mass mail move and delete options, a scientific calculator, and extreme language support!! The only part about the whole SDK and App Store session that saddened me was that the 2.0 Firmware release date actually got pushed back from Late June to Early July, which means I won't have it for camp. Oh well, you can't get everything you want I guess.

The next thing to be announced, as I said before, is MobileMe. Now, being a 14-year old kid means that I don't have a whole gallery of contacts, nor do I have any need to set Events on a Calendar. In fact, the only things that really would interest teenagers about MobileMe are the push mail and push photos. But, Gmail and such other free web mail services solve the problem of email, which only leaves Photos. So, overall, I think most people under 18 wouldn't be too interested in MobileMe. Besides that, I think it is fantastic, being able to keep many different things in sync with many of your devices. The next thing, on the other hand, is what really caught my attention. That is, as the commercial descries it, the only phone to ever beat the iPhone, the new iPhone 3G. First off, this phone has all of the features I described so far, which is amazing by itself. Secondly, it is thinner, and cooler-looking than the original iPhone. It has metal buttons and comes in a sleek black model and an also cool white model (white is only for 16GB, though). Also, it has a flush headphone jack, unlike the original. So, lets say I lose the headphones the iPhone 3G comes with and I don't want to spend thirty bucks on headphones. Well, now you don't have to. iPhone 3G also succeeds in completing all five things people have been asking for, which are 3G internet speeds, Enterprise support, third-party applications, availability in more countries, and for it to be more affordable. FIrst of all, it has phenomenal 3G internet speeds, being extremely close to WiFi and about two-and-a-half times better than 2G, or EDGE speeds. This is great if I want to download an application from the App Store that is large or if I want to browse a web page with a lot of pictures. Along with 3G though, the new phone has GPS, which is especially good for Maps and applications that search for your location, such as Loopt. The next two things on the list were already talked about, so I'm not going to go through them again. Fourth, was as I said, more countries. Being a member of the iPodTouchFans community, as well as the ModMyiFone community, I see a lot of foreign developers and members. Imagine how much they would have to pay for phone service if it wasn't for being able to unlock an iPhone!! Well, that problem is solved. Finally, the one which most attracted me to the iPhone 3G, price. With the new price of $199, the iPhone 3G is much much more affordable and can reach more of a crowd. The only problem with the pricing is that You have to sign a two-year contract with AT&T when you get the phone (in America at least), which has to have, at minimum, the 3G data plan of $30. You can also add a voice plan for $40. In total, for unlimited 3G internet, 200 Texts a month, and 450 minutes a month, that's $70 a month!!! Personally, I find that to be a total rip off!! Otherwise, the 3G iPhone looks amazing. And the commercial for it is pretty cool!!

Overall, Worldwide Developers Conference 2008 seems like the best of them yet. Even though it is the first one I have paid attention to. That's all for this first blog post in a while. I'm looking forward to a great 2 weeks of blog stories. Also, below are links to the Keynote, as well as the commercial for the iPhone 3G I was talking about:

http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/0806wdt546x/event/index.html - Opening Keynote
http://www.apple.com/iphone/gallery/ads/hallway/ - iPhone 3G Commercial

Also on Apple.com, you can find lots of info on the 3G iPhone and see it in action. The same goes for MobileMe, which has a guided tour. And, if you can't seem to view the Keynote from the link I provided, feel free to watch it on iTunes. See ya!

It's Back!! But only for a limited time...

2008-06-10T10:59:00.001-07:00

Hello to all of my viewers. As many of you have probably noticed by now, I took a break from blogging for around six months. Well, I'm back!! Except, for only two weeks. For now at least...

So, enjoy my articles while they are still fresh and new and welcome back!!!

Album Review: Blake Lewis - Audio DayDream

2007-12-04T17:25:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago, I reviewed the album of 2006 American Idol winner Jordin Sparks and deemed it great. But, who was I really rooting for throughout American Idol? Blake Lewis of course!! I was so dismayed to see him lose American Idol, even with his beatboxing. But, if he signed with the record company behind American Idol, his album would be much different, and in turn, probably worse.

With Blake Lewis, as previously mentioned, comes his beatboxing. And on quite a few tracks, this is very prevalent, such as "Gots to Get Her" and the ever-so-addictive great choice of a single "Break Anotha". But, as many of you saw on American Idol, Blake's voice can also get really smooth. On his album, "How Many Words" and "Without You" are some examples of this. Some of his songs are also more on the pop side of soul, like "Hate 2 Love Her" and "Here's my Hello". And then, out of nowhere, Bshorty (Blake Lewis' alter ego) grabs the mic and beatboxes his way through an interlude. Any other rap appearance on the album? One of the more alternative rappers in the game, Lupe Fiasco. What a great fit for Blake Lewis. The diversity of this album is amazing. The production on this album is also very good, giving Blake robot-like sounds, helping him on the beatboxing, and just being great beats. Listen to "What'cha Got 2 Lose" and "She's Making Me Lose It" for a great example of these. Yet, with all of that diversity, I like the fact that Blake decided to end a majority of the songs with some sort of beatboxing effect. It seemed very creative for some reason, yet uncreative at the same time.

My favorite two tracks on the album are "Break Anotha" and "End of the World". "Break Anotha" has really started to grow on me mainly because of Blake's sync with the tune , aswell as it being sort of reminiscent of Maroon 5's "Wake Up Call". Does anyone else see that similarity? As for "End of the World", it has a different to it than the rest of the songs. It seems like more of a positive-melodic song, which I like a lot. Especially when it comes to Blake Lewis. And for some reason, I also like the Outro a lot.

Grade: A- - Diversity, great singing, and beatboxing all in one album?
Tracks to get: Break Anotha, End of the World

Well, I bid you adieu with this message:

I hope all of your DayDreams are sweet after listening to this album!

Crayon Physics turned into an iPhone app

2007-12-03T16:18:00.000-08:00

Many people over the past few weeks have been looking frequently at YouTube amazed at a game known as Crayon Physics. And I am one of them. The main point of the game is to draw bridges and circles to get a blue ball to hit a star. But how do you draw these? With a stylus on a touch screen computer of course!! Watch this video to see how Crayon Physics works:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QsTqspnvAaI

Now, why am I posting about this? Because along with looking at this YouTube vid a few times, iPhone and iPod Touch fans have been thinking about how to get this game onto their Apple devices. Now, this is possible. People have made a program for the iPhone and iPod Touch called iPhysics that is extremely similar to Crayon Physics. And instead of the broing levels in Crayon Physics, people have hade custom levels with designs!! For instance, there is a Mario level pack available for iPhysics. In that pack of levels, you go from Super Mario Bros. to Super Mario Bros. 3. Of course, there are some glitches in the game, such as the fact that you can't really draw a circle and the fact that the star is a red box, but I am sure that updated versions will have even better quality. On that note, catch ya tommorow with an awesome album review!!

