Simyard is an online Baseball Manager Simulator that I started messing around with just over a year ago. For the free portion of the game (Park) you have your own team that you manage through the years.  You can try to find more players, or you could release some that you have.  One thing I really enjoy about this game is the community for the most part is pretty nice.  It isn’t really all that big of a game right now, but it’s nice.  The only real downside for me, is the downtime.  But to almost eliminate the downtime, you can purchase a “Stadium Permit” that allows you to have multiple teams, not all in the park but in leagues such as “Major”, “AAA”, “AA”, “A”, “Rookie”.  And you have all of these other teams that you can manage, now I don’t have a “Stadium Permit”, so I don’t know how the other teams work, but I do know that it gives you more teams.  Now to the actual review.

Graphics:

7/10, they are just images but they get the job done.

Gameplay:

7/10, slow but it is really kind of addicting.

Community:

10/10, the community is great, they are very helpful when you are trying to figure stuff out.  The mods do a very good job of keeping the chat under control.

So really this game is a pretty good game, it get a 24/30 (8/10).

Sorry about this being such a short review, But it gets the job done, and that is all for this review.  If you have any suggestions email me at bkatula@project-11.com.  Thanks for reading.

-Brad-

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

By: LucasArts and KROME Studios

I know I haven’t reviewed a game in a while, but I was finishing up playing through this game.  Also I stopped playing this game for 2-3 months after I originally started.  But I’ll just get to the review.

Pros: The game is very fun to play and has decent graphics for the PSP (that is the only version I played I cannot say anything about any other of the platforms it was released on).  In the game you get to pretty much create the “Star Wars” story in your own way and have an impact throughout the game.  You collect these things called “Force Points” as you kill your enemies.  It kind of reminded me of experience from most MMORPGs.  You got to customize your lightsaber and costume, I thought that was pretty cool.

Cons: The story in this game is very short and has a terrible end of the game. (At least on the first time through I don’t know if it is different the second time, you never know).  That was really the only “Con” I noticed.

General Rankings:

Gameplay – Honestly there was a little much loading for my tastes but it didn’t really load to long, it was only a few seconds. 8/10

Story – This was the worst part of the game by far, one of the bottom 10 stories of games that I have ever completed. 2/10

Controls – They weren’t any better or worse than I expected when I first started playing the game. 7/10

Difficulty – Well, it was a little on the easy side, but what can you do about that you can’t make it so difficult that nobody can complete the game.  7/10

Graphics – They were good enough to get the idea of what was going on, and who you were attacking, but the best part is that the graphics in the actual game are the same if not a little bit better than the cutscenes.  8/10

Overall counting Pros and Cons:

This game gets a 8.4/10.

Bonus:

Well there were some other game-modes that I never really got time to play that much of.  Such as “Order 66″ From what I played of that, it is pretty much seeing if you can survive 66 waves of Clone Troopers and Jedi.

Thanks for reading and if there are any suggestions for any Music/Movies/Games that you would like me to review either message me on twitter, @bkdonkeykong or, just send me an email at bkatula@project-11.com

-Brad-

Killswitch Engage – As Daylight Dies

Metalcore

November 21, 2006

Roadrunner Records

Adam Dutkiewicz, Joel Stroetzel

I used to listen to this album non-stop, but then I just kind of slowly stopped, it is one of those on my iPod that if it comes up on shuffle, I will listen to it but I would never choose to just listen to it.

Track by Track:

