Dance Dance Retrospective: 5thMIX

2001 was a banner year for Dance Dance Revolution.  It marked the series' first home releases in America and Europe (as previously discussed, both were based on 3rdMIX), and Japan would see some major changes take place on their own turf with not one, but two games.  The first one of these, Dance Dance Revolution 5thMIX (March 27 2001), is not the more revolutionary of the two, nor its its PlayStation home version (September 9 2001, Japan only), but codified a few things which, for better or worse, would carry on for nearly the rest of the series from then on.

The music menu.  A glimpse of things to come.

What changes could I be talking about?  The first is right in front of your eyes.  The new color scheme shies away from 4thMIX's high-contrast neons in favor of a more consistent blue-green pallette.  It all starts out with style and character menus, which work similarly to those from 4thMIX, but the song selection menu has been redesigned yet again.  Song titles and artists in a curving list, or "song wheel", on the right side of the screen.  Over on the left is a cutout of the background artwork, difficulty levels, and high scores.  As in 3rdMIX, you can change difficulties at any time on this menu, by pressing Up or Down twice.  By pressing the left and right menu buttons at the same time, you can also sort the tracklist by title, tempo, or the most-songs played on that machine.  Konami seems to have finally found their sweet spot in this department; the "song wheel"-style music menu would be used for almost all DDR titles from then on.  In fact, it was so good, they planned to use it for DDR Konamix in America, but when they realized it would be too similar to their next game planned for PlayStation 2 (stay tuned), they switched to using the 4thMIX UI.

During gameplay, the Groove Gauges eschew the jumping pills from previous core series games and instead look like wavy bars.  Well, anything to avoid unintented drug references, I guess.  The background animations have also been re-done again, and follow a general color theme to match the song's genre.  Also, for those who care, while the display resolution was cut back to its previous level (240i), the frame rate runs at the traditional maximum speed of 60 frames per second.  For those of us wowed by the first wave of 60fps 3D games (for me they were Mortal Kombat 4 and F-Zero X), you'll really notice the difference, but everyone else, whatever.

You should see this in motion.

So I've mentioned the interface changes being one of most influential additions brought on by 5thMIX, but there are quite a few other things it brings to the table.  Apart from tempo changes, some songs actually pause the sequence for a few seconds at certain points.  Three songs (four in the home version) make use of this gimmick: "Abyss", "Ecstacy", and "INSERTiON" (plus "Healing Vision ~Angelic Mix~" in the home version).  There are also four "long version" songs which, in a gimmick brought back from the Solo series, last about three minutes each and cost two stages to play.  For some reason, this time around you can only select them on your second-to-last stage.  Few other games from then on would bring back long songs in any form (I can think of DDR X and Universe off the top of my head).  The scoring system has also been revamped yet again: the maximum score attainable is five million times the difficulty plus one (i.e. a level-1 chart has a maximum score of 10 million points, where a level-9 song has a maximum of 50 million), with a bonus added on top of that.  The grading system has gone back to E through AAA, which would also become a standard mechanic from that point on.

The other big change brought on by 5thMIX is not necessarily a positive one, however.  Going from 3rdMIX to 4thMIX, only two songs were cut ("Strictly Business" and "So Many Men") due to specific requests from the artists.  On the other hand, 5thMIX cut out a sizeable chunk of songs from previous games, mostly from 1st and 2ndMIX.  The reasons for this could be to make room for the new content, or to cut down on licensing fees, since it's mostly licenced songs that were affected, or some other third thing.  Sadly, there are no nonstop course modes in this game either.  That said and done, the total songlist of 5thMIX still comes out to be roughly the same size as 4thMIX's.  Genre-wise, there's towards trance and eurobeat which will only get stronger over the next couple of games, and content-wise, there are a lot of songs with Maniac charts ranked at 9 out of 9 in difficulty.  This means that on the whole there's more challenge in 5thMIX than anything that's come before in the series - and this progression will only continue.  Think about that.  Notable songs from 5thMIX include:

• "Can't Stop Fallin' In Love (Speed Mix)" by Naoki feat. Paula Terry.  A speed-rave remix of the song from Solo 2000.  The Maniac chart is infamously known for its "machine gun" sequences, which are chains of eight notes using only one arrow - meaning you have to tap one foot repeatedly.  At 170 BPM, these can be way tough to nail down.  Commonly abbreviated as 'CSFILSM' by fans.
• "Dive" by BeForU.  This is the first song released by BeForU, a J-pop girl group founded by Konami.  BeForU would become mainstays in the Bemani games over the next few years, and to my knowledge they were one of the first Bemani-based acts to release albums commercially outside of game soundtracks.  Also, this and "Sana Mollete Ne Ente" are the first songs in the core series with Japanese lyrics.
• "Ecstacy" by D-CompleX (Naoki Maeda).  A trance song with not one, but two pauses.
• "Healing Vision" by De-Sire (Naoki Maeda).  An ethereal drum'n'bass song which switches to double and half speed at different points.  The Angelic Mix from the home version (by 2MB) keeps a mostly constant tempo apart from the aforementioned pause near the end, but that is immediately preceded by a 20-second rush of high-speed, high-density notes.
• "INSERTiON" by Naoki Underground (guess who).  A trance/techno song with a pause and slow section in the middle, and a speed-up at the end.
• "PARANOiA Eternal" by STM200.  This remix of PARANOiA was actually made by a fan outside of Konami, who one a contest and had it put it into the game.  It experiments with 7/4 time signatures in some parts, and the Maniac chart has "machine gun" sections like in CSFILSM, but 30 BPM faster. 
• Eight unlockable songs are transplants from beatmania IIDX, including "Absolute" and "Abyss" by dj TAKA, and "Electro Tuned (The SubS Mix)" and "Radical Faith" by TaQ.
• There also three songs transplanted from Dance ManiaX (spelled with an X to differentiate itself with the Dancemania CD series), another dance-based game in the Bemani family.  This one uses motion sensors you wave your hands over or under, but the series only lasted for a couple of titles.  Dance ManiaX transplants in DDR 5thMIX include "Afronova Primeval" by 8-bit, "Broken My Heart" by Naoki feat. Paula Terry, and "Matsuri Japan" by Re-Venge.
• Also, 5thMIX is the first core series game to use Japanese text in some of the song titles and artists.