Album Review: Justin Timberlake - FutureSex/LoveSounds (Deluxe Edition)

2007-11-28T16:18:00.000-08:00

To commemorate the success he had with the album, Justin Timberlake has rereleased his hit album FutureSex/LoveSounds. So, for this week, I am going to take a look back at 2006 by reviewing one of its most successful albums. FutureSex/LoveSounds has spawned an amazing six singles to mainstream radio, aswell as two of them getting a suprising mass amount of play at Urban stations. And the deluxe edition is even better!!

From the first moment your hear FutureSex/LoveSound (the first track on the album) to Sexy Ladies (Remix) (the last one), you can hear great production on this album. Whether it's from the trio of Timberlake, Timbaland, and Nate Hills, Will.I.Am, or Rick Rubin, the production on this album is outstanding. The beats are amazing ear candy in my opinion. They go from extremely technical-sounding (Sexy Ladies, My Love, Summer Love) to smooth (What Goes Around........Comes Around [Interlude], Until the End Of Time, Set the Mood Interlude, [Another Song] All Over Again). One thing I noticed about the songs is that some of them (ex. Summer Love/Set the Mood Prelude) are split into two parts, one being a prelude or interlude and the other being the actual song. I think that this is in spirit of the title being split into two parts by a slash mark. The guest spots on the album also help a bit. Timbaland, T.I., 50 Cent, and Three 6 Mafia put a little more edge into their album with their rapping, aswell as their random appearances in songs in the case of Timbo. On the other hand, Beyonce puts a little more R&B flavor into Justin's current hit, Until the End of Time and Will.I.Am puts more of a hip-hop flavor onto the song he produced, Damn Girl. The one thing that I really dislike about the album is that pretty much all of the songs are about love and sex, with the exception of Losing My Way (in which Justin talks about an addiction to crack cocaine and asks if anyone out there understands him and hears him). But what can you expect from an album titled FutureSex/LoveSounds?

My favorite two tracks on the album are My Love and What Goes Around....../Comes Around Interlude. I like My Love for the amazing production on it, aswell as the T.I. guest spot. Justin is also taking his voice to the limits on this song, which I really admire. I especially like What goes Around because it is essentially a story in one song! The "story" talks about how when the girl Justin like rejects a relationship with Justin, it will all come back around at her and that it isn't fair. As for the argument on which is better, out of the regular Until the End of Time and its remix, I would say that Beyonce beats Justin on his own song. The remix is truly an amazing combination, with the princess of R&B and the prince of Pop (even though he really wants his music to be titled R&B music, not Pop). Plus, their voices harmonize so great.

The production of this album, along with the smoothness and versatility of Justin's voice, make FutureSex/LoveSounds a great album in my opinion.

Grade: A-: Spectacular production, amazing singing and rapping. The only drawback was the unoriginality of the tracks.
Track to Get: My Love, What Goes Around.../...Comes Back Around Interlude, Until the End of Time (duet with Beyonce)

Game Review: Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games for Nintendo Wii

2007-11-27T15:11:00.000-08:00

Ah. What a beautiful day at the 2008 Olympics!! Such a great breeze, the sun is shining, and what's this?!!??! The competitors are entering the stadium!!!!! But wait, it can't be!!! Mario, the heroic plumber and mascot of Nintendo, and Sonic, the hedgehog or heroicness and mascot of Sega, are entering the stadium in one competition together!!!! And they are being followed by such heroes and villains like Luigi, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Bowser, and Peach, to name a few!! This, is Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games!!!

The main selling part about this game is the fact that this is indeed the first game in which Mario and Sonic clash!! Many people that are fans of both protagonists have been waiting for them to be together in a game, and this is their chance to see them together. Of course, this isn't really what fans were expecting. I would think most people would have wanted the two to have their own epic journey in which they face annoying pests such as Dr. Eggman and Bowser. Atleast this is a start of possibly a big game including Sonic and Mario. Anyways, this game sets Mario, Sonic, and their comrades (and your Miis) as contestants in the 2008 Bejing Olympics.

And with the Olympics come a wide array of sports events! These events range from Swimming to Athletics (Track and Field) to even Table Tennis!! The games are divided into six categories, each utilizing either just the Wii Remote or the combination of the Wii Remote and the Nunchuck. I think that this game is much similar to Wii Sports, except a wider choice of characters and different activities. The most fun out of the activities, in my opinion, is the Trampoline. This event, classified in teh Gymnastics category, has you first trying to jump a certain distance, and then peforming tricks by pressing the A and B buttons and twisting the Wii Remote. Speaking of the Wii Remote, this event uses only the Wii Remote. It is pretty tricky to get all of the buttons and tilts in time. I always keep getting in the low to mid-7s for my score on the performance!! As for those who played Wii Sports for a fun way to sweat off some pounds, I would recommend the Swimming events. the events in this category have you moving the Wii Remote and Nunchuck in different ways to swim with your character. Some of these characters make you move the pair of controllers up and down to swim with them. i have found that by rapidly doing this method of swimming, it is easy to break a sweat. As for those who want a mental challenge, I would recommend the Fencing game. In this event, you use the Wii Remote held vertically to block, fake, and fence at your opponent. It takes a good mind to know what the opponent will do and how to counter it. Mabye you're thinking that the opponent is about to fence at you. Block the shot to leave your opponent open for a fence. Or, go backwards and dodge the shot. There are also many games that I didn't talk about that are fun, so try them out!!!

Overall, I would say that this is a great game that utilizes all of the motion-sensory features of the Wii, whether it's aiming the Wii Remote at flying disks or quickly alternating the Wii Remote and Nunchuck to run. And it's also a bonus for those Mario and Sonic fans.

Gameplay: 8.5/10 - Pretty bad concept, but very nice gameplay in my opinion.
Graphics: 8.25/10 - Not really detailed, like most other Wii games, but just as crisp and clear as an Olympic day!

Also, I want to say that for my album review this week, be prepared for a blast from the near-past!! I am Jaykk, signing out!

In my opinion, the top 3 electronic must-haves

2007-11-23T16:14:00.000-08:00

As all of you know, today was Black Friday, the start of the holiday season. To celebrate the start, many people shop for holiday gifts! To acount for the start of the holiday season, I wanted to make a top three list of must-haves for this holiday season:

3. Super Mario Galaxy

It has been awaited since even before the Wii was released. And now, Super Mario Galaxy makes is descent onto Earth. This is the must-have game for all people with a Wii. For some good information on this game, you can refer back to when I posted about Super Mario Galaxy in an article. And with the success it has had already, I am sure that one out of atleast every 100 houses will have this in their bundles of gifts.

