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The Game Awards 2024

Game Awards 2024 Winners Game of the Year: Astro Bot Players' Voice: Black Myth: Wukong Best Action Game: Black Myth: Wukong Best Performance: Melina Juergens as Senua – Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Best Family Game: Astro Bot Best Fighting Game: Tekken 8 Best Narrative: Metaphor: ReFantazio Best Art Direction: Metaphor: ReFantazio Best Role Playing Game: Metaphor: ReFantazio Best Multiplayer: Helldivers II Best Community Support: Baldur's Gate 3 Most Anticipated Game: Grand Theft Auto VI Best Game Direction: Astro Bot Best Debut Indie Game: Balatro Best Sim / Strategy Game: Frostpunk 2 Best Sports / Racing Game: EA Sports FC 25 Best Ongoing Game: Helldivers II Best Adaptation: Fallout Best Score and Music : Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Best Mobile Game: Balatro Best Independent Game : Balatro Best Audio Design: Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Best VR / AR Game: Batman: Arkham Shadow Games for Impact : Neva Innovation in Accessibility: Prince of Persia Best Esports Game: League of Legends Best Esports Athlete: Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok Best Esports Team: T1 (League of Legends) Content Creator of the Year: CaseOh Global Gaming Citizens: Laura Carter Game Changer: Amir Satvat Read More Game Awards I normally don’t do live streams, but when I got home from work today, YouTube was heavily promoting the livestream of The Game Awards (happening at exactly the time I turned on my computer). … Twenty One Pilots Columbus, OH duo Twenty One Pilots arrived in downtown Kansas City at the T-Mobile Center, for their latest stop on The Icy Tour- what is very likely the most entertaining and energetic arena concert of the year. … Snoop Dogg On the 20th Anniversary of Snoop Doggy Dog's debut album Doggystyle, Engine Room Recordings released their tribute to the man with Doggystyle Restyled: A Tribute To Snoop Dogg, which came out . ....

The biggest video game award show, The Game Award, is airing/livestreaming right now with over 1 million watching the main stream. I’m very excited about this, because this is the 10th Anniversary of the show (which started in 2014 by Geoff Keighley). The show is broadcast live from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

Troy Baker at Twin Cities Con (09 Nov 2024)

They spared no expenses. Before the actual show, there was actually “an opening act” from Sydnee Goodman, a 30-minute showcasing some video game trailers and handed out some awards. Then, in the first few minutes of the actual show, they had Troy Baker (who we just saw in person at Twin Cities Con 2024) and Bethesda’s Todd Howard, with surprise guest Indiana Jones himself, Harrison Ford, presenting Best Performance.

Then we got a cinematic of the new The Witcher game, featuring an older Ciri. This looks incredible! As far as I know, this is the first time we’re seeing any glimpse of The Witcher IV, the sequel to the beloved Witcher III: The Wild Hunt.

No surprise, but the biggest action game of the year, Black Myth: Wukong, won the Action Game Award. There were advertisements for my favorite early access game Path of Exile 2 and forthcoming Borderlands game.

The cool thing about this year is that it seems the show is allowing creators to say more. It seems there are less sketches and jokes, leaving more time for the creators to speak more.

Twenty One Pilots, featuring D4VD and Royal + The Serpent, were the first musical guest, paying tribute to the steampunk action-adventure television series Arcane series. The medley features Royal & the Serpent starting with “Wasteland”, then D4VD singing “Remember Me”, and finally Twenty One Pilot performing “The Line.”

This followed by an appearance by Hideo Kojima, who is working on Death Stranding 2, as well as a live adaptation of Death Stranding from my favorite movie studio, A24. He introduced the Best Game Direction award… which Astro Bot won. I’m surprised at their second award, so I will have to check out the game soon.

More surprises: a new Turok game in the works. I can’t say I am a fan of the original game, but I do love that it’s based on a comic book, so the Turok: Origins game is now on my radar.

Best Adaptation went to Fallout (as I would have picked it). If they had announced Arcane, I wouldn’t be surprised, as that is a solid show. They made the right decision, Fallout was a great series.

