The inclusion of a cover of Megadeth's "Hangar 18" in Guitar Hero II is sure to create new interest in the original version, found on the 1990 album Rust in Peace.

Alas, the true "Hangar 18" can no longer be found in stores.

Dave Mustaine, Megadeth founding member, rhythm guitarist and vocalist, apparently in an attempt to make his old music sound as awful as his new music, in 2004 remixed and remastered all Megadeth studio albums released by Capitol Records (Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?; So Far, So Good... So What!; Rust in Peace; Countdown to Extinction; Youthanasia; Cryptic Writings; Risk) and his MD.45 side project album (The Craving).

The original (read: good) versions of these albums disappeared shortly after the remixed and remastered (read: ruined) were released.

Okay, So Far, So Good... So What! and Risk sounded awful in their original releases, but the point is that now all Megadeth studio albums sound awful.

Remixing and remastering old music is usually a good thing. You get the same music you've loved for years, now cleaner and without imperfections.

Dave Mustaine went beyond that. He added previously unused portions of songs to the new versions, removed some previously used parts, and even re-recorded segments of some songs. The changes made once great songs sound corny.

The remixed and remastered "Hangar 18" fared better than most other Megadeth songs, but the original is still superior. Nothing was added, removed or replaced, and the new version sounds more clean, but the instruments are too "separated" from each other and the volume of Dave Mustaine's rhythm guitar overpowers Marty Friedman's lead guitar--which especially hurts a song with 11 guitar solos.

It's too bad. The original Rust in Peace album is considered one of the best thrash metal albums ever, often compared to Metallica's Master of Puppets and Slayer's Reign in Blood, but there have always been complaints about its low fidelity, even by 1990 standards. If the remixed and remastered release had been a cleaner version of the original, there would be no reason for this blog entry.

Not all hope is lost for anyone who has never heard the original recording of "Hangar 18." It's long gone from most stores, but you can still hear it for free, legally at Rhapsody. (Link requires registration and will not work outside the United States.)

Fran, you and your bunny suit are why I am not buying Final Fantasy XII.

It isn't only because of you and your bunny suit, Fran, but that bunny suit you wear taken in context with the tone of your game best represents what is wrong with Final Fantasy XII.

When a game's plot matters and it's melodramatic, it shouldn't take itself seriously. People who are evil because they are evil cannot and should not be taken seriously. Especially when they're wearing ridiculous costumes.

(Fran is not evil, but she, like all characters in Final Fantasy XII, good and evil alike, wears a ridiculous costume.)


Could you have a serious conversation with someone wearing a bunny suit?

A humorless, drawn out battle between good and evil might go over well with children, teenagers, fantasy nerds and people who confuse anxiety and maturity with one another, but the rest of us want more.

Either give us background on why the evil characters are evil and have everyone wear normal clothing, or add some humor so we can laugh at how ridiculous everything is.

In the case of Final Fantasy XII, the humorless, melodramatic story featuring characters wearing ridiculous clothing is a shame. The new real-time, strategic battle system is like nothing seen previously, but sitting through the story to get to the battles is an exercise in frustration.


You may have a tail and dress effeminately--not that there's anything wrong with that--if your game doesn't take itself seriously.

The Final Fantasy series hasn't always taken itself seriously. The Nintendo-era games (parts I through VI) and not-Nintendo Final Fantasy IX had senses of humor about themselves.

It wasn't until the series moved to Sony's consoles that it stopped being funny. That's where I lost interest, save part IX, because it did have a sense of humor.


Jessica (Dragon Quest VIII) wears a bunny suit, but her game has a sense of humor.

Return humor to Final Fantasy and I start playing again. Until then, there are plenty of other games that either do not take themselves seriously or have genuinely deep stories.

What appears to be the beginning of the North American PlayStation 3 advertising campaign, an outdoor teaser ad, was spotted in Chicago on Michigan Avenue and Illinois Street.

The heavy on whitespace ad shows a broken, bloody chess piece on the upper left, a floating vertical PlayStation 3 on the lower right and a "PLAY B3YOND" tagline on the bottom.

