Sombrero Grande's Blog o' Geeky Fun

My All-Time Favorite Video Game Music

2010-03-25T22:39:00.001-07:00

Presented not in order of preference, but in (roughly) chronological order. I think it's interesting to hear how much the music evolves with each video game console generation (each generation noted in this post with a different color border).

Bubbleman - Mega Man 2

The Moon - DuckTales

Cossack Stage 1-2 - Mega Man 4

Opening - Sim City

Life in the Mines - Donkey Kong Country

Dire, Dire Docks - Super Mario 64

Requiem for the Gods - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Dream of the Shore Near Another World - Chrono Cross

Gusty Garden Galaxy - Super Mario Galaxy

Red Carpet - World of Goo

Still Alive - Portal

Who you gonna call... in 1954?

2009-07-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

An awesome fan-made trailer depicting what Ghostbusters could have looked like had it been made in 1954:

I think Dean Martin is perhaps a little too "cool" to play Ray, but Bob Hope is a good Venkman and Jerry Lewis as Louis "Keymaster" Tully is sheer genius.

The Top 10 Dirtiest-Sounding Mega Man Villain Names

2008-10-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

In honor of the outstanding new Mega Man 9, I've decided to take a look back at the series... to find the Top Ten Dirtiest-Sounding Mega Man Villain Names of all time!

For the uninitiated, Mega Man is a robot who, in every game, must set out and defeat 8 different "robot masters" and acquire their unique weapons in order to defeat the evil Dr. Wily and his other robotic creations. These robot masters always had some type of "theme" associated with them, so Ice Man's stage would feature cold things, Fire Man's stage would have lava, etc. All of the robot masters had simplistic names like these: " _____" followed by "Man." Once the obvious choices were used up, the creators of later Mega Man games started to come up with some rather odd choices, such as Dust Man, Charge Man, Tomahawk Man and Cloud Man. Inevitably, some of these names end up sounding pretty dirty when taken out of context. So, to honor a fantastic new addition to a line of wonderful video games, I present now The Top Ten Dirtiest-Sounding Mega Man Villain Names to-date (and see if you can guess each robot master's "theme"):

#10 - Flame Man (Mega Man 6)
#9 - Quick Man (Mega Man 2)
#8 - Plug Man (Mega Man 9)
#7 - Flash Man (Mega Man 2)
#6 - Snake Man (Mega Man 3)
#5 - Drill Man (Mega Man 4)
#4 - Burst Man (Mega Man 7)
#3 - Wood Man (Mega Man 2)
#2 - Splash Woman (Mega Man 9)

And the dirtiest-sounding Mega Man Villain Name of the entire series so far:

#1 - Hard Man (Mega Man 3)

Thank you! Good night, everybody!

Some of my favorite music in Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Part Three

2008-03-21T15:51:00.000-07:00

My lack of posts since the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl attests to the fact that it is fantastically awesome, incredibly fun and astoundingly deep with all manner of modes to keep one busy: the standard multiplayer brawls, a single- or co-op-player adventure mode, coin launcher mini-game to obtain trophies, spectator mode, and on and on. But I'm taking a brief rest now to let my thumbs cool down and post a few more of my favorite songs available in Super Smash Bros. Brawl:

Super Mario Bros. Underwater Theme - Super Mario Bros.

There are some tunes in Brawl that are unchanged from their original games. The main theme from Delfino Plaza is one such song. This, the "Underwater Theme" from the original Super Mario Bros. sounds like it is unchanged, until about 25 seconds in when it begins launching into a variety of remixes of the song in different styles. There's a nice orchestrated version, but my favorite is probably the frantic harmonica-infused remix. This is a hidden song that ends up playing the hidden Underground version of the Mushroomy Kingdom stage that's well worth uncovering.

Super Mario World Title / Ending - Super Mario World

Super Mario World is one of my all-time favorite video games, so it's no surprise that this is one of my favorite tunes to hear popping up in the Delfino Plaza stage. It's a frantic take on the opening titles and closing credits music from the game and it fits perfectly with a manic, all-out brawl.