So there we have it: our little franchise is finally start to grow up.  But we'll see it truly come of age when we take it to the 'max': DDRMAX, that is, on the next installment of Dance Dance Retrospective.  ...Which may either come within this week or not until July.  I'm planning another month-long tribute to a certain little blue guy who's about to have his 20th anniversary...

Editorial: Rapture 2011

Just when you thought 2012 doomsday predictions were all the rage, we're getting another one - for tomorrow.  Although unlike the lamestream media, to crib a certain Palinism, I suppose I should explain.  The concept has been promoted by a mister Harold Camping, president of the Christian radio network Family Radio.  It's not as simple as the world blowing up on the date; here are his predictions.  On May 21st, 2011, the Rapture will call 200 million people, approximately 3% of the world's population, to Heaven.  On Earth, mighty earthquakes are to occur at 6PM for each of the world's time zones.  The actual destruction of Earth is not scheduled to happen until five months later, or October 21st.


So where does he get this stuff?  He combined two Bible verses: Genesis 7:4 (Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth) and 2 Peter 3:8 (With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day).  Since he previously dated the Great Flood (the one with Noah's Ark) to 4900 BC, he added seven thousand years to get in the ballpark of AD 2011.  As for the specific date, he converted the Hebrew date of the Great Flood from Genesis 7:11 ([...] on the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day, all the wells of the abyss did overflow, and the storehouses of the sky did open.) and converted it  Furthermore, the chain of earthquakes across all time zones was inspired by Jeremiah 25:32 (Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth).  He explained more of his mathematification in an article on SFGate.com².  Long story short, it involves the time in days between Jesus Christ's crucifixion, given as  April 1st AD 33, and May 21st 2011 equaling the squared product of some arbitrary values...  Sorry, dude, you're gonna have to tell me why atonement = 5, completeness = 10, and Heaven = 17 before you start to make a lick of sense.

This concept is at odds with the beliefs of many other Christian scholars, especially Catholics.  They don't believe the Bible is a code book waiting to be cracked.  They cite verses like Matthew 24:35-36 (Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away./But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.) which state that only God is supposed to know when it will happen.  Atheist thinkers are also standing against him, with Richard Dawkins of the Washington Post writing, "[...]he will inevitably explain, on May 22nd, that 'there must have been some error in the calculation, the rapture is postponed to . . . and please send more money to pay for updated billboards'."³  While I have become more cynical over the past few years and am tempted to agree with him, Mr. Camping does seem to honestly believe he is right.  "I know it's absolutely true, because the Bible is always absolutely true."⁴  If I may be allowed to do some Biblification of my own, I would like to point out a contradiction.  Camping is saying the Great Flood refers to the Rapture, and that since a day on Earth supposedly lasts a thousand years for God, it hasn't happened yet.  But at least as far as the Bible goes, the disaster did happen - it was the whole point of Noah's episode!


At this point you may want to consider the idea that, from a secular point of view, the Bible was written by man instead of God, but I won't officially claim that to be truth or falsehood.  Rather, let's understand where this man is coming from.  Now, he has made a series of doomsdate predictions before, as early as September 4th, 1994.  So what's his excuse?  "That, he says, was a mistake, a misreading of the biblical codes used to decipher the exact date of the 'rapture'.  In order to get the warning out in time he fudged his calculations, a mistake he maintains he did not make this time."  All the same, it's something to be said if he's been wrong before.

Oh, and you know what really strains this man's credulity in my eyes?  In one of his countdown videos, he's claiming that the gay pride movement is another sign of the apocalypse.  Any further extrapolation on this topic will have to wait (or better yet, let someone else handle it), but long story short, this places him in the same cage of nutcases as the Westboro Baptist Church.  That's right: self-presumed "religious crusaders".  Didn't we kill one of those earlier this month?  ...Okay, so it would be a little harsh to compare Camping and the WBC to the likes of the late Osama bin Laden.  The main difference, of course, is that these guys lack the military force to spread the message in a bad way, and in all honesty, we must be thankful for that.


All mudslinging aside, I do not believe what Harold Camping has said to be will transpire.  Sure, I am honestly worried inside, but rationally speaking - something he seems incapable of doing - I cannot picture it happening, especially so suddenly.  Going back to my opening statement, look at the disaster movie 2012.  The disaster therein didn't peak on the day itself, rather the characters noticed it starting up a few years before the title date.  Certainly we would've noticed a trend like that in the real world a lot sooo...  ...I'm sorry, there seems to be a Haitian, a Chilean, a New Zealander, a Japanese, and a Spaniard in the room with me.  Joke aborted!  Long story short, lemme tell ya: if we get through tomorrow unscathed, the 2012 prophecies are gonna look a lot less credible.  But in the quite unlikely case I don't make it, for this or any other reason, I encourage all my readers, and then some, to question popular opinion and find the truth at any cost.


This is IchigoRyu.


You are the resistance.

