Friday Freakout: Gi meg mjød! I mean, er… KUBBI ;3

HOLY BALLS have there ever been a crapton of new Chip albums released in the last week or so!!!!! :O New 4mat, new Roboctopus, new Coda, new Kill3r Whale,  new Freezedream, new Starscream/Infinity Shred single (yes, Starscream had to rename themselves because of some legal bulls**t >___< ), new SMILETRON. SO MUCH CHIPPY GOODNESS…!!! –head asplodes- -pants asplodes- -EVERYTHING ASPLODES-

HOWEVER, none of these are the focal point of my chiptastic little blurb this Friday (although each and every one of them are more than worth a write-up and a listen, so be sure to check ’em all out too!!). Today, I’m writing about this crazy awesome Norwegian Chiptuner/prog rocker/dragon slayer who goes by the alias of…

KUBBI.

I’ve been aware of the viking duder for a little while now and both his previous album, Transmittance, and his EP, I dunno lol, have kept my Chippy ears happy ever since. But  last Monday he dropped his latest album, Sleet, and HOLY NORWEGIAN VIKING ZOMBIE DRAGON BEAR BALLS is it EVER good!!!!!!!!!!!! All seventeen – yes, 17!! – tracks are fandamntastic! A big ole frost giant step up from his previous kickass albums even! This new album chock full of WIN is comprised of very melodic, beat driven chipjams with a nice mix of prog influences and spacey, ethereal themes interwoven into the mix. If this sounds like an interesting combination, IT’S BECAUSE IT IS. But in the BEST  way possible! =D And WTF?!? I just  noticed, the apparently astro cat (hey, there’s a good, new Chiptuner name!! ;D ) cranked out all of this music – 38 tracks total!!!! – since last damn summer!! :O Seems like dude’s trying damn hard to emulate one of his biggest influences, SMILETRON, what with the prolific stellar track releases and all! And the craziest thing is? HE’S SUCCEEDING. O.O Must be that magical Norwegian mead or something (GOD, I love mead… -drools- ). Anyways, I could keep talking the kid up all night, but all that would really accomplish is making me feel like I’ve been eaten by a Norwegian bear and s**t off a cliff in the morning when, seriously, nothing I can say will better convince you then you taking your clickity clicker and clicking on the embedded Bandcamp link of the album below and experiencing that goodness for yourself. So… what are you waiting on?? GO GET YO’ CHIP ON ALREADY, FOO’!!!! ;D

P.S. Gi meg mjød! = Give me mead! I learned that bit of useful Norwegian from Kubbi in his 8 Bit Power Hour hosted listening party last Monday night. GOOD TIMES! 8)

P.P.S. YES, OF COURSE  HE HAS A TRACK ON MY UPCOMING CHIPTUNES = WIN \m|<3|m/ COMPILATION! All the more reason to stay tuned for that. ;) Also, did I mention it’s going to be around 50 tracks from some of the best Chiptuners to ever Chiptune?? ;) KTHXBAI~ ♥

P.P.P.S Sorry, Kubs, but I haven’t found the magical boob ice cream yet. Still searching though! IT’S GOTTA BE OUT THERE SOMEWHERE, DAMMIT!!  ;3 ;D \m|♥|m/

Throwback Thursday: Captain America and the Avengers

[box type=”bio”] Matt “Pixxel” Papa is a retro-game enthusiast, collector and touring bead sprite artist. He will be joining VideoGameDJ every Thursday to highlight an under-appreciated retro game.[/box]

Captain America and the Avengers Title ScreenAvengers assemble!

With the hours counting down to the release of the new Avengers movie, I’m sure many of you are itching for sweet, sweet Avengers goodness to tide you over until your butt is planted in a cushy movie theater seat. It is with this in mind that for the very first edition of Throwback Thursday, this one is gonna be about none other than Captain America and the Avengers!

Released in 1991 by Data East in the arcade and later ported to the Sega Genesis in 1992 (it was also ported to the SNES by Mindscape, but that version sucks), Captain America and the Avengers is a classic side scrolling brawler par excellence.

The gameplay is very polished and solid, with classic beat-em-up stages that are mixed in with some side-scrolling shooter segments. This is a nice balance of varying types of action that not only keeps the game exciting, but it also prevents it from getting too repetitive.

CAatA features some of the most prominent Avengers throughout history such as Captain America, Iron Man, and Hawkeye. Filling out the roster with 4 characters, Data East threw us a little bit of a curveball by rounding out the cast with everyone’s favorite “synthezoid” baddie turned good guy, The Vision.

Seriously, Vision is just a weird choice. The dude walks around with his arms crossed for cryin’ out loud! That’s just silly.

The Vision has the derpiest of walks

But, I digress.  As with many games from way back when, there is usually one thing that stands out about a game that makes us remember just how totally kick-ass rad a game was, and still is to this very day. With CAatA, it can be a tough call.

Is it the fact that it is a fantastic game that features beloved comic book characters that otherwise did not get a lot of love in the video game world? Hmm, yes, that’s possible.

Or, is it the fact that is it’s a finely crafted brawler, in which you can utilize the superb combative prowess of some of America’s finest super heroes?  Cap’s tried and true shield toss, Hawkeye’s pin-point accurate arrows, Iron Man and Vision’s pew-pew laser beams are all to be found. Pretty awesome, right?

Yes, but, if you have ever played this game, chances are there is one key element to this game that stands above the rest. It’s something that when you revisit the game, you can’t help but remember and recite with the derpiest of grins on your face.

That’s right people, we’re talking about the one-liners.

Oh my stars and garters, the one-liners!!