Mario Golf / Mario Tennis - Mario Golf & Mario Tennis

I'm not exactly sure what to say about this song, other than it's awesome and it plays on the Mario Kart stage--it plays on my Brawl's Mario Kart stage A LOT.

Mother 2 - Earthbound

Here's another Earthbound tune that was previously in Super Smash Bros. Melee on the same Onett stage and it's just as great as that first Mother theme. It think it's pretty same to say that the Onett stage is my most played of all the Melee stages that returned in Brawl, and it's all because of the music.

Final Destination 2 - Super Smash Bros. Brawl

This song came as perhaps the biggest surprise to me. It plays on a rather boring stage (the merely flat Final Destination) and is the only tune initially available on it in My Music. Yet, it got a hold of me and is now one of my favorite songs in the game. It's a remix of the main theme that you can hear throughout the game and its menus (and what a great tune it is), here with the Latin lyrics and a balls-to-the-wall rock sound. My favorite part? In the stage it's when the cloud layers open up revealing a shimmering golden ocean at twilight. You can hear that moment in the music at around 1 minute and 40 seconds. Awe-inspiring.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm headed back to play more Brawl. Bye for now!

Some of my favorite music in Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Part Deux

2008-02-23T23:32:00.000-08:00

Wow, video game music sure has come a long way since the days when my dad would mute the sound on our TV while I was playing with my Sega Master System because he just couldn't stand all the beeps and blips that comprised the "tunes" in old games. Here are five more selections of my favorite music from the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Brawl:

Mother - Earthbound

This song is actually a direct carryover from Melee, along with the stage it accompanies. Often while playing Melee, I'd decide which stage to play on not necessarily based on the design of the stage itself, but because of the music that played on it. This was probably my favorite piece of music from that game and I'm glad to hear it's back for Brawl. The stage it came with, "Onett" from the U.S. Earthbound game (called Mother 2 in Japan), always felt a little clunky design-wise to me, but I'd play it just to hear this great tune over and over again.

Ice Climber - Ice Climbers

The level dubbed "The Summit" in Brawl is inspired by the nearly-forgotten NES game Ice Climbers, though it bears little resemblance to the original game. Here, this remix of the standard Ice Climbers theme belies the cool, changing nature of the level itself. The battle begins atop a giant iceberg but then, at about 26 seconds in, suddenly the music changes as the tip of the iceberg breaks off and begins racing, sliding down the side until it finally splashes down into the freezing water below.

King K. Rool / Ship Deck - Donkey Kong Country

When Donkey Kong Country was released for the Super Nintendo, I would often find myself leaving Donkey or Diddy Kong standing around in a safe spot on a level so that I could listen to the music in peace for a bit. It was the first video game I knew of to get it's own soundtrack album, and I can see why: the music in the game was, and still is, awesome. This track would play during the final boss fight onboard a pirate ship in the game, and I seriously dig this remix and that it's in Brawl. Seeing as how the main Donkey Kong stage in Brawl, "Rumble Falls," is a vertically-scrolling (read: headache) level for brawling on, it's not terribly likely I'll be choosing to play it all that often, but, like with the Earthbound level from Melee I mentioned earlier, anytime I do end up playing it, it will probably be because I want to hear the music playing on it, namely this particular tune.

Angel Island Zone - Sonic the Hedgehog

It's great to see Sonic making a guest appearance in this game (I guess all of us who saw the two biggest game mascots in the '90s--Sonic and Mario--being bitter rivals will now get to really see who would beat who in a straightforward fight) and it's also great to hear some awesome music from the Sonic franchise make an appearance as well. This track in particular remixes a tune from Sonic 3 in a very fun, fast and upbeat way that sounds indicative of most early Sonic game music, giving it a feel that's both retro and new at the same time.