2. Rock Band

Ever since the release of Guitar Hero, some people have wondered, could you ever have a digital band? Well, with Rock Band, that is very possible indeed. Rock Band has a great selection of songs that focus on the whole band, and is rapidly adding to the list with downloadable content. Some examples of great songs are Dani California, by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Wanted Dead or Alive, by Bon Jovi. I would say this also is a must for families. With the main game needing 4 people, This is a game the whole family can love and enjoy playing.

And........................

1. iPhone

When I was in the Apple store two days ago, I swore I saw atleast five iPhones being purchased. Plus, with the commercials still running in maximum of the product, the iPhone is the must-have on any wish list. The versatility that it has is amazing. Plus, it means that instead of getting a phone, laptop, and iPod for someone, you can just get them an iPhone. Nothing much else to say, as most of you should know what the iPhone does.

Well, that's all for today. I hope you have had a good time shopping today! See you back here on Monday, and possibly sooner!!

Can it be alright to lipsync?

2007-11-22T15:18:00.000-08:00

First of all, I would like to say happy turkey day to all of my blog readers! It has been a great holiday for me so far, and I hope it has for you too. Secondly, I wanted to talk about an important topic in music today, lipsyncing.

As I finished watching the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, I started to wonder about the musical performances. I realized while listening to them that they were all lipsynced. So, for my blog article, I was thinking about when its alright to lipsync. Of course, I came up with the obvious places where it is horrible to lipsync. But, I also came up with a couple times in which its fine to lipsync.

The place in which you want to lipsync the least are most televised performances and concerts, in my opinion. Televised performances are one of main sources of exposure for digital download success. But, if an artist lipsyncs a televised performance, then that will get a possible customer of the digital single mad at the artist and most likely cause him or her to not buy the single. Also, if that performance was really talked about beforehand, then the artist would most likely get a lot of bad media if they lipsynced a televised performance. For a good example at this, look at Britney Spears' performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her performance was extremely hyped up. Then, the performance comes. Britney messes up, and every single pop culture TV show is giving her bad press. As I said before, another bad place to lipsync is at concerts. Most concertgoers want to hear the music of the artist they are seeing in a different perspective, that perspective being live. If an artist lipsyncs at a concert of theirs, you can expect the crowd to boo them to death and leave the concert.

But, in some cases, it is alright to lipsync. For instance, take Chris Brown's performances at the MTV Video Music Awards and the American Music Awards. He did lipsync, but made up for it by doing some amazing dancing. So, if you do something else in your routine to make up for lipsyncing, like dancing and the such, then you can lipsync and people won't give a care. Another place I find it alright to lipsync is the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Since the performance is shortened anyways, most people won't care if you lipsync or not.

Well, I am gonna stop here and go to my thanksgiving feast. So, with my goodbyes, I wish all a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!!!

Album Review: Jordin Sparks - Jordin Sparks

2007-11-21T14:16:00.000-08:00

Hello fans =). Today, I am here to review the not-so-long, but awaited debut from Sixth Season American Idol winner Jordin Sparks.

After her first single, "Tatoo", didn't do amazingly on the charts, I was having doubts about Jordin Sparks' self-titled debut album, Jordin Sparks, doing good on the charts. But, after hearing the rest of the album, I can say with all my heart that this album will debut at #1. Just as she said, Jordin's album has a pop feel like Kelly Clarkson, but yet smooth like Beyonce. More on the smooth side though, especially with tracks like "One Step at a Time", "Permanent Monday", and "Next to You". There are some tracks that sound more pop though, like the techno-beat "Shy Boy". Plus, Jordin chose a great track to end the album with, "This is My Now". Putting such a powerful track like that makes a really good last impression on the listener.

Personally, I really like the album. First and foremost, Jordin has an undeniably great voice. Secondly, I think her album appeals to people who listen to more mainstream, yet also people who like listening to urban radio stations. As for my favorite tracks, well, the majority of them are good, but a track that really got my ears tuning in was "No Air". The Chris Brown guest spot on the track does make me like it, but it's also the theme of the song that gets me. The song is about how a boy can't live without their girlfriend beside them and how a girl can't live without their boyfriend beside them. Jordin and Chris alternate lines, and then sing the chorus together. I think their voices go along great together, especially when they're combined in a meaningful chorus.

Overall, the album is very good in my opinion. Mabye not enough to convert me to a state of Jordin Sparks obsession, but good nonetheless.

Grade: B+
Tracks to Get: "No Air"

Album Review: Alicia Keys - As I Am

2007-11-15T15:58:00.000-08:00

Well, today I am here reviewing Alicia Keys' newest album, released on Tuesday. The title, for those who don't know, is "As I Am". This is her fourth release (The others, in order being Songs in a Minor, The Diary of Alicia Keys, and Unplugged). Onto the review!

Personally, What I like about the album is that all of the songs have that Alicia sound. But, each song has it in a different way. She sounds different of each and every song, whether she sounds as if she is in the 60's or today. Now, the bad part is that the album sounds a little too bland for me. No song extremely stood out. I mean, the album is good, just no noticeable tracks. Well, only one. The most noticeable track for me was the Intro. It's a great start to such a soulful album in my opinion. So, nothing else really to say about the album, unfortunately.

Grade: B
Tracks to Get: As I Am (Intro), No One

Gonna do it tomorrow, post it later that night + Really cool iPhone/iPod Touch App!!

2007-11-14T18:11:00.000-08:00

Well, with such a swamped day today, I have to delay the album review to tomorrow. Lucky for me, my brother got "As I Am", making the album review all the easier. In other Alicia news, she sold 160,000 copies of "As I Am" in her first day, beating out Celine Dion by over 100,000 (she sold 58,000 copies of "Taking Chances").

Well, for today, I want to talk about an iPod Touch/iPhone application that I got through Jailbreaking my iPod Touch. The game is pretty reminiscent to Guitar Hero. But, by looking at the title of it, you would first think Dance Dance Revolution. The application is called Tap Tap Revolution.

Tap Tap Revolution has you trying to hit all of the notes to a song on three strings. Unlike Guitar Hero, there is no strumming involved. You just press the note you want to hit. Also, instead of a limited song library, the songs you play are the ones that you have that have TTR note spreads. Of course, you need Wifi to see which ones have TTR note spreads. So, try and stay as close to the Wifi source as possible. And how does the application have so many songs already? You can make TTR note spreads for any song in your library and then send them to the Internet for others to try out!!! It makes the application a whole lot better in my opinion.

So, if you need a good game application and don't want to go through the process to put ROMs onto your iPod Touch, Tap Tap Revolution is great!! I certainly love it!! The concept of a widely-played console game on a portable device is amazing!!

Review tomorrow!!!!!

