M83: Midnight City

Normally (in a rather narcissistic fashion, I suppose), I listen to my own music when I run. But today I listened to one of my favorite albums of 2011, by one of my favorite bands around today, M83: Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. It turned out to be pretty great to run to.

I’m not a hardcore runner. I’ve rarely, if ever, gotten a “runner’s high,” but I think it happened today, about 2 miles into my run, while listening to “Raconte-moi une histoire.” Is the fact that the song’s lyrics are spoken word, by a child, describing (I think) psychoactive toads? Perhaps. Whatever it was, the music was a perfect tempo for me to lock into, and as the music built up, I lost all sense of physical limitations. My limbs were tingling and I felt like I was floating up off the ground.

Then as soon as the music faded and I rounded a corner, I crashed back to earth and was slogging along again, but at least I kept at it.

Anyway, there’s no official video for “Raconte-moi une histoire,” but here’s a live performance of “Midnight City,” the big single from Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. It first aired on Carson Daly’s extremely-late-night show. Enjoy!

iPhone Gaming Review ’12 (Part 1): Reflections on the state of iPhone gaming in early 2012

Some background, for perspective

My all-time favorite video games (Atari era: Yars’ Revenge, H.E.R.O.; Metroid Prime, Zelda Minish Cap, New Super Mario Bros., Portal, Burnout series, Age of Empires series)

The good

Inexpensive games
Always in your pocket
All games are directly on the system; no cartridges, cards or discs
Touch controls are getting much better and lead to some inventive gameplay
Good technical capabilities
Huge selection

The bad

Most of the games are crap (but that’s the case with any system)
Low average price means most games are targeted at that price
In-app purchase and social gaming models lead to bad gameplay
A lot of games lack polish, even from the “big” game companies
Hard to find good games

My almost essential iPhone games

The most disappointing games (just to end on a down note)