1. Daylight Dies – 4:05 – This is one of those songs where it is just almost the same throughout, and for this song it worked pretty well. Usually I am not a fan of things like that, but they wrote this song well.  It gets 9/10.
2. This Is Absolution – 3:34 – This song is one of my favorites on the album, it is just very fast paced and just kind of pumps me up.  Good song if you use a music playlist during work-outs.  I think this is on my top 5 songs.  It gets 10/10.
3. The Arms of Sorrow – 3:44 – This one isn’t much of a pump up song, or a average metalcore song. It has more components than the average metalcore band puts into songs.  A lot of clean singing on this one.  It gets 8/10.
4. Unbroken – 3:08 – This is just a really fast paced and really heavy song.  It really doesn’t calm down either so if you aren’t a fan of that, you might not like this song at all.  It gets 8.5/10.
5. My Curse – 4:04 – If you have heard of this band before, it is most likely because you played this song on Guitar Hero III:Legends of Rock.  I think that pretty much ruins songs, when a game like Guitar Hero or Rock Band makes it in their game.  Then you just get people that don’t know about any bands but find out about them through a game.  It is still a decent song so it gets 6.5/10.
6. For You – 4:03 -  Not a bad song, but I’m not really a fan.  It just seems like they have WAY to much going on at once in the introduction.  But if you can make it through that it gets much better.  But they pretty much gave this song a thumbs down by the intro alone.  I usually can’t make it through the first 15 seconds, but when I can I listen to the whole thing.  It gets 7/10
7. Still Beats Your Name – 3:19 – This is another one of my favorite songs on this album, and it is very well written.  Good mix of cleans and screams, and technique is shown in this song throughout.  It gets a 9/10.
8. Eye of the Storm – 3:56 – Another pretty good “work-out song” it just kinda gets your heart going and adrenaline pumping.  But besides that it is still a pretty good song.  It gets 9/10.
9. Break the Silence – 4:32 – This song has one of the coolest intros I have heard in a long time.  But then after that it just isn’t the same caliber.  It quickly turns into a sort of  “chug chug” type of song.  But the mix of styles are pretty good.  The intro and Chorus are probably my favorite parts of this song.  It gets 8/10.
10. Desperate Times – 4:25 – Another pretty heavy song, but this time it is a lot slower paced, just trying to be heavier than the rest of the album, but it isn’t to heavy.  It isn’t like they abandoned all musicianship that they have just to sound heavy.  They still wrote a good song, it isn’t just one of those waste tracks.  It gets 9/10.
11. Reject Yourself – 4:45 – This is my one of my favorite songs of all time, it really jumps out at you with the pace of the song, it is really fast but still skilled. (If you know what I mean, couldn’t think of another way to describe).  But it is just amazing if I could give bonus points, I would but without giving bonus points it gets a perfect 10/10.

    Well that is the whole review, this whole album gets an 8.54 (repeating of course).  For any suggestions for another album that you would like me to write a review for, email me at bk89810@gmail.com.    Thanks  -Brad-

The Roots are a really weird band. I don’t say that because their music is all that different than other rap groups, but because I have never seen anyone say “The Roots suck” (though knowing Brad, he’ll probably comment on this saying just that). There are obviously people out there who just can’t get into the music, but even these people seem to always respect what The Roots can do. I’ve never seen another group (hip-hop or otherwise) that gets this type of treatment. Even the “rap is crap” people don’t hate on The Roots because they’re a full band with live instruments. They’re a really consistent band; even their worst albums aren’t really bad, they’re just “bad for The Roots”.

Fortunately, this streak of consistently good albums has continued with the newly-released “How I Got Over”. Unlike most hip-hop albums, How I Got Over is an album in the truest sense of the word. This isn’t just a dozen singles thrown together in a random order; the songs fit together seamlessly as it transitions from one track to another (occasionally with the help of interludes). That said, individual songs can still stand on their own very well (especially the songs in the second half of the album).

Although How I Got Over comes in at a quick and easy 42 minutes, it still almost feels like two completely different albums. The first five or so songs have a downbeat, almost depressing tone to them. One such example is Dear God 2.0, where The Roots’ Black Thought raps about all the struggles and ugliness in the world over a beat that fits the lyrics very well. About halfway through the album comes the actual How I Got Over song, where Black Thought decides to sing. Thankfully this is the only time he sings on the album; the singing works for this song, but I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to hear an album full of his singing because he doesn’t have a particularly good singing voice. After this point, the songs generally have a more upbeat, catchier feeling to them.

Right after “How I Got Over” and the “DillaTude” interlude comes a barrage of really awesome songs. The first of these is “The Day”, featuring rappers Blu & Phonte and singer Patty Crash. Blu is featured on two songs on this album with “Radio Daze” being  the other track he’s on earlier in the album. Even though he’s only on two songs, he almost steals the show (which is saying a lot considering I think Black Thought is one of the best rappers of all-time). I’ve always liked Blu, but I’m not one of those people who thinks his “Below the Heavens” album with producer Exile was the best album of the last decade. Exile’s production left me underwhelmed, but Blu fits The Roots perfectly. Both of Blu’s verses on this album, especially his verse on “The Day”, are two of my favorite verses I’ve heard from this year.