2007-11-13T18:55:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to say that after the dismay of last week, the album review of the week shall be posted tomorrow or Thursday morning!!! This week, I am reviewing "As I Am" by Alicia Keys. This album has spawned two singles so far, them being the soulful "No One" and her latest single, "Like You'll Never See me Again". If I were to judge from those singles, then I would have to say that "As I Am" is a great album. This week, Alicia will have to face Celine Dion, with her newest album "Taking Chances", in the album battle ring. Personally, being a fan of Alicia from the start, I hope Alicia can pull out the win. Besides, she has a very successful single, while Celine has a mildly-successful single.

So, come back here tomorrow for a very soulful album review!!!! I think I will be very impressed with the album.

Great news for Guitar Hero 3 players on Xbox 360 and PS3!!

2007-11-12T14:59:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wanted to get new songs on Guitar Hero, without the wait of a new game? Well, now is your chance to do so!! If you have Guitar Hero 3 for Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, then with Wifi, you can buy Trax Pax!!

These Track Packs contain 3 songs. Each of these songs shares the same artists. For instance, the first two Track Packs available at the moment are the Velvet Revolver one and the Foo Fighters one. The former contains three tracks, like "She Builds Quick Machines" and the song from the Guitar Hero 3 commercial, "Slither". The latter contains two of Foo Fighters older hits, and their latest hit, "The Pretender". Each Track Pack is set at quite a good price at $6.25.

Overall, I would say Track Packs are a great investment. I would definitely want all of them.

I guess it was made to be a no. + What I want on the iPod Touch

2007-11-09T14:05:00.001-08:00

Sadly, after making the time to do the album review I wanted to do, I couldn't find the tracks. I think it has to do with Jay-Z not putting "American Gangster" up on iTunes. So, I will not be posting a review this week, sadly.

Now, onto the actual article....

When I got the iPod Touch, I felt as if it wasn't complete. So, for today, I wanted to post some ideas for Applications for Apple to consider when making future iPod Touch models.

First of all, the iPod Touch comes with no communication applications whatsoever. I think that just as how they did with Youtube, Apple should partner up with a company like Facebook and make an application on the iPod Touch that lets you check your Facebook profile and those of your friends, as well as your News Feed and Notifications. This idea might even convince family members to buy iPod Touches, just to keep in touch at all times with Facebook.

Secondly, the applications that were iPhone-exclusive need to get onto the iPod Touch. There is no reason as to why they can't, due to the iPhone and iPod Touch having the same internal features. Some of those applications were very handy on the iPhone. I think I would like to know where I am going (Maps) or the weather (Weather).

Finally, it may take some modifications to the shape and size of the iPod Touch to do, but I think a Radio application should be made for the iPod Touch. Apple could apply the same technology that they used with the iPod Radio Tuner with the iPod Touch. Besides, the iPod Touch can already connect to the Internet, so why not a satellite? This is good if your in a moment in which you want to listen to a variety of music, but don't want to do the work for yourself via On-The-Go.

So, there's my input on future iPod Touch features. I hope you, the readers, can cope with no album review for this week, and I am terribly sorry for not writing for the past two days. I have just had so much things to do, that I couldn't fit in time to blog. Well, see you tomorrow!!

Now I am getting agrivated >=(

2007-11-08T10:14:00.000-08:00

I really want to, but once again, I cannot review the album today. But, It is 100% going to be tomorrow, which is just in time for the weekend. So once again, I am terribly sorry, but see you tomorrow for the so-called stupendous album of a true American Gangster.

I am really sorry =[....

2007-11-07T14:06:00.000-08:00

....but once again I have to delay the album review for personal reasons. So, expect it tomorrow. Thanks guys!!!!!

First Look: Super Mario Galaxy for Nintendo Wii

2007-11-06T13:25:00.000-08:00

Before I start this article, I am dismayed to say that the album review will be coming tomorrow. I just don't have enough time to do one today and I am terribly sorry about it.

Anyways, I was at the mall today. While I was there, I went into Gamestop, looking for Sonic and Mario at the Olympic Games, which actually comes out tomorrow. But, what I did find there was a demo of a Nintendo Wii title coming out next Wednesday (November 14th), Super Mario Galaxy. I wanted to write a little bit about the game today.

This game is different from the past 3D Mario titles for a few reasons. First of all, while Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine take place on land, Super Mario Galaxy takes place in space!! The graphics of space are much imporved from the graphics of 64 and Sunshine. Second and most importantly, this game has much different gameplay from its 3D Mario preceders. This is because Super Mario Galaxy makes full use of the Wii Remote/Nunchuck combination and the motion-sensory of the Nintendo Wii. For instance, you use the Nunchuck control stick to move around, press A to jump, and spin the Wii Remote to use a spinning attack.

From playing the in-store demo, I can tell you that I look forward to playing Super Mario Galaxy. First of all, the graphics look amazing compared to any other Mario game. The settings look all polished up and Mario's looks have improved. Secondly, the gameplay is so creative, which I really like. Finally, it's a Mario game, and who doesn't love playing as the Nintendo mascot trying to beat the big, bad Bowser and save the stunning Princess Peach?? Of course, I wasn't able to get even one star with the time I had playing the demo, but I am sure I can do it when I get the game. Besides, with the added bonus of unlocking Luigi after 150 stars, you would probably want to get the first one as soon as possible.

As you can see, I am really awaiting the landing of Super Mario Galaxy to the US. The game seems like it really did deserve the title of second most awaited Wii game (First went to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess). Catch you tomorrow!!!

Guitar Hero 3 for Playstation 2: The Review Part 2.

2007-11-05T14:29:00.000-08:00

Hello again. I am back with the rest of the review of the amazing game known as Guitar Hero 3. The setlist and career mode are pretty different this time around. So, I decided to talk about those things today.

First, the songs for this game are different that the past Guitar hero games. The most exciting part about the songs is that a lot of them are recorded by the artists that originally made them instead of some cover band. This makes the in-game songs sound much more like their in-real life versions. For instance, in Guitar Hero 2, I was pissed off that the Guitar Hero version of Avenged Sevenfold's "Beast and the Harlot" was different from the original. Now, my favorite song in Guitar Hero 3, "Knights of Cydonia", doesn't have to go through that. this is because Muse rerecorded KoC for Guitar Hero 3. Another change is that frets come earlier in this game, starting to appear widely in the last 3 levels of Medium.

Another difference in this game is the Career mode. The career mode in this game has you as a band trying to succeed in the music business. Then, you get this wild manager named Lou, who guides you through all of the shows and such. But, after the band has fully broken out, the boss really insults them by calling them hasbeens. This causes the band to "can", or get rid of, the manager. Then, the bad part comes. Turns out, when you signed a contract with the manager, you didn't read the last part, which states the following:

Your souls are mine.