Snoop Dogg performed a brand-new song, but towards the end he threw in some lyrics from his big hit song “Gin and Tonic”.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth won the Best Score/Music, and the creator mentioned that the game will come to PC.

Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul appearance was a surprise. I guess he actually stars in a video game called Dispatch.

It looks like the biggest winner of the night is Metaphor: ReFantazio, who won three major awards: RPG, Narrative, and Art.

Before Game of the Year was revealed, the showed a cinematic of Intergalactic by Naughty Dog (the creator of Last of Us).

Larian Studio’s head Swen Vincke (and winner of last year’s Game of the Year for Baldur’s Gate 3) was the presenter of the GOTY for the Game Awards.

Game of the Year went to Astro Bot, which was an absolute surprise to everyone.

Royal + The Serpent at Game Awards (12 Dec 2024)

Yours,

Weekend Gamer
[email protected]

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vu ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com

Weekend Gamer: 2024 is here!

Read More Epic Games It’s that time of the year. Epic Games is doing their annual 12 Days of Christmas giveaway… well, it’s more like 15 days of Christmas. Already, I’m very happy to now own Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role-Playing Game …

Epic Games
epicgames.com

The amazing Epic Games’s Christmas Game Giveaway is ending. As the previous years would have it, the two big game giveaway happens on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This year that honor goes to Ghostwire: Tokyo and The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition… so if you only have to grab a few games, those are the big two.

Based on previous years, the last day of the giveaway is usually a real banger too. In 2021 we got all three Square Enix’s Tomb Raider games and in 2022 we got two games, Dishonored - Definitive Edition and Eximius: Seize the Frontline.

As for predictions, for their last day on January 3, 2024, it’s anyone’s guess… but as rumors will have it, the last two games will be A Plague Tale: Innocence and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.

That’s great news… even though I already own both games on another platform. It might be nice to get them on Epic now.

So far, here’s what we got for Epic Games’ Giveaway 2023:

Kickoff Special: Destiny 2: Legacy Collection (2023)

12/20 DNF Duel

12/21 Melvor Idle

12/22 Art of Rally

12/23 Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition

12/24 Ghostwire: Tokyo

12/25 The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition

12/26 Human Resource Machine

12/27 Cursed to Golf

12/28 Cat Quest

12/29 Snakebird Complete

12/30 Saints Row

12/31 Shadowrunner

01/01 Escape Academy

01/02 20 Minutes Till Dawn

01/03 A Plague Tale: Innocence

01/04 Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy

Read More Steam As usual, the biggest event is Steam with their annual Autumn Sale (aka Black Friday sale). All the major triple A games released last year at full price (Street Fighter 6, Starfield) are discounted to 20% which isn’t great in my opinion… ....

Steam
steampowered.com

The 2023 Steam Awards winners have been announced. It looks like, once again, Baldur’s Gate 3 wins big … taking Game of the Year and Outstanding Story-Rich Game Award.

Game of the Year Award: Baldur’s Gate 3

VR Game of the Year Award: Labyrinthine

Labor of Love Award: Red Dead Redemption

Best Game on Steam Deck Award: Hogarts Legacy

Better With Friends Award: Lethal Company

Outstanding Visual Style Award: Atomic Heart

Most Innovative Gameplay Award: Starfield

Best Game You Suck At Award: Sifu

Best Soundtrack Award: Last of Us Part 1

Outstanding Story-Rich Game Award: Baldur’s Gate 3

Sit Back and Relax Award: Dave the Diver

Looking at the list of winners, I’ll have to admit, I haven’t played any 2023 games, except for Baldur’s Gate 3 and Starfield (which I did not love). I’m not sure why Red Dead Redemption or Last of Us Part 1 are on the list, because these are old games. I suppose if they were new to Steam, that could qualify them… but personally speaking, I do not believe they should have won for the year 2023.

