My friend Zoiy who also enjoys a good remix, he’ll be one of my main sources to find new songs to write about, sent this song to me earlier, and it’s actually a remix of one of my favorite songs from Final Fantasy VII. While the beginning of the song made me think about the IIDX song 5.8.8, which is also good, it soon plays the familiar melody of Cosmo Canyon. The piano arrangement is great and the strings just adds to the greatness. When the wonderful bass line begins there’s also some very nice deep drum sounds that makes me think about those big taiko drums. Just listen to it and you’ll probably get what I mean. Reuben Kee managed to make a great song even better, and it might be even more in the line of what Nobuo Uematsu intended to create while he was limited by the specs of the Sony Playstation.

Here it is, Ascension to Cosmo Canyon by Reuben Kee, enjoy!

source: http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01306/

I first heard this remix while playing Osu! with a friend, and I think he’s the one who found it. It’s made by REDALiCE, and if YouTube’s correct it’s called Porky of Porky of Porky of Porky.

And if you want to hear the original song here’s a link to it at YouTube.

The picture above is from another great game. Simon the Sorcerer. The first two games are great and Simon the Sorcerer 2 was the first point-and-click adventure I played. It’s not my favorite series in the genre but I still think you should check it out if you want two good adventure games. I’m not too fond of the later games in the series, mostly because of the 3D-graphics. Point-and-click-games should be in 2D, if you ask me at least. Another great series that you probably heard of is Monkey Island. And it’s the same thing there. The 3D games are inferior to the 2D games. Although the fifth game of the series, Tales of Monkey Island were pretty good. Mostly because the controls were a lot better than part four; Escape from Monkey Island. Just to add some more recommendations, try the first three games, the special editions of the first two are also great, especially the second game. Other good SCUMM-games from LucasArts are Sam n’ Max: Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle, The Dig and LOOM.

But not all 3D games are bad. As I mentioned earlier, Tales of Monkey Island is worth playing, and so is Escape from Monkey Island if you can stand the awkward controls. But the best of those games might be Grim Fandango, which is also made by LucasArts. It’s a lot different in theme and story, and the controls are as awkward as they are in EMI, but it’s still worth a shot if you want a great Adventure Game.

I tend to prefer the SCUMM-games from LucasArts over the SCI-games from Sierra. The Sierra games (like King’s Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest and Leisure Suit Larry) got some great games, but the thing I don’t like is that you can die if you make a small misstake. Sure it makes the games more challenging, but it can also be a bit tedious to replay large portions of the game just because you forgot to save. Good game to try are Space Quest 4 & 5 and King’s Quest 6. I haven’t played all of them but those are the ones I enjoyed the most of the ones I’ve played.

A newer game that I still haven’t beat, too many games to play and too little time, is Machinarium. The graphics are great and the puzzles are challenging enough. It shouldn’t be that expensive if you manage to find it, I got it from one of the Indie game bundles from humblebundle.com a while ago. I might do some more recommendations later as there are way more good adventure games and I think my next post about this might be about two games inspired by a world created by one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett.

The other game that takes up a lot of time is League of Legends, I’m not playing it as much as I used to thanks to RO, but I still try to play a game or two each day. It got a pretty steep learning curve, and I’ve got a long way to the top. But it’s fun and I’ve improved  a lot according to myself. Still make some newbie-mistakes from time to time though.

Something that most gaming site’s did in the end of 2011 was to announce their favorite games of the year. Here on Rawr Gaming I’ll do a shorter version of it. The three games released last year that I’ve enjoyed the most is Portal 2, The Binding of Isaac and Bastion. I’ll probably write a bit of all of those quite soon, but for those of you who haven’t tried them yet to it. Portal was, if I’m not wrong, a short game/tech demo that was included in the Orange Box together with a bunch of Half Life 2-games and Team Fortress 2. I bought it because of Team Fortress 2, but the game that really amazed me was Portal.

I pre-ordered Portal 2, and even though I beat it quite quickly, I really enjoyed it. Especially the co-op mode. I love multiplayer games, especially when you get to cooperate with someone. And while playing with different people I discovered that there is some different strategies that can be applied. Voice communication makes everything a lot easier though and is recommended.

Most of you have probably heard of Team Meat, the guys who made Super Meat Boy, another great game. Their latest game is called The Binding of Isaac and is a rogue-like with a story inspired by some part of the bible, there should a be a short article about it by me at ctrlaltelite.se, where I got that info included. The graphics feels like a mash-up of the  The Legend of Zelda-dungeons and Super Meat Boy. The gameplay is also zelda-inspired, combined with Super Smash TV. The thing that gives the game a lot of replay value is that almost everything is randomly generated and there’s loads of powerups to get and a couple of bosses which is also random. And of course there’s a couple of playable characters with different strengths and weaknesses.  It’s a great game, try it out and check back in a while to read a more detailed post about it.

The third game I’ll mention is Bastion. Big thanks to Blair who gave me the best christmas gift of the year. Don’t forget to check out his site www.nerdtome.com for gaming and movies-related articles, reviews and stuff. Bastion is actually a pretty simple hack’n'slash-kinda game where just run around and kill stuff. But the story, the graphics and especially the music got me hooked at once. Sure, it’s no Torchlight, but if you haven’ tried it, do it. The dynamic narration that actually follows what you do is pretty interesting and as I just said, the soundtrack is wonderful! This game is actually gave me an idea what I should write about.

