Reminds me of a better version of Major Lazer - Pon De Floor
Sidenote: I am a PC-gamer. The only “modern” console I own is a Wii. Yeah. I know.
In all the commotion concerning 2011’s most talked about releases (the new Battlefield, as well as Modern Warfare 3), I decided to buy neither.
I never really got into the whole Battlefield thing. I mean yeah, the multiplayer was always amazing, but after a (relatively short) amount of time I would get bored of playing nice and resort to pretending to be a kamikaze-pilot with any hardware I could get my hands on. I decided ages ago that it was best not to mix myself with the online side of Battlefield ;)
MW3 could be the sickest game ever made, but there is no way I’m buying it. I still remember buying the last CoD game. (Vividly at that, mainly due to its price and the DLC that came out nearly instantly…) I hate the fact that they actively seem to be trying to release a new CoD every year, making sure to benefit from the maximum amount of holiday periods. Even if they have to resort to Recycling…
I’ll tell you what I did play in late 2011: Games I thought would be worth playing! Here’s a little overview:
The game that defined 2011 for me: The Elder Scrolls V: SKYRIM
Let me start off by showing you my awesome dude, an Orc named Einh (who would’ve guessed, after a lengthy WoW-career of always playing an Orc called Einh?)
Full (double-enchanted) Daedric armor, all Daedric weapons, a companion decked out in even more Daedric armor, wcyd?
As soon as I loaded into this game I loved it. So story driven (my main reason for gaming these days!), a completely interactive “do whatever you want, but all actions have consequences” world, beautiful graphics (see below), … You’d think this game was perfect! Well… It is. Nearly.
The story is engaging, well documented, and completely customised to your actions. As an Elder Scrolls game should be. The only minor gripes I had with Skyrim are:
- Bugs. More than once or twice, I encountered a glitch, like you would in any game. In a game this close to perfection though, glitches are annoying. I also had this one part where I did my absolute best to complete a sidequest in “Manner Y” and got the “Manner X” reaction from everyone. That sucked. Luckily it was a very minor quest.
- The “main story” feels quite short. I progressed through it for a few missions before deciding “Right, let’s get ALL of these sidequests out of the way.” I completed all major sidequests I could find (the ones that show up with a specific name at least), including The Companions, The Thieves Guild, The Dark Brotherhood, most of the Daedra shrines, …. etc etc - I also completed the majority of the smaller ones. (I didn’t do the repeatable-to-infinity killings for TDB, or the crimespree jobs for TTG more than necessary. [That’s 5 in each city for TTG, and once for TDB, just to check.]) - Anyway, you get the idea, I spent a huge chunk of my free time on this. As soon as most of them had been completed, I decided to continue along my main questline. Only to find out I’d almost completed it beforehand. That blew balls.
- The controls. I’m playing this game on the PC, I have a fully functioning Logitech G15 Keyboard at my disposal. Let me use all of these keys DAMNIT. No… Instead you can favourite some spells, and then assign numbers to them. Because the true and tested method of most other RPG games is too terrible, amirite?
-The achievements require you to suck. I’m at 44/50 achievements, and the ones I have left are mainly sucky ones like “Escape from jail” (F that, that implies I’d have to be arrested first!) or “Bounty of 1000 gold in all nine holds” (What if I’m just THAT good at killing and stealing?)
- There is no “jumping” or “running” skill :( Bunnyhopping my way around Morrowind rocked so hard, and then almost being able to jump onto a hilltop. Haha!
Anyway, even though I’m hating on these tiny flaws, the game was absolutely amazing. I’m sitting on 104 hours played according to Steam, and that’s only on 1 playthrough. With 1 single character. Admittedly, he’s level 60.
Lucky for me, the week after I’d “completed” SKYRIM, the new Deus Ex (Human Revolution) was half price on steam. INSTANT BUY. This order would prove very detrimental to my love for the game though.