You noticed a game that didn’t win, but was released last year? Diablo IV. Yeah, I was super excited for the game… until I played it and it sort of sucked. You see the problem is that the monsters scales with you as you level up. Meaning if you’re at level 20, the monsters are also at level 20… so it’s meaningless to level up. I want to feel powerful when I go back to Act 1, not struggling to fight a cockroach. Whoever made this scaling decision, you suck. There are no options to turn it off either, you’re just forced to play it this way.

On a bright note, looking forward to 2024, I will try to get into the Path of Exile 2 … even if it means paying to get in (this is a free game).

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vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com

The Game Awards 2023

Winners Game of the Year > Baldur’s Gate 3 Best Adaptation > The Last of Us Mobile Game > Honkai: Star Rail Ongoing Game > Cyberpunk 2077 Community Support > Baldur's Gate 3 Anticipated Game > Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Independent Game > Sea of Stars ESports Game > Valorant Narrative > Alan Wake 2 Content Creator of the Year > Ironmouse Action Game > ARMORED CORE™ VI FIRES OF RUBICON™ ESports Player > Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok Art Direction > Alan Wake 2 Family Game > Super Mario Bros. Wonder Games for Impact > Tchia Audio Design > Hi-Fi Rush Fighting Game > Street Fighter 6 Performance > Neil Newbon VR Game > Resident Evil Village VR Mode Debut Indie Game > Cocoon Innovation in Accessibility > Forza Motorsport Action/Adventure Game > The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom RPG > Baldur's Gate 3 SIM/Strategy Game > Pikmin 4 Multiplayer Game > Baldur's Gate 3 Esports Coach > Christine “potter” Chi Esports Event > 2023 League of Legends World Championship Esports Team > JD Gaming Players' Voice > Baldur's Gate 3 Read More Games Can you believe it? Baldur’s Gate 3 is out now on the PC. I paid full price ($60) for this game in Oct 2020, and have played a demo or early access of the game. I maxed out my character, and have patiently waited for the full … Fallout Fallout 3. Obviously, I'm still playing the game. At one point in the game, you have to go into Vault 112's virtual environment and it's seriously straight out of the Twilight Zone. You need a high Charisma or Speech skill …

I normally don’t do live streams, but when I got home from work today, YouTube was heavily promoting the livestream of The Game Awards (happening at exactly the time I turned on my computer).

Since I got a really nice Alienware OLED monitor, and I just picked up a Vizio M-Series All-In-One 2.1 Sound Bar (the monitor didn’t come with built in speakers)… I thought, what the hey, let’s play the live stream and see how the playback and audio sounds.

As you would expect, watching the live stream is just like watching an HD live television over the internet. Since it’s on my computer, at some point, I had the video take up 1/3 of my screen, while I do some work on the left side of the screen.

I have to say that the Game Awards show has high production, with very high-profile creators, such as Hideo Kojima with his upcoming OD game.

There were lots of advertisements… but it didn’t feel like ads, because they’re all trailers for upcoming games or for gaming products.

I also really dug seeing the Viking band Heilung play “Maidjan Song”, the main theme from the upcoming Ninja Theory’s Hellblade 2. They look so metal! And they sounded amazing, complete with fire dancers and war drums. I don’t know much about the band, but, man, the next time they are in the Minneapolis area, I want to see them live.

I was most excited to see some of the main cast (Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell, and Aaron Clifton Moten) for the upcoming Fallout television show from Amazon Prime on stage. They even had a guy in a power armor suit! It looks absolutely amazing! I really want that power armor for a Halloween costume.

Apparently, the three actors will be playing three characters. Ella plays Lucy, the former Vault dweller. Walton (any Justified fans will recognize him) as The Ghoul, a gunslinger. Aaron will be playing Maximus, part of the Brotherhood of Steel. Like I said, I’m very excited for the upcoming show, I just hope that they have good writers and it’s a good show.

No surprise, but the big winner at this year’s Game Award is Baldur’s Gate 3… taking numerous awards, including the coveted “Game of the Year”. Larian Studio’s Swen Vincke, came on stage with his plate armor, along with some key staff to take the grand prize.

