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Album Analysis #15: Linkin Park, The Hunting Party (2014)

(ayyy sorry for taking so long, we’re finally back with the album analysis’! thank you all for being patient with me, i hope this meets your expectations)

Linkin Park was a band that had always been a piece of my childhood. Yet for the longest time, I only knew of Hybrid Theory (2002), Meteora (2003), and Minutes to Midnight (2007). Despite the memes and such regarding the group, I held them up in high regard, with Minutes to Midnight standing as one of my favorite albums ever made.

It wasn’t until the passing of frontman Chester Bennington that I really begun giving attention back to this band, and began to survey releases I hadn’t listened to, like A Thousand Suns (2010). And while that album is fine for what it is, what drew me to The Hunting Party was its heavy rock sound, reminiscent of their earliest works.

So going into this album, I want to hear that heaviness really come to life. I wanna hear Chester’s screams and those chugging guitars and that aggressive beauty. Let’s begin, shall we?

Keys to the Kingdom: Instant attention grabber of an intro, a really great way to begin the record. Chester’s pained screams diluted with an audio effect over them, sounding glitched out and demolished. Only for the roaring guitars and heavy drums to kickstart and fire off into the song. Just hyper aggression and energy, throttling drums and soaring vocals and guitars atop it. Hell, even this structure feels like classic Linkin Park, Mike rapping or singing over the verses, with Chester coming in and screaming his way through the chorus. What changes it is that instead of the nu-metal sound of Hybrid Theory or Meteora, this is full heavy hardcore rock and metal, and I adore it. It’s aggressive, it’s punchy, and above all else it sounds wonderful. I especially love the instrumental bridge, the sound cuts out abruptly and begins to build back into itself, with a buildup of layering guitars and drum patterns. Eventually it just builds into this absolute explosion of grimy guitars and crashing cymbals and snare hits, an overwhelming cacophony of sound, which leads us right back to the refrain of the chorus to end it off. 

Lyrics are not as huge a highlight here, which might be my only criticism to it. What stands out, stands out very much, like the chorus where Chester screams out “No control. No surprise. Throw the keys to the kingdom down that hole in my eyes.” and the verses are rich with shit talking and imagery paralleling war. Linkin Park is, in a sense, committing war and fighting back against all their naysayers. With the 2nd verse from Mike being a direct callout, with the line “Careful what you shoot because you might hit what you aim for”. Some bars from Mike do get kinda swarmed in the sound of the instruments, which while sounding good does take away from his words. Other than that, this is an amazing song which kicks off THP near perfectly. Fantastic, a favorite for sure. 9.5/10

All for Nothing (ft. Page Hamilton): A slower more methodical track after the punchy opening Keys to the Kingdom was, and a little bit worse in my opinion. Definitely not bad, I think the verses from Mike are some of the best on the project, and the instrumentation and production is crisp and fantastic. I especially love the grimy fuzzy guitars on this one, they really underscore the verses incredibly well. Mike’s bars themselves are charged and full of anger. It’s egotistical, but in an entertaining way, like how he states “And no, I'm not your soldier, I'm not taking any orders. I'm a five-star general infantry controller”. It shows that even years on down as an MC he still has that anger and energy that made his bars work. What holds the rest of the song back is I think the pre-chorus and chorus kinda kill the momentum and anger of Mike’s verses. It doesn’t link together well, and instead of feeling like a nice natural link between verse to pre-chorus, it feels like the song hesitates and stutters a bit. It’s a shame, because everything else is still great. I just wish the chorus and how it linked to the verses was better. 8/10

Guilty All the Same (ft. Rakim): In sharp contrast to the last track, this one is bursting with energy and passion. I ADORE the minute long instrumental opening. Beginning with lo-fi crashing cymbals and guitars to loop into a super crisp version of it. Then cutting off to an instrumental buildup from guitar into the main riff utilized in the chorus. Just in general the instrumentation and production of this song is perfect. They know when to make the guitars sharp or fuzzy, exactly how to make the cymbals crash and smash in the right way, how to make each hit of the snare sound like a gun going off. It sounds wonderful, especially underneath the vocals. Unlike most of the songs on THP, this is mostly just a song with Chester. He handles most of the songs vocals besides the guest verse by Rakim, and as always his vocals are infectious and commanding. His utter power as a vocalist in both singing and screaming was always what drew me and others to Linkin Park, and that’s in full effect here. The guest verse from Rakim is also incredibly good, he finds an interesting way to find all these pockets and flows overtop these fuzzy guitars and bass-filled drums, it’s like rap-metal almost. This then breaks back into one more repeat of the chorus and the final explosion that breaks into silence.

Both Chester and Rakim’s lyrics stand out wonderfully and match the angry aggressive sound of the song. Calling out the industry as a whole, caught in their guilt whilst trying to set blame, attaching that grander message and applying it to record labels and their ever present lust for money over genuine talent or strong music. Where Chester’s verse is more basic and has larger more broader strokes in its narrative, Rakim’s verse is clearcut, and the message is sharpened and jagged in its bladed diatribes. Mentioning “corporate hands is filthy” and “All they think about is bank accounts, assets, and realty.” as direct stabs at the grander corporations iron grip on the media we consume. Passion is snuffed out in favor of what sells. It’s a message stated wonderfully through both vocalists, mixed with the crisp instrumentation and energetic fervor, this is definitely one of the favorites. 10/10

The Summoning: Probably the weakest piece here, there isn’t especially much to say. It’s just a 70 second interlude piece between Guilty All the Same and the next song, War. While the sonic landscape it builds is nice, it’s cut far too short to really build up to anything worthwhile or impactful. In the grand scheme of the album and with so many other far more impactful cuts, including a far more atmospheric instrumental piece later in the record, this one just falls to the side. Inoffensive and nice on the ears for the time being, but not anything close to standout or memorable in a way most other songs here are. The one song that being cut from the record would not detriment it in any real way. 6.5/10

War: Easily the track with the most blistering punk energy here, at just over 2 minutes it’s an incredibly scorching speeding track filled with fast energetic guitar riffs and a frenetic blood pumping drum performance layered in with Chester’s screams and strong vocal performance. There’s barely any breaks, from the opening lo-fi guitar scratches and riffs to the looped audience laughter at the end, it’s a pummeling track that has you headbanging and screaming the whole way through. Like most of the albums songs, the lyrics feature a heavy war motif, this time speaking of the general chaos found in war. As Chester states, “It needs to sides to justify, laying down your life”. War does not care about the sides you fight on, if it’s right or not. It will render you null and slaughter you all the same, no matter whom is ostensibly correct. Really the only issues I have with the piece is that like The Summoning, I feel it doesn’t have enough time to really flesh out to be a super standout track. It’s incredibly fun and powerful for the time it’s active, but it doesn’t have too long to be something I can truly say wowed me. Still awesome though. 8.5/10

Wastelands: A nice cooldown from the blistering heat of the last track. It feels more in the Linkin Park wheelhouse, Mike rapping the verses and Chester handling the chorus. It has a very nice production crunch to it, amplifying the drums during Mike’s verses only to have the guitars explode out with energy in the chorus. There’s a nice push and pull dynamic in the song that’s created by this choice, creating a nice duo between the poetry being rapped and the poetry being sung. It once again features pieces of war imagery, but it’s more direct in its commentary.  Rather than being a conceptual musing on war or some metaphorical drive, it’s a very angry critique at the direction of rock, or rather it’s misdirection. Referring to the grand landscape as a metaphorical wasteland, where all true musiciosos who once made rock have abandoned. Mike’s verses are lined with braggadocio, stating his verses rise above all and that what he’s spitting is far above the drivel his contemporaries spit. For the most part, it works, but there are a couple issues I have with the piece. Some of Mike’s rapping can feel stilted and a fair amount of the lines don’t seem to particularly connect to the topic of the song, and feel more like the people he is supposedly stating are trash. It’s still a very well done song, and one I would easily return too, but it feels kind of weak in that department. 8/10

Until It’s Gone: This piece is one of the more emotionally resonant and impactful tracks on the entire record, taking a more lamenting and heartfelt passionate performance in both instrumentals and vocal performance from Chester. There’s a definite boom in each smash of the snare, a bassy overwhelming crunch in the guitar, the instruments layer and unite with the vocals to create this almost marching feeling. It strangely reminds me of the booming repetition found in a couple songs on Swans LP To Be Kind (2014), particularly the cut Nathalie Neal. It creates a feeling of marching to war, that you and the insurmountable masses are all marching towards another goal, a brighter future perhaps. It’s one of the more triumphant songs Linkin park have crafted in terms on the progression and feel from the piece. In that strength I feel it resonates and booms with impact as one of the strongest cuts here. The only real weakness is that the ending with the small beat with skittering hi-hats and explosive snare hits feels a bit tacked on; but it doesn’t take away from the core song and experience found here.

 Speaking of which, the lyrics and poetry Cjester sings here are what make the song whole and piece everything together. Rather than building on the anger and prevalent war imagery found all over the record, it stands out with a muse and waxing poetic on the concept of what you have and what you lose. Specifically, the famous saying of “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone”. It’s that exactly mantra Chester passionately sings in the chorus of this song, verses taking on a similar tone and message. Lines like “I can finally see your light when you let go” refer to this idea, that sometimes you can only recognize the true benefit and reason for why you have something or someone only when they’re gone. It’s a message to cherish the things you have and never let them go. Which, given what’s happened to Chester, is simply heart wrenching. One of my favorite cuts here, amazing in most every way. 9.5/10

Rebellion (ft. Daron Malakian): In a very sharp contrast to the prior cut here, Rebellion is one of the most blistering and energetic throttling cuts here on the entire record. In no short part to the guest guitarist Daron Malakian, of System of a Down fame. This feature immediately excited me, as SOAD was one of the most creative and very incredible metal acts to sprout up in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. Blending alt-metal with elements of polka, Russian folk music, Armenian hymns, and much more. The instrumental performance here is nothing short of excellent, fast and powerful guitar riffs and chugs connect wondrously with the tumultuously churning drum beat. Overwhelming with it’s instrumental power, barely any breaks to be held here. Akin to a cut like War, but even more filled out and more standout in the way the piece progresses and the vocal cuts found from both Chester and Mike. It almost feels like a SOAD track, just featuring vocals from Linkin Park. With how creative the chord progression is and the multi-faceted structure and switching tempo’s found all over the cut, very reminiscent of a piece like B.Y.O.B or Radio/Video in that sense.