---

¹2011 end times prediction. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2011 May 20.
²Dawkins, Richard. "Biblical scholar's date for rapture: May 21st, 2011". On Faith, Washington Post. 2011 May 10. Retrieved 2011 May 20.
³Dawkins, Richard. "Science explains the end of the world". On Faith, Washington Post. 2011 May 10. Retrieved 2011 May 20.
⁴Daily Mail Reporter.  "Doomsday campers Project Caravan say the world will end May 21". dailymail.co.uk. 2011 March 8. Retrieved 2011 May 20.

Editorial: Death of Osama bin Laden

I'd like to take it to a serious level, if that's okay with you.  Every so often, people hear of an event in the news that's so shocking and/or unexpected that, whether or not they choose to believe it at first, it feels surreal to them until they learn more about it.  It helps matters if they can remember the time and place they first heard it.  For example, my grandmother remembers the time when she heard about the 1941 Pearl Harbor raid on the radio, and I can remember first learning about the attacks on September 11th, 2001 from a PA announcement during my Spanish class.  Just over the past couple of years it's happened many more times, such as the death of Michael Jackson in 2009, and the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident in Japan earlier this year.  And now there's this: Osama bin Laden, founder and first-in-command of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, was reported dead late night on Sunday, May 1st, 2011 (EST).  I first heard the news shortly after getting up for work the following day, so add that to the memory banks.

Based on what the public knows at the moment, how it went down was that a team of US Navy SEALs raided his safehouse near Abbottabad, Pakistan.  Notably, this goes against pre-assumed intelligence that the man was hiding closer to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border after fleeing the former during the anti-Taliban war in 2001.  (It's actually closer to India, depending on how you would go about divvying up the Kashmir region.)  The body was taken by US authorities for DNA confirmation, and within 24 hours was buried at sea.  A few islamic clerics here and there are decrying the practice of burying him at sea since he was not killed at sea in the first place, but the US did follow the numerous specific Islamic customs while doing so.  And for the record, among the official rationale for doing so was not wanting to have a land-based grave site being a shrine for his terrorist supporters.

Osama bin Laden was born into a wealthy Saudi Arabian family in 1957, and after college fought with the Mujahadeen rebellion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 80s.  Yeah, the same rebellion, that became the Taliban regime, the US backed as part of their Cold War efforts...  This probably gave birth to many of the conspiracy theories involving a CIA-bin Laden alliance that popped up after 9/11, but to be fair, we certainly have no way of knowing the intents of everyone we give military aid to.  Afterwards, he founded al-Qaeda and, after a string of bombing incidents in the late 90s, we got the big one.  Under his command, on Sep/11/2011 teams of hijackers commandeered multiple planes, destroying the twin towers of the New York World Trade Center, a chunk of the Pentagon, and killed a total almost 3,000 people.

As aforementioned, the confusion after the fact gave birth to a series of conspiracy theories, many implying that the US government co-engineered this attack.  They actually originated in European nations like France and Germany, and didn't catch on until a few years later, when the Iraq warccupation was a hot issue.  The very notion of such, if I may be permitted to editorialize on the subject, is bullshizzle.  It is simply ludicrous that then-President George W. Bush, or anyone in his cabinet, would willfully cause the deaths of thousands and the loss of $I-don't-know-how-many-millions in damage.  (Besides, I didn't really start to mistrust him until his second term started.)  The same goes today: as the story of bin Laden's death began to unfold, people saw the fact that he was buried at sea and no visual proof was immediately released as points of contention, and claimed that at best the US Marines kept posession of his body, and at worst he was still alive.  Once I heard those points of view, I did admit that would have preferred to see more proof, but at this point I'm reading confirmations from all sides.

And on that note, the reactions to his death cover the whole proverbial board.  Governments the world over are generally praising the action, although most warn that despite the death of the one head man, al-Qaeda will continue to operate and we should not let down our guard; on the contrary, raising protection levels for the time being would be advisable.  Dissenting voices generally come from anti-American states.  Ismail Haniya, one of two disputed Prime Ministers of Palestine, condemned the killing of someone he deemed a "holy warrior";shocking but unsuprising coming from a state which, like al-Qaeda itself, is at odds with the Jewish Israel.  Palestine, Pakistan, and Sudan also played host to a few notable pro-bin Laden rallies here and there.  Officials from Iran mentioned that the US no longer has an excuse to keep forces in its neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq.  I won't comment on that... yet.  And the vice-president of Venezuela condemned not only the killing, but the subsequent celebration of American and other citizens.

It does say something awful about us, as a culture, when we express so much joy over the killing of a specific individual, but need I remind you that Osama bin Laden was no ordinary specific individual.  By engineering and green-lighting the 9/11 attacks with others in his organization, he sent almost 3,000 non-combat personnel to their unwitting deaths.  And then there are the tens of thousands more killed in the wars carried out against him and everything he stood for.  (For the record, most of those deaths were al-Qaeda and allied soldiers, but still.)  He painted almost the entire decade of the 2000s and beyond in a culture of fear - just ask your local air traveler.  And for something I happen to find annoying, it forever ingrained a correlation of "Muslim = terrorist" in the minds of, well, less-educated Euro/Americans.  (I assume he also had a hand in promoting the opposite ideal of "Euro/American = terrorist" among Arabs and the like.)  For us outsiders to hear shibboleths like "allahu akbar" (it literally means "God is great" and is common to hear in Arabic-speaking regions) and run for cover in fear of an alleged suicide bomb vest, well, this is also a step back for us as a culture.  Among all the scrutiny we have put under the raid which took him down - how we buried him, whether he was unarmed, whether the Pakistanis knew he was there all along - I still haven't forgotten why we wanted him, captured or dead, in the first place.

