Hey, I'm Armando. I live in Spain. The guy with the deep voice is Caleb. He's from Ohio. The crazy guy is Zhan. He's from Russia. (I don't know from what part of Russia.)
We have recorded and uploaded an episode of a partially gaming focused podcast. Quality is hit or miss sometimes, (Caleb has now bought a decent microphone), and it's simply three buddies talking about games, each with their own perspective. It's new, exciting, and we hope you like it, simply because we're trying to do something different.
We are working on our first feature, a GTA IV retrospective, with high production values similar to those of Robert Ashley's A Life Well Wasted.
We want listeners, we want to have opinions on the show, and we want community involvement.
This will all be backed up by a blog where you can find our writing (and other's). www.nailcube.wordpress.com. (It's currently being revamped to be a legitimate non-wordpress website.)
Also, you can totally e-mail random stuff. We don't care. Send it out to nailcube@gmail.com. We swear we will read it on the next show. Or you know, post random stuff for us here.
Terraria released on May 16 of 2011. Minecraft released June 13 of 2009. Almost two years apart, and even though comparisons are made, these two games were very different.
Until now(?).
Minecraft 1.8, "The Adventure Update", promises towns with NPC's, certain objectives, randomly generated dungeons, actual reasons for fighting enemies, critical hits and further expansion in combat and so much more. Those are mostly things that Terraria did out the gate. Using the fact that it had dungeons, loot, a central town, and a goal in mind towards the end-game was what differentiated it from Notch's beast. If Minecraft successfully adds these elements in the next update, Blue's 2D Experiment in the "Crafting" genre has no reason for being popular. It would be a different world in a different perspective with some different loot. But it would decidedly be a Minecraft clone anyways, and down the road, most will forget that Terraria was the first one to add focus in to the incredibly popular experience that is, well, crafting better pickaxes to mine more.
Bosses? In my Minecraft? SOON YOU SAY!? Minecraft is a phenomenon. It creates a vicious cycle. You build a house to hide while you mine. You mine to build a new house. You build a new house to explore a new mine. See where this is going? Well, millions of people also see it, but that doesn't stop them from playing almost obsessively, and even more so in the long days of the summer. Terraria on the other hand, while containing the same basic trappings of Minecraft, is based around loot and exploration in a 2D world that is much more manageable. You control your surroundings, and you know where the edges of the world are, and your entire goal is reaching those limits to obtain the best loot in the game in the higher level zones, it just so happens that to obtain some of that loot, you must dig and mine materials to craft some of the essentials.
So now you take that formula and apply it to Minecraft. You add towns around the world. You add dungeons with loot, you add bosses, you add, essentially, an objective that is outside the vicious cycle. You add an end. Something that Terraria has. Once you have the best loot and built an awesome castle, you don't have anything else to do, except do it again in multiplayer. But at least it's not building another house for even more mining. And this idea is very similar to a project that's generating some buzz called Cube World.
Kind of reminds me of something... The whole idea behind the still-very-early Cube World, is Zelda+Minecraft. It sounds awesome. You get crafting, building, exploration, mixed with items, dungeons with specific tile-sets, bosses and different monsters, all wrapped in one pretty block-based package. Something that it seems the other two main contenders were heading towards anyways. But it really does make you think. Adventures in Minecraft sound awesome, but the premise itself is enough to let your imagination run wild. With obvious inspirations from Zelda, Metroidvanias, and RPG's all popping up in the genre, how improbable is it that we end up with a sandbox that allows for Water Temple's, and flying cities, and amazing loot in randomly generated towns so detailed they seem unique. How long until it's no longer the vicious cycle, and we simply integrate it in to a quest, a purpose...an adventure?
How long until this is Minecraft? We can't deny it any longer. It's popular. People love it, and they demonstrate it. They buy the products. They spend endless hours in them, and they get excited every time an update shows up. Where will these updates end? When will they end? We can only dream, and those of us that play these games (And love them) can only speculate on what the next version of our desktop fantasies will include. And now that Notch has decided to include mod support in the beta, the community will have even bigger access, with limitless potential. We don't know where this will go, but we can only hope that everything solves itself out for the better, and that there's room in the genre for experimentation.
For now, we can only wait. And there's no better way to let days go by, than playing some Minecraft.
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"Bitch you know I'm free" sings out Palaceer Lazaro in the echoing, impenetrable halls that form the groups debut LP, Black Up. And much like the enigma of: "who is making this music?", I was left wondering a similar sense of confusion with the question: "Why are they making this music?".
We don't even know who's in the group. We know this guy is. Maybe? Shabazz Palaces is a question mark in the middle of the music scene. And so is their first album. It's an experiment in hip-hop, in melody, in sampling, in lyrics, in track structure, in pleasantries. And if there was something I had very clear in my mind after reaching the end of the ten tracks, it was that I had no idea what to think about what I heard. I could clearly hear the hints of genius, the hours of painful production, the messages that they try to imprint in the music, but I couldn't feel it. I understood that they wanted to let me know that they don't like to be predictable. And with tracks that are often fully segmented in ways that could easily be expanded into different songs, with constantly changing tone and mood, they seemed to be screaming out to the world they either have ADD or their simply scared of losing the listener's attention. But that isn't a bad thing.
The showpiece here is the second track, the insanely titled "An Echo from the Hosts that Profess Infinitum". Based on a female/child vocal sample that will pierce your brain, and not in a particularly pleasing way, the track comes into it's own combining lyrics that make no sense (You think I'm Selfish / Exist only to wish on stars / Lay in wait and cut the bars down/ then go ice the guards), with a tight beat, and that initially discomforting sample will have you hooked when the out-of-control bells come in about halfway in. And you know what? That's great. So the album keeps you on your toes by always being on the verge of chaos, and always a different kind of it. And by the time you get to the end you'll admire it for taking chances and doing something interesting, but getting to the end isn't always a nice ride.
For every perfect note, there is a decision purposefully taken so that the listener can never fully relax. One second you hear heavily modified vocals that blast in your stereo, and the next, the same vocals are turned into a badly edited, high pitched, whiny noise that is barely tolerable. And even though I would love to say that this experiment is a successful one, I can't. It's too divisive. It reaches perfection, walking the line between absolute chaos, a sound and mood that is absolutely magical, but it never takes too long before losing it's way and falling into it's own trap.
And so, I realized the answer to my question. They're making this because it's different, because it's hard to digest, it's complex. But that doesn't explain who it's for. And that's the problem. For every answer hidden away in their music, there's another question, and the listener never feels satisfied, and that's because the album never settles into a groove, and neither can we.
If you want to hear glimpses of a different kind of hip-hop, give it a listen, just don't expect it to have a lasting impression personally. It may make waves in the genre, but it's a first generation product, and there are some kinks to work out. Black Up Final Score: 3/5
(My rating system is based on 5 points, no half points.)
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