I think, maybe, but I don't know...

It’s around 6:45ish right now, and I’ve been up for almost 29 hours. Let’s talk about music. I suppose I’ll talk about our namesake – Brain Problem Situations (which wasn’t initially gonna be pluralized, but someone else took that name). Anyways, the name comes from a little ditty by the powerfully catchy minds of They Might Be Giants. The track was first featured on the TMBG Podcast and later released on the podcast compilation CD Cast Your Pod To The Wind included as a bonus disc with The Else. There are many quirky songs to be found on the compilation, most of them under or around the one and a half minute mark. My personal favorites are the cybotronic sequel to (She Was A) Hotel Detective entitled (She Was A) Hotel Detective in the Future, the creepy yet uplifting I’m Your Boyfriend Now, the Frank Zappa-esque Yeah, The Deranged Millionaire, and the goofball Employee of the Month.

But then, ladies and gentlemen, there is BRAIN. PROBLEM. SITUATION.

Wow, what an incredibly catchy song. I don’t think you can really comprehend the beauty of the track until you hear it, and unfortunately I can’t find any direct links to it for youse guys. The best I got is the first 23 seconds of this random youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G13Q9ofj0II).

The chorus is a simple message, but darn catchy – “I think, maybe, but I don’t know/But I’m starting to feel like I got a/Brain Problem Situation on my hands.” And yes, I’ve broke into this song in the middle of sentences involving the phrase “I think.” The rest of the lyrics deal with... I dunno, raking your hair and going through a sobriety test? It doesn’t really make sense, but it doesn’t have to – you’ll be singing along anyways. That’s the freaking power of They Might Be Giants.

I’d also like to say that the song has a great bassline, and some kick-ass horn sections.

That’s all. I need sleep.

Ikaruga Review

Every now and then, there comes a game that redefines a genre. Okami reinvented the Zelda 64 formula, Braid took a bold new twist on platformers, and the game that made shmups fresh again was Ikaruga.



Originally released in Japan on the Dreamcast, the game was ported to the Gamecube in 2003 and XBLA last summer. As you would expect, the game didn't sell too phenominally. It barely made the Top 20 the week it debuted, but just as quickly disappeared. To any who has bought this game in any form, what you have on your hands is a treasure... no pun intended. The game is a psedo-sequel to Saturn shooter Radiant Silvergun and takes an innovative spin on the shmup genre. As the screen scrolls vertically, all enemies and their shots will have one of two polarities, white or black. At the same time, your ship also possesses a shield that can switch between the two polarities. Get it? So when your shield is the same polarity as the shots, they can be absorbed to powerup a powerful screen demolishing shot. If you have a 360, go download the demo for a perfect example.

Now, the game clocks in with 5 Chapters, and if you play the demo (which is Chapter 1), you might get the idea that the game is pretty darn easy, that you might be able to beat it in less than an hour. Well, buy the game, beat the second and third stages and come back and tell me it's easy. This game is HARD. Think about some of the most difficult shmup patterns you see in games like Gradius and R-Type, you know, criss cross, fast shots, etc. Now imagine having to think with two mindsets and being able to switch on the fly. It's hard to explain, but it has to be played to be believed. Speaking of difficulty, if you're a gamer who has the tenacity to stick with a difficulty, you will be rewarded. For every hour you play the game, a new credit is added to your total and the better you do, the game will actually adjust its own difficulty. Needless to say, this is one of the most natural feeling games I've ever played and is the textbook example of what a learning curve should do.

The game is a visual feast for the eyes and a symphony for the ears. For a game that was originally released on the Dreamcast, it looks great on the Gamecube and even better in HD on the 360. Of course, the only way you'll really enjoy it is if you're watching someone else play since the game demands so much attention. But while you're playing, you'll definitely grow to love the soundtrack. It's an infusion of epic techno music and classic japanese instruments. Be warned, as you walk down the hallway, you WILL be humming the tunes to yourself. Oh, and did I mention the almost incoherent japanese robot that announces combos, boss intros, and stage intros whie your playing? I wish I could talk like that all the time, especially since the things he usually talks about are rather deep, surprisingly. After you play the game, it's worth your time to go and find the translations.