Long story short: As a Christian I have no right to officially invoke this, but inside, in the grand scheme of things, I hope the god of Islam sees no virtue in Osama bin Laden's soul.

Information was provided from the following Wikipedia pages: "Death of Osama bin Laden", "Osama bin Laden", and "Reactions to the Death of Osama bin Laden".  Visit the pages for direct citations.  Information is accurate as of 2011.

Music Review: Calling All Stations

Calling All Stations

• Band: Genesis (Ray Wilson, Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks)
• Publisher: Atlantic (USA), Virgin (UK)
• Genre: Rock (Progressive)
• Producers: Nick Davis, Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks
• Release: 1 September 1997
• Formats: Casette, CD
  

Looks like there's one more thing Seanbaby and I will have to disagree with: Phil Collins, known as the drummer and one of the lead singers for the band Genesis.  The consensus on the other side of the arguement is that after he replaced the outgoing Peter Gabriel as the band's lead singer in 1975, their output steadily shifted from the progressive rock they were doing before to 80s-friendly soft rock.  A bunch of his songs, both with the band and as a solo artist, were still getting airplay while I was growing up, so I had an affinity for their kind of sound engraved in me at an early age.  So yeah, I'm a fan, and even though I recognize the shift in style caused by the switch from Peter to Phil as the band's frontman and perhaps driving creative force, I'd never admit that was a bad thing.  Then again, I admit I have yet to get into the band's Gabriel-era records, so I reserve the right to adjust my opinion once I do, although I'll still love the songs Phil made.  There's not much like them out there.

But what about after their heyday?  Phil Collins first left the band in 1993, putting its remaining two members on hiatus until a few years later, when they recruited lead singer Ray Wilson and two session drummers to record a new album, Calling All Stations, in 1997.  Wilson, originally from Scottish grunge bands Guaranteed Fine and Stiltskin, bears a positive resemblance to Gavin Rossdale from Bush (no, not even close).  Some say the reason for people's declining interest in Genesis, especially in America, was the band's apparent refusal to adapt to grunge and alternative rock in some way or another.  Depending on how you take that, coming from a progressive/pop rock band, the results could sound disturbing...  By the time they worked this style into Calling All Stations, it was too late to save the band; after this album's disappointing sales, they cancelled the American leg of their '97-'98 tour and eventually broke up "for good".  But is it worth exploring?


Since I hate my earlier song reviews in retrospect, I think I'll have more luck taking on a whole album as a macrocosm.  I'll still put down notes for individual songs, to explain whether or how they fit into the album's overarching theme, should one exist.

