Geometry Wars Galaxies might be giant

by Justin McElroy { Aug 7th 2007 at 5:55PM }

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 Galaxies almost 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?

[Via NWF]

Tags: geometrywars, tmbg, wii

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

mr nimblewick @ Aug 7th 2007 6:01PM

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.

GRANTED @ Aug 7th 2007 6:43PM

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.

pwnetheus @ Aug 7th 2007 7:31PM

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.

mr nimblewick @ Aug 7th 2007 10:07PM

It's called advertising. I don't want to see what I ACTUALLY look like while playing a game. I want to think I'm a fun and entertaining person.

Which of course I'm not.

Grey Acumen @ Aug 7th 2007 10:31PM

Quite honestly, my attitude can be summed up very simply

http://www.digitalunrestcomic.com/index.php?date=2007-06-18

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.

Hello @ Aug 7th 2007 6:03PM

Those people don't seem smiley and perfect enough to be in a Wii commercial.

Rob Accomando @ Aug 7th 2007 6:04PM

awesome commercial. Gotta love the Giants. The game looks good too.

Billy Bastard @ Aug 7th 2007 6:05PM

Well actually, they're a pretty shitty band with little to no talent. Thank fuck they aren't more relevant.

OhJustSomeRandomGuy @ Aug 7th 2007 6:23PM

Oh damn.

I'd heard about people like you...

The musically challenged. Living a life with no musical taste whatsoever, only listening to angry youth music.

I'm sorry, man. They should really start up some kind of fund to aid the musically challenged. I don't know why they haven't yet.

MooseMuffin @ Aug 7th 2007 6:05PM

I still don't see how this could control as well as 2 analog sticks.

Burnt Meatloaf @ Aug 8th 2007 7:11AM

No no... you miss the point of the Wii.

It's not about control, it's about image.

hvnlysoldr @ Aug 7th 2007 6:08PM

I could only find 2 Tiny Toons They Might be Giants Songs and am missing the Pluckio Brothers...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qnUXZlatV6Y
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vsQrKZcYtqg&mode=related&search=

Mr Khan @ Aug 7th 2007 7:32PM

Thanks for that, i had entirely forgotten about the hilarious collection of Tiny Toons Music Videos that filled my youth with joy

They need to bring back Tiny Toons, Tiny Toons and SWAT Cats

Exo @ Aug 7th 2007 6:10PM

if that were true then I am sure you would own one

Matt B @ Aug 7th 2007 6:23PM

They might be Giants were replaced by Ween for your more obscure listening pleasure. If you are into that sort of stuff.

Mr Khan @ Aug 7th 2007 6:24PM

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)

Mr Khan @ Aug 7th 2007 6:45PM

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

Zachary Hinchliffe @ Aug 7th 2007 6:29PM

um.. i was pretty sure that Birdhouse In Your Soul was the most well-known TMBG song.

OhJustSomeRandomGuy @ Aug 7th 2007 6:33PM

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.

CommonSense @ Aug 7th 2007 6:40PM

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.

blooh @ Aug 7th 2007 7:01PM

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

Exo @ Aug 7th 2007 7:24PM

why dont you do us a favor and smash your computer so you can't come beack here to make retarded fanboy posts.

32_Footsteps @ Aug 7th 2007 7:31PM

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.

Justin McElroy @ Aug 7th 2007 9:17PM

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.

32_Footsteps @ Aug 8th 2007 1:30AM

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.

Charles Garcia @ Aug 7th 2007 7:59PM

Dude, trust me... if you are high, this commercial is the best!!! (But I do miss TMBG!)

32_Footsteps @ Aug 8th 2007 1:32AM

You miss TMBG? You know that their most recent album, "The Else," came out on CD about 3 weeks ago, right?

Charles Garcia @ Aug 9th 2007 5:18PM

No, I meant in the commercial, trust me, you don't have to school me on TMBG.

Word of the street. @ Aug 7th 2007 8:03PM

The Tiny toon version is still the best.

Crono @ Aug 8th 2007 11:10AM

I like the DBZ AMV. Thats actually the reason I can remember the words to Particle Man.

idioteraser @ Aug 7th 2007 8:24PM

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.

Burnt Meatloaf @ Aug 8th 2007 7:16AM

Oh, really? Has it been confirmed that all 60 levels are actually different?

Oh, look! I'm playing on a grid the shape of a diamond instead of a dodecahedron! Totally different experience!

hvnlysoldr @ Aug 8th 2007 5:11PM

They have gravity wells so one level can have dishwashers. There's a couple with several going on at once.

Kenny @ Aug 7th 2007 8:43PM

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.

Sidepocket @ Aug 7th 2007 9:01PM

This game is cool, I wish they used the real song but they did a good job. And for you waggle fucks you can use the Classic Fucking Controller.

However, I just realized something here in the Joystiq Idiot Farm.

If GodIsMyth/HardGay, Shaggitarius and CommonSense fucked, that would be the Anti-Christ.

Fucking losers. Have nothing more in life than to bash video games. Sad sad life.

Exo @ Aug 7th 2007 9:44PM

O rly? where did I say that I was a nintedo fan?

Yea, thats why you are an idiot.

Sir_Mal @ Aug 7th 2007 10:29PM

Fucking awesome, but I really wish they'd used the original song instead.

Also Ana NG beats any song by the 80s.

Metro Mapper @ Aug 7th 2007 10:34PM

I think you all forgot the most popular TMBG song of all... the theme song to the Daily Show!

Manman @ Aug 7th 2007 11:00PM

Now how the hell did I forget about that? Well-played, MM, well played...

blooh @ Aug 8th 2007 12:11AM

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

32_Footsteps @ Aug 8th 2007 1:17AM

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.

Omega2k3 @ Aug 8th 2007 1:54AM

HAHA!

Really, it started out pretty hilarious, but got more and more lame as it went on, especially with the on-screen text.

P.S. - Who would pay full price for a $5 XBLA port with new modes?

BPM @ Aug 8th 2007 3:28AM

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...

32_Footsteps @ Aug 8th 2007 7:58AM

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.

WhatIsThatThing @ Aug 9th 2007 3:58PM

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!