2013 5x5 Review

As much as this blog is going to stick largely to the world of video games, I'd also like to include some personal writing as well. Given that I'm essentially typing into a cold, empty void at this point, I don't think there will be many voices of objection in regards to this decision. That said, I got this nifty little year-end summarizer (infinitely more interesting than the year end review facebook has been publishing on timelines...) from my friends Mazie and Steve, links to their blogs included here for your viewing pleasure. Now, without further adieu, my 5x5 Review, which will go over my five favourite things of the year in music, video games, books, movies, and TV shows:

Music:
5) Scroobius Pip
I hadn't thought myself a big fan of the British electro rap punk scene, but I've found myself repeatedly coming back to Scroobius Pip x dan le sac over the course of the last four months or so. Pip is an excellent lyricist and tackles a lot of content you wouldn't normally expect from a traditional rap artist; in one song he goes so far as to theorize the reason rappers wear bling (spoiler alert: turns out they just want to feel pretty!). He has his fair share of strange and wonderful moments, too, including a song that is entirely based on a what-if scenario involving Johnny Depp's hypothetically murderous impulses. Also included in Pip's repertoire: some very chilling spoken word.

For: fans of rap wordplay looking for different content; people who read dictionaries for pleasure; devoted lovers of beards.

Check Out: "The Struggle", "Gold Teeth", and "Stunner"

4) SonReal
Vancouver isn't exactly known as a hot bed for rap artists. That just makes what SonReal is doing right now even more incredible; the man has been a blip on the industry's radar since 2008 and rapping for a lot longer, but is still virtually unknown in his home country. Perhaps the Juno Award nomination for Best Rap Album this year will have helped; The Closers is definitely worth your time if you want to see some of the finest the Canadian rap/hip-hop scene has to offer. While SonReal does fall into some of the tried and true rap clichés on some tracks, when he avoids those pitfalls he creates a bit of magic. "Believe" is the track to listen to if you haven't got time for the rest of them, but the entire album is worth a listen and you'd be doing yourself a disservice to not give SonReal a half hour of your time.

For: Canadian rap fans looking for someone other than Drake to represent the country; people who still quote Napoleon Dynamite

3) Nick Mulvey - "The House of Saint Give Me" // Mahogany Session
I'll admit, I've been a sucker for acoustic guitar this year - you'll see that in the next entry as well. Maybe it's that growing older has made me incredibly sentimental, or maybe it's a resurgence in the form. Either way, Nick Mulvey's Mahogany Session songs stood out in a big way for me. The writing itself is excellent, but its the inflection of emotion in his voice that harmonizes so well with each note plucked on the guitar. The sound of gently rushing water in the background completes what is an incredible live piece.

For: That guy who always brings his acoustic guitar to parties even though there's no live music; anxiety-ridden lovers of rainymood; aspiring coffee shop owners looking for calming, caffeine-needed-afterwards tracks

2) Atlas Genius - "When It Was Now" (album)
It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when I was given the link to the first Atlas Genius song I heard, but it's easy to remember what happened afterwards: the majority of my summer vacation was spent with their songs looping on repeat. Every song on this album is infectiously charming, but there are some real standouts that deserve the same repeated radioplay that "Trojans" has been getting almost exclusively (although that track is incredible as well). "Through The Glass" is the song of the album for me, mixing just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek reflection and philosophy; it never gets too heavy but remains with you for a few minutes afterwards, the echoes of "and we're dressed up like humans/like we know who we are" lingering just long enough to make you feel like maybe that song was about more than it sounded like at first listen.

For: People who have been to at least three music festivals this year, two of which you've never heard of; owners of sex-photo blogs on tumblr; party hosts looking to have less flip cup and more love-makin'

1) Coasts
It would be easy to look at a band name like "Coasts" and think they were just another hipster band sporting an infatuation with the ocean, and to some extent you'd be right. The band makes no effort to hide that the sea is a massive influence on their writing and music, and if you take a look at some of their photographs, they would not be out of place in a Seattle underground poetry reading dealing exclusively with the sound of one hand clapping. Their songs are so much more than generic hipster rock, though. "Wallow" is a moody, melodramatic piece that toes the line between laidback beach rock and mosh-inducing angst, and "Stone" is everything good about Foals' "Spanish Sahara", somehow without blatantly ripping it off. Comparisons and metaphors will do them no justice. This is the band you shouldn't sleep on for 2014.

