When you decide to use what is arguably the most well-known song ("Particle Man") by what is inarguably the greatest band ever (They Might Be Giants) in your game's trailer, you've got to be hoping for a healthy dose of geek cred. A new promo for Geometry Wars Galaxiesalmost gets it right before failing tragically in one regard: They forget to use They Might Be Giants.
It's sad, really. A great marriage of product and song, marred by an overly-Devo, accordion-free rendition of the tune. Sorry, advertisers: No John and John, no sale. This does make us wonder, though: Is Geometry Wars Galaxies secretly a metaphor for the Holy Trinity?
Should have been a wiiware title. I don't see myself getting to the store to pick this one up. Not even after that commercial with the dopey, bored-looking players.
yeah they didn't look excited at all. the waggle wasn't very realistic either. at the end the girl is destroying her joystick i wanna be like BE MORE GENTLE.
Have you ever played Geometry Wars before? Is the game so exciting it causes you to spazz out or something? If anything, this games almost puts you in a trance when you get into it. I don't know why you're expecting it to be like all those other silly Wii commercials where they have the entire family jumping around and laughing like morons. This seems like a more accurate portrayal to me.
Seriously, between particle man and the fact that thy didn't have the people freaking SPAZZING all over the god damn place makes this game about 500x more attractive to me. the DS connectivity sounds pretty darn cool as well. I may get it just to see how well that works.
I think the game looks good, and i enjoyed their music, so pointless and listless, but in a good way, like bored stoned teenagers playing music
The critics seem to like the game, and they have fleshed it out a bit to merit the full-media treatment (at least more so than Big Brain Academy and Cooking Mama)
Also, i wasn't aware that Bizarre Creations was a 3rd party developer, having only heard of them through Project Gotham, i just guessed they were wholly or partly owned by MS
Honestly, their most well known song's probably "Don't Let's Start". That video actually got MTV airplay. They were playing it on VH1 during an "I Love the 80s" block the other day, too.
Awwww...did the truth hurt your little feelings? Just grip your Wiimote, close your eyes, and the world will be full of Italian Plumbers and magic fairy dust. Be happy, little girl.
never heard that song before. it wasn't that good, I'd rather hear the spiderman song
and i tried the demo of that game but couldn't figure out how to play, i only had 3 bombs and the enemies kept respawning and i couldn't dodge em for long when my 3 bombs were gone
First off, go ahead and guess my opinion of the song choice. It won't be too much of a shock.
As for the most well-known TMBG song, the truth is that the most well-known TMBG song is still "Boss of Me," given that it won an Emmy and was the opening to a successful sitcom. Beyond that, you also have "Yeh Yeh" (used in a car commercial), "Alarm Clock Catastrophe" and "Fritalian" (both from TMBG's Dunkin Donuts campaign), "Dr. Evil" (from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me) and of course "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" (better known because it was a cover).
And the best TMBG song is still "Ana Ng," which I desperately hope will be in Guitar Hero or Rock Band one day.
Ah, my friend 32 Footsteps, I was wondering when you would find your way here. You are exactly right about Ana Ng, it is the best. But I think you're wrong about best known song. Most people, when they think TMBG, it's going to be Triangle Man or Istambul. Boss of Me is probably better known to people, but I'm not sure they connect the song with the band. And I don't think any of those commercials are close. I'm going to have to with a 3-way tie. P.S. You have the best nickname ever.
I have to disagree, Justin. "Particle Man" is only most well-known in a fairly narrow group - namely, those that watched Tiny Toons a bunch. Keep in mind that said episode was actually pulled from rotation for a while due to an interesting little bit of phone company history.
Since there might be some curious - that episode had a "call-in number" for people to make "requests" - 1-800-555-ACME. No big deal when the episode first aired, but then the phone company briefly decided to give out 555 phone numbers for toll-free area codes (since they were running out of 800 numbers to give out). A phone sex line snatched up (800) 555-ACME, and they pulled the episode from airing for a while to prevent kids from calling that number.