Coming out of Skyrim, the structured world of Deus Ex feels small. Very small. It was reminiscent of Dragon Age 2 (which was NOT a good feeling) at times. You arrive in a city, and you have to finish all sidequests first, before proceeding with the main storyline. Balls. There’s only a few cities to actually explore, mainly Detroit & Hengsha, as well as a few facilities that you can only access because of the main storyline. But where is the freedom? :(
Ok, I’ll admit, the various ways of reaching your objectives are fun, and inspire you to try new things, and yes, the whole RAMBO/ZER0C00L/SOLIDSNAKE/… decision is important… But…
- If I want to be a pacifist, give me the option to be a pacifist all the way, don’t make me kill every single boss. Usually arriving there with only a stun gun and some tranq darts…
- GIVE ME MORE FREEDOM (see above)
- I’m an Augmented Human, I can break through walls and lift garbage containers without breaking a sweat, yet my inventory is limited to INCREDI-TINY proportions even after augmenting it with multiple Praxis points?
- Sup with this ammo “realism”? On my “Killing allowed, but not preferred” playthrough (the only one I’ve finished, so far) I put most of my upgrades onto the AR and the 10MM Pistol. I then had a mission in Hengsha where it was nigh-impossible to replenish my ammo for either of these weapons as soon as I lost shop-access. I decided to leave both of them at home, and just try and make do with whatever I find on the way. Which, it turns out, is vastly inferior weaponry, DUH. :( After that, the story catapults me from X to Y to Z without offering proper access to a real shop, barring a LIMB-clinic. (And I did not get Typhoon!) so no chance of running home and getting my weapons back.
- BUGS! Oh how annoyed was I at those bugs? After sneaking around the police station in Detroit for “Main Quest Y”, I decide to go in and do “Side Quest B” properly, going in through the front door to find a specific cop. He refuses to speak to me, and when I hand in “Side Quest B”, it just says I failed that part of the quest. Oh hooray! Goddamnit. Guards being alarmed when they shouldnt, or not being alarmed when they should. Bleh. Annoying!
- First Person View! As much as I’m used to a First Person View, Skyrim gave me the option to zoom out into 3rd person, which I gladly used, very often even, but Deus Ex does not have this possibility, which… annoyed the living hell out of me, even though it shouldn’t!
- The ending! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? You finish the game after ~24 hours, if you put a lot of effort in, trying to find out if you get back together with your supposedly killed ex-girlfriend, only to have an ending focus completely on the choices you made and cut off RIGHT WHEN IT WAS ABOUT TO GET INTERESTING! Oh yeah, you get all philosophical and shit, but short-term specifics? No way. I HATE THAT SO MUCH. I play these games for the story, and then I get this shit? Oh f$ck off you moneygrabbers!
But, overall, still a great game, not as good as its predecessors in my opinion, but then again, they weren’t hyped NEARLY as much as this one was. And if you were to play them now, you’d stop after 15 minutes because the graphics would make your eyes hurt.
What’s still on my list?
Another game that’s part of a series: Saints Row: The Third - My expectations for this are nowhere near as high as the two games I mentioned above, but … It’s some good old casual fun. Time to blow shit up, do some brainless killing, and laugh, out loud, at some of the most surreal BS this game can throw at you.
This game was on my pre-order list, even while Deus Ex wasn’t, that’s how big a fan I am of this completely nonsensical sandbox. The pre-launch “Initiation Station” yielded some pretty hilarious results. (Which I found, on their website, I’m nowhere near creative enough to come up with these myself):
Here’s my dude anyway, he’s called Einh BATSBAK:
Now, before I get any more positive about this (awesome) game, I’m just going to mention that there are already 2 (costly, for what they are) DLCs out, and its only been like 2 weeks since release. Honestly. Fuck that. The original game cost me 50 euros, and now they’d like to charge me 13 more for all the crap that was supposed to come with it? Hahah. No.
I need to get a new PC anyway, Skyrim & Deus Ex ran fine, as long as it was in a small window, but this game seems like a HUGE LAGFEST, and I haven’t even flown a plane yet.
Also on my list is American McGee’s Alice: Madness Returns
I loved the original to bits, because it was different from almost every other game out there at the time, and it was on the UT engine. Everything on the UT engine rocked. Truth.
Also, I’m a sucker for Alice in Wonderland. Couple that with gory violence, humour and surrealism, and I’m your man. LOVE IT. I’ll get back into this game as soon as I get my new rig.
Those 2 are still in my headlights, but, more than anything, STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC is my biggest danger right now. I’m looking forward to it SO MUCH.