As I previously said in August 2023, I felt this game was my personal Game of the Year. I’m just glad everyone else agrees with me.

Yours,

Weekend Gamer

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Aaron Clifton Moten, Ella Purnell, and Walton Goggins at the Game Award (07 Dec 2023)

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com

Weekend Gamer Update: Labor Day

Weekend Gamer Update:

Read More Games Can you believe it? Baldur’s Gate 3 is out now on the PC. I paid full price ($60) for this game in Oct 2020, and have played a demo or early access of the game. I maxed out my character, and have patiently waited for the full …

Baldur’s Gate 3

After over 60 hours, I finally made it to Act II. There are three acts in the game, and each Act, I felt could have been sold as three different games.

Act I set up the story and throws you in the outskirts Baldur’s Gate. All signs points to Baldur’s Gate, so the goal is to travel there… but getting there is harder than it looks. Act I basically is a giant tutorial on how to play the game. You have to solve the goblin crisis, the grove, and help inhabitants along the way. I tried to complete everything in the first part: killing the hag, killing the giant spider, saving Halsin … and murdering every goblin!

Act II, you are given several choices to get to Baldur’s Gate 3. You can travel through the underdark, you can try to go through Githyanki, and finally through the cursed land. Your companions’ stories also unfolds, with Lae’zel’s story the most compelling to me. Her entire belief turned upside-down… and even her god, the undying queen, is out to kill her.

Shadowheart’s story is no slack either… you have to make some hard decisions to keep her in your party, because fighting her will result in her leaving your party. You’re given an impossible decision to save both Shadowheart and the Nightsong… and, there is a way to save both of them! My first play, Shadowheart kills Nightsong. After reloading the previous save, I confronted Shadowheart and she got angry and left! I’m sorry, we can’t have that, because she’s my only cleric and a useful one at that! Finally, after various choices, I was able to reason with Shadowheart and as a result, save both of them! It’s the best scenario… however, I know most players will just “go with the flow” and continue the game.

Anyway, currently, I’m about 100 hours into the game… and I finally got to Act III! It’s been a long journey, and I have a feeling that it’ll end up being 150 hours when I finally finish the game. And when I see the credits roll… the first thing I want to do is start another game, with a different character build!

For those who are interested in checking out the game, I wholly recommend it.

Read More PlayStation For the lowest priced, PS+ Essential, you only get three or four “free” monthly games… and the ability to play online games, just like the original PlayStation Plus. For $3 more, you can get PS+ Extra, which includes the monthly “free” games …

PlayStation

With the extra-long Labor Day weekend, that means more weekend gaming for me. Originally, my plans were to see Soul Asylum at the Minnesota State Fair, but having walked about 10 miles on the Second Day of the Fair and seeing that this weekend is going to be over 100 degrees Fahrenheit… I think it’s probably in my best interest to stay indoors and keep cool.

With the Labor Day weekend here, there’s actually a lot of sales going on right now. GOG is having an Autumn 2023 Sale, which includes the original Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, Cyberpunk, The Witcher, etc. A good sale, unfortunately, I own all those great games, so there’s not much for me… but if you are interested in those games, get it on sale and try them out.

Steam has a PlayStation sale… including, for the first time, a sale on The Last of Us Part 1. The game launched poorly on PC, and I wasn’t really didn’t love the television show… so I haven’t exactly been excited to re-play the game again. I bought the game when it was on the PS3, and re-bought the game for PS4. Do I really want to get it again for the PC? I probably will get it… but who knows.

Speaking of Sony, they recently announced a huge price hike in their PlayStation Plus subscription, with their premium plan going from $120 to $160. What do you get for the extra $40? Absolutely nothing.

On top of that, with the recent useless $200 PlayStation Portal (a tiny screen to stream games locally from your PlayStation 5), I’m not a PlayStation fan at the moment. I’m glad I never bought a PlayStation 5, instead going with Xbox for this (and next) generation.