On the flip side, millions more people watched "Malcolm In The Middle." That song got serious air play, and its video even went on rotation on various networks (I actually saw it appear on Pop Up Video). It's a close competitor with "Dr. Evil," sung by Robin Goldwasser (which is why people don't recognize it as a TMBG tune at first), being the theme song to the most successful of the Austin Powers movies.
In terms of best-known off of Flood, TMBG's most well-known album, that's still "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," because that song was almost 40 years old and well-known before TMBG covered it. Believe it or not, "Particle Man" is tied with "Birdhouse In Your Soul" for second from the album. "Particle Man" was put on Tiny Toons and thus known to those around 10 years old in 1990 (myself included), but "Birdhouse In Your Soul" was the second song on the album to get airplay on the radio, and even had a video made for it back when MTV still showed videos. It charted for several weeks on the Billboard College Rock charts, and is well-known to a much more diverse crowd than Tiny Toons' audience.
Of course, watch out for this - in another 10-15 years, the most well-known TMBG song will probably be either "Bed Bed Bed" or "E Eats Everything." There's an entire generation growing up listening to those songs, on top of the generation playing them for their kids.
It's a full fledged game. Retro evolved is one level of Galaxies. Galaxies has sixty levels plus coop and other game modes. It also has retro evolved on it.
Also guess what whiners the wiimote nunchuck control system to those who have played with it is superior to the dual analog sticks.
You can also download Retro Evolved to your DS or if you have the DS version of galaxies send retro evolved to another DS owner.
39.99 gets you sixty retro evolved games. So the xbla version is a huge ripoff and is only worth at most ten cents if you were to price it at it's real value.
Also whiners the classic controller can be used as well.
Anything that has ever been remotely connected to they Might Be Giants is usually awesome. It's a shame they didn't get the real song for this, but cool anyway.
Also I'm surprised about all the hate in these comments. Also the fact that somebody could actually not like TMBG.
that's not really a song, it's an annoying 5 second clip they replay for about 30 seconds at the start of each episode. ugh, i always mute my tv until jon starts talking
Actually, "Man On Fire," the theme to The Daily Show, is a Bob Mould song that they covered. And to be honest, you probably couldn't pick out which one was TMBG and which one was Bob Mould without a clue if you heard both back-to-back.
Mind you, Bob Mould is plenty awesome, too. But it's his song, not TMBG's.
Cool vid, but it would've been nice if the TMBG version was used instead. Ah, well.
32 Footsteps, you must be one of the biggest TMBG fans in the world. Please, teach me more! :D (Seriously; aside from the two tunes on Tiny Toons, the themes for Malcom in the Middle and The Daily Show, and a couple of songs done for Dexter's Lab and Courage the Cowardly Dog, I don't know much of their music...)
Also, that link at the end of the blogpost (about the meaning of Particle Man) was... either very insightful or very mind-numbing. I'm not sure which...
Well, here's a first lesson - the sixth song on TMBG's very first album (an eponymous album, sometimes also called "The Pink Album" due to its back cover) is a song called "32 Footsteps." This is the origin of my online alias, and it's how Justin (and other more dedicated TMBG fans) know how big of a fan I am.
In terms of being a fan, I am one of the bigger ones you'll find online (I even have a framed copy of the "Ana Ng" single in vinyl). I could always turn this thread into a TMBG history lesson... but that'd be a threadjack of historical levels.
If you really want to chat about video games, TMBG, or other stuff, just email me. 32_foosteps@netjak.com - I'm always up to talking about TMBG.
As a quick mention, though, start with the albums "Lincoln," (or the collection "Then: The Earlier Years," which includes all of "Lincoln" and another two albums worth of material), "Flood," and "John Henry". That's a good beginning to getting into TMBG.
I can help too! I am also a huge TMBG fan. I just saw them live for the second time last night (and scored a setlist too). But seriously, the only place you need to go for info is the TMBG wiki. It's called "This Might Be A Wiki" and it's at http://www.tmbw.net check it out!
They probably didn't use the TMBG recording because while it is not expensive to get the rights to cover a song (eg. record your own version) it IS expensive to license the original recording.
