Optimus Primus

The game industry is currently trapped in a battle royals craze. Everybody wants to be the next Fortnite and is willing to throw away any integrity to do so. The latest contestant fighting for popularity is Apex Legends. This game was created by respawn entertainment, makers of the legendary Titanfall franchise. Legends features the same engine and many of the same weapons from the second Titanfall. I downloaded the game, booted it up, and played 2 games. My 2 games served to remind me of 2 things: how much I hate battle royals and how much I loved Titanfall 2. This weekend I played Titanfall 2 and listened to Primus’ They Can’t All Be Zingers.

Titanfall 2 is a mostly forgotten masterpiece. Released in between the industry favorite Battlefield and Call of Duty of its year. I remember all the ads and anticipation leading up to the original Titanfall and how excited I was to play it at my friend’s house for the first time. When the second game released nobody even knew it existed. I picked up Titanfall 2 last year for $10. It came with a fully fleshed out campaign, a plethora of multiplayer modes, and endless customization. For $10 it’s a total steal. Titanfall is an homage to the movement shooter. The game takes advantage of Valve’s source engine which brought us Counter Strike, Team Fortress, and the renowned Half Life franchise.

Primes slaps in every sense of the word. Lead singer and bass extraordinaire Les Claypool brings growl vocals and a distinctive bass style that makes Prius what it is. The tracks feature grimy slap bass lines that are borderline percussive. He brings out a five string for that extra low growl of a slap on songs like My Name is Mud and even dabbles into the upright bass on songs like Mr. Kringle. Primus songs are grungy in the best possible way. I cannot for the life of me determine what any of his lyrics mean, but it doesn’t really seem to matter. His voice sounds good and fits the songs well. I have great respect for anyone who can sing and play the bass like he does. The game and album hold up on their own, and the combo is top notch.

Liquid Souls Remastered

Hidetaka Miyazaki first found creative freedom during the production of Demon’s Souls for playstation 3. When he joined the project was a sinking ship. The demos were widely hated and the game was panned for being too difficult. Miyazaki took over knowing that he could do whatever he wanted because everyone expected failure anyways. Over the course of his time directing he transformed Demon’s Souls into a niche critical success, and gave birth to an entirely new genre of games. We’re not here to talk about demon souls. 2 years later, in 2011, Miyazaki came out with spiritual successor and indirect sequel Dark Souls. Dark Souls released during the Xbox 360 generation and saw a port to PC a year later, and a remaster in the last year.

The Dark Souls franchise is incredible. If there’s one thing Dark Souls is known for it’s its difficulty but it’s more then that. First off, the combat is tight. Every single death is your fault. Along with its difficulty comes an incredibly satisfying feeling of progression. Every victory feels earned. The world is wonderfully intertwined with shortcuts and backtracking that feels logical. Many of the mechanics test your risk-benefit analysis with hard to reach secrets and precariously placed items. The infrequency of checkpoints and limited healing forces the player to strike a balance between progress and retreat. The bosses are definitely the highlight of gameplay. Overcoming these fights with a mixture of learned attack patterns, reflexes, and bits of luck.

The original soundtrack sounds great in boss fights and climactic events, but outside of that is basically nonexistent. Meh. What’s not meh is ex-Wutang Clan member GZA’s second solo album Liquid Swords. This album is the embodiment of east coast hip hop in the 90s and boy does it hold up. This album has the classic Wu-Tang style samples with old martial art movie audio clips interspersed as backgrounds and interludes. The album has a cinematic feeling and a cohesive but somewhat ambiguous overarching story of New York grime. The beats are classics. The bass is heavy the drums have that swung kickdrum and thick backbeat that I’m partial too. The higher end is full of crazy synths with sounds ranging from traditional choral and piano sounds to what sounds like a stylophone on the track 4th Chamber. These synths get used for syncopated hits and repetitive riffs that manage to stay fresh seemingly eternally. The verses barely need mentioning. GZA is good at what he does. Everybody he chooses to work with is good at what they do. Flows are hot lyrics are good. As odd as it seems I feel that this combo is a good one. Hearing GZA “re up and reload” while you take down an ancient executioner feels really nice.

MC Chillin with the Koi Boi

Minecraft is a survival sandbox game that released in 2011. It quickly rose to popularity and has continued to stay near the top for 8 long years with no end in sight. It can be played in multiple different ways and its low floor high ceiling skill model allows for people of any age to enjoy playing. Its original soundtrack is composed by David Rosenfeld, better known as c418, and features sentimental piano and general ambient drones, along with occasional swelling synth riffs and bass hits. During my time with the game, I swapped that backing for Koi Child’s self-titled EP, Koi Child. The Australian based hip-hop Jazz fusion group hit the scene in 2014 with a few singles leading up to to the drop of their debut album/ep/whatever. The band quickly rose to popularity in the Australian scene winning several awards but didn’t reach the same success in the American industry.

The album kicks off with drawn-out piano chords and quickly transitions to the upbeat lofi style that will make up the bulk of the EP. The group has a dominating low end filled with a bassist who’s comfortable enough reaching into the higher registers, without losing the ability to pull fat distorted riffs that control the momentum of the band expertly. The drums feature light syncopation and a drunk kick drum feel that sounds a little bit like Questlove. The rhythm section is tight and the beats feel good. They have 2 saxophone players with sounds ranging from smooth jazz licks to just the occasional scronch. Their trombone helps to add the brassy crunch that saxophones tend to lack, and gives the songs a fuller, meatier sound.

On top of these backings the band contains a keyboard/synth player. The keyboard delivers good filling and accentuation with chord hits and light trills in the higher reaches. Between songs it switches between synth, organ, and plain old keyboard sounds. Rapping over it all is frontman and rapper Shannon Cruz Patterson. His flow is nothing groundbreaking, but his skills are fairly solid and his voice is pleasing enough to the ear. The main issue with the band comes into play with the lyrics and the overall repetitiveness of the tracks. Because this EP is rap music coming from Australia, it’s somewhat unavoidable that it will end up being goofy. It’s hard to take a lot of what he says seriously and it all sounds kinda cheesy. The interlude “Funky Jazz Music” is one of the few reliefs from the same flow and feel, and it lasts 26 seconds. While the tracks make for great ambient noise, getting through all 48 minutes in one sitting quickly began to feel like a chore.