Jared Rea

Everyone loves to hate lists and so when the GameTap elders asked me to put together one for the greatest rhythm games of all time, I decided to take it seriously. I joked that in my quest for the definitive list, I had assembled the “Council of Elrond” of rhythm gaming afficinados. Between the lot of us, we could boast nearly 60 years of play and knowledge of this single, young genre.

Shit got real and for the most part, people really appreciated it, though tons of people disagreed. Most of the outrage was over the lack of PaRappa the Rapper, which I can understand, but if you’re going for quality something like that really can’t make the cut regardless of how much I adore it myself. And for however controversial it was to hand the top honor to Rock Band only a month after its release, I stand by it, only I’d like to attach the number two.

For the record, I fought like hell to keep Bust a Move off the list, only because I think nostalgia is a bitch. Still, in the end, everyone agreed that it deserved a spot on the list, a low one at that.

I’m tossing this back online as my Pop’n Music relapse has reminded me of it and also because GameTap no longer exists, so neither does this article. The name “No Doubt, Get Loud!” is a reference to a Beatmania IIDX track, but really, it was just me giving the middle finger to Google for the sake of something catchy. Onwards!

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Every 3rd Strike tournament should feature at least one match being broad casted in drunken Spanish. Gotta love the folks down at FFA. I’m thinking about making a trip down south next month, so if everything goes according to plan I’ll have to bring the video camera.

Ranbat 5.3 was pretty good, if just for the only EX Mountain Kick you’ll ever see make contact. Thanks, Scott!

Thanks to the release of “Charlene (I’m Right Behind You)” in Rock Band yesterday, I’ve finally snagged an achievement that has haunted me: Flawless Groove. I come from the Bemani / Guitar Freaks school of down-strum only, so really, this was a long time coming. I’m rhythm gaming dinosaur, I know. I still refuse to touch the bar during a game of Dance Dance Revolution to this day no matter what, amongst many other superstitions and (most likely) bad habits.

But hey, good news for you up-strumming freaks like Miss Shelby. The Rock Band bass guitar is now available, featuring a longer neck and split strum bar for two-finger play. Who says no one cares about bassists?

Before I even attempted to get the “No Country for Old Arcades” series off the ground, I made sure to contact the good folks over at Arcade Heroes to pick their brain on the idea. It’s thanks to them that I got this idea in my head that for as much as people love to declare the arcade scene as dead, history has proven that all they really need is just one amazing title to bring everyone back in.

Pong kicked off the 70’s and in the 80’s, Pac-Man proved that arcade games weren’t just a fad. Street Fighter II completely revolutionized the industry at the start of the 90’s and Dance Dance Revolution did the same for this century.

And now, a little over a month after it’s Japanese release, Street Fighter IV has landed in select arcades across North America. From what I’ve seen and heard, it could very well be that one game needed to convince the masses that yes, arcades are very much worth your time. The problem is that it also represents an easily missed opportunity.

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Here’s the second part of the Spore launch event that I promised, an interview with executive producer, Lucy Bradshaw. The entire event was running late and so I only had ten minutes to ask her the big questions, which of course led to the somewhat tepid reviews that were coming out that night.

“The one thing that I’m finding that I’m really happy to see is that even the hardest of core gamers who are saying, ‘This isn’t what I really expected,’ they’re recognizing where the magic is.”

We also talked about how focus groups originally hated Spore and what it was like to work with Will Wright on this go around. Enjoy!

EA gathered up the press to celebrate the release of Spore this week at the as of yet unopened San Francisco Academy of Sciences. GameDaily published my short news story on it, focusing on the speeches of Will Wright and renowned astrophysicists, Frank Drake.

Wright invited both members of the press and his publisher, EA Games, into the planetarium dome for a speech that covered everything from his love of making models to the hit 80’s sitcom, Alf. He also went into detail on some of his loftier goals with the creation of Spore, particularly, getting people interested in the scientific process.

There’s also an interview coming up with executive producer, Lucy Bradshaw, so I’ll add that later. Until then, check out the photos I took while at the event.

“But remember! No politics! Issues confuse people!”

Poor Batman. He wants to run a straight and honest campaign, but the foolish antics of McCa- err, I mean, the Penguin, will do everything he can to distract voters from the real issues. Reading far too much into a Batman episode aside, this is still the funniest video I’ve seen in ages.

Don’t you see, America? Batman is speaking to you.

While visiting my parents back home this weekend, I uncovered some truly horrifying photos. I was on the hunt for some ancient hard drives of mine that I left behind but what I found was a stash of Kodak envelopes, stuffed with pictures from early years of the Dance Dance Revolution tournament scene which I was a part of. Yes, I was a very sick child.

The pictures go back as early as 1999 when I first discovered Dance Dance Revolution and end in 2001 which is apparently when I got a digital camera. So aside from the obvious popularity (in California, anyway), what’s changed? Now days, freestyle play no longer exists with people only playing the game for high scores. Heck, tournaments don’t even really exist. For the most part, DDR is dead with only the home releases garnering any type of success and it’s not like you’re going to be reading about those anyway.

Check out the set for some ancient Dance Dancing and I’ve embedded the slideshow after the break.

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