It’s scary though. It’s an MMO. I’m a sucker for MMOs. I’ll be playing it with some of the nicest, coolest, funnest people I’ve ever met in gaming. It’s going to be difficult to not get sucked into this particular black hole. Ah well.
PS: Collector’s Edition, YEEEEBOIIIIII! :D
After waking up, I packed my shit up, said goodbye to the neighbours that hadn’t left yet, including one of the English guys who was still sleeping in his tent, despite being torn down by his mates already. Legend.
I took my bags and left.
THE END.
In closing, I’ll leave you with the song that got remixed left, right and centre all through the event.
The DIM MAK stage replaced the TRANCE ADDICTZ / KOZMOZZ stage and was decorated with HUGE SIZED candy!
GTRONIC (DIM MAK)
Caught the end of GTRONIC’s epic set. perfect warm-up for the deep electro tunes of…
SOUND OF STEREO (DIM MAK)
They were on early in the afternoon, but they came with a mission: To warm everyone up for an amazing day of DIM MAK-y goodness. SUPAH DUPAH and many other sweet Elektro tracks heated things up.
DAILY DUBSTEP STAGE
The DAILY DUBSTEP STAGE was too far away from DIM MAK/MAIN so I cba’d it. Why couldn’t they just put the Dubstep stage where STAR WARZ was the day before? BUT NOOOO… KNE’DEEP instead. :(
NERVO (MAIN STAGE)
We decided to go to the MAIN STAGE and relax for a bit rather than walk a million miles to see some dubstep DJs who I’m ashamed to say I’d never heard of. NERVO proved to be 2 women who were going crazy, especially considering how early in the afternoon it was. The tunes went easy on the ears, and their looks were easy on the eyes ;). The sun came out to greet them, and it stayed with us for the rest of the day.
WOLFGANG GARTNER (MAIN STAGE)
Next up was WOLFGANG GARTNER. I’d heard the name before, but had no idea what he was about musically. I was starting to get a headache, probably from the massive sunburns I had by then. His hard “electro house” is sometimes compared to JUSTICE & DEADMAU5 but honestly, I didn’t get that vibe at all. It was too hard for that early in the afternoon. At least for me. It might be the headache talking though.
LAIDBACK LUKE (MAIN STAGE)
LAIDBACK LUKE is another household name at Tomorrowland, even though I didn’t pay much attention to him last year, he managed to entice me this year. He appeared on stage with a spiderman T-shirt, which is enough to kindle a feeling of unison for any nerd out there. He played a set that was filled to the brim with crowdpleasers, and it served him well. The crowd loved him, and his set was really really good overall.
TOMORROWLAND 2011 ANTHEM (MAIN STAGE)
Anthems are always crap. Nice touch I guess, but no-one remembers last year’s official anthem. Most people even assume it was either Swedish House Mafia’s ONE or Avicii’s SEEK BROMANCE.
CHUCKIE (MAIN STAGE)
CHUCKIE closed the festival last year, and was back again this year to open for DAVID GUETTA. After the standard Tomorrowland intro and the incredible hype by the MC he played his own intro. And that defined his whole appearance for me. He played for 1.5 hours and all I could think of was “what a cocky prick” - Decent DJ though. His set was the last chance for many people to get a bit of drink and food in, so the queues were MASSIVE, but I sure as shit wasn’t going to miss a minute of DAVID GUETTA.
DAVID GUETTA (MAIN STAGE)
DAVID GUETTA is the embodiment of this festival. He’s been there for most editions, and he plays the crowd like a true master. Last year, the crowd left him without words, and according to him, people started copying the move they invented for him at gigs around the world. Whether that’s true or not I’ll never know, but it’s a nice thing to say to a crowd of over 30.000 faces staring at a guy behind a set of CDJs. He played all his tracks, which the people were glad enough to sing along to. He had fun with the people. He saw what lunacies and follies we came up with for him this year. Everyone loved it. It was so good.
The fireworks seemed to keep going forever, and everyone whipped out their phones and cameras which created an amazing sight to behold yet again.
2 MANY DJs (MAIN STAGE)
Closing up were 2 MANY DJs AKA SOULWAX AKA THE F*CKING DEWAELE BROTHERS. If you’re Belgian, you’ll know that they’re good DJs, but that you can’t miss STEVE AOKI+AFROJACK for them if you’ve seen them before.
