2011 will be forever known as the year every game ever had its 25th anniversary. To celebrate the incredibly dense history of Castlevania (which I’m pretty sure consists of 1.2 hojillion games), a group of talented fans have put together a remix album to celebrate the occasion.

Vampire Variations reinvents the soundtrack of the NES classic while taking a few additional elements from throughout the series. Listen to only half the album and you’ll get the wrong ending! Divided into two distinct musical acts, the album covers everything from “Rock and Orchestral to Jazz and Electronic”.

But don’t worry. Unlike Dracula’s castle, you won’t have to do anything fancy to unlock the inverted second act of this album. Just grab a whip and adventure into the album’s official site. Of course, if you’re too scared to walk in blind (and who can blame you?), you can prepare yourself with the teaser trailer below.

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On a very special sixty-forth episode of Barrel Roll! A Video Game Podcast, we were way too busy playing Monster Hunter Tri to play any other games.

OK, that is only a half truth. We did try to squeeze in some Super Street Fighter IV and Mega Man 10 DLC while we were at it.

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“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

When Dracula X: Rondo of Blood first made it on the US Virtual Console, I remained casually interested. The early Castlevania franchise has simply never enthused. Yes, the music is always excellent, and the series art has always had the fun Gothic aesthetic, but I just found the whole classic Castlevania era fairly archaic.

Simon Belmont always felt stilted in his movement, almost gawky. Don’t even get me started on how gimped the throwing weapons were. I naturally presumed Rondo of Blood would simply be more of the three NES games I couldn’t get into.

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"An OverClocked ReMix solo album by Joshua Morse"

Less than two weeks after the release of Humans + Gears: Xenogears ReMixed, OverClocked ReMix has already released another album. While previous albums featured a variety of artists, Castlevania: Sonata of the Damned shatters the tradition by only having a single artist: OCRemix veteran, Joshua Morse.

Also setting it apart, Sonata of the Damned focuses on the Castlevania series as a whole rather than a single game. This includes tracks from both before and after Michiru Yamane took the “driver’s seat” in the franchise’s music. You’ll hear songs from games as old as the first NES entry all the way to the recent Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.

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Pictured Above: Michiru Yamane

It’s no secret that I am obsessed with videogame music. I even remix it in my spare time. Working a desk job, I end up listening to soundtracks throughout large portions of the day, and I enjoy sharing music with others who might otherwise not hear the songs I love so much. But there are far too many fantastic composers for me to cover in a single article. So to remedy this, I’m going to focus on my one true love… the ladies!

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"Memories..."

“Castlevania: Symphony of the Night”, “Super Metroid”, “Contra”, and “Super Mario Bros.” What do these games have in common? Well, besides being some of the best selling and most critically acclaimed games of all time, they were all in glorious 2-D.

These relics of the past still hold up remarkably well, even alongside today’s Unreal 3 powered behemoths. The reason is simple; 2-D games are able to capture a part of gaming that today’s games simply cannot match.

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"...and it only took me 5 years!"

Aside from being a writer here at Wing Damage, I like to spend my time making electronica music (hosted at MainFinger.com) in my home studio. As I’ve mentioned in the past couple podcasts, I have been very hard at work, both finishing up my new album and building a completely new site. I’ve finally launched the site with the new album on it, available for download and streamable, absolutely free! I do, however, accept donations via PayPal if you feel so inclined. The donation button is located on the sidebar of my site.

In case you’re wondering how this relates to Wing Damage, a majority of the songs on the album are videogame remixes. The tracks range from well known series’ such as Zelda, Metroid and Sonic the Hedgehog to lesser known titles like Section Z. Each track differs greatly in style so there’s a lot of variety to enjoy.

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"It brings kings to their knees!"

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I love videogame soundtracks. Over the years, there have been many influential and just plain incredible soundtracks. I would like to take a moment to recount some of my favorites in no particular order.

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"NES Era Boxart, Will You Ever Learn?"

In Power Blade, Taito took elements from several popular franchises of the era and smooshed them all together to get a game that is, surprisingly, pretty good.

You play as Nova, the Chief Security Officer of Master Computer. Aliens have caused the Master Control Program to malfunction in an attempt to wipe out New Earth. It is up to you to track down the missing data tapes to restore the MCP to it’s full functionality, and save the world in the process.

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We all have those moments in our gaming life that we look back on with pride. The impossible games we managed to win, the crazy last second come backs, and those head-shots from all the way across the map. These are the things we remember and talk about. These are the achievements that we point out on our Gamerscore. But there is a dark side. What about the skeletons in our gaming closets that haunt us? The games we just never beat. The games we never admit to our gamer friends we really enjoyed. Here, for the world to see, are my Top 11 Gaming Shames.

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