In conclusion, Ikaruga is a masterpiece from some of the masters of game design, Treasure. If you ever pick up a copy, it's worth taking to your friend's house thanks to its co-op play and how much of a show it is to watch. If you have a 360, I highly reccomend it over the GCN version, mostly because it's only $10 and I had to pay $40 to get it for the GCN. Wow, but man is it WORTH it. Words can't truly describe what it means to play this game, and I'd love to go into more detail, but you really just have to go and grab a copy for yourself to see what it's all about, the tight gameplay, superb level design, amazing music, and just plain all out fun.

Gameplay 5/5
Graphics 5/5
Challenge 5/5
Sound 5/5

Final Verdict 5/5

Catch you all on the flip,
BPS John-Charles

Television 2009 Wrap Up: 24

Oh how I love thee Jack Bauer. Ok so I know there are ex-24 fans out there who stopped watching the show somewhere about halfway through Day 6. This upsets me. Yes...Day 6 was definitely NOT anywhere close to being one of the most exciting seasons of 24, but those of you who did lose your faith in Jack Bauer should immediately get your hands on Day 7. It will redeem all of the bad memories you have of Day 6. Hey, the pre-season 2 hour special was even titled "Redemption." So please, if you have not seen Day 7 yet, stop reading this and Netflix it, download it from iTunes, Hulu it, get it from the library, the store, whatever! Just get your hands on this season and reinstate the love for Jack Bauer that you once had in your heart.

The Day 7 finale was a two hour action packed episode that took place between the hours of 6 and 8 AM. Season 7 and its finale were unique, because Jack was the one who needed saving instead of him needing to save someone else. I will admit, Tony switching sides so often during this season was a little annoying, but when it all added up to be an extreme mission of revenge for his wife's death, I was satisfied. It was to be expected. Another thing that made the season finale unique was the fact that Kim Bauer did some saving of her own. Usually stupid little Kim is the one who needs saving; not this time. I do have to say that my favorite part of the season finale was finally seeing Agent Renee Walker kick some serious ass. When she landed on the chopper, rode on the outside of a heavy duty truck, and jumped off landing in a duck and roll maneuver I was quite impressed. The duck and roll bit seemed a little unnecessary, but if its only purpose was to look awesome then it was successful.

One thing the season 7 finale did lack was a juicy, mind blowing twist. The twist from season one's finale even led me to coin the term "Nina twist" which I use in reference to any scandalous twist. 24 is famous for these out of this world shocking twists, but season 7 didn't really go there. The closest we came to one was when Tony killed Larry. Speaking of which...I feel bad saying this, but I was not really affected by Larry's death. Instead of feeling sad, I was just kind of like...awesome, now Jack and Renee can be together forever. Come on, Jack needs some love back in his life.

That is...if Jack Bauer still has a life. Just jokes, of course he is going to live. Kim will probably end up saving him via her stem cells. Interestingly enough, when Jack Bauer went into his induced coma in this season finale, it was the first time we had ever seen Jack go to sleep. The man is usually a freaking Energizer bunny. The writers had to put him in a coma to get him to go to sleep.

I am interested to see what Day 8 is going to be like. I do know that the show is once again moving locations, but not back to LA...to New York. CTU will also be reactivated. I wonder if Jack will have a leading role in the agency now that...BILL BUCHANAN IS GONE. Sorry, I still have not gotten over that. Hopefully, we will see Chloe more often next season as well. And what is in store for Renee Walker? Will she lose her FBI job for breaking the law and torturing that guy? Or at least...we assume she tortured him. We didn't really get to see. Maybe she will become a member of CTU...actually, that is most likely what will happen. I assume that the mysterious bad guy alliance from this season will also be alive and kicking in next season. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Day 8 starts on January 17, 2010. The start time for the season is 4pm. In the meantime, let's hope that Kiefer can keep himself out of trouble for the show's sake.