Lyrically I feel it stands out prominently as well. It’s a piece focused on the political instability found all across the world, more specifically calling out the whinging and whining from those in first-class worlds. The message is best exemplified by the chorus’ repeating of the line “We are the fortunate ones, who never faced oppressions gun”. In comparison to places where people's rights are violated almost every singular moment, us in First World countries have no right to complain. While I feel that it’s a bit too broadly painted, the core message of “There are people who suffer far worse than us, so sit down and shut the fuck up” I agree with. And even discounting that, it’s still a wondrously put together piece. Arguably my favorite song on the entire record, def one of the best songs Linkin Park ever put together. 10/10

Mark the Graves: Much like the prior track, Mark the Graves is a very instrumentally-oriented track, driven most heavily by the ever present guitarwork lining the record. An incredibly creatively structured and segmented piece, not following the standard song structure found in other pieces here. Alongside this chopped abstract structure, there are constantly changing rhythms and tempos, cutouts of silence that lead into explosive colossuses of sound, smashing drums and overblown bass layer in alongside the guitars. Buildups and blistering walls of flame give way to a repetitious marching drumbeat, echoing and bridging towards another beast of sound. Chester’s screamed delivery following a softly delivered refrain into the outro. The entire piece oozes creativity and uniquity in structure and delivery, sound and presentation, and it hits aces in essentially every aspect. Even lyrics, while not the prominent quality, still fuse and work with the soundscape quite well.

This is a song about memory and mistakes, more so the mistakes of your past and trying to reconcile and atone or make peace with what you have wrongly done. Each line in the verse makes references to the past and seeking to atone, specifically within the line “If we can’t let go, we’ll never say goodbye”. Chester is telling us that to truly say goodbye and forget the past, you have to let go and make do with your mistakes. All you do by holding on is chasing yesterday’s ghosts, and ignoring tomorrow’s premonition. You have to live and let go, otherwise you’ll forever be trapped in the sin of your own failures. A sin of your own machinations, manifest by the mistakes never once rectified or forgiven. It’s a beautiful piece, firing on each cylinder and making no mistakes in idea, or execution. An absolute favorite for sure, no problems whatsoever. 10/10

Drawbar (ft. Tom Morello): This cut was actually one that took me a long while to really get into. Like The Summoning, it’s another instrumental track that serves as an interlude between Mark the Graves to Final Masquerade. Featuring the acclaimed guitarwork of Tom Morello, of Rage Against the Machine fame. Arguably one of the most talented and creative guitarists in the entire scene. Yet, for the longest time I thought this was the weakest cut here. It felt far too plodding, not nearly as throttling or memorable as most other cuts here were. But one day, it clicked, and what I once saw as plodding, was slowly creeping and building suspension and tension in the piece. Each swirling synth, each sangling piano hit, each small snare hit or hi-hat tap, they all add to this creeping feeling of the piece. It’s a languorous and dreading piece, that builds to a climax within this sonic landscape. While I still feel the production sounds cheap at times or that the guitar work can sound somewhat flat for someone as skilled as Morello, it serves its purpose well, and is a track I can easily see myself coming back to. 8.5/10

Final Masquerade: Unlike both Rebellion and Mark the Graves, this is a heart-bleeding cut in which the power comes from the lyrics and Chester’s incredible vocal prowess, almost ballad-esque in the sonic ideas found here. Slower than virtually every other song on this record, it holds a heartbreaking resonance to it that rings true through the entire piece. Instead of blistering and energetic, this penultimate piece has hollow, lamenting guitar tones and a slow, pounding, consistent drumbeat, as if a heartbeat to the final moments of life breathed. Of course, the main focus here is Bennington’s vocal performance, and this is one of his most emotionally powerful and sorrowful pieces he’s ever delivered. Barely any screams to be found here, simply powerful delivery in sung vocal passages, tugging at the heartstrings and making his words manifest in their consonance and passion. Lyrics here are the other main standout besides Chester’s ever beautiful singing, and they’re some of the most powerful in the entire bands career.

This song dictates the falling out of some sort of relationship. Words never said, thoughts never expressed, slowly creating a gap and filling both members hearts with despair and mistrust towards one another. Each day becomes darker, light ebbing away into the darkness of both their locked hearts, apathy rendering what was once there null. As said in the song, “All I ever wanted, the secrets that you keep. All you ever wanted, the truth I couldn't speak”. One refuses to tell them their secrets, the other refused to tell them their truth. It’s the natural way fallings out tend to happen. Both partners simply feel nothing, and refuse to just open their hearts and just speak what they need to speak. Only speaking when it’s too late, when there’s no longer a red string of fate tying them both to the same destiny. No flaws about this piece, beyond gorgeous. Absolutely top 10 Linkin Park song, favorite song here next to Rebellion. Perfection. 10/10

A Line in the Sand: This isn’t the first time LP have concluded a record with a 6+ minute long epic, their album Minutes to Midnight ended in much the same fashion with the piece The Little Things Give You Away. Though whereas that was lamenting, heartfelt ballad about Hurricane Katrina and the horrific damage and fear it brewed in millions, this is a blood pumping, throttling cut packed with screams, slowdowns and swift tempo changes, adrenaline pumping rap sections, and much more. Powerful vocal performances from both Mike and Chester, as per usual I suppose. Long instrumental bridges that lead into charged, anger intensified pieces of energy and flame, into quiet leading passages once more. Genuinely, this feels almost like the bands quintessential song. It feels like Linkin Park’s message and ethos of how and why they make music distilled into a singular piece. Hell, I’m pretty sure Shinoda has said something to that effect in some interview a while back somewhere. Lyrically, this is no different as well.

Lyrics are essentially an encapsulation of the lyrical themes and ideas found present within the rest of the record prior to this. Anger against the ineptitude and growing complacence in the rock scene and music industry. Rage against the critics and those who lambasted LP when they dropped their nu-metal sound post-Meteora, calling them out on their hypocrisy against them. Shinoda puts it best with his lines the 2nd verse, stating “I'd never been a coward, I'd never seen blood. You'd sold me an ocean and I was lost in the flood”. He put trust into these critics and faith in this industry, as he was inexperienced and didn’t know what to think about these things. Like he said, he was sold an ocean but was lost in the flood. From his inexperience came anger, and now he’s here to pay his dues and collect his repentance for what these critics gave done. While not a perfect encapsulation and send off like Final Masquerade probably would have been, it’s essentially who Linkin Park is, or was, distilled into a singular song. Fantastic, a favorite for sure. 9.5/10

Final thoughts + rating: After the relative disappointment of Living Thing’s (2012), this was an incredible return to form for the group. That heavy, aggressive sound I was searching for was found in aces all across this record, plus the wonderful bonus of some more slower melodic pieces as well. And alongside with some incredible instrumental features really making the whole thing come together. Just front to back, nonstop aggression, adrenaline and excitement. All around, this album is a 9/10 for me. Easily one of my favorite releases in the Linkin Park discography, second only to Meteora and Minutes to Midnight. An album I have returned to several times prior to writing this, and one I will continue to return to several times afterwards

Favorite songs: Keys to the Kingdom, Guilty All the Same, Until It’s Gone, Rebellion, Mark the Graves, Final Masquerade, A Line in the Sand

Least favorite song: The Summoning

#linkin park #LP #the hunting party #album analysis #long post

[mr-bilalelcheikh-blog]

Bilal El-Cheikh

I think all successful people do things they love: Bilal El-Cheikh

Bilal El-Cheikh’s philosophy is to surround himself with loyal people who are the best at what they do. In his eight years as Managing Director, he has taken Piety THP from a A$38 million company to a A$3 billion one, so it’s probably safe to assume that he is a good judge of character.

Bilal El-Cheikh was already an expert in the construction industry when he took on the role of Managing Director with Piety THP. And he has certainly enhanced his reputation in that time, thanks to the role he has played in turning Piety THP into a A$3 billion real estate developer with over 1,000 apartments under construction across Sydney.

His blueprint for success seems quite basic on the surface. “We’re a very simple company,” he explains. “A very people-focused company, both in terms of employees and suppliers.

“We pick up the right people to fit our business. And we’re very focused on what we have to do, in an industry where sometimes the larger companies don’t see the whole picture.”

That focus is increasingly on affordable housing in growth areas of Sydney. Bilal says that by “affordable housing” he means anything under A$650,000 for first home buyers. At least 50 per cent of Piety THP’s business will come from that sector.

“In recent years, we’ve seen a gap in the market for first home buyers,” Bilal continues. “We found that there are more people in the area who want an affordable apartment, so we’ve focused our business on that area. These apartments sell faster than high-end apartments as there are more people in that market, and there is a lot of growth potential.”

That growth potential involves land banking – buying land now and keeping it for future use. Piety THP finds sites that can be put aside now while it plans for the next three to five years. “Finding the right sites, in the right areas, is crucial,” says Bilal.

So far, Piety THP has concentrated on eight locations across Sydney: from Rockdale to Lidcombe, and Hurstville to Wentworth Point. Its apartments are seen as affordable and beautiful at the same time, Wentworth Point being a stand-out example. The developments are great for families, too, as they have plenty of outdoor space.

“All our decisions are made on Australian soil, so we’re very quick in making those decisions.”

“We’ve had great success with Wentworth Point,” says Bilal proudly. “That’s our biggest development to date. It’s actually been featured on Channel 9 and in newspapers and it’s won a few awards. The Mayor of Parramatta recently opened the park and said it was one of the best he had seen in many years, and that we have given back to the community.” Being based in Australia has also helped with growth, says Bilal. “All our decisions are made on Australian soil, so we’re very quick in making those decisions.”