Remember the Best of Video Game Music-series me and a couple of friends did? As you probably understood I really enjoy game soundtracks and video game-inspired music. So I’m going to write about that. Soundtracks to games and remixes of game music that I think are worth mentioning. If you got suggestions feel free to write a comment or mail me at varg [at] rawr [dot] se. I’ll try to get the soundtrack if I don’t have it already and if I  like it or think it’ got something interesting. You might see it here on Rawr.se.

If you got any other suggestions please tell me. I want to update more than I’ve done but I’m not sure I’ll be able to just yet.

Don’t forget to check out www.speeddemosarchive.com for their Charity Marathon “Awesome Games Done Quick 2012″. I’ve seen some pretty awesome speedruns livestreamed already. If you missed Metroid Zero Mission and Ocarina of Time I feel sorry for you. They were AWESOME! And that’s all for this long wall of text, which probably is one of the longer I’ve written for Rawr.se.

The game might also be one of the easiest games in the series to beat, and even to get 100%. Sure, I died a couple of times, but I did manage to find all the Pieces of Heart without too much trouble. Although, there was one which took a while to get. And it’s usually one of the last to grab, so I guess it’s supposed to be well-hidden. And as people told me on Facebook when I mentioned something about the game, the third boss, Moldorm, is pure evil. It’s the caterpillar/snake-hybrid that likes to push you down the holes around the platform where you fight it. If you’ve played the game you should know which one it is, and all the frustration included in beating it. It’s not hard, just very, VERY, annoying.

The story, the graphics, the music, everything’s just as I want it. Sure it isn’t a 3D adventure like Ocarina of Time or Windwaker, but as you all probably know, I’m not a big fan of high-definition graphics, but I do love the graphics from the 8-bit and 16-bit era. I’m also going to include one of my favorite songs from the game. It’s one of the first songs you hear in the game; the Hyrule castle theme.

Now it’s 25 years since the game was released and I’ve played, and beaten, most of the games in the series. But only two of them gave me that ‘wow’-feeling from the first game; A link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. And the three games I’ve mentioned was the only ones I’ve actually completed 100%. About a week ago I felt like playing A Link to the Past again, and while playing I decided that it was time to 100% as many Zelda games as possible. And why not write something about the games I’m playing? I’ve already completed A Link to the Past and Minish Cap, and at the moment I’m playing Phantom Hourglass. The later might take a while to complete as I have to collect ship parts and which ones I get is random. Those who know me know that Fortuna doesn’t like me that much.

I’ve compiled a small list of my progress, The Legend of Zelda series – 100% completion, which will be updated while I’m playing. The goals are usually taken from ZeldaWiki and might be changed while I’m playing, especially the part about items as it’s supposed to just contain optional items, but I usually add all of them, especially if I haven’t beaten the game before and I don’t want to spoil too much. The list of goals may contain spoilers, you have been warned, so don’t blame me.

The games I might skip is the ones to the Philips CD-i and the multiplayer games. But other than that I should be able to complete all the games. Looking forward to Majora’s Mask the most as I think it’s way too underrated, it’s true that the time might be a bit annoying at times, but other than that it’s pretty fun. Especially gathering all the masks, which I did last time I played it. I failed getting all the faeries in the fourth temple though. I think I missed some Pieces of Heart too. But this time, I’ll complete it 100%!

Turtles in Time! The fourth game in the series. The soundtrack is just as wonderful as the rest of the game, although I haven’t beat it yet, because never owned it. I will soon though, and one of the stages I’m looking forward to the most is the one where you’re on a train, fighting from carriage to carriage. The reason isn’t the level itself, it’s actually the music from it that I really love. The sampled voices might be  horrible, but they’re better than The Adventures of Bayou Billy and Altered Beast at least. The bass, the drums (yes, there’s even a small drum solo-part in it), everything about it is just great! I wonder if I’ll ever get to hear music like this in a video game again.

From Beatmania IIDX 10th style, here’s Mr. T – GRADIUS – FULL SPEED. As the titles says it features some songs from the old NES classic Gradius. The game the  Konami Code was invented for. Even though the original soundtrack is really good, I do prefer this remix as I get to listen to some of my favorite video games tunes in two minutes, and it’s pretty fun to play in IIDX too!

The game I’m talking about is of course Out Run, the high action road racing adventure from Sega. The only version of it that I’ve played is the Sega Master System. But the song is also featured in most , if no t every, of the sequels. The fun thing about Out Run, and Out Run 2 SP which I’ve played, is that you can choose music yourself, by switching channels on the games “radio”. The radio stations only feature one song, but who cares, if you can play to Magical Sound Shower as many times as you want, it’s just that great.

And as a bonus, if you want to hear a cover version by a great Danish band called Press Play on Tape, click here.

The game I’m talking about is called Top Gear, or Top Racer if you played the Japanese version of it. The gameplay is pretty similar to other racing games of the time, especially games like Lotus, which was made by the same developers. Coincidence? I got no idea to be honest, but those games got great music. I’m not a big fan of racing games myself, but it doesn’t matter as long as I get to listen to great tunes like these, I’ll play them.