Month: November 2008

>The Greatest Thing (take 2)

>I have been guilty of using excessive hyperbole for pretty much my entire life, which can (obviously) lessen the weight of any endorsement or criticism I might have. That said, eventually, we will all look back on the sum of one’s experiences and be able to say, “That was the greatest thing I ever did,” “that was the most fun I ever had,” “that was the shittiest thing I ever saw.”

So I won’t say that playing drums yesterday afternoon in Rock Band 2 for 5 hours while my wife played guitar is the most fun I’ve ever had. “Fun” is an incredibly subjective term and is therefore almost impossible to define with any degree of specificity.

If I were to say, however, that my experience yesterday afternoon playing the drums in Rock Band 2 while my wife played guitar was about 1000 times better than I thought it would be, and actually made me feel like I was really playing the drums which is something I’ve always wanted to be able to do, and basically let me live out my secret drum-playing fantasies in all their sweaty glory, and that it will probably be my favorite gaming moment of the year and maybe make the leap into my top 5 gaming moments of all time, I think that would be fair.

I would estimate that in 95% of all the band rehearsals I’ve ever had over the last 15 years – and this is no exaggeration – I’ve managed to squeeze in at least 10-20 minutes of drum-kit time, which is usually whenever the drummer leaves the room. I would never pass myself off as a gig-worthy drummer, but I can keep a steady beat and can generally get a pretty good groove going. I take a certain amount of pride in my drum machine prowess, and almost all the drumming on my recent recordings has been “live”, not pre-programmed.

The point is, I’ve always loved playing drums. And I got to feel like I was actually playing drums yesterday, and it was awesome.

I should back up here and clarify the record. Just a few days ago, I wrote about my disinterest in music games, and specifically my reluctance to buy Rock Band, even though all of my gaming friends love the hell out of it. The biggest obstacle, though, was my wife; I didn’t want to spend that much money if she wasn’t going to play it with me, and she’s always been somewhat reluctant to play those kinds of games.

But then, this past Saturday, I was at an anniversary party for some friends of mine; they had rented out a private karaoke room at this sushi place in the East Village and hooked up Guitar Hero to the projector. And as we all got into the spirit of the thing, I could see she was starting to melt a little bit.

With some minor cajoling, she gave in. And so I traded in a ton of old games and was able to procure the full Rock Band 2 package, and it only cost me about $30.

[Games I Traded In:

  • Dead Rising
  • Call of Duty 4
  • Dirt
  • Eternal Sonata
  • Kameo
  • Lego Indiana Jones
  • Pure
  • Saints Row 1
  • Lego Star Wars: Complete Saga
  • Rockstar Table Tennis
  • Tiger Woods 09

Alternately, I probably could’ve just traded in my Wii, for all I use it these days. I am not a fan or supporter of the used games market, but, hey: I have no problem using it to my advantage.]

My brief time with Guitar Hero World Tour at the karaoke bar was enough to seal the deal, in terms of brand loyalty. Both GH and RB are functionally identical in terms of gameplay, but there’s just something about GH that just turns me off. Maybe it’s the gratuitous product placement, or maybe it’s the way everything is laid out, but everything in GH just screamed out “CASH-IN”. Whereas Rock Band 2 feels a lot more… I don’t know… awesome. My wife and I named our band “Lilo and Two Poots” after our dogs (and their farts), and seeing the bandname on logos and posters randomly appear in the game totally cracked us up. Every once in a while we’d try a “Mystery Setlist” and we’d start playing these awesome songs that weren’t yet appearing on the set list creation screen, and after every song we’d instinctively reach over and give each other a high-five.

I can’t tell you how awesome that is, to be high-fiving my wife after getting 5 stars on a Jane’s Addiction song.

And to think, I was planning on writing a thing about Gears of War 2 today.

>State of the Console Warzzzzzzzzzzzz

>Most of my most productive creative thinking comes in the shower. And during this morning’s shower, I had an idea for a SFTC blogpost – taking a general lay of the land in the console war. 2008 is my first holiday season in which I have a vested interest in every console and handheld, and so I finally have as complete a sense as I’ll ever have of what my options are as a consumer.

Problem is, I pretty much knew how it was going to end even before I turned off the water. And this chart of each console’s attach rate pretty much speaks for itself.

Let’s face it: the Wii is a joke. I knew it was a joke even though I wanted one so desperately, and now that I have it, the only time I even think about it is when the stupid Mario Kart Wheel is taking up valuable real estate on my shelving unit. The last game I was genuinely excited about for it was freakin’ Boom Blox. Did I really spend $500 on a stupid Circuit City bundle for this? Is Wii Music really the big Wii holiday title? I read a quote this morning that sums it up quite well – this is from Sega’s Darren Williams:

I think on one hand the Wii has become the most expensive board game on Earth – it’s the kind of thing that families will play at Christmas, and probably won’t play again throughout the remainder of the year.

The PS3, on the other hand, has started to come into its own. Its roster of exclusive titles is still pretty minimal, but Little Big Planet is pretty great, and I’m looking forward to trying out Resistance 2 this weekend. If nothing else, though, it is a fantastic BluRay player and I take my movie watching very seriously.