Like pretty much every game back in the day, this game was developed in Japan, and having spent 2 years of my life there, I can tell you that English is still a language that is very misunderstood there.  The end result is hilariously bad dialogue that you simply can’t help but love.  Better yet, there is almost no variation in the voices, and it truly sounds like it is one dude who is changing the pitch of his voice a little bit. Observe:

This game is rife with linguistic gems like this one, and others such as:

The Mini Bosses: Don’t disturb us!

Avengers: Why should it go well?

Why should it indeed…

Avengers: What’s this?

Red Skull: It’s another trap! You stupid men! Ha ha ha!

Avengers: We’ll teach you the meaning of “Justice

Ahahaha, stupid men. That’s a thing of beauty.

Mandrin: See my power!

Fwooo man…there’s plenty more where this came from, but it really needs to be experienced to be enjoyed to the fullest.

 

I hope y’all enjoyed the first of many sessions of Throwback Thursday. Check back next week, where you can once again SEE MY POWAAAAH!

Oh, Mandrin, you loveable scamp.

Knife City’s debut EP

This is the first official (non-sucky ;) release for Knife City, aka Luke Silas. Drummer for chiptune-rock band Anamanaguchi and gameboy thrasher, Knife City brings high-impact dance music that you can’t help but get down to. This EP is five tracks, available from bandcamp for pay-what-you-want. Stream and download from the player below, and support this guy if you can!

More Knife City on Facebook and Bandcamp.

A personal love letter to the entire MAGFest/VGM/Chiptune community. ♥ ♥ (DOPEY POST ALERT ;3 )

Thursday was my 32nd birthday. I had no big plans; working for most of the day, fishing with a buddy right afterward, dinner with my folks, & winding up the night at Joshua Morse’s Waveform 3 listening party on the always fun-tastic areciboradio.com to share in some good music, laughs, and a few beers with my nerd buddies. Nice, chill evening; I can had a content. =) Honestly, I’d almost forgotten that it was my birthday that week; my girlfriend and family had to remind me! LoL SO BUSY WITH LIFE AND PROJECTS (with the Chiptunes = WIN compilation being at the top of the busy yet awesome list!! ;D ). And then some of my favorite MAGfamily crazies surprise me in the listening party chatroom (and sorta crash it! HahahaSORRIES Areciboradio!!! XD ). Was some serious WIN, and enough to wrap up my birthday with more than enough happy to do the trick. I figured the surprises ended there. I FIGURED DAMN WRONG.

FIRST, THIS HAPPENED. <– CLICKY CLICKY, PLEASE. =D

As I explored the custom VGM designed birthday card, read the messages as they scrolled by, listened to the amazing music, I freaked out. My myriad of ridiculously talented, AMAZING friends, who collaborated to create this for me, watched, laughed, grinned, took joy in my freakouts and continued to make it worse by leading me on to discover more and more wonderful things about it (there’s even a secret code in it!! Hint: look at the score ;). Once they’d strung me along with that amazingness long enough, they dropped the REAL bomb on me:

 

AN ORIGINAL 5 SONG EP MADE ABOUT AND JUST FOR ME

 

I. LOST. MY. MIND. I’m still in shock. The amount of artistry and hilarity and genuine love that went into the crazy project, just… WOW. What the F**K  I did to deserve this I DON’T KNOW. (I mean, I AM awesome, sure, but this is pushing it a touch even for me! hahaha ;D ). I’m not telling y’all any of this to brag about myself, boost my own ego, or anything self serving like that either (I really don’t feel like there’s that much to brag about anyways hahaha). I’m just sharing this as a testament to WHY I love the VGM/Chiptune/MAG/Nerda/etc. scene with every bit of me that is able to love:

The best motherf**cking people in the world are part of it.

The people that staff and volunteer the events, the various assortment of musical guests, artists, and speakers to entertain the happy, often drunken masses, and, of course, the awesome, CRAZY people who attend these events. And all of them, ALL OF THEM having the time of their lives, reveling in the sheer overwhelming goodness of being surrounded and celebrating with the most kindred of spirits. There really are no words to do it justice, and I feel I’m doing a fairly miserable job of trying to convey in words the powerful sense of awesome that you can get from being a part of, belonging to this community. hahaha XD Maybe that’s just it, though: you have to experience it to understand it. =) And if you haven’t yet, NOW  is just as good a time as any to join us. THE MORE, THE MERRIER, BIZNATCHES!! 8D \m|♥|m/

Also (I said I wasn’t going to do this, BUT OH WELL WUTTEHFUKEVAR!!!!): HUGE THANKS AND LOVE AND STUFF TO ALL INVOLVED WITH THE ALBUM: Mike Villalobos (Lobos) & Amanda Lepre (LeRab-it) from Descendants of ErdrickGrant Henry (Stemage) and Dan Taylor (Chunkstyle) from Metroid Metal & Yes MayhemNate Horsfall (Foxxdragon); Chris Ryberg (Rugal); Jameson Sutton (Shadix); Thomas Dougherty (Nickeledge); Chris Davidson (Dj Cutman); Erik Peabody (VikingGuitar);  Brendan Becker (Inverse Phase); Brandon Strader; and last but not least, my amaaaaaaaaaaazing girlfriend, Erin McQuisten (I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, BABY!!! ♥ ♥ ♥). Plus much love to all who signed the digital card!!!

YOU FUCKERS ARE SOME OF THE BEST FRIENDS A CRAZY SONOFABITCH LIKE ME COULD EVER ASK FOR & I LOVE YOU ENDLESSLY FOR IT SO THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111!111!1!11!!!11111!elevensoutthewazoo  ;DDD

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

A blog for video game and chiptune music, retro gaming, and live events. Created by Dj CUTMAN.