Mongo Nation

Toronto’s hottest “Live Remixing” trio on music, tacos, DJ culture and GILFs!

Welcome to “Taco the Town”, the most delicious interview show on the Interwebs!

Because our studio is still a smoldering pile of ashes after our failed attempt to build a working volcano for the inter-office science fair, we’ll be talking to famous musicians, authors, comedians, weather-predicting groundhogs, actors, “exotic dancers” and life-size, 3-dimensional smurf people in the one place that everyone can agree on: The Taco Stand!

Today we’ll be talking to Keys N Krates, the Canada Land hipster band responsible for bringing the term “Live Remixing” into the vocabulary of music fans around the globe. DJ Jr Flo, Matisse and Tune were kind enough to eat tacos with us and discuss such hard-hitting subjects as the Candian health care system, reconfiguring our perception of what a live band is or should be, and how famous you have to be to f**k Paris Hilton! Check it all out right here, exclusively on CraveOnline!

It’s been real… It’s been fun… And dare I say it may have even been REAL FUN?!

By Jeremy Azevedo

Well, CraveOnline fans, I’m afraid I have bad news for you: Your favorite (?) writer and video producer, Jeremy Azevedo, is leaving, and he’s taking all of his multiple personalities with him.

That means no more Moses Amadeus, Pete Pelmo, Karate Chimp, The Most Pissed-Off Dude in the World, Creepy Office Guy, Ted Hucklebuck, Chest Rockwell, Stretchnuts, Dr. Science, Junkyard or BuckCherryFan420, either. I know; it’s like a national tragedy.

I’ll give you a moment to grieve.

All finished?

Good. Now dry your eyes and let’s take a walk down memory lane shall we? I’ve compiled a list of some of my best articles, videos and top 10 lists from my time here, so the 12 of you that actually read my stuff on a regular basis can maybe squeeze one last chuckle out of them before they’re lost to the void. Yeah!

(And P.S.: If any of you are at all interested in following me where I go next, feel free to email me at jeremyazevedo@yahoo.com)

Now, without further ado, here are the top 10 greatest hits from the 2007-2010 era of CraveOnline, henceforth to be referred to as the “Golden Era”:

How Do I Know If I Am A Hipster? - (Maybe the best thing I’ve ever written)

Jerkoffs You Are Sure to Meet in Art School - (And I should know, I was one. An art student, I mean)

An AIM Convo Between The Ultimate Warrior and Lindsay Lohan - (I’m still not convinced that this didn’t actually happen)

Really Bad Gifts to Give Your Co-Workers - (My favorite holiday-themed post!)

Celebrity PostSecrets Intercepted! - (One of my better Photoshoops)

Harry Potter to Appear in Every Movie, Retroactively - (More Photoshoop fun!)

Empire of the Sun: Walking on a Dream - (Probably my best album review, ever)

The Secret Millionaire’s Playbook Intercepted! - (I think I wrote this one in response to the bailout)

Millions of American Males Lining Up To Be Rejected By Megan Fox - (And yet, she keeps getting back with that dude…)

How to RAWK - (I’d like to point out that this pre-dates “Jersey Shore” by a year)

• Next page: Top 10 Videos of The Golden Era
• Next, next page: Top 10 Top 10 Lists of The Golden Era

Read the rest of this entry →

We take a ride on the BMW R1200 GS and the F 800 GS motorcycles.

Words by Eugene Faynberg

By Eugene Faynberg

Most of the world’s roads are unpaved, so why limit yourself to the freeways and boulevards?  This is the core philosophy at Jim Hyde’s Rawhyde Adventures (bmwoffroadacademy.com) training facility.

CraveOnline recently got an opportunity to attend a “hands-on” adventure rider training session at RawHyde Adventures just north of Los Angeles.  After getting through the first obstacle – the driveway – Jim Hyde met us at the front of his top of the line training facility.  With chase trucks, RVs loaded with food and camping supplies, and a dozen or more BMW GS motorcycles parked under camouflage netting, it quickly became obvious that this was going to be more than just a ride.  Once everyone from our training group was geared up, we received an introduction to the dual-sport lifestyle.

Initially, I thought it was a joke when our first lesson was not on how to ride in the dirt, but instead how to properly pickup the bike when you fall.  Later in the day, this skill turned out to be very useful.  Taking a spill on your new adventure machine is inevitable and more than a few people wiped out in the first couple of hours.  Starting with basic dirt riding drills on my borrowed BMW R 1200 GS, our training group eventually worked our way up to riding short trails around the facility.

