Author: Joe Rybicki

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Now It Can Be Told

guitarsmall-540I’ve been hinting at a big project for months now, and it’s finally done. Well, by “done” I guess I mean “begun” — I’ve just launched a new website: Plastic Axe.

See, I love music games. I mean, I really love them. This is in part because I love music in an embarrassingly wide variety of genres, and in part because I’m a musician myself (I sing and play bass, guitar, and drums, in case you didn’t know). So these games sort of hit me right in the sweet spot.

Anyway, I’ve been spending the last few months putting this site together. This is a solo project; I’m doing all the writing, design, coding, PR, administration… Suddenly I’m very tired. Where was I? Oh yes: This site is all me. But I’m also hoping it’ll be useful to other fans of music games, who can keep up with the latest news and releases, and find lots of new music in The Vault.

So there it is, my Big Secret Project: Plastic Axe — Music games for music fans. Go have yourself a look around, and let me know what you think in the comments (over there rather than here, please).

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New How-To: Bring GarageBand Tunes to Life

Nope, I’m not ready to talk about my big news yet. At the moment I’m aiming for August 24 as the big reveal, but it could be sooner. It could be later. HEY LOOK, LIFE IS UNPREDICTABLE, OK?

Ahem, sorry. Anyway, the reason I called you here today is to let you know that Mac|Life has posted a how-to I put together many months ago, which aims to provide tips for home recording with GarageBand. You Mac owners may enjoy it — and for anyone on Windows machines, I tried to make these tips as general as possible, so many of them can be applied to any recording situation.

So I hope you enjoy them.

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One From the Mailbag: Platformers

And by “mailbag” I mean, “my e-mail account.”

Steve Taylor writes to ask: “What PS2 or PS3 game would you recommend for those of us who LOVE Ratchet & Clank? I don’t know of anything like it.”

Well, let’s assume you own all the Insomniac-developed Ratchet games. (No? Here are Amazon links to Ratchet 1, 2, 3, Deadlocked, and Ratchet Future 1 and 2.) My next recommendation would be the Jak and Daxter series. The first is my favorite by far, followed by the third, then the second. There’s also a pretty solid racing game.

Also within the same basic genre (and most certainly within the same level of quality) is the Sly Cooper Series.

Beyond these, the Big Three of PlayStation platformers, you may enjoy Psychonauts and Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil. Aaaand that’s where my recommendation engine stalls out, because I honestly can’t think of any other really good games that are remotely similar.

Anyone else have any suggestions?

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Crisis Averted!

It has recently come to my attention that I have been blatantly disregarding one of the key Commandments of Blogging:

Thou shalt post pictures of thy cats.

Clearly this is a profoundly impactful omission, which must be rectified immediately. And so, I give you: Fiona.fiona

Now don’t we all feel better? Oh, fine, here’s one more to ensure that balance in the universe is maintained. Continue reading “Crisis Averted!”