May the Force be with you,
BPS Kayla

Television 2009 Wrap Up: House MD

OK, so it has been a LONG time since I last blogged...but I am back! And I am going to try to catch up and review 2009's most notable season finales as best as possible. Now, I have to admit...a lot of my television time was stolen during the year so I sadly missed a couple of season ends for some of my favorite shows. But I will review the ones I did catch.

I shall kick off my season finale reviews with a review of the House season finale: "Both Sides Now." I am actually going to cheat and start the review with the end of "Saviors", through "House Divided" and "Under My Skin" and finally end with "Both Sides Now." Those last four episodes were incredible and are all worth discussing. Oh and there are spoilers by the way...but you really shouldn't be reading this if you didn't watch these episodes anyway, you should be watching them.

"Saviors" starts out as a normal enough episode of House: set up, medical anomaly, multiple hunches, and finally the climactic discovery of what is wrong...this discovery, of course, being quite ironic and somehow relating to one of the episode's subplots...I hate to think that House is predictable...but it is in the sense that this is the basic structure for every episode. Anyways, so that's all fine and dandy. It's the end that blows us all away...House casually sitting, playing his piano only to look up and see the last person we expect him to see...Amber. Seriously, we would have seen Kutner coming way before we saw that surprise. This is when we tragically discover that House's Vicodin addiction has (once again) affected his mental state. But we don't even really get enough time to soak in the idea before the episode suddenly ends...leaving us thoroughly unsatisfied, full of anticipation for the next episode.

"House Divided" was one of my favorite episodes of the season! Seriously. This might just be me...but during this episode I realized that I would LOVE to have my subconscious self materialize before me in the form of a hallucination. It simplifies things! I think I would rather my subconscious take the form of someone awesome though...instead of my best friend's dead girlfriend. But anyways, House also came to the realization that having his subconscious pall around with him was pretty cool! And for us, it was pretty cool to be able to see exactly what was in House's head. The actual medical case in this episode was kind of boring actually. The deaf teenager who liked being deaf...I don't know...it just wasn't NEARLY as interesting as House's hallucinations and definitely not as entertaining as House's bachelor party for Chase. Seriously. Thirteen and Wilson taking shots off of the same stripper...who thought we would ever see that? And the juicy party gets even better when Chase goes into anaphylactic shock after licking Karamel, the stripper House and "Amber" worked so hard to find. That's when House realized that having his subconscious around was getting dangerous and nearly lethal. So what does House do? He goes to sleep...for the first time in days. And when he wakes up, he is perfectly cured and sees no more...nope, wait...he STILL sees his Amber hallucination. (House seems outwardly worried about this, but I think on the inside, he didn't mind that his subconscious-Amber-bot was still around...come on, he likes it.)

This brings us to the second to last episode: "Under My Skin." I'm going to fast forward to the second half of the episode, because that's when it gets juicy. House attempts yet again to rid himself of "Amber" who has become much more annoying than cool and useful. For second, House is convinced that the insulin injection he gave himself did the trick. But when he is sitting at a bar alone, he looks up to see "Amber" serenading him at the microphone with the song "Enjoy Yourself." Personally, I was very creeped out by her mocking tone. I, too, wanted the Amber hallucination to disappear. Fast forward just a little more in the episode and we come to House standing in Cuddy's office announcing that he is quitting. Nothing new for Cuddy. She rambles out a sarcastic negotiation and says that she is going to go home to her baby. House insults her and the baby, regrets it, and confesses to her that he is hallucinating due to his Vicodin. She immediately becomes concerned and takes him home to (drumroll please) DETOX.
House's detox is not a pretty sight. His Amber hallucinations still plague him and when House tricks Cuddy into leaving the room after he notices a Vicodin pill on the bathroom floor, Amber taunts him saying that if he takes the pill then it means he doesn't think he deserves Cuddy. But if he does and lies to Cuddy, then he doesn't deserve anyone. At this point, Cuddy enters the room, notices the pill, and quickly flushes it down the toilet. Desperate, House tries to get it out, but fails.
Now we come to the last scene of the episode. The moment that many House fans have been waiting for since...well, since day one. The writers of the show revealed earlier this year that at some point this season, House and Cuddy would sleep together. We knew it was coming and we knew they only had two episodes left to work this in, so it really should not have been so surprising when Cuddy and the newly clean House woke up the next morning, started to leave, stopped, and started kissing...but it still made us incredibly happy. Little did we know...