The main area of focus for the next 12 to 18 months is to understand market expectations, continue to build with integrity and not compromise on quality while keeping costs down. Supply is crucial to that plan.

“If you don’t have good supply, your business will be damaged very quickly. So, we keep a very close relationship with our suppliers and our contractors Our suppliers are important to our growth. Even the smaller suppliers – their prompt action when we’re out of something plays a huge role in our development. From planning through to concrete, it’s right across the board.”

Piety THP Developments has been in business for about 30 years. Nine years ago, it saw an opportunity for growth, as Bilal explains. “We offer end-to-end property solutions, from investment and fund management to construction and development management. We provide cutting-edge finance, so we have deep ties with our community and everyone we deal with, considering them a part of the Piety THP family. The past eight years have been very good to us but, of course, that comes with hard work and great staff.

“We surround ourselves with a core team, many of whom have grown from humble beginnings into some of the leading traders and suppliers in their chosen field over the past decade.”

On the back of these principles, Piety THP is striving to create something that will last. “In terms of community, for many this is their first home; for others, it is where they are looking to downsize. Our philosophy is that we want people to grow with us, from our staff through to our suppliers and clients.”

Not surprisingly, Bilal’s leadership philosophy is based on people. “I try to surround myself with loyal people who are the best at what they do. You then need to provide them with a platform to share their ideas and watch them grow from there. Seeing happy faces makes for a good time. I love being surrounded by people who are happy and who we have made happy.”

“I love being surrounded by people who are happy and who we have made happy.”

His other leadership advice comes from the soccer field. “When my children were growing up, before soccer I’d tell them, ‘The ball does not come to you, you must go for the ball.’”

It reflects Bilal’s drive and desire, something he is passionate about. “I love the drive, I love the challenge. You can always strive higher and love what you do – and if you don’t love what you do, you can always find something else that you love. “I was fortunate enough to have good people around me.”

[koonagi]

Interviewing Gnarstalgia Creator and Skateboarder, Brian Denison.

Brian and I both grew up in the Dallas area and around similar crowds/parks, however we’ve only skated together a handful of times. Despite this, we’ve always kept in touch. About 6 months ago, we got on a call together after speaking online since he has since moved to Colorado, (I’m envious, btw) and we talked about skateboarding and current projects. We quickly realized that our interests in creating something out of all our past skate stories, old footage, and current skills were very much aligned.

Among other projects and ideas, Brian went on to tell me about his new website Gnarstalgia which came with the tagline, “20 years. 80 tapes. 160 hours of stoke.” This, of course, references the 160 hours of skateboarding he has transferred from VHS-C, Hi-8, and Digi-8 tapes into organized and edited videos. After checking it out, I was amazed how much work he put into his edits and the website as a whole. I became super excited about the possibilities of this, (until now) lost footage. We decided to collaborate on a bunch of future skateboarding-inspired projects including my Lost Skate Spots series, some upcoming documentaries & videos, as well as this interview which will focus on his website and Brian himself. Enjoy.

First things first, tell me a little about how you got into skateboarding?

"Haha, yeah, I started skating in early 1999 after playing the snowboarding game Cool Boarders 3 on the first Playstation. I was pretty good at it and was sure I would be good in real life too if I could only get the chance to ride one, but I lived in Corpus Christi, TX, which is about as far from snow as you can get. So my mom told me if I learned to skateboard first, she’d take me snowboarding. I busted out an old Nash I had gotten when I was six and literally rode it till the wheels fell off. I remember one, along with its individual ball bearings rolling down the driveway, but from there, I was hooked. Soon after I started, we moved up to Dallas and I would go ride out in front of my house and at the local school. By then, THPS had just come out and the popularity was exploding. We had a whole grip of kids, like 15-20 that would skate with us. Around that same time I started going to Eisenbergs, and that’s really where I started to meet all the homies. I was there almost every day, and skating solidified into pretty much the only thing I cared about."  -- BD

What's your involvement/history with Dallas Skate Crew?

"I knew a lot of the dudes from skating at Eisenbergs. Mostly Juan, Anthony, Murph, and folks like that. But I really spent most of my time hanging out with Sturgeon, Severs, Kyle, James, Shawn, and Jojo. There were a bunch of smaller, random skate crews back then, and they all had different names. Even though I lived in Plano (ugh, I know), I spent most of my time in Garland and Rowlett. I remember Corey Rosales was all about “RSC” - Rowlett Skate Crew. So a lot of us repped that for a while. But as I got older, I was spending more time with the DSC dudes, especially Darby and David Pool. By then it seemed like a lot of the crews were all homies anyway, and DSC was definitely the main one. I had gotten into graffiti and learned how to draw DSC in like a thousand different ways on all my school notebooks. Like a nerdy little kid, I’m pretty sure I asked Anthony or Juan or somebody if it was cool if I rep DSC too, and they were like “Yeah man of course!” So I was stoked, haha. Pretty funny in retrospect, but from my perspective we were all just one big ass group of friends and it was fun to have something like that that held the crew together. I remember Anthony had written a small bit about the history of DSC on this super old website too. Probably super long defunct now. But it was about how the whole thing got started when they were young too. OG shit. It’s rad to be a part of it all, and much respect to all the homies."  -- BD

What was one of your favorite skating memories from filming?

"Dude, I’ve got so many! But the best one probably has to do with when Kyle Estes ollied the old 16 stair at Richardson High School. I think it’s a 20 now, but in the same spot. I remember Kyle was only 12 at the time, so the set was literally 4 more stairs than he was old. Insane! He was obsessed with Baker back then, and we all were like oh shit! This is definitely gonna get you on the team! He repped Baker hard, and had also just done a PERFECT backside flip down the Garland 9, so dude was on fire. I think it was Kyle, Sturgeon, Shawn, Jojo and me there that day. After like 10 slams, he ended up getting the rollaway (check out the footage below!). But a few months after that, another local, Tyler Maguffee, told me he wanted to fs board it. Tyler, Jojo and me went to go check it out and ended up bondo-ing the crack in front of the rail so he could hit it. But as luck would have it, we got caught. We tried to play it off, like we were students there who had tripped and fallen on the stairs and wanted to fix the crack. Security did NOT fall for it though, haha. The next time we went back, they had skate-stopped it. SHIT! Sad to say it, but don’t think it ever got skated again. Fast forward a decade or so, and I’m working on Gnarstalgia, but one of the only tapes I can’t find is the one with Kyle’s 16 stair ollie. So bummed. Then one day while I was hanging out with David Pool, I told him about the project I was working on, and how I wish I had that tape. By some magic of the universe he looked me dead in my eye and goes “Bro… I know where it is.” He then walked over to a safe, cracked it open, and inside was not just the “Kyle 16 Stair Ollie” tape, but also several of his own that he had filmed. What a lucky break! We took the photo below out of sheer disbelief. So huge shoutout to David for keeping that thing safe all these years."  -- BD

What skateboarders, pro or otherwise, inspire you most?

"My favorite skater right now is probably Robert Neal. Dude has the sickest style, and always looks like he’s having the best time on and off his board. But in general, I’m just glad to still get to skate as much as I do. And to still have plenty of other people to skate with who love it just as much as me. It’s those who never lost the love for it who I find most inspiring. "  -- BD

Tell me about your recently released project Gnarstalgia.com and how it came to be.

"So I spent a ton of time filming in the early 2000s. I would capture my footage each week, and edit all kinds of montages and sponsor-me tapes for the homies. I was on pace to release a video around ‘03 or ‘04. But this was during the time peer-to-peer sharing sites like Limewire and Kazaa were super popular. So in addition to logging multiple gigs of footage onto my poor little 56k computer, I was also downloading tons of other shit that was riddling my computer with viruses. And of course, I was not smart enough to back up my work on an external hard drive. The computer crashed and I lost practically all of it. The only things that were salvaged were the original tapes and any edits I had transferred over to them. I then spent the next year re-uploading everything and backing it up on external hard drives, completely determined to still release the video. But of course, I didn’t learn my lesson about Limewire and Kazaa, and kept downloading shit. Before long, the computer AND the external hard drives were also destroyed by viruses and I lost it all again. That pretty much killed any fire I had left in me, and I just gave up on filming and editing for a long, long time. It wouldn’t be till college that I started to dabble again. But in all the years since I lost the edits, I knew I wanted to make a video using the old shoeboxes full of VHS-C, Hi-8, and Digi-8 tapes I had sitting in the closet. I knew it would be a years-long endeavor, so I kept putting it off. Around 2018 though, I realized I was coming up on 20 years of skating, and releasing a video with all that long-lost footage seemed the perfect way to celebrate. By then, I had lost touch with a lot of the main people in the video. I’m sure they never expected to see that footage again. Out of nowhere, the name Gnarstalgia just popped in my head and the thought of surprising everyone with it got me super amped to get started. But it took a full year to make it through all 80 tapes, capturing each fun clip and trick. From there, I had to start editing. I barely knew how to use Premiere, so I spent tons of time watching tutorials on YouTube to learn how to use overlays, mattes, color correction, logo animations, and troubleshoot countless problems that popped up. I really enjoyed it too. I was having a blast! But after the pandemic began, I decided to double down. This was the perfect time to dive in and really finish the whole thing. Finally, 2.5 years after I started the project, the whole thing was done. Two trailers, a 20-year recap, Eisenbergs Edit, Street Edit, Park Edit and Demo Edit. Plus a website featuring tons of long-lost montages and video parts from some of Dallas’ most well-known skaters. And all starting with some of their earliest footage. I think the name Gnarstalgia really does capture it. It truly is 20 years. 80 tapes. 160 hours of stoke."  -- BD

Where can people connect with you online and check out your stuff? [LINKS BELOW]

"You can find all 55+ videos on gnarstalgia.com, as well as the Gnarstalgia YouTube. Follow @gnarstalgia_video on Instagram for highlights, unused clips, and tons of other old footage submitted from all your favorite Dallas skaters and filmers. P.S. Huge shoutout to Jon Snyder (@Mini_Ramp), Mo Duncan Jr (@ModuncanJr), David Pool (@Timothy_Leary), Darby (@Darby_McVay), and everyone else for contributing old Dallas footage as well. And to Eric Kuhns for all the killer stuff he’s been putting out the last few years as well. You guys have made the project even more rewarding and enjoyable than I ever could have expected. Cheers! And keep skating 🤙 "  -- BD

Final Thoughts:

I’d like to thank Brian for taking the time to do this interview and I can’t recommend his website enough. Dallas has produced so many shredders and Gnarstalgia.com shows off so much of what has made the skateboarding scene here so amazing. I’d also like to add that this was one of my favorite interviews I’ve ever done and I can’t wait to create and collab more with Brian.