Sonic Heroes - Sonic the Hedgehog

Another Sonic tune, this one from a later game in the franchise's history. I'm not a big fan of the songs with vocals in Brawl so far, but I do really like this one. There seems to be three ways of acquiring songs in Brawl: either 1) they're already available as of the first play, 2) they're unlocked by achieving certain, specific goals, or 3) they randomly show up as CDs during matches and you have to grab them manually. I have a feeling this song will be in the latter group, so who knows how long it'll be until it randomly shows up in my game.

I'll continue posting my favorite tunes after the game comes out, if I can pry myself away from it long enough to post something here, that is.

The Smurfiest game ever on ColecoVision

2008-02-16T11:22:00.000-08:00

The first video game system my family ever had was a ColecoVision, and I can distinctly recall spending a lot of time playing this game in particular on it:

I was nuts about the Smurfs when I was a little kid, to the point where not only did I have Smurf bedsheets and an army of Smurf figurines (which probably lead to my eventual love of collecting action figures) but I also had the walls of my bedroom painted Smurf blue.

Looking back at this game now really makes me marvel at how video games have changed over the years. Not only was this a game that a person could, apparently, beat in less than two minutes (somehow, I always remembered it being much longer) but the point values clearly being a part of the terrain itself and the simplicity of the obstacles in the way, especially the spiders in Gargamel's castle, surprise me now. Though I was very young when I played this, I can still recall the awkwardness of the phone-like controller and the fact that when the Smurf jumped in the cavern it sounded like he was farting. Ah, childhood memories.

Some of my favorite music in Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Part One

2008-02-16T10:35:00.000-08:00

Anyone who knows me really well knows that I cannot wait until Super Smash Bros. Brawl is released for the Wii. Melee was my favorite game on the GameCube, and the additions made to its sequel, Brawl, are simply amazing. Be it the stage creator that lets gamers design their own battlefields to play on, the eye-popping graphical enhancements, the fact that Sonic the Hedgehog and R.O.B. are playable fighters...the list goes on and on.

But one of my favorite new additions to the game is called "My Music". The Super Smash Bros. series has always been a kind of melting pot of Nintendo's video game history, mixing its characters, locations, games and music all together at once. With the expansive history that's covered in Brawl, along with the vast array of characters and franchises referenced, creator Masahiro Sakurai decided that having just one tune per pre-built stage was not enough and so implemented "My Music," a feature that allows not only for multiple tunes to find a home on a stage but actually lets the players determine which will be played and how often!

Brawl is already out in Japan and some folks there have already unlocked the over 300 individual pieces of music in the game and uploaded them onto YouTube for the world's listening enjoyment. Here are a few of my favorites that have been revealed--songs that I've already picked to definitely play most of the time on the stages they'll call home in Brawl:

Lip's Theme - Panel de Pon

I have no idea who Lip is, what Panel de Pon is or what stage this song will play on; I just know that I love this tune and it will be set to be played as often as possible on whichever stage it gets attached to in the game!

Go K.K. Rider! - Animal Crossing

I'm pretty certain that the first stage I'll play on when Brawl comes out is "Smashville" and that I'll have this song set to play on it then. While most of the music in the Animal Crossing games is very serene and calm, this remix is the perfect blend of rustic town serenity and all-out brawling.

The Dark World - The Legend of Zelda

My favorite era of video games was the 16-bit era, before everything moved to sloppy 3D action and 2D gaming was at its peak, so it's probably not a big surprise that most of the music I really like in Brawl has been brought in or remixed from that time period. For the Legend of Zelda franchise, I think this song will get the most play for me in Brawl; it's the overworld theme for the "Dark World," kind of an "evil parallel universe" in the Super Nintendo game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I can still recall the day I "unlocked" the Dark World and was amazed an excited to explore a whole 'nother land parallel to the one I'd been exploring for weeks in A Link to the Past already.

