'We are just dancing fools' & other: June 2008

Friday, 27 June 2008

Indy digs up a hit in 'Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures'

Everyone's favourite fedora-wearing, bullwhip-wielding archeologist is the latest character to get the Lego video game treatment in "Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures."

The game compares well with 2005's "Lego Star Wars." All the memorable moments and characters from the first three Indiana Jones movies are done up Lego-style.

"It's really fun and it's like the movies but it's all made out of Lego," says eight-year-old Matthew Stanisz. "It is actually sort of hard but some levels are easy."

"Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures," published by LucasArts and developed by England's Traveller's Tales, is broken into three maps each reflecting the plot of one of the original Indiana Jones movies - "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Temple of Doom," and "The Last Crusade."

There's no real talking - just mumbling, snickers and lots of body language - but the storylines are easy to follow and the characters are surprisingly emotive.

"Lego Indiana Jones" can be played solo, with two characters onscreen and the ability to swap between them, but the real fun is when two players tackle puzzles together.

You wander around various Jones-inspired landscapes done in Lego blocks and the game really nails camera angles. Puzzles in the action-adventure game are well thought out and resolved, using the elements to build, bust or pull various Lego creations.

"Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures" is available for the PSP, PlayStation 2 and 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS and Wii - all rated Everyone (10+), except for the Nintendo DS version which is rated Everyone (6+).

Some parents may be concerned with the fighting and gun play. You do bust up enemies - and frequently each other - into small Lego pieces and have access to Lego firearms.

But there is no gore and it's nothing that most kids haven't done by "blowing up" their own Lego creations.

"You walk around and you get to shoot people or whack them or punch them and you can build a lot of stuff and you figure out puzzles," says Matthew.

Death in the game happens often and is treated in the Lego way.

Your character simply busts up into the basic Lego pieces - you essentially fall apart. It's hilariously overdone and akin to a house of cards collapsing.

"My favourite part is when the giant ball made out of Lego is chasing you," Matthew says.

Emily Stanisz, 6, particularly liked it that different characters have different powers. She loved the fact that female characters can jump higher, which is a key to unlocking some puzzles.

"I didn't like the part with spikes," she warns. "It pops up and scares you."

There's no shortage of things to try: boat riding, rope climbing, plane repair, ledge leaping, to name a few. The environment is super-destructible - just about everything is built out of Lego and can be smashed, rebuilt or thrown about and it's fun to just wander around busting things up and digging for loot.

The game will likely keep your attention for a while - there's dozens of different characters that you can unlock and secret locations and treasure to discover.

Matthew thinks "Lego Indiana Jones" is better than "Lego Star Wars" because he says it has more things to do and is more challenging.

'Lego Batman: The Videogame' is due out later this year.

News from �The Canadian Press, 2008

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Sunday, 22 June 2008

How Many Albums Does Coldplay Need to Sell to Keep EMI in Business?

Photo: Getty Images
At last, it's the big day! Coldplay's new album, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends is finally purchasable in stores, where it's all but certain to save the band's label, EMI, from imminent doom! Maybe!

How are things over at EMI these days? About as terrible as you might expect, according to yesterday's massive story in the New York Times. As you'll probably recall, Terra Firma, the British private-equity firm led by Guy Hands, bought the struggling music conglomerate for $6.4 billion last year and, while kicking the tires on his new acquisition, Hands was shocked to learn that EMI employees were using creative accounting techniques to hide losses of $1.5 billion and, hilariously, expense drugs and prostitutes to the company. Since then, he's taken a lot of flack for his bold, innovative plan to create a streamlined, more-efficient EMI whose reduced workforce isn't constantly getting high on drugs and being serviced by prostitutes — but if Coldplay's album sells well (and it's already moved 300,000 copies in Britain), all will be forgiven and the company will be returned to its former glory, right?

Well, it's important to remember that EMI is really two parts: EMI's music-publishing unit (for which Terra Firma paid 80 percent of its $6.4 billion) "owns copyrights and provides a steady flow of cash"; then there's the company's recorded-music division, the half that lost the $1.5 billion, which sounds like a goner no matter how many people buy Viva La Vida (Hands says he'll sell it off if "if market conditions do not improve," and, let's be honest, market conditions will probably not improve). Eventually, the company will either sell that unit to Warner or Sony, or keep it and quit releasing albums by new artists, eliminating the need for costly marketing and promotion. Great sales for the Coldplay album "could polish EMI's image," says the Times, but we doubt it'll forestall any obvious eventualities.

So, EMI's publishing division, no matter what, will probably survive and thrive forever — but since no one actually understands what music publishing is, or how it makes money, this probably won't matter anyone (except the people somehow getting rich, we suppose). How many albums would Coldplay have to sell to save recorded music, the side of the business we're all familiar with from movies and television? Approximately 900 billion. And, if they sold that many, Guy Hands would probably let his employees have their prostitutes back too.

EMI's New Boss Sees Cracks in Music World [NYT]