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!

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!

We interview Capcom’s Seth Killian before whupping him at his own game!

By Jeremy Azevedo

If you’re a Wii owner, you probably feel just a little bit left out after watching SFIV, Super SFII Turbo HD Remix and Marvel Vs Capcom 2 all pass you by without so much as a wayward glance in your direction.

But clearly, Capcom hasn’t forgotten about you, as Capcom Vs Tatsunoko: Ultimate All-Stars is not only one of the freshest 2D fighters in ages, but is also exclusive to the Wii.

We talked to Capcom’s Community Manager Seth Killian about the decision to develop for the Wii, the challenges of importing the Tatsunoko licenses to the States and circumventing the infamous “friend code” to streamline online play. Check it out!

After chatting with Seth for a bit we set down to a few matches of Capcom Vs Tatsunoko against the man himself. At first glance, it appears as if there are a few too many Gatchamaen/Yattermen/Tekkamen/whatever for the game’s own good, but as it turns out, they all actually play incredibly different. Fans of Marvel Vs Capcom 2 will feel most at home with the speed and flashiness of the gameplay. Combos do billions of points of damage, super moves fill the entire screen and there are enough flashing lights to give a Pokémon a seizure. And yet, I didn’t notice a hint of slowdown or jagginess. Now I’m aware that the Wii isn’t necessarily designed for hardcore graphics rendering, but when it comes to top shelf 2D animation like this, it kills.

All of the characters were a lot of fun in their own way. Frank West in particular was a blast to play as, summoning hordes of hungry zombies to sick on my opponent (who I’m pretty sure was half letting me win/half getting his ass whupped by me fair and square). His timing is a little weird but his super combos are pretty rad. My favorite involves slamming a Servbot mask over your opponent’s head and exploding them ass-over-teakettle. The Street Fighter characters play as expected, but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by Viewtiful Joe and Kaijin No Soki from Onimusha 4. They’re great new additions with really unique play styles.

On the Tatsunoko side, I’d have to go with Yatterman or Karas as my favorite. Yaterman is both agile and strong, with some really psychedelic super combos. One of them was like a giant robot dog that barfs up exploding lizards or something like that. It’s weird. Karas is just a straight badass, type character, sort of Tatsunoko’s “Akuma” if I had to compare him to someone. Maybe best of all, though, is the titanic Gold Lightan. He’s so big that you don’t get to have a partner when you use him, and it requires the entire stage to scale to his size. It almost seems unfair how big of a size and reach advantage he has, but somehow the balance remains pretty even, especially when you’ve got two other characters teaming up against him.

It also bears mentioning that we were playing on an official-looking arcade style joystick, which worked wonderfully. I’m quite a bit more used to standard controllers by now (as are most people), but there’s something to be said for a joystick setup when it comes to fighting games. When you pick up a copy of Capcom Vs Tatsunoko: Ultimate All-Stars next year (as you very well should), you should probably also consider getting a joystick to go along with it. You’ll be glad you did. Fewer blisters.

Capcom Vs Tatsunoko: Ultimate All-Stars will be available for the Wii on January 26^th, 2010.

We talk to The Dead Pixel, Matt and Mr. Sark at the Inside Gaming Awards.

“Inisde Gaming” is one of the most popular online video game shows, despite not employing a single hot chick with huge knocks that pretends to like video games so that dorks at home can have something to fap to. We were at their first annual award show earlier this month, where we talked to some of Machinima’s most popular stars, Adam Kovic (The Dead Pixel), Matt Dannevik and Scott Robinson (Mr. Sark). Check out the video, where we discuss some of the games that won awards, those that didn’t, what games to look forward to next year and why The Dead Pixel has to wear a mask in public!

We talk to the director and star of our favorite Nintendo-themed online series.

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

Because our studio is still hopelessly contaminated after our disastrous attempt to create a real, live, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, we’ll be talking to famous musicians, authors, comedians, “Avatar” fan fiction writers, actors, sentient Ouija boards and professional hand models in the one place that everyone can agree on: The Taco Stand!

Today we’ll be talking to Sandeep Parikh and Tony Janning, the director and star of “The Legend of Neil“, the immensely popular web series currently running on Atom.com. (You may also recognize Sandeep as Zaboo from “The Guild”, also starring Felicia Day). We talked to the guys about The Legend of Zelda, auto-erotic asphyxiation, how to write a good theme song, fairy sex and, of course, tacos. Check it all out right here, exclusively on CraveOnline!

Hey assholes! You can help Legend of Neil win at this year’s Streamys! The Streamys are kind of like the Oscars of web video, if the Oscars were held in a high school cafeteria with a cash bar. So really, they’re more like the Golden Globes. But that doesn’t make it any less prestigious! Visit Sandeep’s site, EffinFunny.com for a listing of nominations, and then head over to Streamys.org to make your submissions!

Watch Legend of Neil, Season 1

Watch Legend of Neil, Season 2