Michael Jackson's Moonwalker

Remember Michael Jackson's Moonwalker?  It was out for the arcades and on Sega Genesis.  Pretty fucking freaky.

You go around fighting people and 'rescuing' children.  When you activate your special move, a spotlight shines on you, and Michael starts dancing.  Your enemies are compelled to dance along with you, but they can't keep up, because the dancing is too intense! So of course they die trying.

There's a new video game out called Michael Jackson: The Experience, which seems like a poor, poor title choice.  Like yeah, have you had 'the Michael Jackson experience'?  God no.

Angry Video Game Nerd

This guy is great.  He's called the Angry Video Game Nerd.  He has a series of videos where he goes and plays old school games from yesteryear.

As the theme song goes (yes, he has a theme song): "He's gonna take you back to the past, to play the shitty games that suck ass."

That statement isn't entirely accurate.  The Angry Video Game Nerd doesn't JUST cover shitty games.  But he isn't afraid (at all) to express his frustration and anger (he's angry, remember?) towards the poor decisions and generally shoddy workmanship involved in the creation of some of the games we used to play as kids.

Check out some his videos here at Cinemassacre.  You won't be disappointed.

This guy brings back games I didn't think I'd ever see again, and expresses many thoughts and opinions I had about games I spent hours + hours playing.  NES games Back to the Future, Friday the 13th, Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link, Bugs Bunny's Birthday Bash and Ghostbusters are a few of his 'targets'.

He doesn't just play and comment on the games, either.  He'll often act out scenes in which he'll interact with characters from the games, it's a blast.  An awesome mix of nostalgia, insightful commentary on how games should have been made / should be made, and entertaining humor.

Electronic Entertainment Expo 2k10

Extremely timely reporting this is, with the Electronic Entertainment Expo being several weeks over.  Well this is a music blog first,and other entertainment/art such as movies, TV, and video games come second, so I can be forgiven for being late on this, right?  No?  Well screw you then.

To those of you who don't know, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, is the annual event where all the video game companies show off all their cool upcoming shit.  And there was a lot of cool shit to show off this year.

Goldeneye 007 Remake - Goldeneye 007 for the Nintendo 64 holds a special place in video game history.  It was the first successful first person shooter on the consoles (as opposed to the PC).  It had awesome 4-player action.  It was a very rare licensed game that didn't suck balls.  And now Goldeneye is getting remade for the Wii.  Hell fucking yes.  Just don't screw it up, dudes.  This should be a slam dunk.

Donkey Kong Country Returns - The trend of making new games in the old 2D style (see Mega Man 10, New Super Mario Bros. Wii) continues with Donkey Kong Country Returns.  It's being produced by Retro Studios, who made the trilogy of Metroid Prime games, so I know its in good hands.

Kirby's Epic Yarn - See above about new 2D games.  Also, this has a crazy, trippy art style, and the graphics look positively gorgeous.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Well we knew this was coming, but it's a big fucking deal nonetheless.  Using the Wii remote enhanced with Wii Motion Plus to play fencing was mad fun, really gives you the experience of swinging a sword.  Combine that with epic Zelda action and now you've really got something.

Nintendo 3DS - Nintendo's new portable system.  The name is super obvious and genius.  Somehow, Nintendo managed to create a 3D display that doesn't require special 3D glasses.  I've been waiting for somebody to figure that shit out, because wearing 3D glasses on top of your regular glasses is super annoying.  (As an aside, do they make prescription 3D glasses?  If not, I should invent them)

Playstation Move - Both Sony and Microsoft had their response to the Wii's motion controls at this year's show.  Sony's Playstation Move is a controller that kinda looks like a lollipop.  Not sure what it delivers that the Wii controller doesn't.  Perhaps greater accuracy?  The ability to use 2 Playstation Move controllers at once could be cool.  But they'd better have some games that really show off the edge they have over what's already been done.  Otherwise, I can't imagine it being worth the money.

Kinect - And this is Microsoft's response to the Wii.  In a bolder move, Microsoft's Kinect (formerly known as Project Natal) uses no controller whatsoever.  Instead, a camera senses your movements.  Intriguing in theory, but...I really don't see this having the accuracy required to play a fucking game.

