Devin Townsend // Our Oceans // Spirit Caravan

 Replace Neil Young's restless energy with clinical bipolar disorder and a see-saw approach to experimentation and you have an idea of who Devin Townsend is. Ocean Machine represents the two threads of his creative drive before they split apart and demanded segregation in separate works: spaced-out ambiance and a more unassuming and deceptively earworm-y blend of progressive/alternative metal than is usually seen. Billy Joel's reaction to hearing Cold Spring Harbor's faulty original pressing was to throw it into the street -- Devin's was to re-record the whole damn album.

C+

Supergroups are the McDonalds of music. They're seemingly always around and most of the time they just fuck up your order and put you in a bad mood, but once in a while they get it right and it just hits the spot -- and Our Oceans really hits the spot. Polished and striking like a fine watch, with an inner mechanism that hints at master craftsmanship, the level of competency on display here is impressive for a bunch of ex-death/progressive/avant-garde metal stiffs. Points deducted for that college freshman level album art, though.

B 

This thorough anthology contains the majority of the output of the true prince-in-exile to Ozzy's throne, Scott Wino, working with perhaps his most wholly successful and consistent band ever. While the second disc is more of a patchwork of semi-filler material, the first is pure stoner/doom magic -- the Caravan proceed from one concise head-banger to the next, with as high a ratio of quality material as Trouble circa '91-'92. Look elsewhere for the Dreamwheel EP, if you must (it's not good).

B-

Just Cause 3

Repetitive in every sense of the word, Just Cause 3 is a disheartening example of a sequel moving two steps back from it's progenitor

Kill Screen kind of already knocked this one out of the park but here we go.

//

More than any other "open world" game, I remember Just Cause 2 not for it's "Chaos system" or upgrade system or variety of different shit to blow up and people to murder, but it's world. The island nation of Panau is etched in my mind as one of my all-time favorite virtual landscapes that I've experienced -- more than the weapon upgrade system or grappling hook/ parachute gimmicks or the insanely low-fi nature of the game's campaign, I remember spending hours just... flying around and exploring. I would literally start the game, head to an airfield, put on an album or podcast, and just... tool around in a plane and do whatever. Bomb the shit out of an oil rig? Sure! Hijack one of those sweet heavy bomber jets? Hell yes. What I was actually doing didn't matter, because the varied environs of Panau were so damn good looking (I have no idea how they got that game to look that good on the 360) and convincingly realized that I spent hours just wandering around and exploring.

Fast forward 5 years: it is now 2015. Video games... have changed. Games festooned with clutter (Fallout 4) and never ending lists of side-chores (Ubisoft games) have become very popular. Avalanche Studios didn't exactly hit a home run with Mad Max, so the sequel to the purest open world experience was hotly anticipated. Unfortunately, yours truly was to busy playing Mad Max and uninstalling Fallout 4 to realize Just Cause 3 was very nearly upon us.

For starters: Just Cause 3 definitely still feels excellent in the movement department. The addition of the wingsuit (coupled with the more forest-y landscape) gives off a pretty pungent whiff of Far Cry, but that doesn't diminish the fact that Rico soars around the isles of Medici more gracefully than he ever has, which Avalanche definitely deserves recognition for. The gunplay also feels less hilariously trashy this time, but it's still stuck in the Crackdown wheelhouse of floatiness and nonexistent recoil so not much has changed there besides the fact that your small arms are surprisingly effective at destroying what I would assume were hardened military equipment --- radar systems, generators, and fuel tanks will all fall to the continued fire of your weapons (honestly) quite easily.

On the opposite side of things, vehicle handling has been imported almost flawlessly from Just Cause 2 -- that is to say that any kind of ground vehicle handles amazingly, vein-meltingly bad, but planes and helicopters handle a bit better than before, where they were completely fine. I'm sure this issue will be fixed with mods eventually (at least on PC), but most of the difficulty comes from the fact that the camera tracking Rico is apparently a heavily zoomed feed from a satellite. Coupled with the "less than competitive" level of response from the controls and you have an open world game that really doesn't seem to want you to use vehicles. Infuriatingly, this design philosophy also applies to the large amount of "mods" Avalanche has added as optional upgrades to your starting equipment, which can only be improved by obtaining "gears" from "challenges" -- minigames that have you competing against ghost times of other players. Instead of exploring the environment they've created, you're encouraged to ignore it in favor of self-contained exercises until you're allowed to use the fun stuff.

Unlike JC2, there isn't much design variety -- there aren't any deserts in Medici and only a small portion of it is snowy and distinct from the perpetually-spring environs of the rest of the game world. The landscape itself only looks slightly better than the previous game's offering and gave me some weird frame drops during explosions, which also don't look particularly memorable here. There is an insane amount of pop-in and on a whole the whole package just looks... cheap. The skybox is less interesting (especially after the brilliant one in Mad Max) and the world is less varies on the whole. The core gameplay loop of blowing stuff up is repeated here ad nauseum. Just Cause 3, despite it's lengthy development time, manages to cut out the emergent excellence of it's predecessor in favor of an ample supply of side-quests to fuel your character's progression. It's unfortunate that they opted for such a disposable type of "content" (though it is totally understandable).

