Best Game Soundtracks of 2014

Say what you will about the past year for gaming, it was pretty fantastic if you were looking for some tunes to jam to.  Helping to run VGR has more or less made it my job to find the best music in video games, and there's a huge variety to choose from this go round.  If you're looking for some OST's to buy, here's a few I'd recommend.

Honorable Mentions:

Payday 2

While the base game came out last year, Payday 2 has been getting more DLC than most games do, at a pretty regular rate as well.  Great if you were looking to prolong the game, but purchase wasn't even necessary for some, and new heists only required ownership to host.  Simon Viklund continues to put out awesome, pulse-pounding tracks to help set the mood whenever your heist goes loud.  The same trick of making the music rise and fall with the action has yet to get old, and can still give you a tactical edge in game, letting your crew prep when things are about to get dicey.  Another nice addition was the music selector in game, so if Evil Eye just won't stop playing in your head, or you want to pick something from Payday 1, you've got the option.

VGR 410

Early for Halloween, but we're rolling out the spooky playlist this week for your enjoyment.  Trey and Guy give us their first impressions of Civilization: Beyond Earth, price drops and system updates are happening, and we can't help indulging in the deluge of info released for the new Marvel movies.  Lucky for us, Colleen knows a thing or two about the comic books, so there's lots of info to be had.

-=Download 4.10=-

Staying on topic is for whimps

Weekend hangouts continue for the Fall!  What started out talking about upcoming first person shooters progresses into talks about PC's vs. consoles, nerfing lore, and a bunch of other lines of thought tagentially connected in some form.  All and all, and entertaining watch or listen with DJ, Kevin, Ryan, Miguel and Trey, so come hangout with us for a bit!

Titanfall Beta Commentary

With the Titanfall beta opening to everyone for a short time this past week, I decided to record a few matches on my last day of play, along with a bit of commentary associated with each.  The main highlight for these videos is the new "Burn Cards" feature that was rolled out for this test.  They end up adding just enough spice to a typical match to be interesting, but not downright broken.  If you want to see more videos from the beta, including a look at the Stryder Titan, make sure to check out the beta playlist:

Titanfall Beta Playlist

Microsoft Presentation Afterthoughts

"It's all about the games."
                  -Phil Spencer

I'm hard-pressed to remember another E3 press conference that was so densely packed with games.  Microsoft's conference was back-to-back game announcements, exclusives and indies all over.  Better yet, these were focused for core gamers, no sports games, no dancing games, just one racing game.  Starting out strong with Metal Gear Solid 5, Microsoft jumped to current 360 owners, rewarding gold members with free games up to the release on the One.  Next came lots of great shows of the One's processing prowess with Ryse and Forza.  Better yet was the revival of Rare's classic arcade fighter, Killer Instinct.  Plenty of new stuff was shown as well like Sunset Overdrive, Project Spark, and a better look at Quantum Break.  Classic franchises also got some screentime, like Dead Rising 3 and Witcher 3.  Finally, hell of a send-of with Respawn's Titanfall with a stellar gameplay showing.

Was it all good news though? Not quite, a few bits of info kept the Xbox One from being redeemed.  First off, $499 on launch in November, higher than I and a lot of gamers feel willing to pay.

Second was the redesign on the 360.  4 gig models for $199 (useless), a 250 gig model for $299, and a 4 gig with Kinect for $299 (once again, useless).  Essentially

Finally, no clarification at all from the terrible press drop last friday.

In the end, Microsoft has sort of clamored back onto the saddle, but it still seems like Sony could knock this out the park, we'll see tonight.