1. "Calling All Stations": The guitar riff which opens this track sets the tone for not only the rest of the song, but also the album as a whole.  It's a shade (no pun intended) darker than the stuff the band put out with Phil Collins, and possibly Peter Gabriel, but has all the epic, bombastic production that you can only get from the progressive rock scene.  After a brief moment to let the soundscape wash over you, we are introduced to our new lead singer, Ray Wilson.  Being a guy who was substantially younger than his two bandmates at the time (almost 29 years old, versus 47 for both Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks), his voice sounds quite different from Phil's.  In fact, it's more like what Peter's voice would be if he had dabbled in grunge.  Not to bag on any of the three frontmen, but it would be difficult to imagine Phil singing these new songs, or vice-versa for Ray and their older material.  Fortunately, his voice adds to the moody... mood of the songs on this album.  This title track showcases the best potential for Ray's vocals, as they range from a growling, desperate intro to a passionate, heartfelt climax - twice in the same song.  We get an instrumental break mid-way to remind us that not everything about Genesis has changed.  Unlike with some of the other songs on this and other albums, which I'll get to in a moment, it's not too long; it stays just long enough to build on the emotions present in the rest of the song before moving along with the next verse.  It's one of the best songs on the album; but at 5:43 long, pity it wasn't made a single.  Call it wishful thinking on my part, but it could've even saved this album's chances in America. 5 stars.
2. "Congo": You'd be forgiven for thinking this song is similar to the last one.  After all, they share the same key signature, changed from major to minor.  But, as the title suggests, there is an African edge to it, mostly in the form of tribalesque instrumentation layered onto some segments.  I suppose I should take this opportunity to discuss the two session drummers the band recruited for recording this album and for the following tour.  With the position vacated by Phil Collins, they got Nir Zidkyahu and Nick D'Virgilio (the latter from the band Spock's Beard) as temporary replacements, but believe me, with them around you may not even miss Phil.  They still do the same echoing drum fills you know and love, even if some songs showcase this more or less than others.  Released as a single.  5 stars.
3. "Shipwrecked": Again, depending on how cynical you're feeling at the moment, this track may bear more than a little semblance to "Calling All Stations", except lyrically rather than musically this time around.  The singer's persona feels 'shipwrecked', or lost from the desertion of a lover/loved one and nigh unable to know where to from there.  Deja vu anyone?  Welp, if that's just Ray speaking from experience, I don't blame him.  The more orchestra-driven music accentuates this feeling of emptiness.  Released as a single.  4 stars.
4. "Alien Afternoon": This is where the album shifts into high gear, especially if you've fallen off the Genesis bandwagon during Phil's reign.  It starts off with the music, which sounds like a bunch of extraterrestrials took over a Caribbean band.  The story presented by the lyrics starts off with the singer's persona waking up to a mundane, everyday... day, only for things to take a turn for the weird as all matter of natural phenomena take place around him.  (See, Patrice Wilson, this is how you pull this kind of thing off!)  It's sort of like the beginning of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and anyone who can channel that kind of insanity gets props in my book.  So anyway, as these things may only be happening in the central figure's mind, he expresses his need to take a vacation before he goes insane (unless he already has).  For anyone who listens to the preceding tracks and think this album will go further down the pop-rock road perfected by Collins, this will come at you like whoa.  5 stars.
5. "Not About Us": At first listen, this wasn't one of the memorable tracks I found on this album.  But given the accoustic guitar backing most of this track, and the reconciliatory nature of the lyrics, this could've worked as a Britpop ballad.  In fact, it makes me wonder what would've happened if Wilson's Genesis had pursued that direction further, given the popularity of Oasis and Blur in the mid-to-late 90s when this album was released.  ...On second thought, that's a horrible idea.  If America couldn't handle the change we got, doing this would spell disaster for Genesis and their image among their less-understanding fans..  Released as a single.  3 stars.
6. "If That's What You Need": Yet another song that tries to be as epic as the title track.  Thing is, they nailed that target during the choruses, but the verses are too soft and unambitious by comparison.  Oh well, at least I got the good parts stuck in my head!  As for the lyrics, there's an interesting dichotomy between the chorus and the verses.  In the former, he paints these troubadourian devotions of love, but in the verses, we learn that he's too scared and shy to say them outright.  Hm, sounds like the kind of song Shinji would write.  4 stars.
7. "The Dividing Line": You'd be forgiven for thinking this song doesn't have a hook to speak of.  After all, the first vocals don't kick in until 2 minutes into this 7-odd-minute track.  Still, the power of the guitar riffs that drive the intro, as well as the lyrics, give this song some bite for those who stick around.  5 stars.
8. "Uncertain Weather": Reminiscent of "Alien Afternoon" a few tracks back, and that's a plus in my book.  This one apparently describes someone whose life was ruined, remembered only by a photograph from better times (depending on how literally you take the lyrics).  Makes you wonder what happened to him: was he a soldier killed in a literal war, or did he lose in a more personal struggle with drugs, domestic abuse, or what?  5 stars.
9. "Small Talk": It's kinda hard to make out what this song is ultimately about.  Is our man tired of everyone else talking about anything, or just malicious rumors?  Must be lies, since his girlfriend has done the same, and now he wants her to say anything as long as it's true.  And as long as she's not talking back to him.  And in the mid-track bridge, they overlay a layer of random chatter over the usual instrumentation.  You would think this would ruin any seriousness they desired, but they're prog rockers, they're allowed to do this sort of thing.  And besides, the chorus, as always, provides the singer with an opportunity to emotionally break loose.   3 stars.
10. "There Must Be Some Other Way": In the past I've decried denying that your significant other has left you, but whoever wrote this song pulled it off tastefully.  Our main man may be trying to accept the fact that his girl's out of his life (I think we're making some progress, doc!), but he's going to make one last shot of making her take him back.  Sure, it's padded with a(nother epic) instrumental break mid-way through, but that's nothing the band hasn't done before.  5 stars.
11. "One Man's Fool": No matter where it fits on the sliding scale of pop versus prog, it seems a Genesis album is not complete without two similar-sounding songs smashed into one double-length track.  The lineup shakeup does nothing to change this, as "One Man's Fool" fits the bill this time around.  Even more so than some of their other examples, the two halves of this suite are similar enough for one to flow more naturally into the other.  And the lyrics bring up a great point for fiction writers: good and bad are relative.  In other words, those whom we regard as the opposing force in any arguement we come across, big or small, have the right to believe what they're doing is right.  The very words I live by.  5 stars.

And this once again brings me to my original point: Genesis means a lot to me.  As far as their supposed pandering to the shallow desires of 80s audiences goes, I'll take people's words for it.  But still, even at its worst, Genesis does more and better things than some other bands can put out at their best.  Calling All Stations strikes a perfect balance between their symphonic soundscapes of the 80s and the sense of exploration from the 70s, with the angsty spirit of grunge thrown in for good measure - never mind that grunge was pretty much dead in America by the time they made this album.  I'm sorry to say this particular album, in all its glory, has spoiled me to expect more deep lyrical themes from future albums I listened to in the future.  But as long as it refines my tastes while not inhibiting me from enjoying songs for what they are, that can't be a bad thing, can it?

With all the lavish praise I've layered on this album so far, I've wondered to myself whether or not I should break out a perfect score for this occasion.  As I discussed before, a score of 100% (A+) is the highest out of the 21 ranks I can give something.  But what does it mean?  If it were to be used for only works with no flaws whatsoever, I'd never have to break it out, but if I were to use it too often, it would be rendered cheap and meaningless.  For now, let's think about the ratings I gave the individual songs.  The total comes out to 49 of 55 stars, or roughly 90%.  Since that's only taking the songs without context, I have to consider how they're all worked into an album.  On the whole, the production is consistent, the pacing is decent, with longer songs ("Alien Afternoon", "The Dividing Line", "There Must Be Some Other Way") bookending groups of shorter songs, and the songwriting is mature, exploring numerous themes without naivete, while any perceived narm can be excused by the fact that they're prog rockers at heart - they're allowed to take risks.  So, all things considered, does Calling All Stations deserve my highest honour?

...

Sure, why not!

The Call: 100% (A+)

Game Review: Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon

The following review was originally posted on GameFAQs.com on February 4th, 2008.

Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon

• Publisher: Konami
• Developer: Konami Osaka
• Platform/Release: Nintendo 64, 16 April 1998
• Genre: Adventure, Platformer
• Players: 1
• Save: Controller Pak, 16 pages
• Rarity/Cost: Common (US$3-10)

I've covered the Ganbare Goemon / Mystical Ninja franchise before, but this is the item which should be the most recognizable for everyone outside of Japan: the video game Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon for Nintendo 64.  As the first game in the series to be released for the console, in any region, it introduces a gameplay cocktail that was unique for its time: the expansive worlds and dungeon levels of Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda series with the three-dimensional gameplay of Super Mario 64. The game adds some original touches to this mix as well, such as the four playable characters, each with their own special abilities, that you get to control over the course of your adventure. You are able to switch between them at will, but there is little to no difference in how they move and fight, so most of the time your choice of character will boil down to personal taste.