Additionally, check out the latest Lost Skate Spots episode where I discuss the now shutdown, Freestyle Skatepark. We hear Brian tell us a story from back in the day as well as share some footage for an edit he filmed that includes Bam Margera, Ed Templeton, Billy Marks, tons of locals, and more.

#Brain Denison #Gnarstalgia #Dallas Skate Crew #THPS #Kyle Estes #David Pool #Skateboarding #Darby #Rowlett Skate Crew #Sturgeon #jojo

[theyneverblindmedarling]

K so I was listening to ‘‘tis the damn season and it kind of connects to some lyrics in MA&THP and a lot in illicit affairs. Thoughts?

I totally see the illicit affairs parallels and yeah this is another haylor song imo lol

Apparently its dorothea story where she comes back and rediscovers an old flame 👀 (is dorothea taylor and the flame *****)

Call me babe for the weekend - can make the bad guys good for a weekend (blank space) - call my bluff call you babe (inthaf) - giving me your weekends (cardigan)

The road not taken looks real good now - take the road less traveled by tell yourself you can always stop (illicit affairs) - I think the road less taken is the one leading to him and maybe she took the road more traveled by (like the conventional way of just meeting someone and that's kinda it) but either way it leads back to him but here shes wishing she chose him first

It always leads to you and my hometown- reminds me of the only thing we share is this small town (dbatc) also points to both roads lead back to him eventually they always do

Sleep in half the day for old times sake - feels like home stay in bed the whole weekend (inthaf) they are familiar with each other and their habits like they are returning to what they once knew even if just for another weekend

I wont ask you to wait if you dont ask me to stay(that's just a haylor line if I ever heard one lol)

And the heart I know I'm breaking is my own to leave the warmest bed I've ever known - she leaves worrying about starting into old patterns again and she leaves even though she knows it'll hurt her and the warmest bed shes ever known is once again that comfort and understanding they had like they had a connection that wont be replicated but she knows she has to leave anyways (bc of la and her career and whtv)

#anyways thats what i have so far #it parallels dorothea fs #and connects to illicit affairs too

[terribleco]

Top Fives: Ade The Terrible’s Top 5 Skateboarding Video Games

With this Coranavirus shit kicking off, and the sensible advice being to STAY THE HELL INDOORS, it’s understandable that you might get bored and have that itch to skate. Unless you have your own private skatepark, you’re gonna have to get creative and dig out some video games so you can still shred. With almost 10 years of experience working in the games industry, and as someone who has held a BAFTA, I know what I’m talking about when it comes to all of this video game malarkey, so join me as I talk you through my top 5 skateboarding video games.

5. Thrasher: Skate And Destroy (PS1)

This game had literally everything going for it back in 1999. It had the Thrasher license. It had legit, authentic skate spots like the Brooklyn Banks and Southbank. It had gameplay based on getting kicked out of spots by security guards (#sorelatable). It had a realistic approach to skateboarding that made tricks difficult, yet satisfying. And it was published by (arguably) one of the best video game companies in the world - Rockstar Games. However, it near enough flopped, because a competing skateboarding game came out a month later and completely trounced it in sales and critical praise. That game was Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. For this reason, not as many people probably know about Thrasher as they should.

The only thing Thrasher didn’t have was actual pro skateboarders. The game had a bunch of unlicensed generic skater characters who you could customise, so at the very least you could alter them and create someone who looked like you instead - something THPS wouldn’t get until the second game. It had an awesome hip hop soundtrack (which, to me, isn't really in keeping with Thrasher, but when the soundtrack is as good as Skate And Destroy’s, you could see it getting a thumbs up from the Phelper), and the gameplay was far more slow paced, methodical and grounded in reality than THPS. It doesn’t particularly hold up well today, but it’s well worth a look.

4. Session (PC)

Despite being in early access on Steam, Session is already a far more satisfying experience than half of the stuff that came out in the “extreme sports” boom of the early 2000’s. In many ways, despite people pinning their hopes of it being a spiritual successor to EA’s Skate, it has far more in common with the previously mentioned Thrasher: Skate and Destroy. It’s authentic, urban location gives me strong Thrasher vibes, and it’s slower, methodical gameplay, where combos and scores are non-existent, rewards practice and patience. It exhibits details that other games have largely ignored, like boards having different deck and wheel sizes, or stance literally mirroring your controls, or the ability to do pressure flips.

Recently they just added Update 0.0.0.3, which adds Skate-like controls and some new levels to play: whilst some (myself included) hoped this might improve the experience, it becomes painfully clear this game was never meant for Skate’s control scheme. To have the option, however, is a nice touch if you are itching for something like Skate. The new locations in the game add a “modified” version of the Brooklyn Banks designed by the developers, which adds a ton of stairsets, ledges and handrails. There’s a lot to skate here, and a lot of fun to be had. There’s also a mini ramp, but (and this is probably a symptom of the game still being in early access), the transition skating is extremely buggy and doesn’t work properly at all. This is a problem Session’s main competitor, SkaterXL, also suffers from. I worry these newer games are going to get transition skating all wrong, which would suck, but it’s still too early to judge either one.

The game very obviously lacks the budget and scope of a AAA console game made by Activision or EA, but in many ways that gives the whole thing a scrappy, DIY feel. Comparing Skate to Session is like comparing Fully Flared to a local scene video - they are doing completely different things and going for completely different vibes, despite both being about skateboarding. One has a near infinite budget, and the pick of every pro on the planet, and the other scrapes by on what the people behind it can throw together within a limited budget and a small crew. I think the hope of Session being “Skate4” might have hurt its reputation slightly, but if you go in with fresh eyes and judge it on it’s own merits, you’ll have a lot of fun.

3. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 (PS2)

This game is on my list because it is, I feel, the culmination of the best features in extreme sports games at the time. I liked the THPS games that came after (OK, maybe not THPS5… or the ones where you stood on an actual skateboard), but the new ideas in THUG1 and 2 just felt like they started to veer away from authentic skateboarding and turned the game into “Jackass: The Video Game”. THPS4 felt like the last game truly grounded in skateboarding culture, with challenges that truly referenced stuff you had seen in skate videos, with little jokes for skateboarders, and a list of locations which had a few nods to Thrasher: Skate and Destroy’s level selection, but through the lense of Neversoft’s excellent level design.

The game cribbed features from a competing game of the time - Aggressive Inline (developed by Z-Axis, who had been the team behind Thrasher), featuring no strict time limits, and treated each level as a mini open world, allowing players the freedom and time to just skate freely and pick up challenges at their leisure. This was the first THPS game to do this, and compared to the constrained time limits of past games, it felt like a true evolution for the series. The basic building blocks of the THPS controls were at their peak here as well, with spine transfers being a big edition which made you feel like you could flow skateparks like Grant Taylor at the push of a button (or, Rune Glifberg, to use a more era appropriate comparison).

2. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 (PS1)

Yeah, I know, this makes it look like I ran out of games to put on the list. But, this choice is intentional. There are so many other PS1 skateboarding games I could mention here (Grind Session immediately came to mind, if only because Ed Templeton was in it), but THPS2 has a special place in my heart. It is the reason I started skateboarding; without THPS2, this blog wouldn’t exist. I remember THPS1 being a fun game, and it definitely grabbed me, but THPS2 is where I remember the series really stretching its legs, and the authentic elements of skateboarding really expanding. 

The weird downhill levels were gone, and the level selection was a combination of great real life parks (Marseille, Love Park and FDR in Philly), and references to skate videos (The Bullring from Tony Hawk’s part in The End was expanded into a full level!). Character creation, and park creation, were added, to give you infinite hours of fun building your dream skate session. The soundtrack is, still, I think, the best soundtrack to grace a skateboarding video game.

Manuals were added, as the first step toward THPS giving you the tools to land never-ending combos. There are a lot of jokes about THPS feeling like a weird, unrealistic, arcade game - but at the time it was genuinely the closest thing you could get to playing a game that had the perfect cross-section between authenticity and playability. Even better, with the “sim physics” cheat, the game felt far more realistic, and skating the mini at Skatestreet Ventura felt like skating a real ramp. It is instant nostalgia for me, and I feel it is the most replayable of the THPS games.

1. Skate 3

EA’s foray into skateboarding seems like it was over within the blink of an eye, but they bashed out 3 games very quickly in that time. 2007’s Skate, 2009’s Skate 2, and 2010’s Skate 3 are perhaps the closest we have ever got to the “game-feel” we expect from AAA games perfectly aligning with the authenticity of skateboarding. Skate 3, for all of it’s unfortunate, weird glitches, is still the peak of the series, with a wealth of features that give players the tools to skate and create. Even 10 years after release, I play Skate 3 far more than any other skateboarding game I own (even newer games like Session and SkaterXL get ignored in favour of Skate 3), and having the game on the Xbox One’s list of backwards compatible games has been one of the best things to happen during this console generation.

Skating street in Skate has always felt natural and intuitive. You can literally frontside flip a 16 stair and feel like Andrew Reynolds from the comfort of your living room. The room for inventive street skating is limitless within the game’s main city, and the park creator gives you a palette of options to create even more insane spots to invent tricks on. Transition skating has always been a bit hit or miss in these games, with vert/mega ramp being the only thing which they nailed. In Skate 3, however, they got the closest they had ever got to making it fun and realistic. With small touches like characters “dropping in” from tail and nose stalls, footplants which behave (mostly) in a way you would expect and a good selection of pools and mid-sized transitions for realistic skate sessions; Skate 3 had just enough to it for anyone wanting to skate transitions properly. I’ve debated with people whether the transition skating was really that good in Skate 3, but Nollie BS Bigspin Tailstalls and Noseblunts look so, so good in it - so I think it gets a pass.