Ouch. So, you go to hell and after completing the final level of songs, you face your manager in a Boss Battle that will keep you playing Guitar Hero 3 for a while. Now, about the boss battles. In Career mode, you have 3 boss battles. Your opponents are Tom Morello, Slash, and Lou (in that order respectively). The first one is pretty easy, once you get the hang of Battles. Slash seems like a huge challenge, but once again, he is somewhat easy if you are good at Battles. Then comes Lou. Lou is pretty hard. here are my three tips on beating him:

1. If you keep missing a lot of notes, try not focusing on one note and just try and hit the rest. That is, unless you need to hit that note for a Power Gem.
2. Time your Power Gems so that Lou won't get his Power Gems. Otherwise, he will time them perfectly and wreck you.
3. This one might have been pure luck, but use Slash. Every time I used Axel Steel, I failed against Lou. But, once I used Slash, I found myself beating Lou on the first try.

So overall, I think Guitar Hero is a great game to follow up Guitar hero 2, which was also good, but not on caliber with its sequel.

Guitar Hero 3 for Playstation 2: The Review Part 1.

2007-11-04T16:19:00.000-08:00

I know there wasa big delay for this article, but it was worth it, trust me. I just finished the Career Mode of Guitar Hero 3 on Medium, and I have to say, it is awesome.

Just as I said for the Wii version, this Guitar Hero has upgraded graphics for a lot of things. First, the graphics for the Note Streak, Multiplier, Star Power Gauge, and Crowd Enjoyment Gauge have been changed around and upgraded. Then, the characters' appearances have changed. For instance, Axel Steel looks a little more scruffy now, while Xavier Stone looks less formal in his groovy purple getup. Plus, there are new guitars and finishes in this game. All of the new guitars look very cool, even the Guitar Hero guitar that you can buy in-game. Finally, the arenas. The arenas include a Japan-themed one, a space-themed one, a wooden outdoor haven, and Hell. The one annoying graphic that is in the game is the lead singer of the band. But, after you get over that, the graphics for this Guitar Hero are better than any other one so far.

Another addition to Guitar Hero in this version is the new Battle Mode. This mode is played by two people, in which they try not to outplay the opponent (like Face Off), but to make the opponent fail by making their song harder for them. Instead of Star Power in this mode, there are Power Gems. Each Power Gem has a power that makes the opponent's song harder. Some of those Gems include a Increase Difficulty Gem and a Double Note Gem. Then. there are gems that disable notes until you press that fret a few times or do other stuff. These Gems are the Cut Note Gem and the Whammy Gem, which makes you shake the whammy bar to enable the notes. Of course, the effects of the Gems last only for a few moments, so use them at the right time, or else your opponent can get them and strike you with the Gems' mighty power and cause you to lose all control of your notes. This mode is used to battle against the bosses, so you might want to practice beforehand with your friends.

Well, since Guitar Hero 3 is so amazing, it needs 2 days for review!!! So, see you tomorrow, with more details on the greatest Guitar Hero game yet!!!

Jaykk's Guide to Making a Good Mii on Your Nintendo Wii

2007-11-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

Today, after school, I was playing my Nintendo Wii and decided to make a Mii. Then, after doing a lot of complicated stuff with the Mii Channel, I had a new, but very creative Mii that sort of looked like a Koopa from the Mario games. There are different types of Miis, being Portrait, Crazy, and Creative.

Most of the time, when you make a Mii on the Nintendo Wii, it would be one that looks like someone you know. To make a good Portrait Mii, the person you are making it of should be right near you or you should have a picture of them. This helps for detail like the size of the head, size of the nose, shape of the eyebrows, and more. I would really suggest that the person is there with you when you make the Mii so you can get personal preferences from the person about them. For instance, when I made a Mii for my friend, he was there to tell me that he wanted to be skinnier than I made him and taller. Or, you can make a Mii of a celebrity. The one thing with that is that you have to put in the right smile to fit theor personality.

A lot of people also like to make really weird Miis with things such as makeup, funny eyes and nose, and gray hair. The key to making a Crazy Mii is to use as many of these funny and weird things as once. I personally like to use the shortest and fattest figure possible for my Crazy Miis. One Mii of mine, Zupahdisko, has a grey hair afro and big glasses, which are both weird in my opinion.

Finally, the very skilled people at making Miis would know that you can make very creative Miis using the Mii Channel. The key to doing so? Moving around and resizing the facial parts (eyes, eyebrows, mouth, nose, etc.). One example is when I made my Koopa Mii, I moved his eyes to the top left and right of his head, his eyebrows to where his nose would be, and his mouth in between the eyes and the eyebrows in their positions now, so it looks like as if the Koopa has a beak-ish thing on his face, like all Koopas. Another way of making creative Miis is by making images in the face. But, this needs more moving. For instance, I made a Goomba Mii with an image of a Goomba from the Mario games on the face of the Mii by moving and resizing the eyebrows, nose, mouth, and eyes of the Mii.

As you can see, there are many ways to make a Mii. Whether your Mii is very creative like my two, a portrait of a friend, or some crazy looking thing, you should know how to perfect it and even how to make it in the first place. Sadly, I will not have an article tomorrow, due to a certain event I am going to, so see you right back here on Sunday!!!

First Thoughts: Guitar Hero 3 for Nintendo Wii

2007-11-01T03:56:00.000-07:00

After a fun-filled night of trick or treating last night, our group of trick or treaters went back to one of their houses. The best part? I got to play a couple songs on Guitar Hero 3, the Wii version.

The Most notable difference between 2 and 3 that I saw was the graphics. The graphics for the Wii version are very reminiscent of Guitar Hero 2 on Xbox 360. Another difference I saw, that I think is only for the Wii version, was that to hit the note, you had to play it like a quarter of a second before you are supposed to. But as I said, that is most likely only for the Wii version. A very cool thing I saw was that Guitar Hero 3 for Wii utilizes the Wii Remote's speakers. Whenever you miss a note, you hear the missing noise from the Wii Remote in your Guitar.

Now, about the songs I played. The two that I chose were When You Were Young and of course, Knights of Cydonia, both on medium and then KoC again on easy. When You Were Young wasn't that difficult. Of course I did get a pretty bad score on it, due to not playing Guitar Hero in a while. Then came Knights of Cydonia. It was pretty hard for a Medium song. The song throws a lot of notes at you, one by another. There are also a lot of frets. Sadly, I only got through 61% of the song, but there's always next time, when I play Guitar Hero 3 on my PS2. On the other hand, I got through the Easy version, which was much easier. Now I have at least one goal for GH3 on PS2: Beat Knights of Cydonia on Medium, and possibly try it on Hard.

Well, I hope this short review was helpful! I absolutely loved playing Guitar Hero 3, and I hope you do too!!!! Expect a full review of the PS2 version in the next week or so =).

My opinion on the title of Nas's next album

2007-10-31T03:07:00.000-07:00

It is a known fact that in the rap game, the usage of the "N" word is a very controversial topic. Well, things become even more controversial when a rapper's album name is the "N" word. Nas has named his December release Nigger.