STEVE AOKI + AFROJACK (DIM MAK STAGE)
By then I was really feeling the pounding in my head, so I only stopped by to sniff up the atmosphere in the WAY-TOO-PACKED marquee where STEVE AOKI & AFROJACK were playing. The beats were solid, the music was great, and the atmosphere was typical for an AOKI gig. Everyone was going mental, including the DJ duo.
I’m disappointed to say this is where I had to fuck off to my tent because of the headache. I spent my last tickets on some booze for along the way and went to sleep.
As I live quite closeby, I went home Saturday morning for a proper shower, to charge my phone a bit, and pick up some more fresh clothes. A change of shoes was probably my most desperate need, since my other ones were drenched with mud. We got back at the festival site by 3PM which led to us catching the last hour of
MASON (MAIN STAGE)
Which left no impression on me whatsoever. I guess I was still waking up.
STEVE AOKI (MAIN STAGE)
As a massive AOKI fan I can’t express in words how much I was looking forward to seeing him again. This dude is a rockstar DJ. He’s such a legendary producer, and a great DJ as well. His set can only be described as EPIC. His stage presence is just CRAZY. He was pouring champagne, stagediving, crowdsurfing, putting fans in inflatable boats and launching them across the sea of people before him. SO CRAZY. He was also the first mainstage act to mix some sick DUBSTEP into his CRUSHING ELECTRO-y GOODNESS.
AFROJACK (MAIN STAGE)
STEVE AOKI’s friend and prodigy, the Dutchman AFROJACK was up next. They work together, they are good friends, and their music just flows smoothly. His set was absolutely amazing, but I really fancied a sit as well, so I left the crowded middle area to go sit on a hill. Some guy was passed out next to us, and was the target of many, many jokes. People were playing BUCKAROO and Jenga with/on him, until one of the English lads had the brilliant idea to roll over him. I know it doesn’t sound so special now, but it was SO FUKN FUNNY to see. You had to be there.
Anyway, STEVE AOKI & AFROJACK were both GREAT, and they’d have another set on the DIM MAK stage on Sunday, playing back2back with each other for 2.5 hours. OMGOMGOMGOMG.
AVICII (MAIN STAGE)
We caught the beginning of AVICII’s set but as none of us really like him that much, and we only really wanted to hear his 2 biggest hits, we fucked off quite early into his set.
CARNAVAL BOUDOIR (RADIO ULTRAMODERN)
We passed by the RADIO ULTRAMODERN stage after grabbing some dinner to have a bit of fun in passing. ELEKTRO SWING was the style, and the mood went to match. Old downtempo stuff, mixed with new beats. Think “We no speak Americano” and then imagine a whole day of stuff like that.
ABOVE & BEYOND (GROUP THERAPY STAGE)
I’m not that big on Trance, but I didn’t have anything better to do, and the crazy British neighbours who we’d met up with insisted we should come with them to see ABOVE & BEYOND. As Trance goes this was pretty sweet, but totally not my thing. I headed off to the STAR WARZ stage early to make sure I didn’t miss a second of NETSKY.
NETSKY (STAR WARZ STAGE)
I caught the end of DJ SILVER who seemed to have brought a badass MC with him, and then met up with GINNE to see NETSKY. It’s not hard or even rare to be able to see NETSKY play in Belgium, but I had never seen him before, I don’t tend to go to Drum & Bass gigs, so I thought now was as good a time as any to check out our very own D&B legend. And BOOM. He blew the roof off. I always thought the D&B fans were the craziest, and they didn’t prove me wrong. Such crazy people, packed and crammed into one of the smallest marquees of the festival. If I’m not mistaken, he closed up with his slamming remix of Rusko’s Everyday, but it could have been B-complex’s Blissful Ignorance or Beautiful Lies for all I know. I honestly can’t remember other than the fact that I’d heard it before haha.
DJ TIËSTO (MAIN STAGE)
I made it back to the main stage to check out DJ TIËSTO thinking I was going to have an OK time, Tiësto being filed under “extremely popular but kind of meh” in my mental storage unit.
How wrong was I? Haha. It proved to be inredibly awesome. Tiesto kept banging out the tunes like a pro. Crowdpleasing tracks weren’t scarce, but it was well done, and he is truly good at what he does. He let us experience his new sound right near the end, and I have to admit: It was pretty fucking cool.