Season finale! Yay! "Both Sides Now" lived up to all of the climactic and exciting predecessors of House season finales. The episode did not start out to strong, but we (and House) were still feeling euphoric from the previous episode where our "Huddy" dreams came true. House spends most of the episode trying to figure out how Cuddy feels about what happened...so what does he do? Piss her off of course! Well, he TRIES to piss her off...it doesn't actually work until he announces to half of the hospital that he slept with her. This pushes her over the edge. So they meet in her office to talk it out. Here comes the extreme revelation. House realizes that Cuddy is mad about something he SAID and seems to be making to reference to anything that had happened the night before. We suddenly realize that everything that happened after House insulted Cuddy and her baby was mainly hallucinated by House. He never detoxed, Cuddy never came home with him, and the big one...he never slept with Cuddy (the writers DID warn us that the characters would sleep together but it might not be in the way/circumstances we were expecting). The tube of lipstick that House thought he was carrying around all day had actually been his Vicodin pill bottle. Amber may have gone away, but House's entire life had suddenly become a blurred reality made partially up of hallucinations. So what does House do? He finally admits that he has a problem and that he wants to fix it. He goes to rehab (please, no Amy Whinehouse references). My guesses are that House will still be in rehab at the beginning of next season. THAT will be thoroughly entertaining. His interactions with other patients and with the group leaders and whatnot will probably be HILARIOUS. And my guesses are that he will probably attempt to solve cases from within rehab by communicating with his team.

Bottom line: A terrific season finale, but only when you pair it with "Saviors", "House Divided", and "Under My Skin" can you truly get the satisfaction of a brilliant conclusion to a season that started out only mediocre.

By the way, I want to know if it is truly over for House and Cuddy! Say it ain't so, say it ain't so! Cuddy is the ONLY character that currently exists in the series that is right for House. Except for Wilson maybe...just jokes, just jokes!

Live long and prosper,
BPS Kayla

DOPEST SONG EVURRRRR! Entry by Stephen

Long time, no see. BPSstephen is back with a vengeance to bring you my entry for the DOPEST SONG EVURRRRR!

BPSstephen’s nomination: Monique the Freak by Ween

Yeah, I picked a Ween song. What did you expect? But this ain’t your typical run-of-the-mill Ween tune (as if there was any sort of common thread between Ween tunes). No, this is Ween channeling the heavy ethereal funk of Prince – and boy, do they channel it hard.

Monique the Freak started as a 10 minute demo on the free internet-only release Craters of the Sac, which was essentially the same as the final version but with extended instrumental sections and a longer but more stripped-down solo. The tune later resurfaced on the rarities collection Shinola, Vol. 1 – at about half the length but with 3 times more energy.

A brief intro lands us in the midst of some funky chord riffs and Gener’s best falsetto, sex machine vocal stylin’. Extra guitar leads, some Prince-esque backup vocals, and one helluva bass line fill out the verses, which include lyrics about how fine this Monique girl is and how Gener wants to “take her for a drive.” This brings us to the unbelievably catchy chorus, complete with bass distortion and some wicked vocoder action – “She’s a freak, Monique/I think I’m gonna tweak.”

And if the song wasn’t already awesome enough, the real beauty of the track kicks in at the bridge leading up to the solo. The guitar and bass harmonize on the melody for a little bit before another guitar slides in and begins shredding like no other. The solo plays over the chorus riff before coming back to the melody and cuts out at the breakdown. The funky chords from before are back, which play into another verse and finish out with one final chorus and a mini-solo to boot.

