The First Halloween

The Wife made this. She’s done Halloween pictures before, but this was the first time she actually got a chance to do one in a country where it was legitimately celebrated. In Singapore, Halloween is usually just hunting/drinking season. The foreigners use it as an excuse to get hammered, and the slinky Asian girls dress up in borderline inappropriate sultry costumes so they can bag said drunk foreigner and get that relationship/passport to another country.

So this time we waited until evening drew on and then around 7:30ish or so, we wandered up and down the side-streets of our neighborhood. Plenty of Jack O’ Lanterns lit up, cobwebs scattered around, and, of course, a lot of kids. It was a bit of faux-nostalgia for the Wife since seeing those kids running in their costumes made her remember all the times growing up in Singapore when she wished she could have done the same, and now it’s too late.

Or at least, she thinks it’s too late. I told her if she wanted, we could probably hit up a house or two and plead the “She’s an immigrant this her first Halloween, please ruin her teeth and give her some candy” clause, but she wouldn’t go for it, she was too embarrassed at the thought. Still, it was nice to get out there and see the night play out the way I remembered it. I even saw one kid in a full Spider-Man outfit go whizzing past on his skateboard, and then spectacularly fail to ollie from the road the sidewalk. So much for those arachnid-like reflexes…

In other totally unrelated news, my mania for Rock Band continues as game reviewers with established magazines and websites begin to get their review copies. The guy who runs Kotaku got his kid to pose with the box, emphasizing how huge it is:

And over at WIRED Magazine, they also did the traditional Geek “Unboxing Ceremony” of taking copious photos of the experience, and they have a comparison of the Rock Band box to the Guitar Hero II box for the Xbox 360:

It is a beast of a box. A beast of Rock, but a beast nonetheless. I’m starting to wonder now if something that damn big is going to fit in the overhead luggage compartment of a plane…

Another Low Grade Work Day

Finished up a comic script, started on another article for GameAxis. That’s about it…

One Of Those Quiet Days

Not much happening except the completion of an article, start of a small script for a short comic strip, and some hope for the Blu-Ray format that Warner Brothers might defect, which, if it were to occur, would pretty much end the format war. Oh and Guitar Hero III is suffering from a large number of defective guitar reports. Karma against Activision for attempting to kill the Soul of Rock continues and I’m shamefully enjoying it.

The Petty Fanboy Post

I admit it. I know I shouldn’t be enjoying this or taking any satisfaction from it, but I am. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is proving to be not as polished an affair as previous versions. There’s a little voice in my head that is gleefully whooping with joy over the fact that this proves that greed, avarice and an almost total disregard or interest in what you’re doing except for the money, is still no substitute for a genuine love of the art. The skaters that are Neversoft have unleashed their game on the masses and so far the results have not been equal to past efforts.

This is not to say that the game won’t make millions. It will. There’s no doubt in my mind that it will likely be the best-selling game this Christmas when you combine it over all the platforms of PS2, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii. But it won’t be as good as it could have been.

The game officially went on sale today, actually. Since then, people have been playing it, and obviously the gaming websites and magazines have had it even longer, and the results are finally starting to come in. The game is good, that’s not because of the new additions, that’s DESPITE them. Essentially, the only thing that keeps Guitar Hero III being fun is all the essential mechanics that were created by Harmonix anyway. All the new stuff retro-fitted onto it have been the negatives in most criticisms.

From a marketing perspective, there’s the little problem of bundles. It would seem that Activision failed to inform the public at large that in addition to the new wireless guitar that was going on sale (which they marketed the hell out of), there would also be bundles packing in the old guitar (which they hadn’t mentioned at all). This can definitely be blamed on the ignorance of people in too much of a hurry to check their purchase, but stores are now experiencing some returns as a result of people thinking they bought the new guitar (believing it to be the ONLY bundle) only to come home and realize this was the same guitar they already had lying around the house. Good job there, Activision…

An additional problem that falls under marketing is the use of advertising. I don’t actually have a problem with this myself, as I think it adds to the flavor of a game in certain ways. When used appropriately. Previous Guitar Hero games have actually had their authenticity enhanced through the presence of actual brand names in the manufacturing of music equipment like DW drums and VHT amplifiers. This makes sense to me. Unfortunately, Activision–perhaps in an attempt to be competitive with their rival–took this to Electronic Arts levels with this latest game, and players can now find themselves performing on a stage courtesy of… Pontiac. And if your playing stinks, then maybe it’s time to freshen it up with a manly smellin’ custom guitar brought to you by Axe Body Spray, so that your axe can also have the Axe Effect. This is about as subtle as Fight Night Round III where the game would boldly announce, “This round has been brought to you by BURGER KING!”

