Aquasky vs Masterblaster – Beat the System (Botchit & Scarper)
WOW! What an awesome album! Aquasky is best know for their Drum and Bass work on Moving Shadow, but they’ve donned the Masterblaster suit to bring one of the best new school breaks album of this year. Starting with the sublime “Satellite Channel”, which builds up nice and slowly, and then whacks you with an awesome bassline, this album shows that breaks are no longer seen as slowed down dnb, but a style in it’s own right. All of the tunes sound fresh and original, bleeding across genres, as good breakbeat should. “Disco Biscuit” is sure to be a massive dance floor hit in the breaks scene, where as “All in Check” feat. The Ragga Twins would fit well in a Garage set. “Thru the Fire” feat. Billie Godfrey is a real stomper, but the best track in this humble reviewers opinion is the last “777 (Lucky Strike mix)”. An awesome tune with an old school rave feel infused with the phattest breaks. All in all this is an album that no breaks lover can be without. The CD comes with a Mix CD, but I reviewed the vinyl so can’t tell you what it’s like, but knowing Aquasky it would be awesome.
Americas Army – SPR
America’s Army: Operations (PC) – published by US Army
Sniper, Paratrooper and Ranger packs
The Sniper, Paratrooper and Ranger Packs add new weapons and maps to the game, and fix the interface and some of the more annoying bugs, but it’s still more of the same. This game will keep you interested for a while, after all, it is more real-to-life than a lot of the other FPS games available, and it is rather kitschy and fun pretending to be a soldier in the US Armed Forces, but you’ll be back to playing Counterstrike in next to no time.
I was hoping the sniper pack would add a few more maps, but all it does it allow you to use the sniper rifle in some of the existing maps, and there’s only one sniper per team per map allowed. Depending on how good you are at using the rifle ultimately helps your team, but I really don’t think it adds any other playability to the game. It’s easy enough to get killed in this game, so it really doesn’t matter if it’s a sniper bullet to the head or friendly fire, once you’re dead you have to wait around for the end of the match.
The paratrooper patch allows you to parachute into a couple of new maps, and it is fun trying to drop as close to the objective as possible without getting shot or landing face first, but once you’ve landed it’s much of a sameness. The ranger pack just adds a few more maps as well, and while they’re incredibly detailed, again they don’t really add that much more to the gameplay – you still run til you see an OpFor and shoot them before they shoot you.
While welcome and necessary additions particularly in terms of fixing bugs, these patches don’t add all that much extra to the game, and this can be seen through the dramatic drop from an average of over 2000 players to 400 in 4 weeks on gamespy. It’s not a bad game; it looks good, plays better, and is free, but its uniqueness is starting to wear off.
America’s Army
America’s Army Operations (PC) published by US Army (!)
This is a very interesting concept. The American Army has developed a game to essentially recruit young men into the army. Available free to download, this FPS uses the quake war engine to simulate combat roles of the US Army.
Phil K & Nubreed
Minke is one of the most forward thinking clubs in Adelaide, musically speaking. Some of the best DJ’s in the world have played there lately, and the place keeps getting more and more people through the door, hearing the best breakbeat music the scene has to offer. Phil K and Nubreed were no exception to this. If you missed this because you think breaks are slow and undanceable, then you need to seriously re-assess the situation!
When I arrived, the sweet sounds of John Doe were wafting out the speakers. Here is the guy that has almost single-handedly brought breaks to the people of Adelaide. His set was a nice blend of new and old nu school breaks tunes. He was followed rather well by K2, who played a harder set of favourites to a growing number of people, some who even ventured out onto the dance floor!
Then the people we were all there to see came on. Phil K stepped up to the decks, playing some rather obscure breaks, sounding like Art of Noise meets Herbie Handcock. Then the boys from Nubreed stepped up to their banks of boxes (how I would LOVE to have a play with all of that equipment!!!), joined by Phil on a turntable and couple of those funky new CD mixers, and the proceedings just went “Boom”! The guys obviously love what they do, with the way the groove about, switch places and equipment, sing and rap. Playing all kinds of samples from Prince, Music Youth, and even Adelaide’s own Groove Terminator over the fattest beats and nastiest basslines, they cranked it out solidly and smoothly for the rest of my evening!
If it wasn’t for the flu, I think I’d still be there, dancing away! They crowd were slow to get into the evening, but by the time I left there wasn’t a soul that wasn’t moving to the great sounds these guys make. All the hype surrounding these guys doesn’t even get close to their performance, and hopefully we will see them back again REAL soon!