Up late talking games & writing? You're...

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Music: I don't often write about music, but every once in a great while I get the itch. It's a bit of a struggle as the vocabulary for games criticism and music criticism doesn't exactly coincide, but I'll do my best…
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Anyway, this may not be common knowledge but I'm a huge Prince fan. He may not have quite the cachet that he did in the late 80s, but I definitely see him as a musical genius of sorts, and I've always been an admirer. In fact, the best concert I ever saw was when Prince played the Key Arena… every person in the entire building was on their feet when he took the stage, and not a single person sat down until the show was over. The man puts on a hell of a performance.
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As far as CDs go… his track record is a bit of a mixed bag.
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The most recent, ‘Lotusflow3r’ was just released a week or two ago, and comes with three separate discs: Lotusflow3r, MPLSound, and a third featuring the work of whom I assume is his latest protégé, Bria Valente. All told, it's far from his best effort.
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A strange mix of sounds, the work here has a bit of the tight funk and energetic jams he's known for, but there's also some bizarre Hendrix influence as well as a few noodly instrumentals, and some that would be a perfect fit playing inside an elevator somewhere. I usually tend to listen to every song on a CD from start to finish, but in this particular case I skipped over more than a few. It's odd, because at times I think Prince does some of his best work on his lesser-known B-sides, but in this case most of these tracks feel like throwaway filler.
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It's not all bad though. Colonized Mind, Feel Good Feel Better Feel Wonderful, Valentina, and Ol’ Skool Company are all in line with the kind of quality I expect from a Prince album, but that's only four tracks out of twenty-one. (The less said about Bria’s disc, the better…) as an overall package, this is pretty disappointing and not one that I will likely put into regular rotation. Still a Prince fan, but not a fan of this collection.
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Loutsflow3r rating: 3.5 out of 10.
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Games: The wife and I polished off Resident Evil 5 today. I've got to say that having co-op in more games these days is a fantastic option, and doubly so since players aren't required to go the splitscreen route if they've got the correct hardware.
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Each player having their own screen in a game as visually rich as this one is a real treat. That's not to say the game itself is flawless, but I will leave further comment to the review. Turned it in this afternoon, so look for it soon.
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Also finished Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure on the DS. The game was a bit of a shock to the system with the demanding old-school difficulty level, but overall it was a superior effort and one that I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a quality DS experience.
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It's obvious that the people behind it put a lot of love and attention into its crafting, and the core idea of combining platforming adventure with match-three puzzling was sheer genius. If you haven't tried this game yet, you're missing out on one of the finest titles 2009’s seen so far.
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With those two games taken care of, I'm moving on to the PSP’s Resistance: Retribution and Condemned 2: Bloodshot on 360.
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Retribution seems like a very solid title so far, though I'm still in the very early stages. That said, this is the second time that I've been completely impressed with the work put out by Sony’s Bend Studios-- and also the second time that they've got me playing a game on PSP that I had no interest in on a standard console.
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Both Syphon Filter and Resistance: Fall of Man left me cold, but Bend sure knows what they're doing on the handheld.
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As far as Condemned 2 goes… not quite sure what to make of it yet. I am a huge fan of the first game and still think that ranks as one of the 360’s best experiences, but something just seems off about this sequel. The graphical quality seems a little sketchy, and the level design of the first stage is pretty atrocious… lots of black oil over everything making it very hard to see, and starting off a little rough for my taste.
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To be totally fair, the first Condemned had an atrocious first level before the game came into its own, so I'm going to stick with it for a while and hope that it gets better.
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Writing: The work progresses, and today marked the completion of a major milestone in the plot. It's been something my co-author and I have been working towards since the start of the project, really, so finally putting the words on paper gave me a great sense of satisfaction. We've still got a lot of work to do, but at this point I feel comfortable in saying that we've made substantial progress. It's a very good feeling, indeed.
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