Need For Speed: Shift (Xbox 360)
Developer: Slightly Mad Studios Publisher: Electronic Arts Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC What happens when the world realizes it doesn't need so much speed after all? Though not struggling as spectacularly as the American auto industry, the long-running Need for Speed series has steadily lost ground to competitors. Recent installments feel tired and passé, especially when played alongside more inspired games like Burnout Paradise. Aimless circling is a vital part of any racing simulator, but that shouldn’t apply to a game’s own past.... read more
Start Press: The Spirit of Radio
The story is already legend. On October 30th, 1938, listeners who tuned in to hear CBS Radio’s regular broadcast of Mercury Theatre on the Air were whipped into a frenzy by a series of increasingly calamitous news bulletins chronicling a Martian invasion of Grover’s Mill, New Jersey. At that moment in history when Orson Welles staged his now-infamous radio drama War of the Worlds, the run-up to World War II was already in motion. The American public might as well have been collectively listening to the cadence of a wooden roller coaster clack-clacking inexorably toward the first of many stomach-turning... read more
The Best Albums, Movies, TV & More From the 2000s
When this decade began, Paste’s website was barely a year old, and the magazine was still a twinkle in its daddies’ eyes. So looking back over the first 10 years of the 2000s feels like looking back over our own history. There hasn’t been a new album, film, TV show, video game or book Paste has covered that wasn’t eligible for our “Best of the Decade” consideration. We had dozens of critics vote in each of these five categories, and then we argued some more until we’d focused our spotlight onto the very best pop culture created during the aughts—whether... read more
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Nintendo DS)
Developer: AlphaDream Publisher: Nintendo Platform: Nintendo DS Get further inside the Mushroom Kingdom than ever before At this point, new Mario games are excuses for Nintendo to poke mild fun at itself, in that secretly flattering way only unimpeachable powerhouses can pull off. The company’s 28-year-old mascot has hopped through every genre under the sun, including, in the Mario and Luigi series, action role-playing. The third entry, Bowser’s Inside Story, feels like a long-running sitcom, where every character entrance enjoys great fanfare, and all the gags wink knowingly at prior gags. Nintendo could coast on nostalgia alone, but to their... read more
Win an Xbox 360 Elite Bundle in the Paste Scavenger Hunt
Get to know the new PasteMagazine.com and you could win an Xbox 360 Elite Holiday Bundle. Simply play the newest Paste Scavenger Hunt, finding the answers to questions on the appropriate Paste webpages. Each answer earns you points, and each point gives you an additional chance to win. You also randomly get bonus points just for browsing the site.... read more
Start Press: Lost In Space
Lately it’s been getting dark around five o’clock in the evening. Ireland is situated far enough north that it won’t be long before the daylight—notice I said ‘daylight’ and not ‘sunshine’—will fizzle out each afternoon around 3:30pm. I like to imagine that the sun has gotten sick of its job and begun showing up late to work, slipping out the backdoor early. I don’t mind the shorter days. Nighttime amplifies the comfort of your domestic environs. Like when you’re watching a stage play with an elaborate set and all the lights fade to black except for one spotlight trained on... read more
Who Frontman Roger Daltrey Hints at Upcoming Rock Band Game
"Music is our last true great freedom," Daltrey says. "They can burn our books, they can burn our paintings, but they can't stop us singing and making music." read more
Catching Up With... DJ Hero Producer Will Townsend
Will Townsend has the job that countless twentysomething dudes could only dream of: He gets paid—and well—to play video games. Townsend is the producer of DJ Hero, the newest incarnation of the Guitar Hero series, which hits shelves Tuesday (Oct. 27). Clad in black-rimmed glasses, a black t-shirt and a Yankees hat, Townsend looked a lot like his clientele when he sat down with Paste recently at the Xbox 360 DJ Hero premiere party in Atlanta. Over the blare of party-goers diving into the new game, Townsend told us about putting the game together, the power of video games and... read more
Start Press: If I Could Turn Back Time
In the past I’ve tended to avoid racing games that strive for a realistic simulation of the driving experience. As far as I was concerned, the brake pedal existed for morning commuter traffic, not virtual speed-demon fantasies. I could abide the handbrake, but only because it allowed you to go drifting around bends, tires screeching like a pack of bloodthirsty harpies on the attack. But it felt wrong that a game would require you to slow down in order to be successful. Inevitably I’d spend a few minutes skidding off the track and spinning my tires in the sand or... read more
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (Xbox 360)