This song is so incredibly catchy, I can hardly handle it. And I honestly think it deserves some cred near the top of any great guitar solo list, but due to the odd nature and obscurity of Ween I doubt this song will catch the ear of any music critic anytime soon. Still, I think it’s one of the DOPEST SONGS EVURRRRR!

For your listening pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgeO0ADxDqE

DOPEST SONG EVURRRRR!: Entry 1 by John

YO WUT IS ^ WIT ALL YEWS HOMIES?!?!?!?!?!?!? Yeah, that's obnoxious, but it caught your attention. This new feature is made to very briefly catch your attention so you can learn about some songs that we here at BPS think fit the title of DOPEST SONG EVURRRRR! We will hopefully all do this and just briefly talk about our song choice.

John's DOPEST SONG EVURRRRR! Nomination 1:

MOTHER OF PEARL by ROXY MUSIC

Roxy Music is quite possibly the most pioneering pop group besides those 4 weird guys from Liverpool that nobody listens to anymore. Roxy Music is the brainchild of the brilliant Bryan Ferry. There 3rd album, Stranded, produced my first entry for this oh-so-coveted title.

Mother Of Pearl starts as a hard-hitting jazzy rock smash that is a front-loaded attack of rock, guitars, drums, and heavy bass crushing its way right into your ear-pussies. It somewhat recalls Steely Dan's more rock-heavy hits. The lyrics are very sketchy in the intro, meaning that it sounds alot like drugs are being passed around at a party. Then suddenly after a heart-ripping guitar solo..... it slows down? But WHY!!!!!! It was so good to begin with!

But the fact is that the song really only starts getting into DSE! territory once it slows down. Ferry's tone and inflection suggest both beautiful devotion and stark irony. The melody is repetitive but so wonderful that the repitition becomes welcome. The catchy but complex music gives way for Ferry's wonderfully sardonic (and frequently nonsensical) lyrics to blast through. The tricks he uses are wonderful and always fun to hear even if you can't make sense of them. In many ways, the two Johns of They Might Be Giants owe their career to Ferry since they both use very similar lyrical tricks and flares.

I couldn't tell you what the song is about (other than a very funny and beautiful love story) yet it doesn't seem to matter. Once Ferry ends the song with a dreamy acapella round of the line "Mother of Pearl, I wouldn't trade you for another girl", you will be so won over that you will agree with me when I call this one of the DOPEST SONGS EVURRRRR!

Here is a link to a live performance of the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4J6Uyv0JDY

Another Awesome GoodWill Find!

As many of you know, I like to try and keep an eye on my local GoodWill just down the street. You never know when you'll find a rare or pricey game for only three bucks. Well, this time I found something that cost $15... but was well worth it. The LucasArts Archive, Vol III. What this is is a six disc collection of LucasArts games. Sweet! Especially since they don't really, you know, print these things anymore. What was in it you ask? Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, Full Throttle (YES, the Tim Shafer Full Throttle. This alone made it worth $15), The Dig, Star Wars Dark Forces, Afterlife, and a demo disc. In all honesty, I only care about the SCUMM adventure games in this pack, but this was a steal for $15. I was looking through GoodWill, hoping to find some NES or SNES games like usual. I didn't find any, and I was digging through the discs... nothing. I was defeated. I had been searching through all of GoodWill for 10 minutes with nothing to show for it. I had that desperate feeling of "it's not that nothing's here, I'm just not looking hard enough." Then I looked at the little rack in front of the check-out... and there it was.



I looked it up a few hours ago, and this went on eBay for about $80 and on Amazon for $40 to $95. 95 dollars! Holy crap! And I only got this for $15? It just so happens I was already in the middle of Secret of Monkey Island, but now I have three more games to keep me entertained. AND the first 3 episodes of Sam & Max Season 1 and an episode of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. You can be pretty sure that you'll see reviews of ALL these games eventually, I just gotta get around to playing them on my mac, thanks to SCUMM VM. This might just shape up to be the best birthday ever...

Also, did I mention that when I put the Monkey Island disc into my computer, it came up in iTunes with remixed versions of the background music? Also, score.