After “The Day” comes the track I was most skeptical about on this album…”Right On” featuring rapper STS and singer Joanna Newsom. Maybe I’ll lose all credibility with the internet (I’m not entirely sure what that means) for saying this, but I usually can’t stand Joanna Newsom. I can’t finish one of her songs without her voice giving me a headache. Luckily, I had no problems whatsoever with “Right On”. This song made me realize that Joanna Newsom is pretty good if you keep her relegated to the chorus, and the weird contrast of her voice with the rapping of Black Thought and STS works better than I was expecting.

After Joanna Newsom comes John Legend with the songs “Doin It Again” and “The Fire” (though his voice is just sampled on Doin’ It Again). Unlike Joanna Newsom, John Legend seemed like he would be a perfect fit for The Roots and he is just that. “The Fire” is probably the catchiest song on this album. I can’t emphasize enough just how great this stretch of “The Day”, “Right On”, “Doin’ It Again”, and “The Fire” is.

After those tracks comes an interlude followed by “Web 20/20″ and “Hustla” which feel a little out of place. Hustla is really weird, since the main sample is an autotuned baby crying. I’m not joking (I made sure to include the song at the bottom of this review). It’s not bad and it’s not one of those mainstream autotuned songs by the likes of T-Pain…it’s just kinda strange. I wouldn’t have minded if the album ended after “The Fire” to be honest.

Despite this minor complaint, How I Got Over is still a pretty great album. I’ve pretty much had it on repeat since I got it (as I write this, The Roots have 115 plays in the last week on my LastFM — all of those plays are from this album). Right now this is the front-runner for my album of the year…but with Big Boi set to release his awesome-looking album in a couple weeks, How I Got Over’s “front-runner” status may be short-lived.

Final Score: 8.75/10

The Day (featuring Blu, Phonte, and Patty Crash)

Right On (featuring Joanna Newsom & STS)

The Fire (featuring John Legend)

Hustla (featuring STS)

Download the free (DJ-filled) mixtape here.

Look at that absolutely ridiculous mixtape cover. No, I’m not talking about the potentially seizure-inducing colors. I’m talking about the DJs listed at the top who helped mix this tape. There’s not one, not two, but THREE DJs listed. If you download a lot of hip-hop mixtapes, you know that’s a bad thing. The most annoying thing about hip-hop mixtapes are how the DJs sometimes yell over the songs, usually at the beginning or end of a song. With this mixtape, you have three different DJs doing that. And not only that, but all three of them are awful. DJ Scream in particular really lives up to his name. I know some people who say they can’t even listen to this mixtape because of how terrible the screams are.

I’m not one of those people, but the yelling DJs definitely take away from my enjoyment of this mixtape. Without them on it, this is just about perfect. If B.o.B’s album was more like this, it would’ve been a classic. Unfortunately, most copies of this mixtape that you’ll find floating around the internet have all the DJs on it.

Even saying all of that, I’d still highly recommend getting this mixtape even with the DJs on it; you get used to it after a little while. The music itself is outstanding, and it’s almost completely a B.o.B production — he produced most of the beats (though he obviously did sample a lot of older stuff as you can see in the video above), he raps and sings, and he actually plays some of the instruments you hear. And for the record, he can actually play instruments unlike Lil’ Wayne who only thinks he can.

If you were introduced to B.o.B through songs like Nothin’ on You and Airplanes, you might be a little surprised at what this mixtape has in store — all you really have to do is look at the cover of the mixtape to know it’ll be vastly different from his radio hits. This song would never exist on his album.  It’s not like the labels completely changed B.o.B for his album, they just made his sound a lot poppier and radio-friendly — when you listen to this mixtape, you can tell that B.o.B is still a really talented and intelligent lyricist. In fact, his lyricism here is better than on his album — there are no terrible lines on this mixtape like “You the whole package, plus you pay your taxes”.

