The very first VAC podcast. Yes, listen to yours truly blab about song writing, music production and old music. Yes, in MP3 format. And yes, I do put a strange effect on my voice.. :) You get to hear me play my bass and my acoustic, just messing around. Hope it sheds some light on the VAC process. Right click on the picture above and Save as will allow you to download the mp3. Or Click Here to download the VelvetAcidChristPodcast#1. The mp3 is about 33MB.

Generally I am not a fan of platformers. Some how with all the hype about this game I decided to pick it up over the holidays. Wow. It’s not as great as it’s hyped to be, but maybe that is because I generally do not like these kind of games. But for some reason, I got sucked in. The story is very pixar influenced. Speaking of which, that is one of the things that makes this game so impressive. The in game rendering engine is used for all the cut scenes. The game itself looks very very close to a pixar film on DVD. But some of the jagged edges kind of degrade the effect of it all and make it look a little less spectacular than a pixar movie. Well, enough on that. What makes this game fun? Well it has the smash boxes and grab bolts(treasure) or crystals stuff you expect from any rpg. Then we have the Weapon system which is totally upgradable along the way adding yet another RPG kind of element to the game. It is an over the shoulder shoot as well and a platformer. That is why it shines, It is a shooter with RPG elements, a great story like any good RPG, and platform style game play on top. It pulls it off very well.

Everyone always brags about the weapons in Insomniac games. Resistance fall of man showed me a taste. This game delivers here as well, one of the weapons is a disco ball that makes all the enemies on the screen dance, this is hilarious. Omniwrench is what you start out with by default, he uses this tool to turn bolts in the game to solve puzzles. Buzz Blades are a gun that shoots out circular saw blades, Tornado Launcher fires tornados that you conrol and move with the sixaxis tilt controls. Swingshot is a grappling hook that allows you to swing. Robowings lets you fly using the sixaxis tilt controls. Geo-Laser will cut new paths in weakened walls. Groovitron is a disco ball that forces all the bad guys to dance. Mr Zurkon is a robot that shoots stuff along side you. That is just a small taste of the weapons in the game. There are more advanced rock launchers and web guns later in the game that kick ASS! I used the Laser Whip through most of the beginning levels.

I said it was over hyped, yes it is in a way. But no matter what it is still a AAA title that should sell systems. Just look at the screen shots. They look amazing. Very close to pixar movies. No other game even comes close in that regard. There are levels where you play as Clank, which I found to be more puzzle oriented, and probably the most boring part of the game for me. But the good thing about the levels are that they are big but not to big. Just big and long enough to make you try again and again till you beat it. I normally don’t cover family oriented games on this site, but I made an exception for this because of how well it was done. This game delivers about 15 to 17 hours of game play. There is no multiplayer in a game like this who cares though. There are plenty of hidden places to explore and try and find the ultimate weapon thing that you can collect parts for. don’t remember the specifics, but there is a lot to come back for after you beat it if you are into that kind of thing.

Despite it’s cute nature that is geared more for kids, I did actually end up liking most of the characters in the game. I actually was laughing during parts of the story. Not many cute things do that me, well some anime does, but rarely. I did really enjoy the part of the game where you slide on the rails. The game flow was great, there is even some spaceship shooting levels where you fly around and shoot in the ship, and as clank you play gunner. There are so many styles of game play that come in and out of the levels and stories. It is so well done, you don’t even notice it, it feels natural even when the controls totally change during the different styles of game play. Not only that, Robotic space pirates are cool. I really liked the sixaxis tilt control on the mini puzzles for opening doors later in the game, you tilt the circuit board with a ball on it to bridge the circuits before the electricity gets to the points that need to be bridged. This was challenging and fun. There is a lot of fun in this game, from the story to the game play. This is worth every cent and certainly one of the best games on the Playstation 3 platform. This is why sony rules. They have a style of game for every type of gammer that is AAA and exclusive to the ps3. This is one of those.

9.5 Presentation
Everything is well set up, it is complicated, but it is not hard to figure out and really rewarding when you do. To hell with mario, i’d rather play this. The acting is great, the story telling is good.

9.5 Visuals
The best looking cartoon style game on the Playstation 3. Almost as good as a pixar movie, now that is really saying something.

9.7 Audio
I love the music, especially the cheesy disco! The voice acting is superb. The sound fx and explosions and destruction really sound great, so far this is the best audio i have heard in a Playstation 3 game.

9.8 Game Mechanics
Amazing, it does everything spot on. Every kind of game style you change to controls flawlessly and really is responsive, even the sixaxis controls ROCK in this game!

7.9 Replay
So many kinds of game play that is challenging and fun, you will come back again and again.

9.7 Total Score.
(out of 10 / not an average)

Ok I lied, this game lives up to the hype, this is the second best game of the year next to Uncharted. If you have a Playstation 3, even if you don’t like platformers, give this a chance, I did and it won me over. I have never even played a ratchet game, not even on the ps2, if all the games are this good in the game play department, I am glad I have a 60gb ps3, I’m going to go buy the ps2 Ratchet & Clank games now. This is great. Go buy it Click here to buy Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction for the Playstation 3.