The BMW GS models are immensely powerful, well-balanced, and rugged.  My 1200 GS was even equipped with heated hand grips and ABS.  If you’re coming from a sport bike background like me, this motorcycle will open up another world of riding.  The GS is a go anywhere bike that can take you through the Mojave desert, unpaved fire roads, byways, but can also tear it up in the canyons or even during a trackday at a racetrack.  I have actually seen a guy on a GS that passes sport bikers like they’re standing still on Mulholland Highway in Malibu. Read the rest of this entry →

We talk to creative director Joe Madureira and check out a sexy horse-riding contest!

Darksiders is a new action/adventure title from THQ that we’re pretty excited about. Especially after attending the premiere party in Agoura Hills to check out the game for ourselves. It plays sort of like a cross between “God of War” (which is what I compare all action games to now because I am unimaginative) and “The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction”. In Darksiders, you play as War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Basically, someone started the Armageddon without you, and you’re tasked with killing your way across a post-apocalyptic world to find out who dicked up the master plan and why.

A welcome alternative to the usual spry Little Mac action hero, War is a tank that bashes pissant enemies to mush with his swords and guns and even crushes them under the hooves of his trusty steed, Ruin. Even the bigger enemies feel sort of equal measure to War, which is not to say that they are easy, but rather that you actually feel like you are in a fight as opposed to constantly playing David & Goliath throughout the entire game like many similar titles will force you to do.

We talked to creative designer and comic legend Joe Madureira about his designs for the game and why you should buy tons of copies. It had something to do with making him unimaginably rich, if I remember correctly. While we were there, we also had the good fortune to check out a sexy horse-riding contest! Or more specifically, sexy girls riding a mechanical horse. Not “sexy horses”. That would be weird. Check it out!

Official Darksiders trailer:

We get some hands-on time with Dark Void, and talk to Senior Producer Morgan Gray.

By Jeremy Azevedo

Of all the games scheduled for release early next year, few are as eagerly anticipated as Dark Void. We’ve watched this title evolve over the last couple of years into what is shaping up to be a genuinely unique experience, so it was with great pleasure that we got some play time with the latest build of the game.

The first thing you will notice when you pick up Dark Void is that it is remarkably easy to control, despite the many different operations that you have to manage at any given time. It seems daunting at first, juggling your movement, jetpack, hover abilities, combat, etc. But minutes into it, you’ll wonder why it took someone so long to take the ceiling off the shoot-em-up.

There are so goddamn many ways that you can tackle any given level that it’s almost retarded. You can strafe your enemies from above like a one-man airstrike. Or you can hover over the battlefield tossing grenades, or fly up to a high vantage point and snipe enemies from there. Or you can rip the pilot out of his/her/it’s UFO, hop in and crash that motherf**ker into a crowd of bad guys like some kind of intergalactic Bruce Willis. Or you can get down on the ground and use the excellent cover system to blow your enemies to hell like in Gears of War. You get the impression that there could be an enormous replayability value to Dark Void, if for no other reason than that you aren’t really locked into any one particular method of combat. On some of the vertical combat sequences, for instance, a really good jetpack pilot could conceivably speed run through them and rocket straight to the top. Most people would probably splatter on one of the platforms on the way up but the option is there if you care to risk it.

One way to totally disrespect your opponents is to pinch a loaf on them from above.

Best of all, the camera system is near perfect. I can’t stress the importance of this enough, as it could have really been a deal breaker for the title. I shit you not, the camera in Dark Void is so intuitive to where you are and what you’re doing that you don’t even have to control it with the right thumbstick like in most other games that feature a wide range of movement. This frees your analog sticks up for a myriad of aerial maneuvers, and keeps you focused on steering, which is great. I don’t really know how to explain it, but somehow they managed to find a sweet spot in the perspective of the character and the scaling of the environment that most other titles don’t even approach.

But perhaps it’s better to show you Dark Void than to tell you about it, or at least have someone with more experience do it. Check out the following gameplay walkthrough/interview with Dark Void’s Senior Producer, Morgan Gray. Morgan shows us some of the different approaches to combat, a few of the sweet weapons at your disposal and goes over the story and characters a bit as well. There’s even a little bit of conversation about the movie, so watch for that as well!