I hate to say it — and hate that it’s making me say it — but Need For Speed Unbound (Xbox Series X / S, PlayStation 5, PC) gave me some serious “so what” vibes. While it’s not terrible or anything, this open world, arcade-ish illegal street racing game is just kind of…basic.
Released in 1990 as part of the Lifelines: The Jimi Hendrix Story boxed set, the concert presented on The L.A. Forum Concert has long been the best live recording of The Jimi Hendrix Experience from their Electric Ladyland tour.
And now it’s even better thanks to Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969 (CD, digital, vinyl), a remastered, more readily available, and (more importantly) complete recording of that excellent show.
Some people think every new installment of a thing should be a reinvention, or at least add a lot of new stuff to the mix.
It’s why there will undoubtedly be people who’ll criticize God Of War: Ragnarok (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4) for not being as innovative as the previous God Of War, which rebuilt this long-running, third-person, hack & slash action / adventure game series from the ground up.
And while yeah, it’s not as huge of a leap forward, this sequel is still so epic, exciting, and effortlessly engaging that you probably won’t notice.
If there’s one word that best describes the original Bayonetta it’s “ridiculous.” The action was ridiculous; the story was ridiculous; and the character was so ridiculously sexualized that, over the course of the game, she went from being offensively sexist to a parody of sexist characterizations to being practically misandrist (i.e., man hating) in how her overt sexuality seemed to mock those who found her behavior sexy. It was utterly, gloriously, unrepentantly ridiculous — and also ridiculously fun. Which is also where we find Bayonetta 3 (Switch), which has the same ridiculous kind of combat, story, and capering as the first game.
“The Deadsuit. Quiet for many years… On this day, something stirs within. Something new…” And with these ominous words, the adventure that is Ghost Song begins. A sci-fi, third-person, side-scrolling shooter for Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PC, and Switch, Ghost Song is a modern version of a classic kind of game that manages to be as unique as it is familiar, and as flawed as it is fun.
One of the hallmarks of the Call Of Duty series is that these first-person shooter games’ annual installments usually only makes incremental changes, not big ones. Not since 2007’s Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, anyway. And while that’s certainly true of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One, PC), some of the changes they have made in this installment make things rather interesting.
Free jazz-adjacent saxophonist Ivo Perelman and pianist Matthew Shipp are both so prolific that they sometimes don’t give their songs proper titles. On 2020’s Amalgam, for instance, the songs were called “Part 1,” “Part 2,” etc., while the CD in the cleverly titled Special Edition Box had songs titled “Track 1,” “Track 2,” and so on. But now they seem to be fucking with us because while the tunes on their newest (and 18th) album as a duo, Fruition (CD, digital), are also just numbered…those numbers are out of order, and are sometimes higher than the number of tunes. Good thing they’re also really good or I might’ve gotten annoyed.
As an old fool, I often like it when people kick it old school. Especially when those people are game designers making a first-person sci-fi shooter. But I also love modern conveniences. Which is why I was excited to try out Prodeus (Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, PC), which the good people at Bounding Box Software have described as being an old school shooter with modern touches.
Not every artist is willing (or able) to try something new 60-something years into their career. But that’s exactly what jazz pianist and singer Ben Sidran is doing on Swing State (CD, digital), the first instrumental album of his illustrious career…and yes, it does beg the question, “What took so long?”