Many rappers and others have opinions on this title. Some of them support it, while others do not. For example, L.A. Reid, Island Def Jam Music Group Chairman, said on Nas's album, "We support everything our artists do, everything! We stand firmly behind and beside our artists with pride and with pleasure. Anything Nas wants to do, I completely stand beside him. Nas is prolific, he's prophetic, he's a genius, an amazing artist of respect. So, while I'm not sure exactly all that [the title] entails, I know it's smart, so I stand behind him. That's real." Some others to stand behind L.A Reid are Common and Akon.

Others, although, like 50 Cent and Reverend Al Sharpton, disagree with the title. About the title, Al Sharpton, who is trying to totally abolish the "N" word, said, "Again, I'm opposed to anybody using the term. We're in an age where they are hanging nooses, they're locking our kids up in Jena and Florida. We do not need to be degrading ourselves. We get degraded enough. I think we need artists to lift us up, not lock us down."

Nas says that the reasoning behind this title is to soften the meaning of the "N" word. But, after Al Sharton heard Nas's statement, he replied, "What they're doing is, as we're fighting to make [using the N-word word] a hate crime, they're making it not a hate crime, which is helping out the racists. You don't see [people from] any other race trying to take the power out of names being called to them. People [who use the term in their music] wouldn't put out a record against whites or cops or Jews because they ain't got the guts to do that. They only got the guts to beat up on their own."

In my opinion, I agree with Nas and I think that he likes to be controversial. Nas likes attention, and he is surely getting a lot of it from the title he has made.

Actually, 2 Album Reviews = No

2007-10-30T16:50:00.000-07:00

On second thought, I don't really think reviewing the planned for album is necessary, especially after today's great album. It was Britney's album, Blackout, by the way.

Album Review: Avenged Sevenfold - Avenged Sevenfold

2007-10-30T03:29:00.000-07:00

This week, I am going to review not one, but two albums! The first out of the bunch is Avenged Sevenfold’s self-titled fourth album, Avenged Sevenfold. Avenged Sevenfold is from Southern California. Now, onto the album.

The album starts with some hardcore screaming and rocking out in such songs as “Afterlife” and their first single, “Almost Easy”. Also, Synyster Gates proves he is a guitar beast in these songs. Then, it gets a little softer with “Gunslinger”. After that track, the hardness of the tracks comes back with “Unbounded (The Wild Ride)” and “Brompton Cocktail”. Finally, the hardness comes and goes on the last three tracks. I could guess you can sort of call this album a roller coaster, going from hardcore rock down to not as hardcore then back up and finally back down with the ending track, “Dear God”. And then there’s the completely outrageous “A Little Piece of Heaven”, which lasts roughly 8 minutes and is very different from all the other tracks, but also similar. It uses trumpets and violin, unlike the rest of the tracks.

Overall, there were no bad tracks on this album (except maybe the last one) and a few good ones. The one that I like the most is “Critical Acclaim”, the starting track of the album. “Critical Acclaim” extremely bashes the government of today and how people complain about the government, yet never participate in it. I love the guitar riffs in the song, as they are very reminiscent of “Bat Country”, which has awesome guitar playing, thanks to Synyster Gates. The one track that seemed very good, yet unique at the same time to me was “Lost”. What I really like about it is the vocal edits that you can hear in the song. It goes very well with the melody.

I think that Avenged Sevenfold deserve a clean A for this for sure. It's awesome guitar, drums, bass, and vocal in one album. Basically, Avenged Sevenfold is a great band in my opinion.

Grade: A

Tracks to Get: “Critical Acclaim”, “Lost”

My next album review will probably be posted later today or tomorrow. Thanks for looking!!!

The Huge Difference Between Super Smash Bros Melee and Super Smash Bros Brawl, and how it Changes the Smash Bros Community as a Whole

2007-10-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

As many of you should know, the long awaited sequel to Super Smash Bros Melee is coming out on Febuary 10th, 2008, called Super Smash Bros Brawl. There are many differences between the games, including character selection, a new adventure mode, and more. But the main diffwerence that makes Brawl that much better is the system it is for. That gaming system would be the Nintendo Wii.

If you are a Smash bros fanatic like myself and have been checking the updates in the Smash bros Dojo, you should see that Brawl really puts to use the fact that it is on the Wii. For example, like Melee, Brawl lets you take snapshots. Although, in Brawl, the pictures can be saved onto an SD Card, which makes them viewable on your camera and better yet, uploadable to your computer. So in stead of getting your friends to come over to see you Smash Bros pictures, you can share funny pictures of your fights with others around the world on your computer!!

Another way in which Brawl utilizes the Wii is with Wifi. Brawl has may Wifi features, including modes such as Wifi Home-Run Contest and of course, Wifi brawls. Plus, you can send videos of your best fights to your friends via Wifi. So, no more need for Youtube to view Smash Bros fights ^_^. What can be better than that, you ask? The Create-A-Stage mode, which applies both the SD card factor and the Wifi factor. First, you can save stages that you have made onto an SD card to show others. Second, you can get the top stages that people have made through Wifi and submit yours to possibly chosen as the best stage! Isn;t that fanatstic!!!

Overall, being on the Nintendo Wii makes this Smash Bros game much different than any other, in my opinion. Hope all of you are waiting for this awesome game!!!!

Sorry for the delay of some sorts..

2007-10-29T03:17:00.000-07:00

Today, I will be posting the article closer to nighttime EST. So sorry for the delay =(.

My review of the Guitar Hero 3 setlist and more!!!

2007-10-28T08:39:00.000-07:00

Hello people. With the release of Guitar Hero 3 today, I want to review the setlist (or at least the songs I know). Also, I want to share some songs that I think should be in Guitar Hero. So, let's start with the setlist:

1. Starting Out Small

* "Slow Ride" – Foghat
* "Talk Dirty to Me" – Poison † (Vocals re-recorded by Bret Michaels)
* "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" – Pat Benatar
* "Story of My Life" – Social Distortion
* "Rock and Roll All Nite" – Kiss (Encore)

2. Your First Real Gig

* "Mississippi Queen" – Mountain
* "School's Out" – Alice Cooper
* "Sunshine of Your Love" – Cream
* "Barracuda" – Heart
* "Guitar Battle vs. Tom Morello" (Original composition)
* "Bulls on Parade" – Rage Against the Machine (Encore)

3. Making the Video

* "When You Were Young" – The Killers
* "Miss Murder" – AFI
* "The Seeker" – The Who
* "Lay Down" – Priestess
* "Paint It, Black" – The Rolling Stones (Encore)