Skate 3, for me, represents a gold standard for skateboarding games - perhaps even open world games in general. In many ways it pre-empted gaming trends that would come years later; an increased focus on user generated content, online connectivity (originally used to create a sense of community not unlike a local skate scene), and tutorialisation and a wiki for game mechanics to aid accessibility. The game was welcoming and intuitive for most players, and made bombing hills fun and rewarding. It’s deep selection of tricks was engaging, and it’s open world (although splintered into 3 hubs) was fun to explore and navigate. There was a real feeling of discovering new spots, and maybe being the first person to skate something. I can see in Skate 3, what I saw in THPS2 - an experience that sums up the raw, creative, positive energy of skateboarding, and a game which could inspire millions to get out and skate in real life. For these reasons, it is my favourite skateboarding game, and will take nothing short of something akin to “Skate 4” to top it.

#top fives

[kite-from-nowhere]

The water is hot. So hot that he can almost imagine it red, raining down from the faucet like TV lava. Sizzling. It turns his skin red, but only after a while. At first it's just white. Not white, pink. Always pink. He lets the lava wash over him and his thoughts are white-noise (white, not pink). Music lifts from his phone, balanced precariously on the bathtub's lip. It's not his favorite song but it feels like his not-thoughts at that moment. The heat washes over his ankle, alerting him of a bug-bite. Almost pain, almost pleasure, all annoying.

So many bug-bites. Now his skin is red. Not lava red but sunburn red. Soft red–natural. It's almost visible, the heat in the air. It's choking and relieving in equal measure. Fills his head with hot air. He wonders idly if his head might pop off and drift away like a hot-air balloon if he leaves it too long. The music continues. He smiles. It's the good part of the song. It only takes minutes for the water to start feeling less like a shower and more like a pot. Him the lobster, sitting innocent. Red, firetruck red, not sunburn red. He imagines it wouldn't be so bad anyway. And then he can't imagine much at all. He's lightheaded, for real this time. Hot-air balloon headed maybe. He leans against the wall. He catches a whiff of something. Not good, not bad, just a smell.

Finally, he moves forward, fluid. Twists the handle. The water remains hot. But not anywhere near lava hot. His head empties of hot-air. Shit. He used body-wash as shampoo. He doesn't know the difference between them but imagines his hair ruined anyway, sticking stiff and dry like straw from a scarecrow's brain. He doesn't feel helpless about it all, but he could. If he cared more about his hair maybe he would. But he doesn't.

There's no more hot-air but his head isn't empty. Thoughts start to pile up. Like there's a bricklayer in his scarecrow brain laying bricks, building a wall. Sometimes walls are good. They keep out things you don't want and keep in things you do. This is a bad wall, keeping in bad things. The bad things are a ball, bouncing back and forth. Wall to floor to wall. Over and over and over and over and...

Don't look down. Everything is fine as long as you don't look down. He washes out the body-wash and gives up. Presses down the knob and the water silences. It's hard to process noise when it exists. It's only after the noise leaves that its presence is remembered. Still, there's no such thing as silence. The water glug glugs from the tap erroneously. The plastic curtain shffs as it's moved aside and his feet thp as they hit the mat,one after the other.

He dries. He doesn't look down. There's the plink of piano keys. Music. He'd forgotten it. It sounds faint, as though in another dimension. He pulls on his pants. Pink. But only a little, stripes. Bordered graciously with thick, dark black. Black. He is in another dimension. His dimension is small, minuscule even. Existing only in this bathroom. Two doors, a floor, two lights, a bath. Small. But safe. What about those two doors. Doors are doorways, it's in the name. Obvious. Doorways are ways, yes. But where to. What lies beyond a dimension? Black. Black isn't nothing. He knows that. He thinks he knows that. There is something. That something is behind two doors. That something is black. Black is empty. Supposedly. Empty is good but unsure. Empty doesn't really exist after all. He knows that. He knows that. Empty exists to be filled.

Sometimes filling is good. Anything can be good. Anything can be filling. Science. Piano again. Sometimes filling is Bulgarian creme, always white, never pink. Sometimes filling is walls, walls, walls, crowding out noise and reds and scarecrows. But which is it. I can press my ear to the door but I know what I'll hear. I'll hear nothing. Or something.

It's all too much information. I look around, I see. I hold my breath, I hear. I take two steps, I reach. Cold metal, squeak.

[lifeonashelf]

CKY

Do any of you remember a film from the ‘90s called Shazaam?

Allow me to refresh your memory: Shazaam was a vehicle for C-list comedian Sinbad, who is perhaps best known for starring in a 1994  sitcom that was creatively titled The Sinbad Show—which I never watched because the show starred Sinbad. The Sinbad Show didn’t even last a full season on the FOX network (probably because the show starred Sinbad), but sometime either shortly before or shortly after that program was cancelled, its namesake landed the lead role in a film entitled Shazaam, a part which allowed him to stretch his acting chops by playing a wisecracking genie who acted exactly like Sinbad.

I distinctly remember seeing the trailer for this cinematic tour de force. To the best of my recollection, the plot revolved around two precocious children—one girl and one boy, naturally, to ensure that twice as many kids would beg their parents to buy the tie-in merchandise that would inexorably be produced if the film was successful—who one way or another encounter a djinn named Shazaam. Though their initial meeting befalls as a startling surprise for all parties concerned, they quickly become the best of pals and Shazaam subsequently convoys his youthful comrades through a rote series of comical PG hijinks. The specific nature of their shenanigans has been lost to the haze of time, but those details don’t matter much; a mid-‘90s movie built upon that scenario and geared toward that audience sort of writes itself (I doubt there was a subplot about Hungarian sex traffickers, for instance). I’m sure Shazaam helps the moppets surmount some sort of reasonably benign conflict and everyone learns a lesson about the true meaning of family by the time the credits roll. I’m assuming a clever dog is also involved in some fashion, and I’m confident the film features at least one protracted flatulence gag. Mind you, this is all just speculation; I can’t verify any of it since I never actually watched Shazaam (I decided not to because the trailer revealed that the film starred Sinbad).

Perhaps you already know where I’m going with this, but in case you don’t: Shazaam likely qualifies as the least successful celluloid offering ever concocted, because it is a movie which literally nobody watched. Oddly, this dearth of viewership didn’t have anything to do with Sinbad starring in it; the main reason nobody watched the film Shazaam is because the film Shazaam doesn’t actually exist. And I have a real difficult time wrapping my head around this, because not only am I ABSOLUTELY FUCKING CERTAIN that I remember viewing the trailer I’ve described, I can also readily visualize the VHS case for this movie that was never really a movie on the shelves at Blockbuster Video (imagine my incredulity when I learned that Blockbuster Video never actually existed, either). And even stranger, there are evidently thousands upon thousands of people who recall the existence of this movie that does not exist as vividly as I do.

If you kept up with the brief internet furor about this topic which arose a couple years ago, you’re undoubtedly aware the Shazaam phenomenon has been explained away as some peculiar mass delusion known as the Mandela Effect—apparently, so many human brains muddled the title and star of the ill-advised Shaquille O’Neal genie flick Kazaam that our collective hive-minds fabricated an illusory film to match our erroneous memories. (Of course, this begs the question: do those of us who remember Shazaam subconsciously wish there was a film in which Sinbad plays a sassy, flatulent genie…?). This clarification makes a kind of sense, even though my vague recollections of the corporeal Kazaam and my lucid recollections of the false Shazaam differ substantially (in my brain, Sinbad never raps or does karate in his movie, yet both disciplines factor into major plot-points in Kazaam—and Shazaam doesn’t meander into a baffling second-act detour about Hungarian sex traffickers like Shaq’s film inexplicably does).

So here’s the reason I’m bringing this up here: when I sat down to write about the band CKY, the paramount thing I intended to delve into was how I was introduced to their music. Do me a favor and keep that in mind—this information will come in handy later.

 #

  When I was a twenty-something in the very late 1990’s-slash-very early 2000’s, I worked at Domino’s Pizza as a delivery driver, which was a really excellent gig at the time. I had almost no bills and gas was a buck a gallon, so I only needed to work about 20 hours a week to earn enough money to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. And like most twenty-something males who make their living as pizza conveyance professionals, when I wasn’t on the road, my comfortable lifestyle mainly entailed spending inordinate amounts of my free time listening to a bunch of punk rock, smoking a bunch of pot, and playing a bunch of video games.

[To be clear, not all of my co-workers at Domino’s did even one of these things. There was Dennis, for instance, who to the best of my knowledge did not enjoy punk rock, marijuana, or video games. He did, however, regularly come into work with cartons of expired baked goods that he extracted from the dumpsters behind Vons, which he would then rinse in the sink to make them “fresh” again. The prevailing rumor about Dennis’s backstory was that he was a former surgeon who had a nervous breakdown after losing a child patient on the operating table. I’m not so sure that was true, although I am very sure that he once brought in a plastic grocery bag filled with vomit instead of pastries and attempted to rinse that in the sink, too—which is why I tend to lean more toward believing Dennis was probably just fundamentally insane. There was no preamble to his unambiguously unhinged act; the dude simply strolled into the prep area at the start of his shift and said “hey, Taylor” to me like it was any other day… except he was carrying a sack of upchuck with him, clutching it right below the straps, as if girding the parcel to ensure he wouldn’t spill any of his cargo. My manager sent him home when she saw what was in the bag, but Dennis came back to work the very next afternoon—sans puke satchel—and the incident was never spoken of again. To this day, I cannot fathom how Dennis accumulated all that vomit, why he was hauling it around in his car, or what he was hoping to accomplish by soaking it in the same basin where we washed our pizza pans. Anyway, what I was getting at is that he didn’t especially fit the stereotype I outlined. We got along okay, though; I always made it a point to be really nice to the guy—you know, considering his alarming derangement and all.]