Developers: Vicarious VisionsPublisher: ActivisionPlatforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, Wii, DSMarvel fanboys rejoice! From the time Spider-Man first appeared as a pixilated, web-slinging blob on the Atari 2600, it seems that Marvel Comics' spandex-clad pantheon of superheroes have been systematically pimped out to one video game developer after another, with the end result being a slew of depressingly bland adaptations. Fortunately, video game-loving Marvel fanboys have a new reason to celebrate thanks in part to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, a game bursting with enough heroes, villains and nods to obscure Marvel lore to send most comic book geeks into anaphylactic shock. That... read more
How DJ Hero is Changing Music Forever
Video may have killed the radio star back in those dark and desperate times known as the '80s, but... read more
Start Press: The High-Score Scourge
Videogames are fun. This is not breaking news. When we play games, we’re transported to different worlds and set free to explore. When we play games, the clock’s minute hand slows, blurs and then disappears entirely. Our brains are tickled, challenged to solve the puzzles and master the challenges presented to us by the game’s developers. There’s nearly unlimited potential for rhapsodic pleasure in a well-designed game. But lately I’ve been swearing at my games with unusual frequency, spitting out combinations of expletives that, to borrow the words of author Anne Lamott, would “make Jesus want to drink gin straight... read more
Big Boi, Jermaine Dupri and DJ Drama Talk DJ Hero
Atlanta hip hop's finest talk to Paste about Activision's next big video-game release... read more
Shadow Complex (Xbox 360)
Developers: Chair Entertainment / Epic Games Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios Platform: Xbox Live Arcade Mesmerizing side-scroller blends elements of Die Hard and Super Metroid When it was released in mid August, Shadow Complex became the fastest-selling downloadable title in the history of Xbox Live Arcade, moving roughly 200,000 units in the first week. The game is based on Orson Scott Card’s novel Empire and follows an all-too-familiar Hollywood action trope—a mild-mannered, John Cusack-ian everydude stumbles unwittingly across a terrorist plot and must avert a nuclear holocaust before 4pm, at which time he’s supposed to pick up his daughter from soccer practice... read more
Daniel Johnston's Art Comes To Life On the iPhone
"Hi, How Are You." This is the simple catchphrase minted in singer-songwriter and artist Daniel Johnston's mural, which you may have seen while rounding the corner of 21st Street and Guadalupe in Austin, Texas. The words are painted in bold caps over a poppy-eyed cartoon frog named Jeremiah the Innocent, the new protagonist in an iPhone game based on Johnston's zany yet poignant drawings.... read more
Iggy Pop, Bon Jovi, Vampire Weekend, More On Board for LEGO Rock Band
Call him the Godfather of Punk or modern-day rock's weird uncle. Either way, Stooges frontman Iggy Pop is set to hit the stage for yet another generation, this time in Lego form.... read more
The Beatles: Rock Band (Xbox 360)
Developer: HarmonixPublisher: MTV Games, Electronic ArtsPlatforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, WiiThis is one music game that passes the audition Given that pop music doesn’t work as well in music games as rock tunes, it’s understandable to think a Beatles version of Rock Band would be less challenging, and thus less fun, than, say, Guitar Hero: Metallica. But by not just mixing Rock Band with The Beatles 1, Harmonix has made a game that’s as engaging as the Mop Top’s best work. For starters, such early pop tunes as “Twist And Shout” now have two more vocal parts to play, with... read more
Dystopian Epic Mickey Video Game in the Works
[Above: concept art for Epic Mickey via Gary Glover]Last year, the gaming website Gamasutra teased at a possible "steampunk" video game-treatment of classic Disney characters, codenamed Epic Mickey (think Kingdom Hearts, but with mechanized-scorpion Country Bears.) Although the game has yet to be officially announced, it's all but confirmed that production is underway.... read more
ReSTART Internet Addiction Center Opens in Seattle
ReSTART, the world's first internet-addiction residential treatment program, opened recently in Redmond, Wash. (ironically enough, the neighborhood where Microsoft was founded). The center offers a 45-day, $14,000 rehabilitation course that promises to help addicts ease dependencies on social networking, online video games, texting and a host of other technological time-wasters.... read more
Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood (Xbox 360)
Developer: Techland Publisher: Ubisoft Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC The wild west is coming to your living room As a videogame genre the Western has led to more dead ends than happy trails, with only a few entries ever really capturing the attentions of wannabe console cowboys. Enter Ubisoft’s Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, a game that offers up a bullet-riddled, next-gen setting replete with gun-toting desperados, high-noon showdowns and scantily clad showgirls. Set during the height of the Civil War, the game follows the exploits of the McCalls, a family of Confederate soldiers turned guns-for-hire in... read more
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