Over on the actual mechanical end of things… Well, the songlist is the songlist. This is strictly a matter of personal taste and can’t be argued. I actually like the songlist a lot. Tons of good stuff here. But one of the biggest mechanical problems seems to be an actual problem of mechanics. It would seem that there are problems with the new guitar that is being released for the game. This is not a big deal for PS2 owners that already have a controller. And it is not a big deal for Xbox 360 owners, who also will likely have an existing guitar. However, for Wii and PS3 owners, this is a VERY big deal. They have no choice but to buy these new, defective guitars simply because they don’t have “legacy controllers” from previous versions to fall back on.

The first and most serious problem seems to be the new construction of the controller. As a new feature for “added convenience” Red Octane has made these new guitars so that the neck can actually snap off from the base for easier storage. Unfortunately for some guitars, this has resulted in some cheap coating or adhesive that’s been applied to the joints where these two points meet, and this has actually interfered with the connection, making it impossible for the controller to be correctly read by the console. Some workarounds for this by desperate gamers have been to take an exacto knife and carefully scrape away at the contact points of the circuits to clean them up and make the proper connection as intended. Except of course that this kind of action voids your warranty, so you’re at risk if you take this course. Others have been having problems with the wireless system reading correctly with their console and there are already angry horror stories on the forums about some people on THEIR THIRD EXCHANGE OF THE DAY with still no luck on getting a functioning controller.

The other problem seems to be one of the buttons. Some people have reported that there seems to be a problem with the green button on the new guitar, in that it doesn’t always seem to know that it’s been pressed. There are already howls of rage on the Guitar Hero forum (or at least there were until it got shut down as the complaints mounted minute by minute) as people discovered that they were now failing songs as a result of the game telling them they were not pressing the button when they damn well knew they were.

This is also compounded by a problem with Star Power. The new guitars are a little too sensitive in the “tilt” department, and there have been reports of star power being engaged without actually tilting the guitar to a fully vertical position. It seem that there are plenty of angles at which Star Power Is A Go, and that’s been interfering with the process of playing for some. Another is a surprise defect in the code of the game itself; lag. Every review of the game from a major website has cited that, regardless of version, when Star Power is kicked in, there’s a small chance that the game will actually begin to slow down, as if the sudden application of Star Power was a surprise the game itself wasn’t expecting, which can cause the frame rate to drop, throwing it momentarily out of synch with the sound, and causing whatever streak you had going to break. Again, this isn’t a big deal for people that aren’t serious about the game, for the “score whore” who is concerned getting 5 stars, or just keeping a good multiplier going and capitalizing on the bonus points from a judicious use of Star Power, this is annoying in the extreme.

And then there is the new “boss battle” system and this is the one that is universally getting picked on by everyone. No one seems to like it, particularly at the Hard and Expert levels, because it now takes the skill out of the game,
and puts advancement squarely in the realm of luck. The boss battles are mandatory for advancing through the game, there’s no way to avoid them. The way they work is much like Tetris, or Puzzle Fighter or any other competitive multi-player game you might have played in the past where players are given “weapons” that can be used to interfere with the progress of the other player. In GHIII, this comes in the form of collecting Star Power and having it converted to a special attack that can do everything from bumping the difficulty up to Expert (if you’re not already playing at that level) to initiating a “lefty flip” (that is reversing the order of the buttons so that left handed people can play the guitar “upside down,” to “breaking a string” so that a button will no longer work until the whammy bar has been jiggled enough to cancel out the effect. At Hard and Expert level, many are complaining that the final boss has an unfair advantage in that he gets his special attacks before you do, and if you don’t get just the right combination of special attacks yourself–which is randomly determined–this is practically a guarantee that you will not win and should simply start again. While I know that there will be a certain competitive mindset that relishes this kind of more traditional “game-y, PvP” experience, I think this pretty much runs counter to the original spirit of the game, and it looks like many people are not liking it.

On top of this, there are problems with the network. This is probably more attributable to “labor pains” since it’s the first day the game is out, but people on both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 have been having enormous trouble getting online to play against each other. In both cases, it’s the same thing; people attempt to connect to the network, get a message indicating that the game is attempting to connect to another player to begin the co-op/versus session, and then a few minutes later the connection just times out.

And of course, there is the “new and improved” hammer on/pull off system, which has made these things easier in one sense. Hammer ons and such are easier to to do now that the timing is less precise, but at the same time, there seems to have been an overall loss in precision generally. Apparently Activision has said that this is a matter that is being looked into and there may be a patch to address it on the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. I have no idea if this will hold true for the PS2 version and if it does, what, if anything, PS2 owners can do about since they can’t just download a patch to correct the problem.