Yeah, it's a Zelda clone - but a darn good one.

While Mystical Ninja borrows the gameplay of 3-D platformers such as Super Mario 64, it is unable to shine as brightly. One of the fatal flaws that this game suffers is that there is no camera control. You can't rotate or zoom the camera; the only thing you can do is stand still for a few seconds to re-center the camera behind you. The R button isn't even used in regular gameplay; it could very well have handled this function manually! And although the world is split up into segments, as opposed to being one huge world, it still takes a while to get across them given your characters' fairly slow walking speeds. As a whole, the game still works, but manual camera control could have been a help here and there.


There's a fair bit of visual detail to be found here; the textures are rendered surprisingly well for the Nintendo 64, except for grass and road patterns, which look like green and yellow barf respectively.  Other than that, the graphics are on the ordinary side, with a bit of slowdown on just a few areas. But even if Mystical Ninja doesn't quite impress on a technical level, there's no denying that they help to create an amazing, memorable world. The areas are clearly based on ancient Japan, but with a whimsical fantasy twist. Each of the five different castles that you explore has a creative theme to it; for example, the Gourmet Submarine Castle is set in a modern-era submarine filled with oversized Japanese foodstuffs. The music is excellent, also mixing Japanese instruments into modern beats. Music in the castle levels also gets remixed, growing in intensity as you progress further into the level. Just have your TV's mute button handy for the songs with vocals, which are painfully corny.

You're in Mount Fuji - just roll with it.

All this is wrapped up in a story that is silly to the utmost degree. When the game opens, we find our heroes getting kicked out of a restaurant in their hometown of Oedo for trying to bum a free meal. Suddenly, a UFO approaches out of nowhere and shoots a laser beam at the Oedo Castle, transforming it into a European fairytale-style castle! And the culprits behind all this? A couple who seeks to transform all of Japan into their own personal theater. I could not make this stuff up. The game also capitalizes on its lack of seriousness by fitting plenty of jokes into the dialogue; it even has its own laugh track!

If, during the Spring of 1998, you managed to put aside GoldenEye 007 or 1080 Snowboarding  long enough to give this a try, you probably thanked yourself for it. Those of you who ventured off the beaten path and tried this game were rewarded with a memorable trek through a whimsical, whacked-out take on ancient Japan. Although time has not been so kind to this game, new gamers should still check it out, if only for its sense of humour.

Positives:
+ A fresh, funny story and setting.
+ Awesome music, even if the vocal tracks are an acquired taste.
Negatives:
- Lack of camera control.
- Some frame rate issues.

Control: 3 rice balls out of 5
Design: 4 rice balls out of 5
Graphics: 4 rice balls out of 5
Sound: 5 rice balls out of 5
The Call: 80% (B)

Music Review: Friday

It is April Fool's Day as I write this, so I hope you've been having a happy one of those.  We've got an interesting subject up for review this time around: the song "Friday" by Daniel Bedingfield.  It's part of his 2002 album Gotta Get Through This, and to my knowledge it was only released as a single in the United Kingdom.  As such, I only know about it from its inclusion in Dancing Stage Max, which was, again, a European exclusive DDR game (I have my ways).  ...I take it this isn't going to be the real review.

April Fools!  No, my real quarry is another song entitled "Friday".  This one is performed by a miss Rebecca Black, a 13-year-old upstart from Anaheim, and was released in early 2011 by the label Ark Music Factory, who have a unique business model.  Anyone who wants to get into the music business can pay them a couple thousands of dollars and have a song written with/for them.  Its founder, a mister Patrice Wilson, co-wrote "Friday" and also cameos as a guest rapper¹.  So, now that I've got the objective portion of this review out of the way, I'm free to say that personally...  I find this song nigh-unlistenable.  See, over the past year or so, I've encountered many popular songs I regard as "so bad it's good", including "Hey Soul Sister" by Train, "OMG" by Usher & will.i.am, "Like a G6" by Far East Movement and company, and pretty much everything else covered by ToddInTheShadows.  (BTW he stated on his Twitter channel that he would not be reviewing this particular song, oddly enough, because he felt it wasn't quite bad enough.  I get the feeling that enough requests could change his mind... but I ain't saying nothing.)  But what, you may ask, takes this song past that threshold into the realm of no return?

Welp, it starts with her vocals on the song.  They are the worst set of pipes that have ever been piped into my own earpipes.  All joking aside, Rebecca's voice on this track are so grating, raspy, nasally, and for lack of any cleaner adjectives, unpleasant.  Combined with the lyrics, which we'll get to next, her sound has a bad habit of sticking in my head and leaving me willing to do anything to it them out!  It doesn't help that a copious slathering of Auto-tune was involved, and what's worse, even with them she only sings in one note for a sizeable chunk of the song!  Lady, please, you don't get anywhere in life by singing in fewer notes than you can count on your hand.  Except Flo Rida, but he's technically a rapper, so he doesn't count.

But would replacing her with the likes of Mariah Carey make this heap any better?  Technically, yes, but it wouldn't be anywhere remotely near good.  I mean, we start off with a description of her everyday life.