Something I touched on a little bit earlier was how I mentioned that B.o.B sings  — and as you can tell from the video above, the dude can actually sing (which a lot of people probably don’t know since his two huge hits have guest hooks). This isn’t Royce da 5′9″ who does some really bizarre singing. In fact, I think B.o.B is the best rapper out there today when it comes to doing a chorus. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony come to mind, but lately they’ve been really hit-or-miss.

There’s enough variation from song to song to keep you interested the whole way through and the mixtape’s over before you know it. On one end of the spectrum there’s the simplistic Generation Lost that allows the audience to just concentrate on B.o.B’s words, and then on the other hand you have songs like Service With a Smile. B.o.B has everything covered.

There’s a place for B.o.B’s album, and for poppy rap his album was pretty good. To be honest, I think Airplanes from his album is better than anything on this mixtape (but I’m a little biased and think Airplanes is the best thing ever made by human beings). But as a whole, there’s really no doubt in my mind that this mixtape is so much more consistent than his album and superior in almost every way.

Score for No-DJ version: 10/10
Score for DJ-filled version: 9/10

]]> http://www.project-11.com/?feed=rss2&p=730 0 http://www.project-11.com/?p=705 http://www.project-11.com/?p=705#comments Mon, 14 Jun 2010 23:48:49 +0000 Jeff http://www.project-11.com/?p=705

There are going to be spoilers in this review. A non-spoiler review can’t really get that in-depth.

Earlier today, I wrote a review for Twilight. Twilight is a bad movie. Little did I know when I was writing that review that I was going to watch an even worse movie today. Twilight, for all its faults, is still watchable even though some parts are laughably bad. I honestly believe that Signs is the most unwatchable movie ever made. Signs makes Twilight look like The Godfather. At Guantanamo Bay, they probably show the prisoners DVD copies of Signs. This movie has probably made me more (unintentionally) angry than anything else I have ever seen.

Let me begin with the characters. Mel Gibson plays a boring version of Mel Gibson who used to be a preacher but gave it up after he lost his faith after losing his wife. Joaquin Phoenix plays a former baseball player who at the beginning of the film looks like he’ll be the “strong” member of the family but about halfway through he turns into the biggest crybaby ever. Abigail Breslin plays Mel Gibson’s daughter. She does an okay job, I had no real problems with her. But then there’s her brother, played by Rory Culkin. Oh my god. This kid is, no exaggeration, the worst character in the history of anything. I’m not just talking about movies — plays, books, video games, you name it. There’s no way there has ever been a character worse than Morgan Hess. He’s one of those “know-it-all” kids who acts NOTHING like any kid his age has ever acted taken to unbelievably annoying levels.

Anyway, aliens come to earth. Surprise. The whole first half of the movie is spent in a way like you’d expect, with a lot of people going “WTF aliens? Seriously there are aliens?!”…nothing really happens in the first half of the film besides that. The whole first half of the movie you’re basically thinking “well this is just setting things up; the second half is probably going to be pretty cool with the aliens attacking and whatnot”. No, the second half of the movie is the stupidest second half with the worst twist ever.

Here’s the twist. Like I’ve been saying, there are aliens invading Earth; they’ve traveled across the universe to a planet like Earth. Even though they have the mental ability to do that, these are the STUPIDEST aliens ever. Water kills them. So naturally, they decided to come to a planet where 70% of the planet is WATER. A planet where there is water vapor in the atmosphere all the time (plot hole here — the water vapor does nothing to them apparently). That’s fine, but of course the aliens wear space suits right? Nope, they just decide to run around without anything protecting their bodies. These aliens are morons. By the way, the aliens eat humans. Humans are over 90% water. And how were they planning to stay on a planet where RAIN happens? Plot holes: the movie.