Soma

Soma, Frictional Games' follow up to the breakout success of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, is pretty tough to write about -- it's not as intense as Amnesia or as abstract as Penumbra. Instead, we have a very detailed science fiction narrative that touches on old chestnuts like the nature of consciousness, what it means to be human, rogue AI, etc., delivered in Frictional's trusty piecemeal, sound-byte audio log method, which has never worked better here -- the small crumbs of narrative goodness lead you on a story that seems much more complicated than it turns out to be, which only made me more anxious to progress and see how things would resolve. The environmental design is some of the best I've seen in a while: Soma's ocean-floor segments inspire a real sense of awe at the sheer vastness of this place, while it's mechanical and monster designs are as top-notch as ever. What really makes this game stick out is it's lack of a position on the issues it raises: it's dark stuff, and it's delivered so evenly that you're left with no choice but to consider your own positions on this stuff. For such a modest time (about 8 hours) and money (about $20) commitment, Soma is a standout.

KXM - "KXM" | OSI - "Blood"

Distortion-soaked grooves and lyrics touching on faith and loneliness are deep in the weelhouse for Pinnick's devotees, but for a freshly-minted supergroup KXMs fondness on vamped riffs to get to that 4:30 mark is frustrating. Maybe dUg has a bet with Mike Portnoy to see who can form the more forgettable hard rock trio? C+

"Terminal" and the title track are interesting, but Moore and Matheos never achieve a good enough fusion to make the rest of this really come alive -- the heavy songs sound stilted and the soft ones feel stretched. Bonus points for blatantly reusing keyboard patches during Mikael Akerfeldt's song (the most overlong piece in OSI's discography) and for assisting Gavin Harrison in recording his most forgettable drum parts. C

Mad Max

A solid core of driving mechanics and top-tier environmental design struggle to stay afloat in a sea of repetitive, low-reward filler activities and strangely forgiving survival mechanics

In terms of lasting influence and predictive ability, George Miller's Mad Max series has cast an enormous shadow over the media landscape after it was unleashed in 1979 with it's iconoclastic characters and signature vehicle-mounted gangs circling the refinery. A quick licensed cash-in to ride the waves created by Fury Road seems a fate far too corporate to befall Max, but just like the ruins of the old world occasionally encountered in the films, Avalanche studios constructed the bones of a game that may have had a real shot at capturing the tenuous desperation of Miller's bizarro outback, then seemed to crush it under the weight of triple AAA gaming's smiling reaper -- "content".

That map shows about 60% of the total area of the map 30 hours in, with a suspicious number of icons sprinkled around, almost as if to scream at players "Don't worry! Even though it's a big wasteland there's still plenty of stuff here! Please be assured that you will be constantly stimulated with activities and errands in case you were afraid of not getting your money's worth". (Also, why have this awful, giant map crawling with little blips? If any game seemed to welcome the resurrection of Far Cry 2's immersive physical map idea, than this was it). The constant bombardment of reminders and indicators is relentless, and inexcusably so for Mad Max. Your minimap isn't toggleable, so you can't really ever fully submerge yourself into the world and so it's difficult to feel any attachment to it since the game doesn't seem to want you to just drive around and drink it in.

At the center of this checklist-clearing inanity is Chumbucket, your faithful companion and sidekick. The very existence of this character begs many questions that are best left unpondered, but needless to say you'll be forced to tag team with Chum for the vast majority of the game, despite also encountering and befriending a dog a la The Road Warrior that is subsequently gated from actual use in a the most aggravating and idiotic way possible. He wouldn't even be that bad if he was just another character you could visit every so often, say, to upgrade your car (I assume this was how he was originally conceived because I assume anyone suggesting a forced buddy character in a Mad Max game was immediately fired). He does actually fix and upgrade your car, at no cost, in another strange concession to the "casual" crowd, making your "Magnum Opus" feel more like an overpowered cheat item than an indispensable resource. Chum also does the whole "buddy character exposition source" thing like Ellie from The Last of Us does, blessing you with the same fifteen lines of dialogue ad nauseam, which rubs up against the game's halfhearted interest in environmental storytelling awkwardly, like Avalanche needed a failsafe to constantly remind players of what to do or something -- trust me, ask anyone who's seen a Mad Max movie and they'll tell you exactly what you should be doing in a Mad Max game.

Besides the false-start pacing (why do open world games after Far Cry 3 even bother doing campaigns?) of the story itself, the game's mechanics and systems are similarly frustrating, because (to me at least) most of what could make a good Mad Max game are already found here, just... buried:

• Fuel is implemented as both a resource and a weapon - sweet! Luckily, cars in this game are apparently all based off Prius engines and get approximately 400 miles to the gallon, so you'll never ever have to worry about actually running out of juice. Try not to think too hard about the irony there.
• The currency of the world is "scrap". Ok, so why does one character talk about people "dropping bills"? Also, where do I store all this magical scrap as I collect it? I assume in my car, because its only able to store a single spare gas can and nothing else.
• Enemy cars give you practically no scrap at all. What better source for scrap car parts would there be than fully functional cars? Also, if scrap is the currency in this place, why do trucks with upwards of 500 scrap in the back drive around unprotected, while large groups of armored cars protect convoys of already-abundant gasoline that drive around in circles?
• Why can't I lure enemy cars to their doom by making them drive off cliffs or into walls like Max does in the movies? Also, why is Chumbucket the only person who thought of using a harpoon gun?
• Shotgun shells are supposedly scarce even though there are guys with sniper rifles(!) all over the place. You also find shells in ammo boxes everywhere but you never see anyone using any other guns.
• Remember outposts from Far Cry? Yeah, there in here.