Metroid: Other M

Metroid gets my vote for best video game series ever.  It really doesn't get any better than Super Metroid.  The Metroid Prime games did a stellar job of bringing Samus Aran into 3D, but nonetheless, I'm excited for a fresh take on the series with Metroid: Other M.  Team Ninja, who made the new Ninja Gaiden games, partnered with Nintendo for this effort.

I love that Metroid: Other M appears to have a mix of 1st person and 3rd person perspectives.  It makes sense to have a 1st person perspective when you wanna aim at something and shoot it, but the platforming elements of Metroid always seemed kinda awkward in 1st person.

There also seems to be a greater focus on story here than in previous Metroid entries, which is definitely welcome.  This looks gorgeous, and is my most anticipated game in 2010.  Check out the trailer below.

Final Fantasy XIII

It's been a while since I've played a Final Fantasy game.  The series has long been the gold standard for RPGs, with their epic stories and beautifully drawn visuals.  The latest entry in the series, Final Fantasy XIII, was just released in Japan, and will be coming out here in the US in March.  Too bad I don't have a system that will be able to play it, since my Xbox 360 crapped out over a year ago.  That might change by March though, since I'm strongly considering picking up a PS3 so I can play Blu-Ray movies.

IGN has a big feature on Final Fantasy XIII that you can read here.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

All I want for Christmas is...well, lots of stuff.  But this is the only thing I actually expect to get.

Continuing my "I love classic 2D gaming" theme, New Super Mario Bros. Wii essentially looks like a new version of the SNES classic Super Mario World, one of the best games ever.  It's not that I don't enjoy the 3D Mario entries that have come out in the past decade, because I really do.  Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy are awesome.  Super Mario Sunshine was a bit of a misstep, though it's still lots of fun.

So 3D Mario games are great and all, but they should never stop making games like this, just because they have newer technology.

What's "new" in New Super Mario Bros. Wii?  How about 4-player simultaneous play?  That's...about it.  But cool!  I would LOVE to get this game up on a big screen and play along with 3 players, like I used to do back in college with Mario Party or Halo.

You get to play as Mario, his brother Luigi, or...one of two generic Toad characters.  If there's one negative thing I can say about this game, it's that the character selection reeks of laziness.  Well they couldn't make Yoshi a playable character, because as you can see from that cover, they be riding Yoshis.  But Princess Peach would have been the obvious choice, mimicking the character selection from Super Mario Bros. 2.  But even if not the princess, c'mon, you could've let people play as Wario or something.  It's not that hard.

That complaint aside, I can't wait to play this.

You can read IGN's review of the game here.

*Update*
The game is really fun so far.  There ARE a few new things about the game that I neglected to mention.  There are new power-ups.  You've got your traditional fire flower, of course, but now there's an ice flower too, that allows you to freeze your enemies into blocks of ice that you can stand on, pick up, or crush.  There's a propeller cap that allows you to spin up into the air and hover.  And there's a Penguin Suit, which similar to the Frog Suit from Super Mario Bros. 3, allows for graceful swimming through water.

Mega Man 10

"A new robot illness, Roboenza, has begun to rapidly spread around the world, causing robots to malfunction.  A month following the outbreak, the situation worsens.  The infected robots turn violent and attempt to take over the world!"

Mega Man 9 is one of my favorite video games to be released in the past few years.  It's classic 2D gaming goodness.  They finally made a new game that's exactly like the ones I used to play as a kid.  I appreciate that new technology has made games very pretty and immersive, kinda like you're playing a movie.  But sometimes all I want is simple fun like this.  Run and jump and shoot.

Now Capcom is continuing the series with Mega Man 10, set to come out in March 2010.  IGN has a trailer for it that you can watch here.

One funny thing at the end of the trailer is that Mega Man 10 will include an Easy Mode.  The Mega Man games are fucking hard.  That's another thing I like about them.  Some games that come out these days are too forgiving.  In these games, you gotta learn the levels, or you die hard.  So long as it doesn't get too frustrating, this challenge is part of the fun.  Easy Mode seems to give you a nice bridge over pits of spikes you would ordinarily have to jump over, stuff like that.  It's the equivalent of bumper bowling.