Yours,

Weekend Gamer

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vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com

Baldur's Gate 3

Description Gather your party and return to the Forgotten Realms in a tale of fellowship and betrayal, sacrifice and survival, and the lure of absolute power. Mysterious abilities are awakening inside you, drawn from a mind flayer parasite planted in your brain. Resist, and turn darkness against itself. Or embrace corruption, and become ultimate evil. From the creators of Divinity: Original Sin 2 comes a next-generation RPG, set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons. Choose from 12 classes and 11 races from the D&D Player's Handbook and create your own identity, or play as an Origin hero with a hand-crafted background. Or tangle with your inner corruption as the Dark Urge, a fully customisable Origin hero with its own unique mechanics and story. Whoever you choose to be, adventure, loot, battle and romance your way across the Forgotten Realms and beyond. Gather your party. Take the adventure online as a party of up to four. Read More Games I have been hyped about Baldur’s Gate 3 since Larian Studios announced their teaser in August 2019. I’ve already mentioned that I was a massive fan of Black Isle Studios, the original maker of the PC Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale games… so naturally …

Can you believe it? Baldur’s Gate 3 is out now on the PC. I paid full price ($60) for this game in Oct 2020, and have played a demo or early access of the game. I maxed out my character, and have patiently waited for the full game… which finally came out August 3, 2023.

I personally think they took way too long to work on the game, but I can understand why they held back… considering how awful the Cyberpunk 2077 launch was in December 2020. A year or two later, Cyberpunk is now a decent/good game, but in 2020, when it came out, it was clearly not ready for mainstream.

They recommend that you need to start fresh with Baldur’s Gate 3, so that’s what I did. This meant deleting old save files and completely uninstalling any previous version of the game. The download was over 100GB and took a whole day to get it downloaded… but it was worth it.

Playing the first part of the game, yeah, they’ve really changed a lot of things. I remember fighting on a deck before reaching the control room… but in the final release of the game, you just head straight to the room. I wonder if it’s based on some decisions I made early in the game ? That’s fine, because I felt cutting out that whole deck area speeds up the game to get you to land and on your quest.

I’m playing it slow right now… saving before rolls, so I can get the ultimate outcome. I know that’s now how you’re supposed to play, but this is how I play: I want the best option for my character.

On launch week, Baldur’s Gate 3 experienced incompatibility problems, so I wasn’t able to cross save from the ROG Ally to my Lenovo Legion Desktop computer. I think they fixed the problem, as I recently was able to get one of my cloud save (but not the latest save).

Baldur’s Gate 3 on the ROG Ally

As you can see from the ROG Ally screen shot, it looks fine at medium setting. The screen is only 1080p, but given that you’re playing on a small 7-inch display, it doesn’t look bad. Of course, running the game on a NVIDIA 3060 dedicated video card, at max ultra settings… well it definitely looks much better.

I’m still pretty early in the game, only reaching level 3 as I write this. The game maxes out at level 12, so leveling up takes a long time. I’m making a lot of mistakes… but that’s part of the fun. In fact, I just found out that I missed one of the characters, Gale, who I totally didn’t see. I know he exists because I played the early access and have gotten him in my party before.

I love all the characters in the game, particularly Shadowheart. Her mannerism, her visuals, her voice acting is, by far, just the best. She’s played by Jennifer English. In fact, all the actors in the game are amazing.

So far, everyone who’s played the game have praised it. It’s so rare for a game to be this perfect… and especially for a genre that major studios have ignored: the role-playing-game genre.

Lately, I’ve been really disappointed in Diablo 3, I cannot enjoy this game when it constantly requires an online connection. My ROG Ally isn’t always connected, so that just means I’m not playing Diablo 3. Guess what? Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t require you to be online and it doesn’t have DRM. It’s refreshing and I’m happy to say that from what I’ve seen, Baldur’s Gate 3 is my number one game of the year.

Read more Technology and Weekend Gamer .