The way they figure out the water thing is stupid too. Abigail Breslin’s character just happens to drink water all the time but  she basically just takes a sip out of a glass before starting another glass of water. She says it’s because the first glass of water is “contaminated”. Of course, these glasses of water are just randomly scattered throughout the house and never picked up or anything. So by pure luck, a glass of water gets knocked over and spills onto an alien. I think the chances of that scenario happening are 999,999,999,999,999 to 1. Basically this movie is telling you that miracles are all around you. *headdesk*

It’s not like Signs can hang its hat on being entertaining either — it isn’t. It’s a really slow-paced movie where you’re just hoping something happens but you feel really underwhelmed by the time the whole thing is over. By the way, Mel Gibson gets his faith back at the end of the movie because of a series of flashbacks and stuff involving his wife. Hooray. I also forgot to mention that there’s this weird attempt at comedy thrown in at really strange times throughout the film that seems forced and is never funny.

I started this review talking about Twilight. At least Twilight knows that it isn’t a deep movie. Signs on the other hand acts like it’s the best movie ever made when in reality it’s one of the worst.

0.0/10

Instead of doing a typical review for Twilight, I’m just going to list the pros and the cons of the movie.

Pros:

Scenery. The scenes shot in or near the forest look pretty cool. Everything in this movie has a bluish-green look to it that is somewhat unique.

Music, I guess. Neither of these songs are actually in the movie, but it’s thanks to Twilight that these Paramore and Lupe Fiasco songs exist. I guess that’s a plus if you’re a fan of Paramore and Lupe Fiasco (like I am). I realize the Lupe Fiasco song is from the second movie’s soundtrack, but I don’t care. The chances I ever watch and review that movie are slim to none.

…now on to the cons.

Cons:

Kristen Stewart. Before this, I’ve seen two movies with Kristen Stewart in it — Into the Wild and Adventureland. She played a supporting character in Into the Wild and I had no problems with her in that film. I’m not a big fan of Adventureland, but Kristen Stewart wasn’t my problem with that movie either. I’m not just a Kristen Stewart hater, though after watching Twilight it’s really hard not to be one. Her character is probably the most boring protagonist in the history of the universe. She is incredibly dull and nothing she does in this movie makes you think “hey I want to root for this person”.

The possibly even-worse Robert Pattinson. His character of Edward is supposed to be likable in this movie and not creepy, right? Then why is he the creepiest person in the world? Why does he sneak into Bella’s house just to watch her sleep? I’m not making that up. Combine stuff like that with his really weird staring throughout almost all of the movie and you have a guy who should probably be seeing Chris Hansen.

Those are the best two characters in the movie. Seriously, there is no other character in this movie who is developed at all. Jacob the werewolf is here, but  nothing really happens with him in this movie. There are some more vampires, but basically they’re just vampires. There’s absolutely no actual character development for them. Also, what in the world is Anna Kendrick doing in Twilight? Was she blackmailed into doing this?

Speaking of prom…I think the main storyline of this movie is “who’s going to go to prom with who?!!”. They made a ****ing vampire movie with that as the main storyline. There’s essentially no plot in the first 90 minutes, it’s all just staring and a little bit of dialogue. Eventually some evil vampires are thrown in near the end but there’s really no tension because you know there are going to be more Twilight movies after this. Spoiler: the main character is not going to die in the first movie of a series.

It’s a long two hours. This could have been done in 20 minutes. That’s really not an exaggeration. I think half of this movie is just Edward and Bella staring at each other with the look on Edward’s face saying “I am going to kill you”. That type of thing is what attracts Bella to Edward, I guess. When people actually DO speak, it’s pointless conversation about the weather, the length of Bella’s hair, or seat belts.

There’s some unrealistic stuff here. Wait, that’s the stupidest complaint in the world right? This is a vampire movie. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about things like some random guy deciding to go 60 miles per hour in a parking lot. The dude loses control and eventually Edward ends up punching his van so the van doesn’t crush Bella to death, which would have been one of the most satisfying endings I’ve ever seen. Edward saving Bella’s life is what made Edward a villain to me. Another example of the unrealistic-ness is when Bella freaks the **** out because Edward hasn’t been in school for like 3 days. Nobody does that, especially since she does this right in the beginning of the movie when she doesn’t really know who Edward is.

The CGI is awful. There are times where CGI is used to show something like how fast the vampires are. The CGI for these scenes is bad. District 9 cost $30 million to make, Twilight cost $37 million. Anyone who says District 9 has worse CGI than Twilight is lying. It’s not even CLOSE.