And finally, there is that little matter of over-complicating songs at the higher levels of difficulty simply because Neversoft couldn’t think of any other way to make the songs harder. Most reports agree that the songs at the highest tiers of Hard and Expert are much, MUCH harder than previous games, and that is because the game is asking you to push buttons where there are no notes even being played, and to hit three button chords even though a single note is being played. While no one is going to argue that these will make a song more challenging, you can still make a case for this actually lessening the feel of “playing” the song and merely melting your hands off trying to hit the crazy configurations Neversoft’s team (which was hired for the project, since Neversoft didn’t have any musicians in their company, they had to outsource to “music experts” to generate the note charts for them) dreamed up in order to challenge players.

As a result of the barrage of complaints coming in to the forums for GHIII the forums were actually shut down for a few hours.

There’s a part of me that would like to think that this is simply karma. This is what happens when you take something that began with pure intentions, and try and turn it into a cold, soulless business opportunity with no love for the product, only the profits it can generate.

Of course there’s also a part of me that dearly hopes that Rock Band will not be plagued by these same issues when it finally goes on sale. At this point, while I’m quite happy with the prototype peripherals I’ve gotten a chance to mess with, as GHIII has proven today, there can be quite a bit of variance between carefully constructed prototypes and the final, mass manufactured product. I can only hope that karma works both ways, and if this is the universe trying to punish Neversoft and Activision for trying to kill the spirit of Rock in favor of the lure of Big Money, then that same universe will look kindly on Harmonix for trying to bring the joy of music to the people.

Cranky Halloween

Well, I was cranky. The Wife wasn’t. This being her first opportunity to attend a legitimate Halloween party she actually got dressed for the occasion, something I stubbornly refused to do. She dressed as a school girl and I went as a slacker.

It was subdued, but still fun. It was a bit of a different crowd, not the usual artsy types we’ve been running with lately, but all good people, just a little less in common.

More Rock Band Obsessiveness

Just another Friday, entailing a bit of writing on the novel and starting up more articles for GameAxis, ’cause it’s that time of the month again. Nothing else to talk about except for the fact that Harmonix has now released the full set of songs that will appear on Rock Band. Without further ado, here they are. As usual, anything not in bold denotes a cover, while anything in bold is an original master track.

1960s

• Rolling Stones “Gimme Shelter”

1970s

• Aerosmith “Train Kept a Rollin’”
• The Who “Won’t Get Fooled Again”
• Boston “Foreplay/Long Time”
• Mountain “Mississippi Queen”
• The Police “Next to You”
• David Bowie “Suffragette City”
• Black Sabbath “Paranoid”
• Blue Oyster Cult “Don’t Fear the Reaper”
• The Ramones “Blitzkrieg Bop”
• Deep Purple “Highway Star”
• KISS “Detroit Rock City”
• Molly Hatchet “Flirtin’ With Disaster”
• The Outlaws “Green Grass & High Tides”
• Sweet “Ballroom Blitz”

1980s

• Rush “Tom Sawyer”
• Bon Jovi “Wanted Dead or Alive”
• The Clash “Should I Stay or Should I Go”
• Faith No More “Epic”
• R.E.M. “Orange Crush”
• Iron Maiden “Run to the Hills”

1990s

• Foo Fighters “Learn to Fly”
• Metallica “Enter Sandman”
• Nirvana “In Bloom”
• Stone Temple Pilots “Vasoline”
• Weezer “Say It Ain’t So”
• Smashing Pumpkins “Cherub Rock”
• Radiohead “Creep”
• Beastie Boys “Sabotage”
• Hole “Celebrity Skin”
• Garbage “I Think I’m Paranoid”
• Soundgarden “Black Hole Sun”

2000s

• The Hives “Main Offender”
• Queens of the Stone Age “Go With the Flow”
• The Strokes “Reptilia”
• Jet “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”
• OK Go “Here It Goes Again”
• Nine Inch Nails “The Hand That Feeds”
• Pixies “Wave of Mutilation”
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Maps”
• Red Hot Chili Peppers “Dani California”
• Coheed & Cambria “Welcome Home”
• Fallout Boy “Dead on Arrival”
• The Killers “When You Were Young”
• New Pornographers “Electric Version”

That’s a pretty decent ration. Out of 45 songs, only seven are covers.

Here’s the final list for That Other Music Game. Same deal.