4. European Invasion

* "Paranoid" – Black Sabbath
* "Anarchy in the U.K." – Sex Pistols †
* "Kool Thing" – Sonic Youth
* "My Name Is Jonas" – Weezer
* "Even Flow" – Pearl Jam (Encore)

5. Bighouse Blues

* "Holiday In Cambodia" – Dead Kennedys
* "Rock You Like a Hurricane" – Scorpions
* "Same Old Song and Dance" – Aerosmith
* "La Grange" – ZZ Top
* "Guitar Battle vs. Slash " (Original composition)
* "Welcome to the Jungle" – Guns N' Roses (Encore)

6. The Hottest Band on Earth

* "Black Magic Woman" – Santana
* "Cherub Rock" – The Smashing Pumpkins
* "Black Sunshine" – White Zombie
* "The Metal" – Tenacious D
* "Pride and Joy" – Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble (listed as Stevie Ray Vaughan in game) (Encore)

7. Live in Japan

* "Before I Forget" – Slipknot
* "Stricken" – Disturbed
* "3's & 7's" – Queens of the Stone Age
* "Knights of Cydonia" – Muse
* "Cult of Personality" – Living Colour † (Encore)

8. Battle For Your Soul

* "Raining Blood" – Slayer
* "Cliffs of Dover" – Eric Johnson
* "The Number of the Beast" – Iron Maiden
* "One" – Metallica
* "Guitar Battle vs. Lou" (The Devil Went Down to Georgia – Steve Ouimette)

Bonus tracks

* "Avalancha" – Héroes del Silencio
* "Can't Be Saved" – Senses Fail
* "Closer" – Lacuna Coil
* "Don't Hold Back" – The Sleeping
* "Down 'N Dirty" – LA Slum Lords
* "F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X." – The Fall of Troy
* "Generation Rock" – Revolverheld
* "Go That Far" – Bret Michaels Band
* "Hier Kommt Alex" – Die Toten Hosen
* "I'm in the Band" – The Hellacopters
* "Impulse" - An Endless Sporadic
* "In the Belly of a Shark" – Gallows
* "In Love" – Scouts of St. Sebastian
* "Mauvais Garçon" – Naast
* "Metal Heavy Lady" – Lions
* "Minus Celsius" – Backyard Babies
* "My Curse" – Killswitch Engage
* "Nothing for Me Here" – Dope
* "Prayer of the Refugee" – Rise Against
* "Radio Song" – Superbus
* "Ruby" – Kaiser Chiefs
* "She Bangs the Drums" – The Stone Roses
* "Slither" – Velvet Revolver
* "Take This Life" – In Flames
* "The Way It Ends" – Prototype
* "Through the Fire and Flames" – Dragonforce

Of course I don't know the majority of these songs. So, let's reduce it to the very few that I do know:

* "Rock and Roll All Nite" – Kiss (Encore)
* "When You Were Young" – The Killers
* "Miss Murder" – AFI
* "Knights of Cydonia" – Muse
* "Ruby" – Kaiser Chiefs

As I said, very few =(. So, let's review!

Rock and Roll all Nite: Widely known song from a great band. That is all I can say.
When You Were Young: I would never have expected this to get onto Guitar Hero, considering it's not that kind of song that goes along with terms like guitar shredding and the such.
Miss Murder: Great punk song. Uses the guitar really well in m opinion.
Ruby: Also uses the guitar well. And, I think Ruby is very catchy after hearing it a few times.
Knights of Cydonia: When I heard that this song was in Guitar Hero 3, I was like, "Folks, we have the new Crossroads/Freebird!!!" This song is amazing, and a perfect choice for Guitar Hero due to the song mostly being guitar solo. Sadly, though, KoC is only on level 7 out of 8. Now I wonder how hard it shall be...

Just a few quick reviews there. Now, I want to share some songs that I think should be in Guitar Hero:

Bat Country - Avenged Sevenfold: This song MUST be on Guitar hero 4, or I will probably destroy my guitar controller. This song has one of the best guitar solos I have ever heard in my life. It would make for a really hard song on Guitar Hero in my opinion. And a really awesome one. Also, look out for an album review of Avenged Sevenfold's newest album on Tuesday ;)

Icky Thump - The White Stripes: Icky Thump has some really crazy guitar playing. This makes me think that it would be a good song to be on Guitar Hero due to its uniqueness.

No More Sorrow - Linkin Park: I think No More Sorrow would be good on Guitar Hero due to its long chords. This could easily be a song in the 1st group. NMS seems like an easy song to play, making Guitar Hero a better time for newbies to the Guitar Hero franchise. Plus, Linkin Park has sold the most albums worldwide out of all albums released in 2007. Now is that an impressive feat or what?

Party Like a Rock Star - Shop Boyz: Now this may be pushing it, but I think Party Like a Rock Star does deserve some spot in Guitar Hero. This song would give the people behind Guitar Hero a chance to widen the genres of music in Guitar Hero. Plus, don't rock stars play guitars?

Well, that's all for now. See you tomorrow, my fans!!

The Aftermath of Jailbreak.

2007-10-27T04:29:00.000-07:00

Recently, I have Jailbroken my iPod Touch. Jailbreak is a program that lets you hack your iPhone or iPod Touch so you can put third party applications onto it.
Overall, I like a lot of the new programs, including the ones that let you keep in touch with others. Mail, which was previously unavailable on the iPod Touch, is convenient for keeping in touch with my email on the go. Same goes for Apollo. Apollo is an instant messaging program for the iPhone/iPod Touch that lets you use MSN, Yahoo, or AIM on your iPhone/iPod Touch. Now, I can easily keep in touch with my friends while I am away.

Customizing the Home page on your iPod Touch is very fun indeed. A program by the name of Summerboard lets you do this. Summerboard lets you customize the icons and background for the Home page (also known as the Springboard). My Summerboard theme is set as Retro neon. It looks really cool =).

Finally, what entertain me the most are the games on my iPod Touch. First of all, there is iBlackjack. That is a automated Blackjack program for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Next, I can entertain myself with puzzle games like 15 and Lights Out. Finally, there is the NES Emulator. I have a lot of fun with this most of the time, playing games such as Donkey Kong and Pacman. The only problem I have with it is the fact that it is hard to press the buttons correctly, due to them being on the touch screen. Otherwise, the games are really fun.

As you can see, I have a lot of fun with my hacked iPod Touch. Plus, the process is extremely easy. All you have to do is get the program Jailbreak (or iJailbreak for Mac)! And it's all legal!!So go hack away!!!

How does the Internet affect Trading Card Games?

2007-10-26T03:39:00.000-07:00

Would any of you think that that children’s card game that was created in 2002 known as Yu-Gi-Oh is still alive and well today? Well, as an avid player of the game, I can say with much happiness, that it is in fact even better than the beginning nowadays. If it wasn’t for the internet, cards games such as Yu-Gi-Oh would be dead nowadays.

