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RYAN STEWART

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Record reviewers

Meat Puppets, Dinosaur Jr, and Built to Spill at the Orpheum, September 27, 2008
The problem with these “play your most revered album in full” shows that everyone from Public Enemy to Liz Phair is doing lately is that the correct answer is not always a no-brainer.

By: RYAN STEWART | October 01, 2008

Sith happens

No new lease on life for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Many people regard anything produced in the past 15 years or so bearing the Star Wars brand as total garbage, and rightly so.

By: RYAN STEWART | September 23, 2008

I love the ’90s

The CW’s new 90210
When the CW did not send out screeners of the pilot of 90210 some observers took that as a bad sign.

By: RYAN STEWART | September 16, 2008

Science? Or fiction?

J.J. Abrams’s oddball Fringe
“It’s not an exact science,” Dr. Bishop says. His wise-ass son Peter interjects: “It’s not even science.”

By: RYAN STEWART | September 08, 2008

Fantastic voyage

A classic RPG gets made over
This is a nostalgia trip worth taking.

By: RYAN STEWART | August 04, 2008

David Vandervelde

Waiting for the Sunrise | Secretly Canadian
Vandervelde's latest takes the familiar Byrds-meets-the-Band sound and bakes it in the sun till golden.

By: RYAN STEWART | July 29, 2008

Civil service

Sid Meier brings Revolution to the people
The upshot of all this building and scheming is that you can turn Paris into an Aztec city and settle Fyodor Dostoevsky in Tenochtitlan.

By: RYAN STEWART | July 21, 2008

Unkindest cuts

Ninja Gaiden suffers a lethal blow
Some advice for game developers: just because the Nintendo DS has a microphone does not mean you have to shoehorn the mic into every DS game.

By: RYAN STEWART | April 22, 2008

Black Mountain

In the Future | Jagjaguwar
The band’s sound comes together best on the opening track, “Stormy High,” which, rather than inspiring you to space out, pulls you out of your seat with its relentless monster garage riffage.

By: RYAN STEWART | April 08, 2008

Odyssey of the mind

A Lost art resurfaces on the 360
If this current generation of gaming lacks anything, it’s traditional role-playing games.

By: RYAN STEWART | February 25, 2008

Rock Band

Supplementing Harmonix's 58-song set list
Would more Britpop be too much to ask?

By: RYAN STEWART | February 12, 2008

Legally previewed

A look at 2008's anticipated releases
Here’s a look at some of January and February’s more anticipated releases and their legally available free previews.

By: RYAN STEWART | December 31, 2007

In a bit of a jam

The follow-up to video-game smash Guitar Hero lets everybody play — even the weakest link
To suck at an electronic endeavor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, of all places, is analogous to sucking at, say, making soup at cooking school.

By: RYAN STEWART | November 14, 2007

Strummer vacation

Guitar Hero 3 is on its own
The first two installments of the enormously popular Guitar Hero franchise were designed and developed by Harmonix, a Cambridge-based company famous for employing a horde of musicians.

By: RYAN STEWART | November 06, 2007

Out of the dark

Marissa Nadler breaks into Boston
Needham native Marissa Nadler got her start as a singer-songwriter.

By: RYAN STEWART | October 16, 2007

Phantom tollbooth

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass proves worth the wait
Was this going to be yet another instance of the Nintendo folks driving away their core audience in favor of the “casual gamers” market they covet so much?

By: RYAN STEWART | October 15, 2007

Pigpile

Yet another Madden
With its virtual monopoly on video-game football in place, the Madden franchise has become less essential with each successive iteration.

By: RYAN STEWART | September 04, 2007