Sparkling. Come on, you didn’t think you were going to get through a negative Twilight review without this being mentioned right? The vampires literally sparkle when they go out in light. They aren’t just shiny; it looks like someone shot them with a glitter-filled bazooka. It looks ridiculous.

Final score: 2/10. Apparently, the second Twilight movie is even worse than this. That’s a depressing thought. On the bright side, the RiffTrax for this is hilarious.

Take the lower-level mobsters of Goodfellas, add in a storyline similar to The Departed, and replace Martin Scorsese with a director who isn’t quite as good. In a nutshell, that is Donnie Brasco.

Donnie Brasco is the assumed name of FBI agent Joe Pistone (Johnny Depp) as he infiltrates an Italian gang in New York City. Chances are, you’ve seen a movie with that storyline before — most likely The Departed (though that film and the film it’s based off of, Infernal Affairs, are a little more complicated than that).  This is usually the part where I say something like “but what sets THIS movie apart from the rest is…”. For Donnie Brasco I’m not going to do that, because at no point in this film was I thinking “This is better than The Godfather, Goodfellas, or The Departed”. That said, I still found myself really enjoying this and I’m going to have to give this higher than an average score.

The film follows Pistone/Brasco as he joins a crime family with the help of Al Pacino’s character. Pacino has been with the mob forever, but he’s consistently seen others rise through the ranks while he was still stuck at the bottom of the food chain. This is where the similarities with Goodfellas come in; this film focuses more on the lower-level mobsters (who are always looking over their shoulder paranoid of being taking out) than the crime bosses.

Donnie Brasco was made back when Johnny Depp was still a normal person; this is probably my 4th favorite performance of his behind Ed Wood, Raoul Duke, and Jack Sparrow…that doesn’t sound like much, but Depp did do an excellent job in this film. Pacino aldo holds up his end of the bargain very well as the grumpy old guy who is getting more and more frustrated with the way things are ran.

This is one of the more intense gangster films I’ve seen; however, to create tension the director does some things that don’t make a whole lot of sense. I don’t want to spoil anything, but there are moments throughout where something happens to deliberately mislead the audience and if you go back and think about what just happened it doesn’t really add up. Still, the tension in this film makes you pretty uneasy and I appreciated this despite the flaws. I will say, however, that after all the tension throughout the film the ending ultimately doesn’t feel as satisfying as I hoped.

Like I said earlier, this probably won’t be at your “favorite movie ever” list. It’s a serviceable gangster movie that’s elevated a little higher thanks to great performances by Johnny Depp and Al Pacino. 8.5/10

Eminem hasn’t really released anything worth listening to for at least 5 years, but there was some hope heading into Recovery. His verses on songs after 2009’s Relapse (which was an album I hated) have shown a lot of promise — for example, there’s B.o.B’s Airplanes 2 and Drake’s Forever. His Airplanes 2 verse is good, but on Forever he completely embarrassed the other three rappers on that song. Then Not Afraid (his first single from Recovery) was released and it seemed like Eminem had the right mindset, admitting on that song that Relapse wasn’t a great album and that he overused that horrible accent. You rarely ever hear a rapper admit that some of his stuff wasn’t up to par.

Still, I was skeptical. The second song Eminem released from Recovery was Won’t Back Down, featuring Pink — I didn’t think it was completely awful, but I thought that if the rest of the album was like that the album would be really mediocre. Not Afraid was pretty good, but if that’s one of the best songs on this album then there’s gonna be a huge problem.

So was this another disappointment by Eminem or did he manage to actually release something good? Well…

Track-by-track:

1. Cold Wind Blows - This song is basically here to tell you, “Look. This is how Recovery’s going to be. It’s going to be the angry, no-accent Eminem.” This is a good start; it makes the rest of the album seem promising. 9/10
2. Talkin’ 2 Myself (featuring Kobe) – This is a pretty personal song where Eminem admits a lot of things; he contemplated dissing Lil’ Wayne and Kanye, but then concedes that he was probably just jealous of the attention they were getting. This is also the first of a few admissions that Relapse sucked — “This time around it’s different, them last two albums didn’t count; Encore I was on drugs, Relapse I was flushing ‘em out”. This works really well as a song too; Eminem’s flow is really good, the beat is good, and the hook is good. 10/10
   Eminem – Talkin’ 2 Myself
3. On Fire – This starts a string of a few songs where the album begins to take a dive. While this is better than most of Relapse, there’s still something here that’s missing.  7/10
4. Won’t Back Down (featuring Pink) – Like I said above, this isn’t awful but it’s not that good either. The hook is only okay, I’m not a fan of the beat, and some of the lyrics are pretty stupid. 5/10
5. WTP – This feels like a leftover from Relapse. I’m not a fan. It doesn’t fit with the rest of this album. 2/10
6. Going Through Changes – This is where the album starts to recover, no pun intended. From this song on, there’s not another bad one on the album. 9/10
   
7. Not Afraid – Good as the lead single, but it feels a little different from the rest of Recovery. 8/10
   
8. Seduction – This isn’t bad by any means, but it gets overshadowed by what’s about to come. 8/10
9. No Love (featuring Lil’ Wayne) – Lil’ Wayne is (somewhat surprisingly) the only rapper to have a guest verse on this album — all of the other features are doing hooks. I was a little disappointed to see this since there have been rumors of Royce da 5′9″ being on this album for the past year. Anyway, about this song — this is ridiculously good, even Lil’ Wayne’s part. The beat is probably the best one on the album (that sample is amazing). So yeah, easy 10/10.
   Eminem – No Love
10. Space Bound – This album has been getting some flak on the internet for not having very good choruses, but if you ask me just about all of them own that don’t have Eminem singing (see song #16 for the worst example). This is one of those hooks that own. Like the most of the album, the rest of the song is good too.  10/10
11. Cinderella Man – More hate for Relapse on this track, with Em saying it’s in the trash. This has a bit of a different beat (produced by Eminem himself), and I really like it. Eminem still hasn’t really changed his song structure throughout the whole album (every song has basically been verse-chorus-verse-chorus-etc), but it’s been good enough for me. This album doesn’t feel like a chore to get through. 10/10
12. 25 to Life - This is a very similar song to Common’s I Used to Love H.E.R. — Common’s song is better, but it’s unfair to compare almost anything to that song. This is still very, very good. 10/10
13. So Bad – This unfortunately was sandwiched between so much awesome that I just think of this as “the song that’s right before the best two songs on the album”. Still good, but some other tracks on here blow this away…which is a little strange since you’d be expecting a Dr Dre-produced song like this to be one of the best on the album. 8/10
14. Almost Famous – This is definitely my favorite song on the album, and it’s one of the five best Eminem has ever done. The beat owns, Eminem’s rapping is better than any other song on the album, and the chorus is awesome. 10/10
    Eminem – Almost Famous
15. Love the Way You Lie (featuring Rihanna) – WIN. This reminds me a lot of B.o.B’s Airplanes. Anything that reminds me of Airplanes is good. This should be the next single. 10/10
    Eminem – Love The Way You Lie
16. You’re Never Over – Eminem’s singing is almost laughably bad, but his verses here aren’t. He probably should have had someone else sing the chorus. 6/10

*This is a preliminary review. There are rumors that the final CD will come with a code to download 12 more tracks essentially making this a double album. Some of the rumored tracks include a collaboration with Slaughterhouse and a collaboration with Hayley Williams of Paramore (which isn’t Airplanes 2). If there’s a god, at least those two songs exist somehow. The rumor has now been proven fake, and I have an excuse to use my “Proof that god doesnt exist” tag again.

This album is a complete 180 from the awful Relapse (except for Beautiful and Underground). Once you get through some rough patches in the beginning, the second half of this album is great song after great song. This is my third favorite Eminem album after The Eminem Show and The Mashall Mathers LP, both of which are classics. Eminem fans have been waiting 8 years for an album this good. 132/160 ~ 82.5%. I’ll bump that up a little bit because of how pleasantly surprised I was at this. I still have to finish my review for Reflection Eternal’s new album (and I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to give it) so I don’t know if this is my favorite album this year…but it’s definitely in my top 2. 8.5/10