The internet allows for easy communication between the various amounts of players of any card game. This leads to discussions of new ideas, easier spread of news on new cards being released, and more! The internet also gives people a chance to see coverage of Yu-Gi-Oh events, like national tournaments and such. Another good thing about the internet is that it gives an infinite amount of sources to buy cards if nowhere near you sells them. For example, back in 2004, I was a n00b (not newbie, but a person pretty bad at the game). Then, I discovered my first Yu-Gi-Oh message board. Getting opinions on my deck and hearing other strategies helped me become more interested and more involved in the game.

Another thing the internet can do for you in the Yu-Gi-Oh environment is let you meet people that may live near you. So, you can find out information on the local tournaments and make new friends. I have certainly made quite a few friends in Yu-Gi-Oh from them living close to me. I can meet up with them at various tournaments and such.

As you can see, the internet plays a big role in the liveliness of Trading Card Games like Yu-Gi-Oh. In my opinion, as long as the internet lives, Trading Card Games will live on longer than expected by the public.

The "Download Up" Theory

2007-10-25T03:35:00.000-07:00

Hello again. Today, I want to share a theory in music that my brother and I have thought about. I call it the “Download Up” Theory.

For the Billboard Hot 100 positions, a song has to have good radio airplay, single sales, digital streams, and digital downloads. Our theory is about the reason artists wait to release a song digitally. We say that the artist waits until the single they released is at its peak of success, and then release it digitally. This allows for huge digital sales, meaning an pretty easy top spot on Billboard. Well, in the cases in which you release it at the exact peak of success. For instance, when Sean Kingston and Rihanna released their singles “Beautiful Girls” and “Umbrella” respectively at their peak of radio success, they shot up to number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Sometimes, this is not the case, as a single may flop, or just not get enough attention. For instance, the Akon single “Sorry, Blame it on Me” did not get enough attention prior to digital release, causing it to debut at a depressing #7 (as in depressing for Akon, who has had 2 #1 singles) and falling ever since. Another example of this is Jay-Z’s latest, “Blue Magic”. Just after about 3 weeks of release, “Blue Magic” was released digitally. Because of the lack of attention, it debut below number 50.

To conclude this article, I shall put in my hopes of “Kiss Kiss (featuring T-Pain)” by Chris Brown debuts this week at number 1, as it was just released digitally last week. Thanks for reading! Also, think of this theory next time you look at past Billboard number ones.

My take on Wii Fit

2007-10-24T04:07:00.000-07:00

The Nintendo Wii has revolutionized exercise, with Wii Sports. Now, the exercise isn’t only in your arms. Introducing Wii Fit:

http://e3nin.nintendo.com/wii_fit.htm/

Wii Fit uses the Wii Balance Board (included with Wii Fit) to make you use all of you body, instead of just your arms, like with the Wii Remote. The Wii Balance Board can measure you body mass index aswell as your center of gravity. Wii Fit will have over 40 different activities. These activities are such things as yoga, head butting a soccer ball, and hula hooping. Also, just like Wii Sports, this game integrates Miis into it as the characters.

Personally, I dislike the fact that Nintendo is putting fitness into a game. Then, people will just think they can lose weight and stay fit by playing Wii Sports and Wii Fit. I think that to be fully fit (exercise-wise), you have to go outside and play some sports or go on a treadmill for like 30 minutes. I mean, games such as these can definitely help, but they aren’t a full exercise.
Overall, I think this is a great investment on Nintendo’s part. Many people wanted the Wii for Wii Sports. So, this gives another game to those people. Going for $75.00, Wii Fit comes out on the 1st of January here in the US. Hope you guys get it and enjoy it!! Mabye not as exercise, but as a fun, creative video game!!

Album Review: Serj Takian - Elect the Dead

2007-10-23T14:25:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, the music week starts on Tuesday, with the release of many albums. Every week, I will review at least one album that has my interest. So, for this week, I chose to review the solo debut from System of a Down lead singer Serj Tankian, called Elect the Dead:

After hearing the both slow and fast-paced 1st single from Elect the Dead, Empty Walls, I thought this whole album would be crazy. But I was somewhat wrong. Sadly, most of the songs are the same style, going from slow paced lyrics, to loud, quick melodies. Although, this album is still pretty good. Serj’s very unique voice fits the instrumentals well. For instance, on Empty Walls, the instrumental goes at the same pace as him, going from soft piano, to hard guitar playing. Two tracks on this album that I recommend are Feed Us and Baby. Infectious guitar on the former has gotten me to like it, along with how synced the guitar is with Serj’s voice. As for Baby, it starts out as a soft ballad, and rapidly changes into a hard guitar song, which I like very much. Overall, I think this album is good. Don’t worry; it’s the same old Serj from System of a Down ;).

Rating: B - Pretty good, but not well enough to hit an A mark.
Download This: “Feed Us”, “Baby”

My review on the iPod Touch

2007-10-22T18:11:00.000-07:00

It may be a little after the release of the iPod Touch, but here is my review for it:

When I heard that the iPod Touch was coming out, I thought it was a bad move on Apple's part. That was before I tried it out. Now, I have found that the iPod Touch can be described as modified version of the iPhone, without the Phone part.

There are quite a few advantages that this new iPod has over the iPhone. First of all, being more of a music device than a communication device, the iPod Touch has a Wi-Fi iTunes Store. Besides for the lack of video products (Music Videos, TV Shows, etc.) and Pre-Order albums, I would say that this Wi-Fi iTunes Store is very cool and very handy if you either aren't near a computer or don't have one. Also, for this reason, the iPod Touch comes in both 8GB and 16GB, while the iPhone only came in 8GB. Next, the iPod Touch is much thinner than the iPhone, probably due to it not being a phone. Finally, with the lack of phone service, comes a lack of AT&T. This means that unlike the iPhone, you don't have to pay $50 a month for service on the iPod Touch.

Sadly, with advantages, come disadvantages, even without counting the obvious not being a phone thing. Firstly, the iPod Touch, unlike the iPhone, does not have a camera feature, which I was very dismayed about. Secondly, it doesn't have speakers, like the iPhone did. Maybe Apple couldn't make good speakers for the iPod Touch, as the ones for the iPhone were not so good. Finally, some of the applications on the iPhone do not exist on the iPod Touch (such as maps). Besides for these differences, the iPod Touch and the iPhone are pretty much the same.

Overall, I think the iPod Touch is a very cool device. I love using it to go on my favorite websites through Safari and to check what's new on iTunes. So, if you would like to have a very cool, sleek iPod, the iPod Touch is what you need.

Intro

2007-10-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

Come one and all, to the MusikTek blog. My name is Jaykk, and i will be writing on this blog about gadgets, video games, and most importaintly, music. Hope you <3 the blog, becuase it is gonna get really good :).