Read the GameSpot news story EA to close UK studio.

You read the entire story and not just the headline, right?

Most of the people commenting didn't.

The story notes that all 50 affected developers have been offered jobs at other Electronic Arts studios, but it didn't stop those commenting from accusing EA of being an evil corporation interested only in money and not at all in the welfare of anyone but its executives.

Nor did it stop others from going on anti-EA rants that had nothing to do with the story, claiming the company acquires (struggling) competitors only to later shut them down (because they continue to struggle); that it is "forcing" people to pay for downloadable additions to their already purchased $60 games (just like Take Two, Sega, Microsoft and others); that it prevents competitors from competing--welcome to the corporate world--or that the company publishes nothing but awful, cookie-cutter games. 

Apparently these people have never heard of or played The Sims, Fight Night, Burnout Revenge, SSX, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth II or one of many other innovative and/or fun games published by Electronic Arts in recent years.

More than those games, it seems the days of EA rushing a game through development and releasing it essentially unfinished are over. Superman Returns (the game) has been delayed until the home video release of the movie despite that, even unfinished, it (the game) would have sold far better as a theatrical release tie-in. FIFA 07 next-gen is exclusive to the Xbox 360 even though rushed PS3 and Wii versions would be big sellers. And how long has Spore been in development? Marvel Nemesis was a painful lesson for EA--I hope.

Not that anti-EA zealots will notice or care.

It's Saturday night, and here I am, not doing something social or watching Major League Baseball playoffs, but sitting in front of my computer, alone, watching GameSpot After Hours.

Worse, I waited until After Hours started covering something in which I had no interest before I got myself a glass of orange juice.

Writing this while GameSpot After Hours is going on makes me a live blogger, doesn't it. Ugh.

And after fifteen years shouldn't people know how to pronounce the Street Fighter II character names? It's reeoo, not rye-yue.

And by Balrog, I mean the American boxer who looks suspiciously similar to the American boxer named Mike in the original Street Fighter, not the Spanish matador/ballet dancer/yodeler.

I don't claim to be an anatomy expert, but comparing Balrog's chest to my (smaller) chest, it looks like Balrog has at least twice as many abdominal muscles as there should be in the human body.

Thanks to interstate78  for making me aware of this.

Finally, after many disappointing Guitar Hero II track announcements, there is one that more than makes up for all of them.

"Hangar 18" by Megadeth, off the 1990 album Rust in Peace, will be part of Guitar Hero II.

Its complicated riffs, ever increasing tempo and many indulgent Marty Friedman guitar solos make "Hangar 18" the best thrash metal song ever recorded. (And it doesn't hurt to make fun of a drummer who believes in alien abductions and government conspiracies.)

Unless Anthrax's "Crush" takes the title of best thrash metal song ever recorded. I can't decide. (Activision, I expect "Crush" to be included in the next Guitar Hero game.)

If you can successfully "play" Marty Friedman's lead guitar or Dave Mustaine's rhythm guitar on a toy guitar, you may consider yourself a legend in your own mind.

Photograph taken with digital camera.

This is my mobile phone. I take it everywhere in case someone needs to contact me or I need to contact someone.

And like all mobile phones today, it isn't just a phone. Among other features, it can also be used for taking photographs, listening to music and playing games.

But despite those additional features, I still carry and use my digital camera, portable music player and DS Lite. These single-function devices perform their single functions far better than the equivalent features on my phone.

Photograph taken with mobile phone.

My camera has millions more pixels with which to render photos, and those pictures, unlike those taken with my phone, tend not to be grainy. With a (not included) 2-gigabyte miniSD card my phone can hold about 500 songs, but that's nothing compared to the 10,000 songs (on an internal 40-gigabyte hard disk drive) my standalone music player can carry; and while I haven't tested it, I doubt using the phone regularly as a music player would give me anything close to the 26 hours of play per battery charge I get with my music-only portable music player.