That said, LBP’s troublesome online service (as well as the problems I’ve heard regarding SOCOM) only serve to highlight the problems with Sony’s online network. Many people have talked shit about Xbox Live and how you have to pay for it when you can have it on the PS3 for free, but here’s the thing: Xbox Live actually works, and when it doesn’t, it gets fixed pretty goddamned quickly.

Which brings me to the 360, of course, which is in its heyday. Gears of War 2 dropped today, only a week or so after Fable 2, and the NXE arrives in 12 days. (It should be noted that the PS3’s much-discussed HOME thing still hasn’t arrived, and its purpose still hasn’t really been clearly stated; meanwhile, the 360’s dashboard is getting a complete makeover with tons of new features and everybody’s getting it before Thanksgiving.) The vast majority of my gaming time is on the 360 these days, and I’m not even sure why anymore. I’d hate to think it was only because of Achievements; I’m not nearly the whore I was for them last year but I still kinda pay attention to them.

I would discuss the state of the handhelds, but it’s too depressing. My PSP collects dust and my DS doesn’t fare that much better.

>The Greatest Villain Of Them All

>Obama’s victory on Tuesday has had me alternating between being euphoric and scatterbrained, both often at the same time, but life is slowly starting to return to normal – especially since I just got my confirmation e-mail letting me know that my Amazon’d copy of Gears of War 2 should arrive at my office tomorrow afternoon.

I didn’t expect to be this jazzed about GoW2; frankly, I expected to be waist-deep in Fallout 3 and only put in Gears as a change of pace. But I’ve been getting that half-glazed look in my eye whenever I think about it, and I’m starting to foam at the mouth a little.

Anyway. This post is not about that. This post is about the forthcoming Sega Collection that’s dropping in the spring. I’ve written a bunch of times about my fondness for the Sega Genesis, and of my memories of playing Streets of Rage and Golden Axe with my younger brother. This collection is pretty robust, and apparently there might be even more games on the disc than just the 40 listed.

One notable omission, though, is Road Rash 2. Granted, it’s not a Sega first-party title, so it wouldn’t be on this disc, but it’s a game that I very closely associate with the Genesis. It was a motorbike racing/combat game, and my brother and I were very much obsessed with it.

In fact, here’s an IM conversation I just had with my brother about it:

Jonathan: Road Rash!

i loved that game

Jeremy: what was the name of the evil opponent, who was always a pain in the ass to take down?

Victor?
Venom?
something with a V

Jonathan: Viper

Jeremy: VIPER

holy christ

Jonathan: that fucker

Jeremy: i hated that asshole

Road Rash featured whatever it was that passed for rubberbanding AI in those days, and Viper was basically the AI at its most evil. Viper was always the rider you’d be dealing with the most in the latter stages of each race; Viper would hit you with chains and knock into you and always be right on your ass, and if you ever successfully knocked him off his bike, you pretty much guaranteed yourself a stress-free cross of the finish line.

And what I love about it is that Viper had no face, no voice, no memorable lines of dialogue in the pre- and post-race flash screens, not even a discernable gender; Viper was just the AI opponent who was the biggest pain in the ass to beat, and we assigned him the worst qualities of humanity we could think of as reason enough to destroy him.

I love that even now, 20 years later, the fire of our hatred still burns for this nameless, voiceless enemy.

>Fable 2 Wrap-Up

>I finished Fable 2 last night. I’m not done with it, necessarily; there are still a few side quests I’d like to finish and some Achievements I’d like to pick up, but I finished the story and for all intents and purposes I am the ultimate goody-goody badass I’d set out to be. (In addition to my blue glow, I also seem to be covered in tiny flies, which is odd since I don’t recall getting my character that dirty.)

It’s a fun game but it’s marred by some technical problems that never stopped being annoying, and the story turns out to be more generic and bland than I’d feared. The game is also pretty easy, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but I probably would’ve enjoyed a bit more challenge. I was able to buy what appear to be the most powerful weapons in the game pretty early on, and so I pretty much mowed through everything without too much trouble.

The game is most certainly NOT revolutionary, regardless of what Peter Molyneux says. Almost every game worth its salt features moral choices these days, and many of them look prettier and load less frequently. I did not fall in love with my dog, as much as I wanted to; in fact, the dog started to get annoying. I’d gotten my dog to be a level 5 treasure hunter, and so I wouldn’t be able to move more than 10 feet without my dog barking about something stupid in the other direction. Certainly I would feel bad after a big fight when my dog would be whimpering and limping, but – again – the technical problems in the game would make it difficult for the controller to register that I was hitting the button to heal my dog, and so it became a bit of a pain in the ass: “Hey, dog, I’m healing you! You’re right in front of me and I’m healing you and it’s NOT WORKING.”

I’m glad it’s out of the way, at the very least; I’m still a little intimidated by Fallout 3 but I’d like to get back into Saints Row a little bit more before Gears drops on Friday.