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Saturday, February 28, 2015

The Wallflowers - The Empire in My Mind



Lyrics:

There is trouble in my mind
There is dark
There is dark and there is light
Lay your hands over my eyes
As I look deep
Trough valleys deep and wide
Across the borderline
For the empire in my mind

You are the reason I don't sleep
You are the light
That's breaking through the leaves
And you know how hard I tried
To believe
I have something good inside
Over barricades I climb
For the empire in my mind

I have known love somewhere in time
I've been lifted up
I look honor in the eyes
I have no reason, I have no rhyme
I cannot deny
There's a darkness that's inside
I'm guilty by design
And now I realise
That temptations made me blind
To the empire in my mind

There is no order
And there is chaos
And there is crime
There is no one home tonight
in the empire of my mind

There is no distance that I don't see
I do have a will
No limit to my reach
I wish I would
I wish I might
To see a line tonight
Seperating wrong from right
Some are only born to try
And maybe that's the reason why
I'm afraid someday I 'll find
There is no empire in my mind

"Love Simon Baker's acting in The Guardian... and then there's this song :)" S.Y.

Monday, February 16, 2015

The best epic scores in games

Music is very important in a game. Without the right sound, you will not get the right feels...

Imagine hearing the sounds of a idyllic countryside, with birds chirping happily in the background and river waters lapping against the shores, while furiously battling other players on a blood-spattered battleground.... you get my drift? That's why most people like to listen to some upbeat (metal or hard rock) music for battlegrounds/ arenas. :P

Some tunes are so awesome that it can let someone go 'Ah, hah! I know that music! It's from *insert name of a game*' A excellent example is the theme song of Halo - who could ever forget such a hauntingly beautiful score? Even it was years since I last played the game (I, unfortunately, do not own an Xbox), I can recognise the music in a heartbeat. The same could be said for Pokemon's battle music... But then Pokemon battle music is recognisable, but is not really my sort of music to be listened on repeat :P

Here are some of the best epic scores that can be found in games - doesn't matter which kind of game it is (it can even be a casual game... why the hell not, right? :P). 

If you think I've missed out on a few of them, please feel free to share down in the comments. Enjoy! :)

*In no particular order

World of Warcraft

Almost all of the game's soundtrack are excellent. If you're a hardcore WoW gamer, you won't even need me to tell you this. I can't even remember how many times I just parked my character in a zone just so I can listen to the music on repeat... until I found out that the music is available for free streaming on YouTube, of course :P

I can still recall that when I had 'withdrawal symptoms' from voluntarily quitting the game more than 2 years ago, I like to listen to the music of the game. Still brings back the good memories :)


Deus Ex: Human Revolution

A very haunting soundtrack that could not be better to fit to the serious theme of the game. It's on par with Halo's music!

To listen to the other music in this playlist, just click on the play button again for the next track.

- The storyline resonates deeply with me. The moral dilemma between unhindered technological/ biological advancement vs retaining humanity can be a really difficult subject to tackle - there is no good answer. But this game has really nice insight into this dilemma and I love the game for it! The gameplay is brilliant as well :)

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Phantoms

The part that I like starts in around 7:30, but I assure you the music gets better after 1:30 into the video :P


Halo

The old PC version of Halo has one of the most haunting main theme music ever (the choir part at least and also the ending part in Halo 2 where everything is like exploding and you had to run to the extraction point). The first time I heard it, I was an impressionable young teen and it chilled me to the bones! Seriously. But of course, if you want to compare it with music from games from the horror genre, it will not be as 'haunting'... and I don't like playing horror games. There, I've said it! lol...

Halo's main theme

Other Halo music 

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim 

Unfortunately, I only played this version in the Elder Scroll franchise. So, yeah, I've heard good things about Morrowind's music too. I'll go check it out before I'll decide to add it here. :)


Civilization

Although I love the Peter Hollens/ Malukah version better, this is the original music and it deserves the credit too :)


The cover version :)

Lord of the Rings Online

Who can say no to the music in Lord of the Rings, right? :) It's as good as the movie, seriously!