For: Anyone who needs a twenty-something version of the teenage angst induced by Panic! At The Disco and Fall Out Boy; sailors; pirates; various mythical sea creatures capable of appreciating musical talent


Video Games:
5) Final Fantasy IX
Okay, fans of the Final Fantasy series will be wondering what a game released almost fifteen years ago is doing on my 2013 list of favourite games, and that's a fair thing to be curious about. I was forced to re-examine its status as one of my all-time favourite games when I chose to do a writing assignment on it for school, and as such decided one of the best ways to critically analyze it (and procrastinate homework) was to play through it once more. I did not regret it at all. It only took about twenty minutes for me to remember all the things I loved about this entry into the series and how every game afterwards has felt, to me, like some kind of let down in one regard or another. That isn't to say that future games in the series are bad; it's just Final Fantasy IX embodies everything I've loved about the franchise in one single game. The character designs are charming and they do away with having the incredibly angsty and mostly silent protagonists that characterized FF7 and FF8, making characters a lot more likeable from the start rather than taking two discs for me to be able to put up with Squall longer than a few minutes. The world is the biggest it ever got on the Playstation 1, and the graphics were, at their time, truly awe-inspiring. It's a shame to say that they haven't held up over the years, but that's only natural, and the only truly noticeable flaw I found in my second playthrough. If you've been on the fence about RPGs, or just haven't played this entry in the franchise, drop everything you're doing and go play now.

For: Lovers of airships; people with weird phobias over cactii and large blue women looking to conquer their fear; fans of sleeveless shirts with ruffles

4) Borderlands 2
My girlfriend decided that she wanted to start playing video games with me outside the stereotypical realm of Mario Party and Mario Kart. For some reason, this ended up being the first game she chose. She is an incredibly sweet, beautiful human being who is, by and large, peaceful.

She loved this game. And so did I. Despite the gore and the at times childish humour, the game as a whole is far greater than the sum of its parts; broken down individually they do not seem largely interesting, but together they are addictive and fun. Cell-shaded FPS and success were not likely to go hand-in-hand, but developer Gearbox took a risk on the first entry and delivered massive improvements in virtually all aspects of gameplay in the second installment. It will make even the most devout pacifist a gun-wielding maniac for as long as they have a controller in their hand, and I mean that in the nicest, most entertaining way possible.

For: Obsessive-compulsive treasure hunters; people who though Saturday morning cartoons needed to be more violent; the generation that still remembers what Mad Max is and likes it

3) Bastion
All of these games so far have a theme: I was late to the party on them in 2013. That doesn't make them any less invaluable to any gamers repertoire of games, however, and Bastion occupies the rather endearing niche of being a game that only takes five or six hours to complete. My Steam shows me I've played about 11 hours total and I've done two playthroughs so far, so this game is a perfect compliment to any avid gamer suddenly faced with severe time restrictions (like those imposed by university, for instance). First and foremost, Bastion is gorgeous artistically. Character animations are fluid and the game world is breath-taking in its simplicity. Furthermore, the voice actors are superb, taking a minimalistic approach to dialogue and making it work. Despite being a short game, there is an emotional investment made into the characters that should not be possible given the brief time we are familiar with them; for some reason I found myself actively rooting for the protagonist as early as the end of the first level, when most games require a longer warm-up period for me. The combat is also a breath of fresh air, and varies greatly for a game that didn't need to include too many options given its length. It frequently goes on sale in the Steam store; next time it does you won't regret the $2.99 you'll likely have to spend on hours of fun.

For: The same people wishing that time-turners were a real thing; people who like to swing big hammers at stuff as frequently as possible; fans of Morgan Freeman's voice and voices that sound like it

2) The Walking Dead
Telltale Games' "The Walking Dead" game series should've been doomed to fail from the start. Point-and-click adventures games are about as relevant as bell-bottom jeans and dial-up internet; that is, they simply receive no media attention whatsoever and appeal to an ever-narrowing audience. However, something about these games caught on with people. Perhaps it was the narrative style-du-jour, where player choice is heavily valued and impacts the entire story over and over again. Maybe it was the writing of Clementine, who became a daughter to millions of gamers. Everything about The Walking Dead is strange and screams "unsuccessful", but somehow it comes together and pushes the gaming scene forward with it. Telltale has already begun releasing season 2 of this game, and has signed a deal to begin producing a Game of Thrones project in the same vein as The Walking Dead games. This is a success story in the video game world so bizzare you have to play it to believe it.

