Rising Down, GTA IV
The 10th studio album, Rising Down, by the Grammy-winning group The Roots was released on Monday (in the UK).
I’ve only had a chance to listen to it through a couple of times (I’ll explain further on in this post why), but I really like it and find the addition of many more guest appearances (from artists such as Malik B and Dice Raw [previously part of The Roots] as well as Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common, Truck North, Wale and Chrisette Michele to name a few) to be quite refreshing as usually The Roots stray away from heavy use of guest appearances. Not that these appearances are carrying the record at all. They do in fact compliment the band rather well.
I’m a big fan of The Roots, and can’t wait for them to tour the UK again so I can see their new live show. I saw them twice last year (well, December 2006 and July 2007) and absolutely loved their live show. They are simply amazing live. Fact.
Now, the reason I haven’t had a chance to listen to the album too much is because on Tuesday, Grand Theft Auto IV was released. I’ve been a big fan of the GTA games since GTA 3 was released. I had played the original two GTA games casually, but GTA 3 was a really standout game. GTA IV is the next major iteration of the GTA series (Vice City and San Andreas were more like expansion packs for GTA 3), moving to the next-gen consoles (well, they are now current-gen, although the Wii and PS2 have a huge install base and following).
The game is fantastic. The storyline so far is great, with the acting being top notch. All the humour is still there and I constantly find myself laughing about comments here and there, both in the cinematic scenes and just by what people say on the streets or comments on the radio. The game has a huge amount of tiny details that make the game so good, and it looks stunning considering the size and detail found within Liberty City [a GTA version of New York].
Unfortunately, my exams are starting next week, so rather than play the game all day and just generally become a hermit only seeing the light of day for food and other necessities, I’m having to limit myself to playing in the evenings when I’m all revised out!
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