Casual Friday: MTV's Virtual Music Scene

Hitting the Virtual Clubs (continued)

And those tunes are everywhere on the Virtual Lower East Side. Videos fill club walls. During the day, I catch videos by Liam Lynch, Oingo Boingo, and Sahara Hot Nights. At night, bands will perform on virtual club stages (or get pasted up on said video walls).

While nobody at MTV is ready to comment, its hand is already showing. Between its involvement in Rock Band and what it's trying to do with vLES, MTV is clearly dabbling with different media to get some new bands out there. Fine by me--I can't remember the last time I listened to the radio, anyhow.

DS Deals on Amazon

Calling all bargain-hunting Nintendo DS owners! According to omgnintendo.com, Amazon.com will have a bunch of Gold Box deals on Friday, April 25th. "5 great deals on 5 great games," says the ad banner. The sales will happen at:

• 12:01 AM PST
• 6:00 AM PST
• 10:00 AM PST
• 2:00 PM PST
• 6:00 PM PST

And while the items will be "available for 24 hours," something tells me you've got a matter of minutes (maybe seconds) to click the link and snag whatever games go up for sale. So gird your loins and prep your credit card! Hey, you know that old line: "Act now while supplies last!"

Game Pick of the Week

Battle of the Bands (on the Wii console)
My marching band can kick the butt of your emo rock trio, the heavy metal outfit down the street, and that interplanetary Hip-Hop group. Wait, what? In a day when everybody is cuing up Fisher-Price guitars and thinking that they are rock stars, this is probably the goofiest side-step in rhythm-based games. It also happens to be a lot of fun and pretty clever.

The graphics are grainy, raw, and a little on the dated side--even by Wii standards--but the game is simple to control. All you do is wave your Wii-mote to the beat. That makes Battle of the Bands a great game for parties--especially folks that aren't hardcore gamers but like some quirky audio. As you may have figured out by now, the real star here is the music, so pick a band.

Let's say you're playing as a marching band (that really is an option). Going up against a country band on The Ramones' Blitzkrieg Bop, you're basically hearing two cover versions of the same song mashing up on each other. Depending on who is winning, you can hear rigid oompah marching band sounds or the twangy guitars ringing out.

Just make sure that someone is in the room playing against you, otherwise, you're gonna feel dumb laughing at yourself. I did.

Until next week...

Senior Writer Darren Gladstone geeks out over gadgets, games, and odd uses for humdrum tech. In other words, he's a nerd--and he's okay with that.