For: People who aren't tired of zombies yet; people who are tired of zombies but are willing to give it one more go; people who are indifferent about zombies in general

1) Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
There is a stark contrast between this game and #2 on this list; while the previous game looked doomed to fail, Ni No Kuni never looked like it could be less than a juggernaut of a game. With the genius art direction and writing of Studio Ghibli behind it combined with Level-5 (the Dark Cloud and Professor Layton series among others), Ni No Kuni showed immense promise and generate an incredible amount of hype. It is incredible, then, that it manages to live up to this promise and more; the game is a marvel of modern video game design, infusing cutscenes that are drawn like Ghibli movies with addictive, Pokemon-esque gameplay. That the story is appropriate for all ages and still interesting and nuanced does not go unappreciated either, as well as the soundtrack, which features a number of tracks that will find their way into your head long after your play session is over. Ni No Kuni was a great addition to my video game library and an instant classic for the PS3.

For: Friends trying to get other friends into Totoro; people who have "waifus"; people who still feel like they're a ten year old who just happens to look a lot older now

Video Games and Music

It wasn't too long ago that video games were all made using 8-bit technology and the main character's sprites were vaguely humanoid blocks of colour that were distinguished mostly by the fact that they moved in response to you pressing a button. Growing up with a Super Nintendo, some of my earliest memories of gaming involve a strangely orange and cuboid plumber stomping on the heads of things that looked like angry brown mushrooms.

Also strangely phallic.

If you have any experience with these antique games, you also likely remember the incredibly catchy songs played in different worlds in Super Mario or games like it. A lot of these songs are still used today, although technology has allowed for an orchestra to perform them and be recorded onto the game rather than the very...limited audio capabilities the 8-bit gaming systems offered. Although they were, like I said, quite stuck-in-head-for-days worthy even back then, not a lot of people were clamouring for the CD release of the game's soundtrack. Actually, music CDs didn't even exist back when the first Mario games came out.

It's hard to imagine anyone excited to obtain one of these when at present it would be extremely difficult to pay someone to take one.

These days, however, video game music has evolved to occupy an entirely different niche than it did before. Games will release OSTs (Original Sound Tracks) for purchase or free download not just because it's a marketing gimmick or an attempt to make a little more money; gamers actually want these CDs or virtual albums to listen to away from the game itself. For a guy who grew up listening to the same four chimes while my 2D protagonist struggled to mimic anything resembling human movement, this is mind-boggling. I'm guilty of having a fondness for OSTs myself, though, as I've gone through many a late night essay-writing experience accompanied by the soundtrack from Square Enix's Final Fantasy IX. These kinds of soundtracks were major breakthroughs, but they were still songs produced solely for the purpose of the video game. Would popular music ever become a staple in video games?

In short: yes.

From almost as annoying as that ringtone Frog to small market niche to pop music guest stars in less than twenty years? That's quite the progression for video games. I think the most evident thing from this evolution is that the respect for video games as a genre of art has grown significantly (if you want to read a bit more on that, check out my last blog post). Video game music is no longer looked down upon as entirely insignificant or just a strange fetish for audiophilic gamers. Now, popular music is being used in various trailers for virtually every game. It's not a relationship in which video games are solely leeching off of the bigger draw from their musical contributors, either; more and more musicians see video game launch trailers, cinematic videos and background music as a legitimate means for gaining more mainstream exposure and popularity. Even bands like the Rolling Stones have featured on some gaming franchise teaser trailers, in this instance Call of Duty's excellent trailer featuring "Gimme Shelter". The bond and relationship between music and video games has never been more fruitful, and it's an exciting prospect to wonder about just how long it will be until we see a video game (outside of the Rock Band-style genre) that features solely tracks from career musicians looking to gain exposure through them.

Or just to prove they're still, inexplicably, quite alive.