I hope the day a mobile phone can replace my digital camera and portable music player comes soon. Now that tight clothing is fashionable, carrying so many gadgets in pants pockets restricts movement. And even with loose pants, fewer objects in them is still better.

But keep games out of mobile phones.

Games require more interaction and more varied interaction than other mobile phone functions. Doing games well requires enough (but not too many) well placed buttons that can be hit while looking at the screen and not looking at the buttons. And, to prevent cramps, something big enough to hold in two hands for long periods of time.

You make a mobile phone weighted, sized, and shaped well for games, and it's too big and heavy to use as a phone.

 
Try hitting the correct buttons in an N-Gage game while looking at the screen.

Hold a DS or PSP to your ear for several minutes to find out for yourself. Painful, isn't it.

So add everything else to and improve the functions already in mobile phones, but let games continue to have their separate portable devices.

Usually I'm in favor of this free market capitalist system. Sure, it has its excesses, but unions, labor laws and antitrust laws generally keep those excesses in check. (The things that keep them in check also have their excesses, but let's ignore that issue for now.)

But when the system forces me to make a difficult, potentially expensive decision, suddenly I have a problem with it.

I wrote a few days ago that I was more likely to get a PlayStation 3 than an Xbox 360 because the PS3's exclusive games appealed to me more.

Since then, BioShock, my second most anticipated multiplatform next-generation console game, has gone Xbox 360-exclusive.

BioShock will also be released for Windows, but I'm only willing to sit hunched at a computer desk for long periods for adventure games... and work. BioShock is neither.

This creates a dilemma. I have a few options, but not one is good.

I can buy an Xbox 360 instead of a PlayStation 3, but then I won't be able to play any of the games on my longer list of anticipated PS3-exclusives, and it effectively means the end of my large PlayStation and PS2 game collection.

I can buy an Xbox 360 and a PlayStation 3, but that's expensive, and probably not worth the space in my TV stand and inputs on my television set since the two consoles do little to differentiate themselves from one another.

Or I can buy a PlayStation 3 and not get an Xbox 360, but then I won't be able to play BioShock.

A decision that amounts to but it's only a game shouldn't be so difficult.

Vivendi finally released the classic Sierra adventure game compilations (King's Quest Collection, Space Quest Collection, Leisure Suit Larry Collection, Police Quest Collection) discovered on an Internet forum more than a year ago.

Unlike previous releases of these compilations, the new ones run without problems on Windows XP systems without additional configuration.

Also unlike previous compilations, the new releases are bare bones. They include the games, electronic versions of previously printed instruction manuals and a paper installation instruction sheet. No extras, printed or electronic, such as "making of" documentaries, developer interviews or other fun bonuses like The Official Book of Leisure Suit Larry are included.

If printed documentation and extras were the only things missing from the new Sierra adventure compilations, there would be little about which to complain. Electronic instructions can be output to paper. Bonus features are nice, but you buy games for the games, right? The ability to play classic games on current computers without first jumping through hoops should have been enough to justify purchasing these collections.

Not only are the new compilations bare bones, they're not the full skeletons. Not every game from each series is included. Which explains why the boxes don't list which games are included.

Would you like to play Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail or King's Quest: Mask of Eternity? You're out of luck; the new Sierra compilations do not include games never released for DOS, and those games were never released for DOS, so they're not included. (2004's Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude isn't included either, but few will complain about that.)

Prefer the original, text parser-based versions of games to their enhanced, point'n'click-based remakes? Too bad. Any game that saw a remake has only the remake version included.

Want to play a spin-off such as Leisure Suit Larry's Casino or the SWAT series (of which the first two included Police Quest in their titles) or respective King's Quest or Leisure Suit Larry inspirations Wizard and the Princess or Softporn Adventure? Once again, you are out of luck. They were included in previous compilations, but you won't find them here.

Especially puzzling is the version of Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out in Leisure Suit Larry Collection. Other games that saw floppy disk and CD-ROM releases have only the CD-ROM versions included in the new compilations. Leisure Suit Larry 6 is the floppy disk version, which is missing voices and 75% of the pixels.

But what were you expecting for under $20 each.