I could go on, but you get the picture. For a franchise that basically wrote the book on scavenging there's precious little of it that you'll be doing in Mad Max. Despite the weighty animations of combat and the throaty roar of the Magnum Opus' engine there's a lack of consequence that just feels... wrong.

Happily, it wasn't all for nothing. The few moments of emergent gameplay that manage to slip through the blockade really shine, as Max offers unprompted comments on landmarks and locations that immediately breathe life into the wasteland, as do the environment's frankly jaw-dropping skybox and lighting effects. The larger issues with the game will never really be fixed, but much of the damage can be repaired with some kind of hardcore mod -- and if Mad Max: The Wasteland is as successful as it's predecessor was, Max may be given another shot at redemption.

Ghost - Meliora

Returning to the 70s hard rock that informed so much of their early sound, the Swedish devil-worshipers deliver a tightly written collection of supremely catchy Occult-themed arena rock 

Ghost have been walking the tightrope between "gimmick poser" and "trve retro" status for some time now since their previous record left a mixed impression. Whatever you thought of Infesstisumam, the anonymous members of this bizarre Satanic rock group present their latest offering: Meliora, which hilariously translates to "better".

Right from the insanely cheesy keyboard of opener "Spirit" you get a good idea of what Ghost seems to be aiming for here, and hook-laden follow-ups "From the Pendulum to the Pit" and "Cirice" only confirm their intention to return to the taut dark-pop of 2010's Opus Eponymous", and it speaks to their ability to produce this kind of stuff with such consistency that Meliora doesn't feel like as much of a retread as it truly is. "He is" sounds frighteningly similar to Fleetwood Mac during the chorus and the heaviest material seems to be cribbed from Deep Purple and Blue Oyster Cult at times, but they still manage to rock good and hard, with late-track sleeper "Absolution" stealing the show (check out that Journey-style outro and keyboard break!).

Meliora isn't shy about it's pop leanings (it's longer than Opus by nearly seven minutes but feels much shorter somehow and the instrumental interludes have been cut down almost entirely), and while there may be a bit of long-term replay-ability that it sacrifices to achieve this level of consistency and ear candy that doesn't diminish the level of Ghost's accomplishment here: an occult-themed rock record drawing heavily from the ancient aquifers of hard rock and metal pioneers that practically gleams with songwriting and production polish.

OSI - Fire Make Thunder

The progressive super-duo's 2012 release sees the two principal members' talents woven together more effectively than since their debut, marrying thick, groovy riffs with excellent atmospherics and lyrics

Quietly plugging away on the fringes of the progressive scene, OSI have operated like a modern-day Alan Parsons Project with a revolving cast of guest musicians adding their weight to the vision of the main drivers of the project -- Kevin Moore and Jim Matheos. Characterized by a bizarre back and forth between the more subdued electronic inclinations of Moore against Matheos' fat riffs and industrial/grunge tones, the quality level of OSI albums resembles that of smoothies: the best of them smoothly blend these disparate styles together so that removing just one of the two can't be done. Likewise, the lesser records tend to be chunkier and less free-flowing -- you can distinctly identify which songs are Moore's and which are Matheos'. Releasing in 2012, Fire Make Thunder is not particularly new - but it may very well be OSI's last album. More importantly, it's the perfect smoothie blend of the two figureheads' respective styles and the best thing they've done since their debut release.

The disc starts off strong with one of the group's better straight forward metal tunes in "Cold Call", delivering a forcefully repetitive riff that feels groovy as well as robotic, and is a perfectly solid opener that continues into the follow-up track "Guards", which displays a bit more of the group's progressive bent. Fire Make Thunder doesn't really start to click until mid-album instrumental "Enemy Prayer" shows up, however, as the boys lay down a fierce instrumental that rivals trademark "how to write a good instrumental" example "Sirius" for brevity and hooky songwriting (hint: the out-of-nowhere guitar crescendo at 4:00 and Gavin's in general on this album are both amazing)  before bringing things back to a somber mood with the evocative "Wind Won't Howl". The rest of the album, "Big Chief II" and "For Nothing", are excellent -- the former seems almost too catchy to be a Kevin Moore song, whereas the latter reaffirms the somber mood found throughout the disc. It's with the darkly winding river of closer "Invisible Men" that Fire Make Thunder reaches it's zenith incorporating an almost David Lynch-esque atmosphere with some not so subtle Pink Floyd references that close the book on the most cohesive and well-written collection of songs the band has ever put out. Despite it's gloomy aura, what's really sad about Fire Make Thunder is the possibility that OSI never delivers a follow-up.