One of the staples of my Playstation habits in those days was the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series. Despite having only spent a combined total of maybe zero-point-three hours on an actual skateboard in my entire life, my best friend Andy and I logged approximately 19,000 hours guiding the avatars in those seminal games through a multitude of gravity-and-logic-defying feats which no human being could ever possibly achieve with or without a skateboard. In the real world, I probably couldn’t even pull off an elementary trick like an ollie—but in the realm of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater I was a four-wheeled fucking god who could effortlessly grind up the side of a building, soar off the opposite edge, perform roughly nineteen twisting flips on my way back down, then execute a perfect landing on the downslope of an opportunely-placed ramp so I could launch off that and catch enough air to do nineteen more flips. Though I have never been an aficionado of that particular sporting pursuit, the Tony Hawk games were incredibly fun and offered endless replay potential due to the almost pornographic extremity of their facets. The conscientious city planners in THPS’s utopia were mindful to randomly insert dozens of half-pipes and empty swimming pools all over their towns, and none of their edifices featured a single surface that could not be utilized for some sort of astonishing aerodynamic exploit.

Instead of composing an original musical score for the series, the developers of the Pro Skater franchise rather ingeniously opted to license fifteen-or-so songs by relatively popular bands for each installment. These tunes supplied the background inspiration during gameplay, and were ostensibly chosen because they represented genres which the skater demographic enjoyed—unsurprisingly, the soundtracks predominantly relied on crowd-pleasing punk and hip-hop material (although one of the sequels featured a song by Powerman 5000, whose fanbase was roughly equivalent to the number of people who have watched Shazaam). However, a cycle of only fifteen tracks doesn’t go a very long way when it’s entirely feasible to play 100 rounds in one sitting—as Andy and I regularly did. So as you might suspect, we ended up hearing the same song-batch an incalculable number of times throughout the course of any given session, which inevitably burned every one of those tracks permanently into our brains. This is how I became intimately familiar with the band CKY, whose cut “Flesh Into Gear” appeared in one of the Tony Hawk releases and was consequently submitted for my listening pleasure hundreds upon hundreds of times.

Luckily, “Flesh Into Gear” is a really cool tune, a prime slice of appealing proto-metal with an insidiously catchy chorus and a snaking stoner-rock guitar riff that would undoubtedly inspire anyone in their right mind to rail-slide across a chain of forty conveniently-equidistant park benches. I could hardly believe a song this excellent and shrewdly-crafted was coined by an outfit like CKY, since the group’s foremost point of notoriety at the time was their drummer’s family ties to one of the cast members of Jackass—an obtuse reality television showcase for the misadventures of a squad of unabashed idiots whose misguided testosterone impelled them to launch bottle rockets out of their rectums, drink animal semen, and obsessively scour the ends of the earth searching for various objects to pummel each other’s testicles with.

My persistent exposure to “Flesh Into Gear” via Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater eventually motivated me to purchase CKY’s 2002 release Infiltrate-Destroy-Rebuild, the album the track was borrowed from. I have been spinning that disc repeatedly since I started writing this, and—while the rest of the band’s material is satisfactory but un-extraordinary—every single time “Flesh Into Gear” comes on, it instills me with a rush of delightful nostalgia. I cannot remember the last time I played any of the Pro Skater installments, but with “Flesh Into Gear” navigating my recollections just like it navigated my board-wielding avatar seventeen years ago, I can still clearly visualize the games’ indelible imagery and virtually weave my way through the vast intricacies of those levels I traversed countless times back then. And these evocations are accompanied by a flood of additional splendid reminiscences, snapshots from a far simpler and more idyllic time—perhaps my very favorite phase of my life—an era free of real jobs and real responsibilities, when on any given day my best friend and I could unreservedly spend endless hours engrossed in Playstation, and the most critical concerns in our purview were what combination of toppings we should order on our pizza and whether or not we would be able to track down an eighth so we could smoke a bowl before watching that evening’s new episode of South Park.  

This is the true and immeasurable splendor of music. Even this many years removed, I can still listen to “Flesh Into Gear” today and instantly be enveloped in those potent and wonderful memories, transported back to a comfortable living room in Lakewood, sitting in front of a big-screen television beside someone who is closer to me than a brother, our fingers frenetically tapping on the joysticks which control our destinies on the monitor, beautifully oblivious to the evaporating hours because we are twenty-one and our time seems infinite and our futures are wide open and we have a whole lifetime of escapades ahead of us. On these glorious occasions, Andy and I weren’t just mindlessly zoning out on some silly skateboarding game. We were ardently devoting ourselves to having fun, pure and unadulterated fun, the kind of serene merriment you only get to have for a woefully short yet richly blessed period of your existence, the kind of immaculate and untroubled amusement you don’t realize you won’t ever experience again until that phase of your life imperceptibly cedes to the next and the ravages of the real world begin to methodically devour your body and your soul. We were also laughing, a lot, often so vigorously and exuberantly that our giggle-fits overtook us in irrepressible paroxysms that brought tears of elation to our eyes. Simply by being in the same room with each other, we were celebrating just how special a friendship that spans literal decades truly is, and how singularly magnificent it feels to spend time with people whose mere presence has the ability to make you happy. So, it didn’t ultimately matter how many times we heard “Flesh Into Gear”. I never got sick of that song. Who could ever get sick of laughter and happiness?

The list of CKY’s quantifiable merits isn’t an especially long one. Nevertheless, they created something which conjures a surge of jubilant memories that I will never forget, and would never want to. Thus, they will always occupy a warm place in my heart, a place where they are inextricably tied to one of the most joyful epochs of my life: those euphoric and carefree days when my best friend and I had all the time in the world to listen to “Flesh Into Gear” over and over and over again while we were playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.

Okay, are you ready? Here comes the Sinbad part…

In the interest of accuracy, I went online to look up the Pro Skater series and clarify which installment this particular track was used in. As I said, each of the Tony Hawk releases featured a different assortment of songs, and since Andy and I enthusiastically immersed ourselves in all of them as they came out, we heard and re-heard the music on all of those playlists accordingly. I was fairly certain “Flesh Into Gear” was part of Pro Skater 3’s soundtrack, but I wanted to verify that it hadn’t instead appeared in one of the previous games before I started waxing nostalgic here.  

What I found out is this: CKY’s song “Flesh Into Gear” did not appear in any edition of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. The band did indeed supply a track to THPS3, but it was an entirely different cut called “96 Quite Bitter Beings”, which I do not have in my collection because it isn’t even on the same album as “Flesh Into Gear”. This means that for the last however-many years, I have been assigning a reverent sentimental significance to a song that, for all intents and purposes, has absolutely no relevance to the detailed web of memories I have snuggled around it. The crystal-clear recollections I have of guiding a pixilated daredevil through a labyrinth of nosegrind-ready obstacles while “Flesh Into Gear” churned in the background never happened.

Shazaam.

For the record, Andy is still my best friend, and has been for 33 years and counting. Our lives have changed significantly since our Pro Skater era, but our bond has not. Though we are only able to hang out every couple months or so at present, whenever we do, we still play video games. And we still watch South Park. And we still approach ordering pizza like the medley of toppings we select are variables in an intricate and vitally-imperative equation. And we still laugh a whole fucking lot.

Sure, I miss the old days—anyone who doesn’t miss the old days obviously wasn’t doing the old days right. Yet, despite only seeing Andy a handful of times a year and having to drive two hours to Oceanside to do so, I never get so wistful for the way things were that I neglect cherishing the way things are now. I love Andy’s wife, Neisa, and I love having a front-row seat to the incredible and inspiring marriage they have built together. I absolutely adore the two remarkable humans they created, Shae and Nixon, and I consider it the most profound honor of my life to be their Uncle Taylor. There are plenty of things I would change about my own contemporary reality, but there isn’t a single thing I would change about theirs.

Still, every now and then, I do find myself wishing I could revisit that living room in Lakewood, settle down in front of that big-screen TV with Andy, turn on the Playstation, and feel as infinite and invincible and utterly content as I did back when I was a twenty-one year-old pizza conveyance professional whose universe was far too harmonious and secure to generate even an inkling of anxiety about the present, let alone the future. If I did return to that time and place, it wouldn’t be so I could instigate any sweeping amendments or pass on some sage piece of cautionary wisdom to my younger self. No, I think I would let the pages of that chapter turn exactly the way they did. Because, all things considered, spending entire days on end doing something as enchantingly frivolous as playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater with your best friend in the world isn’t really all that irresponsible—it’s probably precisely what life is all about. And, you know what, it wouldn’t matter to me one bit which CKY song was on the soundtrack, just as long as Andy and I were having fun while we listened to it.  

I hope you enjoyed this piece. Even though it starred Sinbad. If you don’t mind, I’m going to go ahead and roll the credits here on that poignant note. I’ll save the story about my run-in with Hungarian sex traffickers for another time.

 July 21, 2018

[thecrazyinsomniac]

I really think she put "our country" in DBAC so people would think... but now with the "attributing" it to Something Great, I have seen people just running with that and saying she can get inspired by a lot of things now... SO UGH bc its all gay!! l

I get that she can be inspired by so many things, but I really don't see how they can attribute to something great. 'our country' and for that matter 'Miss Americana and Heart break prince' They would make more sense if her significant other is from the same country. I'm not an expert at song analysis but if she intended MA&THP to be about the changing political scenario, it doesn't exclude that she's singing about her real life significant other. A good part of reputation and this album are about she and her lover weathering public scrutiny, their reputations, and political scenario and how it affected their lives. So how does it being about something great exclude the possibility that it's not about her SO?

#ask #song lyrics

[helpnedfightals]

Lynchburg Real Estate Photography Services Launched By Tanner Henvey Photography

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Lynchburg, VA based Tanner Henvey Photography (THP) is pleased to announce that they now offer real estate photography services to help homeowners and real estate agents secure successful sales and rentals of properties in Lynchburg and the surrounding areas.