As always, fireworks weren’t scarce throughout Tomorrowland so far, but Tiësto got a nice big round of fireworks set off in his honour. Always a plus. Pretty colours go BANG!
DREAMVILLE (CAMPSITE)
After waking up, showering, brushing my teeth and generally freshening up, I had some breakfast (baguettes from the Camping Carrefour) and then headed towards the festival with some my festival-buddy DORASEL and some British lads from the neighbouring tents who we’d partied with the day before. The way to the festival was fenced at both sides, and a plastic path was laid down to ensure a safe trip. The walkway was closed off until 2PM however, which led to a lot of people having to queue in the mud between the campsite and the walkway (which wasn’t bridged with wooden panels yet). When the gates opened the crowd erupted in a massive euphoric roar. About halfway across the walkway you could find a chipshop and a burger place. You could still pay in Euros here, but the prices were adjusted to festival-rates. (Meaning 4 euros for a burger)
After the usual security frisk we finally got entry into the festival itself. We decided to head up to …
FRED BAKER (TRANCE ADDICTZ STAGE)
Even though trance isn’t really my thing, this still proved to be a decent warm-up for 3 days of crazy partying.
We decided to tour the festival after, to see the decor, and just chill out for a bit. After the obligatory 2-minute-visit to the Q-DANCE stage (which looked ridiculously cool this year haha) we decided to hit the drink early to carry on our buzz from the day before. By then, we had adapted to the typical Belgian festival currency: tickets & tokens. As always, everything was ridiculously overpriced, but who cares, we’re here to PARTY!
ARNO COST (MAIN STAGE)
We caught the end of Arno Cost on the mainstage, which would be our chosen location for pretty much the whole day. Arno Cost isn’t exactly high on my “need-to-see” list and he wasn’t anything special in my opinion. We also got our first taste of the oh-so-renowned tomorrowland MC. I don’t know about most people, but I find him utterly annoying, even though he’s probably better than most MCs. At least his English isn’t as shit as some random Belgian trying to speak it. Over the course of the next 3 days, he’d continuously try forcing the crowd to repeat the epic move that the Tomorrowland-denizens created during David Guetta last year. He even made up a name for it: The mainstage shuffle. I don’t think it ever worked. It’s meant to be a spontaneous thing man.
YVES V vs DIGITAL LAB & PEDRO HENRIQUES (MAIN STAGE)
I’m not a huge fan of YVES V and I hadn’t even heard of the rest, but I guess this was a decent early afternoon performance. A mix of styles and lots of crowdpleasing. Nothing special, but nothing terrible.
KASKADE (MAIN STAGE)
KASKADE was up next, and this American got so much hype from the MC it was unreal. His set was so-so for me, not too hard, not too rough. We grabbed some food during his set, and made our way back to the main stage before he was done. If you wanted a good spot to see the main acts, you’d have to sit through mediocre DJs like him, wcyd ;)
DIRTY SOUTH (MAIN STAGE)
Warming us up for the main events of the evening was DIRTY SOUTH, the Serbian/Australian DJ didn’t leave a massive impression on me last time I saw him, but I did remember him as “not shit” so I was quite happy that it would be him. If I’m honest, I quite liked his set. I got into the whole party vibe, as he kept on banging out the tunes. Good stuff.
FAITHLESS SOUND SYSTEM (MAIN STAGE)
This was what a lot of people came for, the super-hyped LAST PERFORMANCE IN BELGIUM EVER of FAITHLESS. I was so excited it was unreal. I didn’t care when people warned me that Faithless was utter shit at Werchter last year. This was their last gig in Belgium, how could they not make it epic?
WELL… Let me tell you about that. When MAXI JAZZ took the stage the crowd felt electrified. People were ready for Faithless’ unique Dance style, and they wanted to let it all out. SISTER BLISS was there too, and I think that was probably one of their saving graces. Because this is Faithless SOUND SYSTEM (and not just Faithless) they were missing ROLLO, I don’t know how big a part that played, but MAXI JAZZ’s vocals were just… well… shit. His mic volume was way too low as well compared to the music, and he didn’t even do that much singing. Most of it was just crowdhyping stuff like “HOW ARE YOU ALL DOING TONIGHT?” and “PUT YOUR HANDS UP” than anything else. Luckily, SISTER BLISS was massive on the keyboard, and the tracks themselves were epic enough. GOD IS A DJ, WE COME ONE, INSOMNIA, SALVA MEA, all the tracks you came to see were played at least.
SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA (MAIN STAGE)
People who know me know that I am crazy for SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA and thank fuck that they were there to save the world. Errr. Night. Their perfect mix of House and crowdpleasers was truly truly epic. I don’t think I’d heard “ONE” all day, unlike last year, and when they played it for ~1 minute as their closing number, I didn’t know if I was meant to be extatic or disappointed because it was so short. It was a perfect closer to an overall OK-ish day. Now came the time for the painful trek back to the campsite though. Massive queues had already formed as people bottlenecked into the walkway.
DREAMVILLE (CAMPSITE)
Back at the campsite, we had some laughs with our neighbours, had a few drinks, went out on the prowl and just had FUN before crawling in our sleeping bags and falling into a drunken sleep.
For those who don’t know what Tomorrowland is… It’s a 3-day festival (2 days last year, started off as 1 day) in Boom, Belgium. It offers a wide variety of genres ranging from Hardstyle to sweet, pure electro, as well as Drum & Bass, Dubstep, House, Trance, whatever, you name it. It is unique in the fact that the organisers, ID&T, do everything in their power to get you into the whole fairytale vibe. Every mainstage act gets an intro adjusted to that year’s theme, telling a tale as everything goes along. The stages and the general decor are beautifully done, there are fireworks for most of the big acts, streamers are shot into the crowd, it all adds up to create the unique experience that is Tomorrowland. This would be my second time visiting the festival, after having had an amazing time last year I knew I just couldn’t miss out.
Here are some key things to note for any type of festival, but are often forgotten:
- SUNSCREEN. Especially for all you milky white geeks out there.
- Come prepared for any type of weather. It could be pissing it down one moment, and be sunny as fuck the next.
DAY 1: THURSDAY
DREAMVILLE (CAMPSITE)
Dreamville sure sounds awesome, but when we arrived the campsite had already turned into a muddy cesspit of DOOM. The campsite is a decent size, not as big as say Werchter/Pukkelpop, but still larger than you’d think. It’s also run pretty damn well. Divided into coloured zones to find your way back more easily. There were two locations where you could shower for the price of 2 food/drink tickets, free “refresch” (sic) locations where you could just freshen up, loads of toilets, and lockers to put your essentials in. You could also inflate your airbeds at certain locations, which is a big plus, except if the door to your tent is smaller than your airbed ;). In the mornings you could get coffee, as well as proper breakfast food like pastries, or bacon & eggs.
There was also an on-site supermarket, which had MASSIVE queues at times, but was a very welcome thing to have. The camping-shop offered various goods you might need for camping, but forgot to bring, as well as offering the possibility to charge your cellphone.
Over the course of the weekend, the Tomorrowland/Dreamville crew did everything in their power to improve the conditions of the campsite. Muddy roads were bridged with wooden panels, free plastic ponchos were made available when it rained, etc.
Dreamville is also where you really start absorbing the whole Tomorrowland fairytale atmosphere though, with some cool touches like the flower-shaped lights next to the main road.
The biggest plus-side to DREAMVILLE is the campsite feeling though. This shone through on the first night when most people had pitched their tents and started to get drunk on whatever booze they might have brought in from home. For some people, this would be the last chance they’d get to drink so cheaply, as the festival’s opening drew nearer and nearer.
This all led to the camping party being of somewhat epic proportions. The campsite got its very own stage, decorated with loads of Tomorrowland-branded tents. A nice touch. Definitely better than some blank unthemed stage. The DJs who played there weren’t the big names you’d get to see at the festival itself, but having this All-Belgian line-up was cheap, and good enough for what had to be done: Get the party started.
The surprise DJ (who would be on for a WHOLE 30 MINUTES!) turned out to be the duo of Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, which got the crowd ROWDY AND WILD!
If I wanted to summarise day 1 in one sentence, it would be: A crazy mix of nationalities preaching BOOZE, FREE LOVE & PARTYING!
