Start Press: The Emperor Isn’t Wearing Any Overalls
In a recent installment of his must-read weekly column for Edge Online, Chris Dahlen urges his fellow critics to quit bitching for a second about games' perennial bungling of story elements, and “focus on something they do really well: characters.” He argues, “If you have characters that people love, they will stick around while you flog the property years past its sell date. And if you don’t have good characters, the most radical plot twists in history will not save you.” To stress the character-driven nature of contemporary game development, Dahlen cites Nintendo’s beloved Zelda franchise with its notorious green-clad... read more
Start Press: Is Avatar The Ghost of Videogames Future?
Easily the most fun I’ve had watching blue-skinned aliens run around in a tizzy since The Smurfs. Yes, I’m talking about James Cameron’s Avatar—a visual feast that causes your eyes to balloon to the size of DDD breasts (at least I think that’s what they meant by “3D”). I loved the film. I loved the polarized Buddy Holly glasses that caused Pandora’s luminescent wildlife and vegetation to flutter off the screen and into my lap. I loved the Dances With Extraterrestrial Wolf-like Creatures love story. I loved the sense of being invited to a graduation ceremony, popping the champagne cork... read more
Owen Pallett Drops Final Fantasy Moniker
There’s an old southern saying: “Dance with the one what brung ya.” Owen Pallett, the bard of string and song who went by the stage name Final Fantasy, lives by no such code. Yes, the Japanese RPG nerds he brought with him to the dance are going to be left standing at the punchbowl, bitter tears spilling down their cheeks and onto their Dragon Quest t-shirts. Final Fantasy is Final Fantasy no more; he has gone back to name his mother gave him, Owen Pallett.... read more
Start Press: Hey Mr. DJ
Long before DJ Hero crashed the rhythm-game party, I itched to scratch. I can remember sitting by my stereo when I was just 12 years old, cutting my own straight-to-cassette custom remixes of pop songs off the radio. Ok, I admit: calling these experiments “remixes” gives them more legitimacy than they rightfully deserve. I simply pressed down three buttons on my stereo’s cassette deck—play, record and pause—and then released the pause button at strategic times while the radio played to create Frankenstein versions of my favorite Top-40 songs.... read more
Win the ultra-rare The Beatles: Rock Band Xbox 360 console and help Doctors Without Borders
[Updated 25 Dec 2009] *: This fundraiser and game ended December 23. We raised $2,486.80 in one week for Doctors Without Borders. Thanks to everyone who donated! The grand prize winner was Davrosdiablo. The winners of point cards were: RDVG, jtcooperga, mikeschnitz, eastladebra, and gjhoney11. The winners of the Gold membership cards were: tedZilla99, MissSandeno, shardrix, natureguided, and matt_thebert. The winners of the videogame were: pabii2000, brycehays, vrandle, segoodenow, and ElSchticmo242. The top five point leaders were: vrandle, RDVG, segoodenow, JGNOLA, and mikeschnitz. Paste has partnered with Microsoft and MTV Games to raise money for the international emergency medical humanitarian... read more
Turns Out, Michael Jackson Composed Music for Sonic 3
At least, that's what "le magazine official de Michael Jackson" says... read more
A Boy and His Blob (Nintendo Wii)
Developer: WayForward Technologies Publisher: Majesco Platform: Nintendo WiiWhat About Blob? A Boy and His Blob sounds like a film you’d watch in health class, but it’s actually a charming new game for the Wii. Despite it being a remake of a notoriously hard NES game from 1989, the two don’t have much in common aside from the name and the general premise. You're still a boy, you've still got a pet blob, and you still feed him jellybeans that cause him him to morph into various useful shapes you can use to solve platform-based environmental puzzles. The blob has a great... read more
Where The Wild Things Are (PlayStation 3)
Developer: Griptonite Games Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, Wii Bored to be wild The film adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s beloved children’s picture book Where The Wild Things Are gave audiences, both young and old, cause to rejoice. In adapting the book for the big screen, director Spike Jonze and author Dave Eggers put great care into making sure there was sympathetic emotional depth beneath the Wild Things’ charmingly monstrous exteriors. On paper, Sendak’s story feels perfectly suited for a videogame adaptation as well. When the book’s protagonist Max gets sent to his room by his mother for... read more
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
Update (12/15/2009): Play the latest scavenger hunt and help Doctors Without Borders here (game ends December 23, 2009). The winners for the hunt below: The grand prize Xbox 360 Elite Holiday Bundle was won by an anonymous player from Anchorage, Alaska. The 2nd place winner was junebugge from Woodland Park, New Jersey. And the two third place winners were anonymous (all we have are emails). 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... 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
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