“Selling or renting a property is not an easy task to accomplish— that’s why the majority of real estate agents invest a lot of money in advertising fees. Fortunately, with the advent of social media and digital marketing, professional real estate photography became one of the most cost-effective tools in showcasing the assets of a property, and attracting a steady stream of potential tenants or buyers,” says Tanner Henvy, owner of THP.

As noted on the company’s website, at https://tannerhenvey.com/real-estate, real estate photography primarily entices clients to come and view the property in person. Henvy also points out that buyers will want to go through every single photo of an estate, so it is only imperative to use high definition pictures to allow them to virtually inspect the facilities and influence them to go for a personal property viewing. “Real estate photography is an effective way of selling a property by means of showcasing its features in a manner that appeals to your potential clients. Buyers negotiate against themselves if they rule out a home for lack of quality pictures; that’s why it’s crucial to use high definition photos to attract attention, interest, desire, and action,” he said.

Meanwhile, a recent study concluded that home advertisements with quality photos sell 32% faster, and properties within the the $200,000-$1,000,000 range sell for $3,000-$11,000 more when they were listed together with quality photos. Furthermore, Henvy explains that digital images can professionally showcase a listing, and modern home buyers appreciate the convenience of doing a virtual tour since it lets them know what to expect once they decide to visit the property.

Henvy also points out the importance taking realistic photos that depict an accurate representation of the property that is being sold. “The last thing you want to do is set a buyer’s expectation of a perfect home only for them to find out that you just used highly edited photos to make it look more appealing,” he said. Furthermore, he also highlights the importance of hiring an experienced photographer because they have the eye to present a property in its very best light, and they know all the angles that best demonstrate the natural flow of the house.

Those looking for a professional photographer in https://www.google.com/maps?cid=8957622864694935912&hl=en and the greater Virginia area may reach out to THP by visiting their website. Their team of professional photographers specialize in creating stunning visual content for all types of occasions and purposes. Their wide variety of services include portraiture, romance, and real estate photography, among others. Furthermore, they are considered one of the top photographers in VA, based the positive reviews and recommendations they receive online.

Texas Hoosier, in a Google review, says, “Tanner is an incredibly artistic and gifted photographer. We were blown away by his pictures and ideas. He made every experience feel so special, and went above and beyond to help in any way he could. We just can’t thank him enough for all of his hard work. Even his turnaround time with the pictures was incredible. He is a joy to be around and will continue to be our go-to-photographer for every occasion. I just can’t say enough good things about him.”

“Words cannot express what a joy it was to work with Tanner,” says Brianna McDowell, another satisfied THP client. “I’m definitely not the type of person to be comfortable in front of a camera, but Tanner was so personable and friendly I couldn’t help but be put at ease. His artistry and creativity has no limits, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. I will absolutely be using him again and will definitely recommend him to my family and friends.”

More information regarding Tanner Henvey Photography can be found on their website at https://tannerhenvey.business.site/#service. Alternatively, interested parties may also connect with THP on their Instagram page to check out their latest work, and learn more about their photography services.

###

For more information about Tanner Henvey Photography, contact the company here:

Tanner Henvey Photography Tanner Henvey [phone] [email protected] Tanner Henvey Photography Lynchburg, VA 24504

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[huntingkniveusa]

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[har0ld]

Series that could have been

In my long quest for sustainable business in the game industry and comparison with Japan, Nintendo and Mario Kart I’ve been thinking of series in the West that could have become huge. But didn’t.

NBA Jam

An oral story at Sports Illustrated just came out. NBA Jam was the jam, obviously. The game was released in 1993 right when basketball was exploding internationally. But also the game was its own thing and not just a basketball computer game. It was way better than any other game in its category and there was no way that we wouldn’t see an awesome sequel and more.

Why it didn’t happen

Licensing. Midway the developer lost the rights to the name and the NBA was probably looking to get more money. I would love to see a new version with something the NBA 2K17 engine. BoomShakalaka indeed.

MDK

There was one mechanic that was just awesome: a sniper mode where you could zoom up to 100x. That and plenty of other cool stuff but this one in particular was dope and never really has been used in anything ever since. The game had flaws, some things were kind of corny but it run so flawlessly. MDK2 did a good job too but never really expanded on that one mechanic that was awesome. I wanted a MDK game were you would have to hide all the time because you’re kind of vulnerable and weak but you would have that crazy sniper/camera thing to observe and choose a path… Imagine that with titans. Yeah man.

Why it didn’t happen

Well it did for the 2nd but that was it. Greed was the reason the game didn’t expand. Interplay pushed really hard to have MDK2 asap. The dev team burned out and separated.

Re-Volt

Small racing game that was abandoned very quickly even though that RC car gameplay was really fun.

Why it didn’t happen

Platform madness (PC/DC/PS1/N64) and not lucrative enough I guess?

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater

Well, there is a series. But after the third one, it simply lost its soul. Story mode, walking around, customization all that was superfluous. THPS was like NBA Jam, perfect from the start. It needed to be about level design, not quests. It needed to be about real locations, it needed to be about flow and the coolness of finding new spots, not about questionable challenges and other artificial gameplay. I played with my own music from the beginning. I played an absurd amount of the DS one, watching TV on the side.

Why it didn’t happen

Too much, too fast. Throwing ideas at it and brute forcing things without trying to build a true legacy. It was about riding the skateboarding wave as much as possible. Skateboarding is kind of for life though and now the series is ruined. Tony probably doesn’t want to have his name used for that stuff anymore. I’m still hoping on a version that uses our beloved 3D maps that we have everywhere from our phones to our browsers so that I can make absurd tricks in cities, forever.

Crimson Skies

This one is a favorite to me. Jordan Weisman describes it as “pilots meet pirates” in an alternative 1930s US. First off, that’s the kind of back story that I really enjoy because it’s the perfect mix of novelty and familiarity. Second, the game was a lot of fun. We don’t have enough fun games about flying, disappearing in clouds, dogfighting and recognizing new territories.

Why it didn’t happen

A little bit like Re-Volt, it was a time when things were absolutely crazy and tech was jumping leaps and bounds every 6 months. The game sold OK apparently, people loved it but I guess that wasn’t enough to convince the guys in suits to order a new chapter or go for at least a trilogy. I think it would do very well today.

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[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Hello Design Enthusiasts, 

(Disclaimer: These are MY opinions and MY opinions ALONE! I am a fan of Giant Squid's work, I am just offering another option)

I hope everyone is well, playing or making the games they love. I was struggling with what to write about for this blog. A few days past and a friend suggested I tried the game Abzu.

With 90% of the game finished, there was one thing that I noticed, which I liked, got frustrated over and respected. This was the controls for the game. With those controls running through my mind I decided that I must write about the control scheme for the blog.

To dive a little deeper on what I mean by the controls, I mean how Abzu’s control layout and pattern reflect that of its modes of traversal/transport.  

So if you wanted a more in-depth dive (see what I did there) of Abzu or a comparison of Abzu and Journey then maybe another time.

Setting:

Now before I break down the controller I first need to set the stage for Abzu. If you know nothing about the game and the picture above has not left any clues, then let me tell you, the game is set underwater.

Which means your main mode of traverse is ……. Swimming! Now that is not to mean it is the only mode of traversal (which include walking, climbing, and jumping/diving). You can go above the sea but mainly you will be exploring the coral reef, rip tides and more. Swimming with all sorts of exotic, beautiful and majestic creatures.

Now you understand the setting and the main mode of transport, let us break down swimming with the controller in Abzu.

Controls:

Below are the controls of the game, It does not have a control map in the options menu, so I just threw this together to help you all visualize.

As you can see it is a clean layout with only one button having two functions. What you can not see from the layout is the fact that to Swim you have to hold down the right trigger and how the timing of the boost button being pressed is something crucial as well.  

(A quick side note, I find it refreshing to have a game based on water at a time where water levels are often considered the worst part of a game or used for segments of a game where players can swim to mix up the pacing [which uses the same old puzzles “hold your breath while you quickly swim to the next above water section”, huge shout out Last of Us I found their water puzzles to be very good]

With very simple non-intuitive controls these sections are often forgotten, so I do respect this fresh take on a setting which shows the wildlife in their natural habitat.)

As you look at the control layout do you think it captures the motion of swimming with only these buttons? I am going to say no personally, with the amount of swimming techniques out there in the world it does not reflect those options.

My next point is to think about how many body parts you use to swim, 4 limbs and then your head for when you come up to breath (you are a robot so no need to breathe in this game). Looking at the number of buttons on the controller that focus on swimming I do not think it captures/simulates that sense of movement.

This is not me saying that these controls are the worst controls out there because when I am talking about these controls I am talking about them in an isolated space as the devs @GiantSquid want players to go at an easy pace and really take in the environment hence the “Meditation” button. I just feel with what I have said in a previous blog of mine Game Details: Part 2 controls can be used for more than just basic movement. So I am going to break down some of the swimming element and controls and suggest alternate methods see if they could improve the games feeling of swimming.

Swimming Controls – Floating:

Now I am presuming everyone reading this has gone swimming and knows what to do (roughly) ….. If not try swimming it is great fun! One of the things we all do in water is float above and underwater, we are just bobbing up and down. In most games it looks like this:

Player’s character is just moving arms under the water like the animation above water, yet what Abzu does which I really respect is allowing you to float with style. As a kid did you ever just swim around in circles on the spot, (I did, looking like a drowning cat trying synchronized swimming) Well Abzu allows you to swim in circles to help create the feeling of moving in water.

[embedded content]

To swim you have to hold down R2 then move the left analog stick. If you do not hold down that button then you will just move on the spot. You may be thinking okay, but why is this a big deal? Firstly you will only move on the spot 3-4 times. Heck, I have been frustrated by this movement on more than just one occasion, as I forgot to hold down the trigger. The reason I bring this up is that they tried something new, we have all messed around in the water spinning forward or backward not just floating there in one position. To me, it gives the illusion of being in water/swimming more depth to the movement.