7 AM, waking up in the morning
Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs
Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal

Yeah... not something you should talk about in a pop song.  When Tiga did it in "Bedrock" ("She watchin' that Oxygen, I'm watchin' ESPN"), at least that was a representation of how their differences are skin deep, but they bond through that which they both enjoy, namely sex.  But here, there isn't a point.  And yes, the only note to be heard in these three lines is B.  Lady, if you're going to be this monotone and sing so quickly, just rap and get it over with!  ...No, we do not want to hear you rap.

Gotta get down to the bus stop
Gotta catch my bus, I see my friends (My friends)
Kickin’ in the front seat, sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up, which seat can I take?

One, you say you have to catch the bus, but (if the music video is any indication), your friends roll up in a car. I can has consistency?  Two, you're 13 years old, so your friends must be considerably older to be able to drive themselves (I take it you know the legal driving age in the US is 16).  At the very least, you probably won't be in the same school as them, but other than that, never mind.  Three, and I say this again, what's the point to stressing out between sitting in the front or the back seat?  You would think (again, according to the video)

It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
[...]
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah), partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun, lookin’ forward to the weekend

And this is the part which gets stuck in your head and kills anything nearby.  Read it in your head with the voice I previously described, only over 9000 times worse, and you'll see why.  On second though, don't do that.  You'll thank me later.

7:45, we’re drivin’ on the highway
Cruisin’ so fast, I want time to fly
Fun, fun, think about fun
You know what it is

Why does everyone assume we know what "it" is? First Wiz Khalifa, then you, and I think there's some more... And you're all newbies to the game! We know nothing about you, much less whatever "it" is!

I got this, you got this
My friend is by my right
I got this, you got this
Now you know it

I counted three lines of nothing and one line of you giving us some pointless description. Once again, thank you Captain Obvious, I said with sarcasm.

Kickin’ in the front seat, sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up, which seat can I take?

The heck, you're saying that again when you're already in the car? Again! I can has consistency?

Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)
We-we-we so excited
We so excited
We gonna have a ball today
Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes after...wards
I don’t want this weekend to end

...


Wow.  This sums up everything you need to know about the song right there.  Is the realization of what days of the week come before and after Friday such a profound discovery that you feel you needed to share it with the world?  I think not!  ...Okay, so maybe you have a point.  Maybe you're trying to show the distinction that Thursday is bad, and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are good.  But it would take the lyrical genius of Shakespeare to make that sound anything but dopey!  Oh, and I caught you saying "we so excited".  Because poor grammar be cool.


After this black hole, the aforementioned writer jumps in with his own rap verse which, quite frankly, is the only decent part of this song.  Sure, it rehashes much of the points from the song thus far from a different perspective, and his delivery is nothing to write home about, but like most guest rap verses this one plays it safe, which is more than I can say about the rest of this song.


So there you have it.  I just dragged myself through audio heck for your amusement.  And the worst part of it is, that was Patrice Wilson's intent all along, more or less:

'Tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday comes afterwards.' I mean, everybody knows that, obviously, but I wanted the song to be simple and kind of sweet," Wilson says in the interview. "People talk so much about how silly or stupid the lyrics are, but pop songs, they're meant to be catchy and to tell things in a simple kind of way. I feel bad that Rebecca has been getting so many people criticizing the song. Because it was me that wrote it.¹

Silly pop songs?  What's wrong with that?  (Shut up Paul.)  Seriously, catchy does not have to mean the same thing as stupid, but you, sir, have fallen on the stupid end of the spectrum.  Do you have anything to say in your defense?

And the truth is, if you look at the numbers...even though people say they hate the song...really, they love it.¹

*gasp* I am shocked and appaled by your assumption!  ...I'll be the judge of that.  But before I do, I wish to explain something.  On my new 5-starwhatever scale, I've considered whether or not to include a zero as the lowest grade instead of one.  This would be something reserved for things that are obviously broken or unfinished.  For example, "Break Up" by Mario/Gucci Mane/Sean Garrett is something I would give a zero to, as well as possibly "Imma Be" by the Black Eyed Peas.  Just take ToddInTheShadows' word for it.  Oh, and it corresponds to a letter grade of E.  E comes before F, so that's not so bad, right?  Wrong: it stands for 'Epic fail' or 'Emergency', since this grade is reserved for emergency use only.  So, is it worth breaking it out for "Friday"?

...

YES.  It is, as I warned you, unlistenable.  Anyone can write a hack song, but it takes a special x-factor to make the lyrics sound so revolting that the whole mess becomes stillborn.  In doing so, Rebecca Black displays a lack of talent so great, that in a sense she displays her own kind of talent.  And no, you do not have to see it to believe it.  We need to forget about this ordeal as quickly and as widespread as possible.  Please, to all of the people trying to elicit a laugh (or genuine interest, you never know) by sharing this music video online, I beg of you, stop.  If we stop giving her attention, she may go away.  And if she does, well, then capitalism isn't such a bad thing after all!

Lyrics: 0 weekdays out of 5
Production: 0 weekdays out of 5
Composition: 1 weekday out of 5
The Call: 0 weekdays out of 5 (E)

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¹ Lee, Tiffany. "Rebecca Black's Not To Blame: Meet The Man Who Wrote 'Friday'". Stop The Presses! 30 March 2011 <http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/stopthepresses/392183/rebecca-blacks-not-to-blame-meet-the-man-who-wrote-friday/>.

Dance Dance Retrospective: 4thMIX

With a release date of August 2000, Dance Dance Revolution 4thMIX was the first original game in the core DDR series put out during the new millenium.  It was followed by an updated re-release, 4thMIX Plus, in December of that year.  (And yes, I count the millenium as having started on 2000, not 2001.  I understand why some people count it from AD 1, that they think the year 0 doesn't count as AD, but I believe it does...  Screw it, it's not worth arguing here.)  But only four games in, was now the time for a radical makeover?  In terms of gameplay, no, it still plays identically to all the entries before it.  So let's dive into what has changed.