Music Listened to while writing this review: Def Leppard - Pyromania.

Hexfix93, In florida, first show in the USA, 2000, found out that george bush won the election that day, it was super depressing, and very sad day for the world. I burned myself good at this show.

Hexfix93, Thorsten, Hypostasis @ the Doomsday festival. We played with puppy, in place of the legendary pink dots who cancled. We paid to play, we got cevin key and ogre green pajamas, we though we would be paid back, i never wanted to give them green pajamas, but we did out of the goodness of our hearts, they said they had to have green pajamas. That they would not play with out them, and at the last minute, no one had money for the green pajamas, so hypostasis and i put up the money for them. We were promised to be paid back. But puppy never paid us back, they didn’t like the green pajamas, but they just did wear them. they gave them back after using them. After all this time, i don’t have hard feelings. I look at it like we played to play. It was a day show, we had bad sound, because we didn’t get a sound check. Our sound got better by the 3rd song, but we only played for 40 minutes. In day light. Uhg…

The huge crowd at doomsday.

Hexfix93, Pissed off at Doomsday.

Hexfix93 in holland 2000, This show was funny. The night before was the worst show we had ever put on, it was the first in 2000, the first since 1998, our sampler wouldnt load thanks to the crappy iomega jazz drives that never worked right, poor emu sampler got broke in the flight as well. Shit. So there were no vocal fx becuase we had never worked with the sound guy before and he had no idea how to do my vocals live till the second show. Dude, that show was so bad, the audience would not even come up to the stage. No cheers, silence. After that show, I went into our tour bus and thought about slitting my throat. I was in horror, I could not believe what a disaster that show was. Stefan saved my life that night with the hope he gave me in words. But this is a photo from the night after that disaster. Funny story, it was in holland, in this light house or something like that, the back stage was up all these stairs. Any how, I was still super depressed from the first show, so I got super drunk. I drank like half a bottle of vodka in like 15 minutes. LOL. i found out the Colorado Avalanche lost in the play offs to the dallas stars while I was about to go on stage. But i realized i was so drunk that i was about to pass out. So while the vac intro was on, and the band went out, i ran up all those flights of stairs and puked in the toilet fast, a ton. I ran down as fast as I could, on to the stage right as i was supposed to sing. We kicked ass, I was so pissed off that my hockey team lost, and our last show was terrible. This in my opinion was one of the best shows i ever put on.

Hexfix93, Holland 2000

Hexfix93 Holland 2000

Hexfix93 Holland 2000, I was really happy with these photos, I feel really bad, because i don’t remember who took them, come forward and say something if it was you.

Hexfix93 2000, Forget what town, was with steve bird and thorsten stroht PHOOOOOOMP.

Hexfix93 2000, PHOOOOOOMP #2.

The crowd at the free wave gothic treffin show we did in 2000. What a joke, we played in front of all those people, and didn’t get one cent. Just another fleecing I got in europe. In fact i made next to nothing on every european show i played, thanks to my then manager Stefan Herwig, who got big bucks for the festivals we played, and I only saw like a few hundred dollars. while he got thousands. After i left dependent over the bs money rip off on tour, and our bothced fwk tour shirts that dependent fucked up in europe, it was fucking pink. fucking pink VAC shirts. PINK!. That was the beginning of the end for his label. Any how, that show was huge, thousands of people.. thousands. it was crazy..

Hexfix93 1996 by the platt river in Denver.

Hexfix93 1995, Dig the Too Dark Park Poster kids!

Hexfix93 1995, yet another shot, I used to smoke, not any more.

Wow, I look like Gothic Boy George, LOL. The good old days. Dig the Diamanda Galas shirt, That is uber goth YO!

Hexfix93 in the mountains, 2004, photo by Ara Vitalie. I think this is my favorite VAC photo. I was raw then. Felt great.

Hexfix93 in the mountains #2 2004, photo by Ara Vitalie. I like these as well, you can tell how irritated I am. I hate taking pictures of myself.

Hexfix93 in the mountains #3 2004, photo by Ara Vitalie.

Hexfix93 in the mountains #4 2004, photo by Ara Vitalie.

Hexfix93 in the mountains #5 2004, photo by Ara Vitalie. Hiding in the Trees.

Hexfix93 in the springs, Photo by Bonnie Bush.

Hexfix93 in the springs, being pissed, hate taking photos. Photo by Bonnie Bush.

Hexfix93 in the springs, I love the sky and that creepy tree behind me in this picture, Photo by Bonnie Bush.

This looks like so much fun, I don’t like platformers, but in this game the users make the levels, below is another video explaining this better. This game will revolutionize gaming more than any other game in history i bet. check it out