With that said as much as I like the attention to detail of swimming, I do not like the control set-up for how players have to move as I do not believe it matches the action of swimming. (Yes you are a robot in the game build to swim but bear with me) When you swim around under the water you are not “holding something down” like the controls suggest. You are just moving the same body parts just in a different movement pattern. So to me why are we not controls not capturing this, why am I holding something? It does not simulate swimming.

You just chose if you are going to swim on the spot, forward, backward etc. It also takes away one of your fingers now because it is now Permanently Occupied as you swim.

Now let’s try something as simple as clicking in the Left analog (L3). Now, this frees up your finger as well the transition is as simple as holding/releasing a button.

(You will either think this change is better or worse but wait till you see how this plays out when I give the rest of the controls before you decide if you agree or not)   

Swimming – Boost:

Now, this is the section which inspired me to write this blog post. As I started to go through the game I noticed a cool nifty function within the ‘Boost’ mechanic with some nice (but not always clear) signposting.

The ‘Boost’ is not like a sprint mechanic where you hold the button down, and the character runs for as long as the player holds it down:

No, it plays a little different, it is like a mini game within itself, which rewards the players for seeing the pattern within each movement. Instead of holding down the button the player taps it to get a little boost, yet (here is where it gets good) if you constantly keep tapping over and over you will only get a small boost:

[embedded content]

see how the animation changes twice and then the player has pressed the button at the wrong time so the character lost its flippers a signpost that the timing is wrong) Yet if the player keeps getting the timing right then, the speed increases to the full benefit.

[embedded content]

players get a set of cool animations with golden particle trail rewarding players.

Honestly, this is super smart and represents swimming through this fantastic mechanic. Now I am no Michael Phelps, (So please take this next line with a pinch of salt as I have never won a swimming contest) but the slightest fraction of rotation in the hand when cutting through the water can slow a swimmer down.

Yet I do have a suggestion on how I would have laid out the controls for the swimming. As I mentioned in the Controls section I do not feel that one button can capture the feeling of using your limbs to create the best swimming pattern. I would instead of using one button use the two triggers L2 and R2.

Each trigger controlling one side of the body left and the right side.

The system will work as that of the previous controls that players will have to press the button at the correct moment for the best boost, yet the animation triggered will depend on the combination of buttons pressed. Was it L2 + R2+L2 leading to a breast stroke or R2 + R2+ L2 with R2 leading to a doggy paddle. Encouraging exploration of this mini-game following the age old design adage “Easy to play, yet difficult to master”

Before we go into the debate on which we believe is better I want to show you why I thought this all the way through my playthrough.

Inspiration:

‘Tony Hawk Pro-Skater’ back in the 90s use to mean the true high standards of skating games (Sadly not in 2017)

Its controls were fantastic at the time because anyone could play, you would just mash some buttons together and pull off a heelflip or a pop-shove it. Everyone could play, as I said it was top of its genre …… Until one game came out that changed it all

What made ‘Skate’ stand heads and shoulders above THPS, because of the control layout.

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How players moved stick replicated how skaters moved their feet on a board to perform a trick on an actual skateboard.

Then we have the fighting games such as Street Fighter or Tekken, which as we all know have some issues with button mashing (people even winning by repeatedly using one move over and over) yet the combos used by pros are incredible and even look similar to those pulled off by professional fighters  

Tekken:

UFC:

Seeing how both of these games tried to replicate their real life action counterparts, I thought I could try and do the same with swimming in my suggestion for Abzu.

Control Comparison:

As you can see from the above examples there are controller layouts which help build a simulation of these real life activities all by using buttons in a certain order or by moving the analog stick in different directions. This is what inspired the changes I have suggested for Abzu, I do not feel the devs did a bad job but I feel the control layout I have suggested, captures the feeling of swimming.

Abzu Control Layout:

Max-Abzu Control Layout:

Now if you really want to try to feel the difference actually put a controller in your hand and give it a go. I believe the boost and the float better work a lot better now on my layout. Yet the Ride button is better on the original layout. The dive button is a tough one to decide on I feel the button it better on the original layout, yet I prefer tapping X in my layout because your hand is now free.  

Please let me know which you think is better and why. If you have your own layout suggestions then, please put them in the comments below.  

Conclusion:

So the next time you are making a game, do not be afraid to experiment with your control layout. If there is a certain action that you are trying to replicate try that actual activity and see how you move, the motions your body carries out. Then see what can be done with your controller.

I hope this has helped you to think creatively more about your controls, play some of your game collection and see what you think can be improved upon. If you like what you read and don’t want to miss out on more of my blog then subscribe for more.

If you have other examples and want to show me more great examples then:

Twitter: @MaxPears

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We’re Down To The Sweet 16 Of The Best Sports Video Game Tournament

Uproxx Activities

We’ve get together to cut right down our approach to the greatest sports game titles of- time’s Nice 16. Outside several problems within the second-round of the event (farewell, Madden ’05), this appears like the very best illustration of our unique 64 games. Something that must definitely be resolved is Links 386 Golfing obtaining more ballots than every other sport within the whole opposition. We’re not saying Russians are meddling within this extremely real voting procedure, but Russians are most likely meddling within this extremely real voting process.

The activities content group is extremely worried.

Or a sizable number of Computer players available, timeless due to their preferred sport in the ’90s. . We’ve numerous non partisan companies considering this case.

Beyond the outlier that’s Links, who’s rising against behemoth Padraig Harrington 2005, these games are creatures of the particular groups. Not surprisingly, NFL 2K5 has managed to move on, as has WWF No Mercy and Tony Hawk 2. Today, who’ll ensure it is in to the eight that are ultimate?

The Baseball and Soccer Area

uproxx

No. 9 NFL 2K5

Regarded among the best sports-games actually, NFL 2K5 blew players away using its heavy collection of functions and flawless gameplay — all just for $19.99 when compared with Madden‘s full-priced sport.

VS.

No. 4 NBA 2K12

Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird brightened the address of NBA 2K12, among the truest love-letters to some activity in electronic type. It bridged the space to another era having a meticulous focus on limitless and depth methods to perform.

Take Your Study

No. 10 Ncaafootball ’07

Offering Reggie Bush about the address along with an extremely difficult to prevent “momentum” sport technician, NCAA ’07 provided among the greatest empire encounters as much as that time. Its Xbox 360 Console edition was simple-boned, however the PS2 edition is up there near Madden ’05 and ’06 as you of the very total deals in EA’s collection.

VS.

No. 6 Blitz 64

Several issues in gaming’s world were as pleasing than smashing a dance Deion Sanders ultimately area nicely following the play finished. they settled, although you had been obtained on. Oh, they settled.

Take Your Study

The Football and Baseball Area

uproxx

No. 9 MVP Baseball 2005

Long regarded as among the greatest football games in the past The Display arrived to its primary, MVP Baseball 2005 was EA’s ultimate venture into America’s activity before dropping the permit. The numbers might return more than 100 years, the heavy business style was therefore precious, and also the artwork continue to be extraordinary, nowadays it’s nevertheless backed by modders.

VS.

No. 4 MLB ’16: The Display

Several activities tease with excellence as frequently as The Display sequence. The animations are flawless, the functions are heavy, and also the artwork have now been creating a passerby believe there is a genuine football sport on Television for pretty much ten years. It’s certainly among the best.

Take Your Study

No. 7 Ken Griffey Jr. Provides: Major League Football

Should you were increasing up like a sports player within the ’90s, there is an excellent opportunity you possessed Ken Griffery Jr. Football. The creation beliefs and sprite-centered figures were second-to-none in 1994, and were the final hurrah before polygons required around within the N64 period.

VS.

No. 3 Knives of Metal

Should you possessed an NES in your day, you performed Knives of Metal. Fighting and the face-offs created you ignore your insufficient group choices, and activities were extreme.

Take Your Study

The Football/Sporting/Whatnot Area

uproxx

No. 8 Wiisports

Even although the minigame overlooked totally, Football and Home-Run Derby might entertain a home for a long time. State what you should concerning the Wii, Nintendo captured turbo in a container with Wiisports. The enjoyment was possibly improved should you lived with a lot of roommates at that time.

VS.

No. 13 Off Road

I still do not know who Ivan “Ironman” Stewart is, but I actually do remember Off Road lovingly. Once the camera might usually follow the vehicle, the view was book at the same time, but this 4- arcade device was about producing the experience that is very best. Arms towards all and the bones.

Take Your Study

No. 2 Excitebike

The monitor publisher is perhaps among the of its functions gaming in all. In 1984 we were hardly viewing defined representations of sports-games, subsequently Excitebike arrives and characterizes the area.

VS.

No. 11 Gran Turismo 3 A Spec

Among the first activities visit another degree of mouth-falling pictures, Gran Turismo 3 A Spec was everything an automobile enthusiast desired. Its artwork were therefore good-and its handles so hard, A Spec created a big quantity of people be content in only viewing another person perform.

It nevertheless appears great considering it arrived in 2001.

Take Your Study

The Intense Sports/Battling/Golfing Area

uproxx

No. 1 Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2

Enhancing about the first THPS in most method, THPS2 was more of everything — more handle (guides) more concealed strategies, a larger and greater soundtrack, plus one of the very addictive combination-chaining technicians in gambling. The overall game might improve itself and include significantly-required functions in old age, but THPS2 will be liked eternally. The amount style is excellence.

VS.

No. 5 WWE No Mercy

The gold-standard of the THQ/Asmik Ace Leisure/AKI Company work, No Mercy introduced the produce-a-wrestler to a different degree while providing heavy gameplay that constructed upon Wrestlemania 2000 and WCW vs. NWO. It was a-4-participant choice.

Take Your Study

No. 15 Links 386 Pro

Viewing the programs fill was the enjoyment, however to get a decade, the spectacular graphics be handled for several. There have been a lot of choices. You’d control. The player appears so actual!

VS.

No. 3 Padraig Harrington 2005

With among the greatest Create A Player fits in gambling, Padraig Harrington PGA Tour ’05 was a popular in aggressive homes. Lion straddled the point between game and simulator gameplay, which permitted for near activities between newcomers and veterans alike.

Take Your Study

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[huntingkniveusa]

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