Baldur’s Gate 3 at Ultra Setting

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Divinity: Original Sin II on the iPad

Read More Larian Studios I have been hyped about Baldur’s Gate 3 since Larian Studios announced their teaser in August 2019. I’ve already mentioned that I was a massive fan of Black Isle Studios …

You know I’m a big fan of Larian Studios, the Belgium company that is currently developing Baldur’s Gate III (which I already pre-ordered) and the successful Divinity series. While I haven’t loved the original games from 2002, I came around with 2014’s Divinity: Original Sin and its sequel Divinity: Original Sin II.

Sadly, I haven’t beaten either of the Divinity: Original Sin saga, but from all my hours of gameplay, I love it. So much that I’ve decided to spend $25 to see how Divinity: Original Sin II will work on my iPad Pro 12.9. I saw that it supported Bluetooth controller and keyboard, but I will likely just use touch to play.

In the past, I’ve played around with Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II on the iPad, but those games originally came out in 1998 and 2000 (and yes, I bought and played them back then).

With Divinity: Original Sin II, which originally came out in 2017, on the iPad, I was just eager to see a semi-recent, modern game on the iPad. We all know that Apple have never been known for video games… so I’m glad to see companies, like Larian, take a chance.

So, for some bad news, those with older iPads, they cannot run the game. The game will run on iPad Pro 2018 to 2021 (basically any iPad with the A12 Bionic chip or later). The other bad news is that the game will take up at least 18GB of storage, so if you have an 32GB iPad, it’s going to take up half your space!

Even many users might feel that $25 is expensive (especially for an iPad app), you have to understand that this is a first-class game. I’ve played the PC, I’ve paid $50 for the game originally, so $25 is really bargain, in my opinion…. But it’s true, $25 is a million times more expensive than the typical $1.99 iPad.

Yours,

- Weekend Gamer

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com

Early Access: Baldur’s Gate 3

Read More Games First, I’m very happy to hear that Larian Studios will be making Baldur’s Gate 3. The last Baldur’s Gate game came out in 2000, so it’ll be a good 20 years since the last game (considering that BG3 probably won’t launch until 2020). …

I have been hyped about Baldur’s Gate 3 since Larian Studios announced their teaser in August 2019. I’ve already mentioned that I was a massive fan of Black Isle Studios, the original maker of the PC Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale games… so naturally, I wanted to see more Dungeons and Dragons games.

As promised, Larian Studios offered fans early access to their game-in-progress. The final game won’t be officially released for another year (to be honest, I think it’ll be two years before they can release it to the public). The early access to the game only grants you part one of the game, which will get you about 20 hours of gameplay. From what I’ve heard, there final game will have three parts, so you’re looking at a massive 60+ hour game.

The game came out in early access on October 5, and by October 10, I had already reached my level up cap (you can only get to level 4) and got to the end of the map. Sure, there are tons more area to explore, so I’ll have to backtrack and hit all the areas I didn’t see. However, seeing as I can’t progress grow anymore at level 4, I feel like there’s no point in continuing.

So far, there are six original characters created for this game, and they can join your party on this adventure. You can only have a maximum of four in your team, so any excess characters will have to go to your camp to wait it out until you return for a long rest. My favorite character to hear is Gale, as the voice actor does such an excellent job in his dialogue delivery.

Now for the bad news - if you want to get in early access, you’ll have to pay full price of $59.99. You do get the full game when it comes out, but it’s a steep price to pay for an incomplete game (at least for now). I wish they would’ve given us a little discount.

The other bad news is that the game is rough. There are bugs all over, not to mention visual glitches or camera locks. Plus, cross saves doesn’t always work correctly. All normal things you might expect for an advance look at the game. Also, if you’re unfamiliar with D&D rulesets you may be frustrated with no help from the game.

The last bad news is that your early access game might not be able to carry over the final release. I personally don’t mind this, as I’ve made plenty of mistakes and wouldn’t mind replaying it to correct them (or make a different choice). However,

Otherwise, if you don’t mind roughing it and love Dungeons & Dragons, you need to check out the early access to Baldur’s Gate 3. You can buy it at my favorite digital game retailer, GOG.

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ facebook.com ♥ twitter.com/weheartmusic