Tetris A Type - Tetris

Ah, Tetris. One of the greatest games ever on the original Game Boy. I really dig this remix of this great tune. Though it hasn't been officially announced yet, there's a strong rumor that this tune appears as a soundtrack option for the Luigi's Mansion stage in Brawl. That would be awesome, as the slightly creepy flair of this remix makes it a perfect fit!

The Underworld - Kid Icarus

When I first bought Kid Icarus for the Virtual Console I had been caught up in the hype and fanboy praise for this "classic," and perhaps my expectations were set too high. It's a TOUGH game! I still haven't cleared the second stage yet, and the frustration that's resulted has led me to scarely return to playing the game. One thing I will give the game though is that I love the main underworld music theme and I especially love this remix of it in Brawl. In fact, it may just be my favorite tune in the entire game so far!

Stay tuned, as I'll be posting more of my favorite tracks from Super Smash Bros. Brawl soon!

Pounding It at Disneyland: the greatest theme park trip report I had nothing to do with

2008-01-26T21:34:00.000-08:00

Behold the adventures of Ryan "The Pound It Dude" and his buddy Kevork as they travel to the Disneyland Resort. This trip report is a total hoot and reminds me of the craziness I used to get up to with my friends in junior high when we were let loose on the park. My favorite pictures here are "Kevork Didn't Know I Took This Picture! Shhhh!" and "I Just Told Kevork That People Died On This Ride..." Enjoy the craziness:

Pound It!

I'm NOT going to Fantazy Land!

2008-01-26T21:26:00.000-08:00

Wow. I mean, just...wow. This has got to be, hands down, the worst theme park in the world. You've got to see the pictures of this place to believe it:

Fantazy Land: United Rides of Fantazy

What kind of post-apocalyptic hell is this? Crappy, crappy rides that aren't even open? Shifty scam-artists at the ticket booths? Suspicious kids sizing up their chances to steal this guy's camera? The garbage dumb lake? This place is so horrible it's hysterical! I half felt as though Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot should have been commenting over my shoulder as I was looking at these pictures. Fantazy Land has got to be the Manos: The Hands of Fate of theme parks!

Sombrero Grande rambles on about Mega Man 2

2008-01-26T19:24:00.000-08:00

Mega Man 2 is one of my top 10 favorite video games of all time (it would have to be for me to write as much as I'm about to for it.) To this day, I can still pop it in and fight my way into Dr. Wily's Skull Castle with the same level of enjoyment I had when I was a kid. I can still recall when the game was new, anxiously thinking about the game during swim meets (to the degree that it was sometimes foremost in my thoughts even as I was underwater, swimming in an event).

My brother and I owned the first four Mega Man games for the NES (I much later played the rest via the Mega Man Anniversary Collection on my Xbox) and Mega Man 2 was always my clear favorite of the series and still is. It just seems to have the right mix of difficulty/fun along with some of the best graphics and music of the day.

For those unfamiliar with the series, you control Mega Man, a robot who looks like a kid in a blue helmet and tights with a cannon for an arm, who must single-handed defeat the evil Dr. Wily and 8 new robot "masters" with each installment. These robot masters could be tackled in any order and after defeating one, Mega Man would then gain a new weapon based on that robot's gimmick. Part of the fun and initial difficulty of the games came in trying to figure out the order in which each of the robot masters should be taken on. You see, each of them had a severe weakness to one of the others' weapons, and if you were to, say, hit Ice Man (in the first Mega Man game) with Elec Man's Elec Beam it would only take a couple of hits to do him in. So the whole endeavor became like a giant paper/rock/scissors game, and while some weaknesses were easy to figure out (such as using Ice Man's weapon on Fire Man), most of them were far less intuitive.

Every video game "cheat" book or magazine back in the day had their idea of the best order of attack to most easily fell Mega Man's foes in every game, and usually they were spot-on, but I've always taken issue with the common, shared order for Mega Man 2. I've got my own order I follow that I enjoy quite a bit. Nearly all the guides I read as a kid listed Flash Man or Bubble Man first, but for me I always start with Metal Man.

