I'm 23 years old. I first experienced the power of the Atari 2600 home entertainment system at the age of 6. Then it broke and sat in the hall closet for years. For all I know, it's still sitting there. In 1986, my parents broke down and bought me a Nintendo after months of begging. It gave me a new lease on life. I played the shit out of that Nintendo for about four years, until 1992 when my parents broke down and bought me a Sega Genesis (again, after months of begging). I played the Sega Genesis for, like, two years maybe before my video game fascination faded.

Of course, I'm a Playstation RPG addict these days, and more than just a little psyched for Playstation 2 to come out (Sega Dreamcast looks good, but you know that new Playstation is just gonna kick its ass). This is my album. Well, it's not my album, but it's an album made specifically for people like me. It hearkens back to the glory days of Nintendo music, back to Hip Tanaka's timeless scores for "The Legend of Zelda," "Kid Icarus" and especially the incredibly modern kraut- rock of "Metroid" (listen to the music on the Kraid and Ridley stages of the game, if you don't believe me), and back to all the other great music composed by various weaselly game programmers. It sounds so cool now!

Bodenstandig 2000 are Bernhard Kirsch and Dragon Espenschied, two guys from Germany that seem to share my geeky sentimentality about video game music. They've created an album on which 6 out of 15 tracks sound culled straight from 8-bit Nintendo and Sega Genesis games (and most of the other tracks feature Nintendo-ish music or sound effects). "RNAY," "In Rock 16 Bit" and "Ruzack 2000" give nods to old 16-bit street fighting games like "Streets of Rage" and "Revenge of Shinobi;" "Ballonx" and "Wurmlochhymne" are town and cave music (respectively) for primitive Nintendo role- playing cartridges like FCI's recreations of "Ultima: Exodus" and Sir Tech's addictive translation of "Wizardry." (Who knows how many hours of my life I spent on that game.) "Pogos Abenteuer" is the type of stuff you heard from cheap, third- party software companies, like "Xexyz" from Hudson Soft or HAL's "Adventures of Lolo" series, but with big, distorted beats on top.

But what do the other tracks sound like? Well, they're quite varied. These guys jump from the mock speed- rave and German TV theme song music of the title cut, to the awesome sampled a capella madness of "Saureschnauze" to the sludgy, lo-fi, orchestral hip-hop of "Dachziegelkauer," to the silly but ass-movin' club track "Party Ganze Nacht." And they work it all with the magic of two nerds behind Amigas and Commodore 64s. (Though I think they actually use Atari computer systems.)

As you've probably guessed, Bodenstandig aren't the most serious- minded electronic artists out there. I mean, their entire record was created on a PC soundcard, and they record for Aphex Twin's Rephlex Records. (I think Aphex's "Come to Daddy" and "Windowlicker" are obvious signs that he'd be ecstatic to further goofy experimentalism.) They probably don't have a speck of seriousness in them. And that's the key reason Maxi German Rave Blast Hits 3 works so well. These are clearly just two loony little dweebs that grew up on game paks and karoake music. (My guess is, they're the type of guys that have already finished bootlegged beta test versions of "Quake 2.")

If, at any point in your life, you experienced a period of video game obsession (and even if you're just interested in the conceptual possibilities of fresh Nintendo music), Maxi German Rave Blast Hits 3 will, if nothing else, have you reminiscing about the days when you had time to play "Section Z" and "Bionic Commando" straight through. Personally, I can't wait to see what these guys do next.

-Ryan Schreiber