Bastion

A tinge of world/ wild west (the guitars!) music :) The talking in front of the music is intended to be there by the way... just so you know


Dragon Nest

The only 2 soundtrack that I particularly like from the soundtrack in Dragon Nest :)






P/S: I had the idea to write this piece since last year, however, today I read about a similar article done by PC Gamer and I was like 'duh!' I should have just finished this article last year and not let it gather dust in my drafts folder. :\ Anyway, here it (finally) is! So, do enjoy! :)

If you like talking about any epic music in general (I'm a huge fan of epic music!), feel free to drop me a message or something on my blog's Facebook page. :) I'm almost always up for a good chat (unless my introversion kicks in and I get superbly tired lol)!


Oh and I'll link to the PC Gamer article here too: http://www.pcgamer.com/good-pc-game-soundtracks/


SEO tags: Dragon Nest OST, Halo OST, WoW OST, Skyrim OST, Civilization OST, 

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Jupiter Ascending - very brief movie review


*This so-called review contains some spoilers*

The movie can be summarised into this nifty but long formula:

Jupiter Ascending = Werewolf/ lycan + vampire + aliens + wings + cool gadgets (anti-gravity boots ftw!) + beautifully-rendered planets + a space battle + cliche save-the-maiden stuff + a plot like Dune/ Game of Thrones (like the many internal politics in the different houses in Dune/ GoT)... I'm actually surprised that it lacks zombies.

It is the epitome of trying to squeeze everything that is popular into a movie, only to end up a very shoddy storyline. For more than half the time, I had no idea what I was watching. Even if you're actually watching the movie, you'll be dazed (in the bad way) by all the dizzy combat... that you will probably end up with a headache after the movie. I'm also surprised that the Msian gov didn't sensor the part where Katherine Dunlevy appeared in her lingerie lol. Not that I mind much, but the gov are usually very strict about these sort of stuff that the fact that they missed this out is rather funny in some way. Maybe they got their hands full with Fifty Shades of Grey movie? :P

That being said, the actors and actresses did a pretty good job. I love how Mila Kunis fit the role *Spoiler* - she has the Egyptian queen-look that when she was named as an Entitled in the movie, I was not very surprised. Besides the feature that she is naturally born with, her acting loses out at times and does not feel as convincing. 

Channing Tatum looks as cool as usual, but being a lycantant, I think he should have bared his fangs more (most people may not even noticed that he had fangs). Eddie Redmayne did okay as well, but the part where he yelled seems to fall short. That's what I feel anyway. He did an excellent job at portraying Stephen Hawking in the Theory of Everything though. 

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Spiced up my blog!

So, yeah, I'm not sure if you've noticed, I've added a little something something to the blog :)

Hopefully it works. I haven't really tested it out yet, but since it's from an established company, I'd reckon that it'll work fine :)

Anyway, a quick update - I've been BUSY. Like seriously BUSY! Knock my head on the wall BUSY, but it's keeping me on my toes and on sleep deprivation, but meh... :P

So, all I wanted to say is that I'll still post here from time to time, but it'll be really really rare to see me around here now. I'll try - but yeah, it'll be much less... except during weekends maybe :P

Okay, that's about it...

I want to wish you all a very happy (and early) Chinese New Year - it's next week! :D I'll probably put on weight by then... but wth, the food's good :P

Oh right, one more thing, if you really like to see what I'm posting, do check out my Aveyn's Blog facebook page. It is currently the only way to be active - I'm still rather 'active' on my personal FB account, so I do post interesting stuff up on my blog's FB quite frequently... not frequently enough to be counted as spam, but enough to let you know that I'm still around and kickin' :)

Okay, that's really it. If you like the new changes, feel free to write something in it and let me know :)

Til then, ciao!