Metal Man had by far my favorite and most useful weapon in all the Mega Man series: the Metal Blades. Here's why the Metal Blades are so awesome:
1) You can shoot them in any direction--up, down, forward, back or diagonally--so it's great for disposing of otherwise hard-to-reach baddies, especially when on moving platforms.
2) Its power drains very slowly. The Metal Blades use less energy per shot than any other Mega Man weapon I can recall, making it easy to use throughout an entire level while most other special weapons only came into use for a quick barrage on a particular enemy, typically a boss.
3) It's range is pretty wide--far superior to the standard Arm Cannon--and continues to fly onward even after hitting a foe, so multiple enemies could be hit with a single shot.
4) It's very effective on multiple bosses.
After beating Metal Man, I typically never returned to using Mega Man's standard Arm Cannon for the remainder of the game; Metal Blade was the default weapon from then on out.

Metal Man isn't too difficult to best with merely the Arm Cannon; just try to stay in the middle of his room on the moving platform, and if you do, Metal Man will be too busy leaping from one end of the room to the other to throw many projectiles your way.

With the Metal Blades equipped, now there's a choice: Bubble Man or Wood Man. The Metal Blades are the weapon of choice to topple either of these guys and I've always found it nice this early in the game to be able to pick which boss I'd prefer to fight next (the strategy guides of the time never offered a choice like this). More times than not, I'll take on Bubble Man second because I enjoy the design and music of his stage so much. When it comes time to battle Mr. Bubble, the multi-directional capabilities of the Metal Blades make it a pretty quick fight. If, however, I decide to ambush Wood Man, then Bubble Man's stage becomes a nice break later on in the game, as Bubble Man's Bubble Lead weapon won't really come in handy until a few more bosses down the line.

With Wood Man cut down, it's time to get some air with Air Man. A few hits from Wood Man's Leaf Shield will easily knock the wind out of the fan-powered robot (not to mention aid in dealing with the egg-dropping birds of his level). Air Man's Air Shooter will make quick work of Crash Man next, and the Metal Blades and Leaf Shield being necessary for dealing with more egg-dropping birds.

At this point I'll make sure I've bested Bubble Man so that I can use his weapon to defeat Flash Man. The reason I wait until after defeating Crash Man to take on Flash Man is that having Crash's Crash Bomber enables me to take some very nice shortcuts through Flash Man's level. Once Flash Man is no more, it's on to my least favorite level of the game: Quick Man's domain.

Why is Quick Man's level my least favorite? It's got everything to do with those damn, thick yellow beams that dart across the screen as soon as you enter, blocking your way and killing you instantly if you touch them. The last part of the level where Mega Man must fall faster than them kills me so frequently that I typically just use Flash Man's Time Stopper to make it past unharmed. The downside to this is that it's then completely drained and useless against Quick Man (if you use the Time Stopper in the boss fight against Quick Man, it drains half his health before he can even move). Without the Time Stopper, Quick Man is quite a bit harder to deal with, but a few extremely well-timed shots with the Crash Bomber will put an end to him.

Last up is Heat Man, whose stage is also rather difficult but is all that then stands between Mega Man and Wily's Castle. Of course, once in the castle there's an awful lot of big robots and nasty traps that separate you from the final battle with the mad doctor, but that's all pretty straight forward.

It's a damn shame that Mega Man 2 hasn't yet been released on the Wii's Virtual Console in the U.S. Europe's had both Mega Man 1 and 2 for a while now, and I'm getting irritated having to hook my Xbox back up just to play though this game again. I mean, seriously, what's the hold-up? If you've never played Mega Man 2, I suggest you grab it immediately whenever Nintendo gets around to rereleasing it for a mere $5 on the Virtual Console. If you have played it, then I'm sure you're just as anxious as I am to see it available on the Virtual Console soon.