With a high-contrast color scheme of pinks and greens on black, the UI has received the majority of this game's changes.  Right off the bat, you get to choose your play style without having to hold the Start button after putting your money in the machine.  (The 2-player Versus and 1-player Double modes, which use both sets of panels, require you to pay a second set of credits.)  Double-tapping the Right panel switches you to Link Mode, where you can play the Nonstop courses or use edit data from your memory card.  Otherwise, you then select your character and setlist.  The 136 songs in this game (plus 14 new songs in 4thMIX Plus) are broken up into seven setlists of roughly 20-30 songs each, with a different character used for each.  I'm guessing it was designed to keep you from getting lost in the massive (for its time) array of songs, but I'm not a real big fan of this decision.  Even if you know what songs you want to play, they may not all be in the same category.  Fortunately, 4thMIX Plus and the home ports add an "All Music" option, which does what it says.

Too much music for one setlist.  (From Konamix.)

So how does one go about selecting these songs?  4thMIX finally does away with the CD wheel of the previous games, in favor of a list of titlecards, displayed 7 at a time.  The difficulty levels for all three charts (now named Basic, Trick, and Maniac) are listed at once, but you can't choose them during song selection.  Instead, you set your difficulty after picking a song.  Also note that some songs have new Maniac-level charts, many of them very difficult for the time. 4thMIX Plus brought the old charts back in as a fourth difficulty level called "Maniac-S" in Single or "Maniac-D" in Double.

Surprisingly for a PSone-era game, 4thMIX outputs a display size of 480i, double that of the previous games, and it would be the only one to do so for a while.  But let's face it, not everyone's gonna notice that.  You might notice the all-new background animations, on the other hand.  Oh, and the scoring system drives me bonkers.  Rather than being a percentage of a maximum score, it's some kind of absolute number which quickly skyrockets into eight digits on harder charts.  They don't even give us the courtesy of ending it in a zero digit like good video game scores should (?).  I think it's supposed to be based on 777 points for a Perfect mark and 555 for a Great, but when you throw a combo bonus on top of that, things get really crazy.  The letter-grading system is also consolidated a bit; it only goes from E to AA, where A is awarded only for a full combo performance and AA is for all perfect marks (AAA in the other games).

The new scoring system on a roll.  (From Konamix.)

I admit I have been overly critical up to this point, but when you have so few changes to work with, sometimes the negatives stand out the most.  Please bear in mind that all in all, 4thMIX is a fully loaded package.  With its balance of quality of charts and quantity of songs, it's one of my favorite games from this early era of the series.  It has all the songs from the core series to date (with only two exceptions, due to specific requests from the artists), plus all the Konami original songs from Solo Bass Mix and Solo 2000 (two of them only showed up on 4thMIX Plus).  Notable songs from this game include:

• "B4U" by Naoki.  Another speed rave song in the vein of "Brilliant2U" and "Dynamite Rave", this track was deemed by Naoki Maeda himself to be his favorite song in DDR Konamix (see below) "because this song best portrays the image of DDR by capturing the perfect blend of performance and physical activity from the player"¹.
• "Love Again Tonight (ForMelissaMix)" by Naoki feat. Paula Terry.  This song marks the DDR debut of this Australian singer, who would collaborate with Naoki Maeda for a number of years afterwards.
• "My Summer Love" by Mitsu-O! with Geila, and "Orion.78 (AMeuro-Mix)" by Re-Venge.  The first is a pop song in the vein of Ace of Bace's early/mid-90s hits, whereas the second  is a heavily Okinawan-flavored trip.  Both tracks are slow, at 100 BPM, but manage to pack lots of notes in their level-9 Maniac charts.  The home version adds an exclusive remix of the latter, "Orion.78 (Civilization Mix)" which runs at twice the speed and is even harder.
• 4thMIX adds a host of songs transplanted from the beatmania IIDX game series, but they must be unlocked by the operator.  ".59", "era (nostalmix)", and "Holic" are some of the most well-known.
• This game also has the first songs in the core series with tempo changes.  In addition to "Wild Rush" from Solo 2000, ".59", "era (nostalmix)", and "Saint Goes Marching (Remix)" all change their speed at least once during the song.

The home port of this game was released for the PlayStation in Japan in March 2001.  As I mentioned at the end of my last Dance Dance Retrospective entry, this game includes the 6-Panel mode from the Solo series.  Another game based off the 4thMIX engine, Dance Dance Revolution Extra Mix (June 2001, Japan) combined all the new songs from Bass Mix, Solo 2000 (excluding megamixes), and 4thMIX Plus... oh wait, I already said that.  Abroad, the platform was also borrowed for Dance Dance Revolution Konamix (April 2002, North America), Dancing Stage Party Edition (November 2002, Europe), and the PSone version of Dancing Stage Fever (2003, Europe).  Konamix and Party Edition share a songlist comprised of over 50 Konami originals and in Konamix's case, nothing else.  They even brought back some songs from the Club Version games and made a new remix of "AM-3P" from 2ndMIX.  (And by the way, Konamix was the first DDR game I ever bought, so it's really nostalgic to me.)  Party Edition replaces the one Japanese-language track in the American game ("Dive" by BeForU) with six exclusive licenced songs, by Kylie Minogue, The Cardigans, The Bloodhound Gang, and more.  As for Fever, the PSone version is basically Extra Mix with a replaced (and horribly small) songlist, but it isn't worth mentioning... especially since we have bigger fish to fry.  Coming soon... 5thMIX.

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¹Dance Dance Revolution Konamix instruction booklet. April 2002.