Tier 1:
Foghat – Slow Ride
Poison – Talk Dirty to Me
Pat Benatar – Hit Me With Your Best Shot
Social Distortion – Story of My Life

Encore: Kiss – Rock and Roll All Nite
Co-op Encore: Beastie Boys – Sabotage

Tier 2:
Mountain – Mississippi Queen
Alice Cooper – School’s Out
Cream – Sunshine of Your Life
Heart – Barracuda

Boss: Tom Morello – Guitar Battle
Encore: Rage Against the Machine – Bulls on Parade
Co-op Encore: The Strokes – Reptilia

Tier 3:
The Killers – When You Were Young
AFI – Miss Murder
The Who – The Seeker
Priestess – Lay Down

Encore: Rolling Stones – Paint It Black
Co-op Encore: Red Hot Chili Peppers – Suck My Kiss

Tier 4:
Black Sabbath – Paranoid
The Sex Pistols – Anarchy in the UK
Sonic Youth – Kool Thing
Weezer – My Name Is Jonas

Encore: Pearl Jam – Evenflow
Co-op Encore: Blue Oyster Cult – Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll

Tier 5:
The Dead Kennedy’s – Holiday in Cambodia
Scorpions – Rock You Like a Hurricane
Aerosmith – Same Old Song and Dance
ZZ Top – La Grange

Boss: Slash – Guitar Battle
Encore: Guns N Roses – Welcome to the Jungle
Co-op Encore: Bloc Party – Hellicopter

Tier 6:
Santana – Black Magic Woman
Smashing Pumpkins – Cherub Rock
White Zombie – Black Sunshine
Tenacious D – The Metal

Encore: Stevie Ray Vaughn – Pride and Joy
Co-op Encore: Matchbook Romance – Monsters

Tier 7:
Slipknot – Before I Forget
Disturbed – Stricken
Queens of the Stone Age – 3′s and 7′s
Muse – Knights of Cydonia

Encore: Living Colour – Cult of Personality

Tier 8:
Slayer – Raining Blood
Eric Johnson – Cliffs of Dover
Iron Maiden – Number of the Beast
Metallica – One

Boss: Lou – Guitar Battle
Encore: The Devil Went Down to Georgia

Now we’re looking at a total of 46 songs, with 20 covers and 26 original master tracks. Also, there’s that weird thing there that says co-op encore. This is where you have to start wondering whether or not Neversoft and Activision were on drugs. Co-op encore appears to be exactly what it sounds like; a song that is only playable with someone else. Bizarrely, however, the game has been shipped with co-op quick play strictly ONLINE. Activision/Neversoft somehow figured no one would want to do this with someone at home, and in the wake of the screaming that followed once this news got out, they’re working on a patch that gamers can download to their console that will allow for offline co-op. So far this only applies to the Xbox 360, there’s no word on whether or not a patch will be available for the PS3, Wii, or even what that state of this is like for the PS2. Well done, Activision, goo
d to see you continue your peerless support of this franchise…

This news has pretty much committed me. Steps are now being taken to ensure Rock Band arrives at the doorstep of the In-Laws.

And just to give That Other Music Game a little coverage, here’s a sample of Hit Me With Your Best shot originally by Pat Benatar, with a… how shall I put this… augmented Judy Nails strumming away.

Random Rock Band Stuff

For people that have played the previous Guitar Hero games and know the synth group Freezepop, here’s a surprise. They did a cover of the theme song from Jem. You really don’t need to read anymore. And yes, they will be appearing in Rock Band again.

Wednesday With Turtles

Aside from a bit of the usual walk around the neighborhood to do some shopping I got this in the mail. I’d been extremely curious about it ever since I saw the trailer, and a lucky day on eBay with seemingly no one interested in the Blu Ray netted me the disc at a surprisingly low price.

So now I have watched TMNT in high-def. Was it a good movie for me? Yes? Did I enjoy it? Yes. Is it as good or better than the best of Old Disney, Miyazaki or Pixar? Not on your life.

Your mileage may vary based on your personal experience with the eponymous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’ve heard some off the cuff remarks of “This ain’t your father’s TMNT” and I find myself strongly disagreeing with that. The thing is, this IS your father’s TMNT, what it isn’t is your older brother or cousin’s TMNT. For most people the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a bright, bouncy, puerile animated series in the 90′s with essentially hazard-free adventure, pizza loving cuteness, and now forever grating–at least to me–TMNTism of “Cowabunga.” Or, it is a couple of movies that have short martial artists in rubber suits, slowly performing Ninja-ry hi-jinks in their prosthetics while Vanilla Ice enthusiastically encourages them with rap.

The problem here is, the teenage mutant ninja turtles didn’t begin in the 90′s with an animated series. They began in the 80′s with an independent comic book. Life for the turtles began in 1984 as black and white indie comic put out by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, and was actually a semi-satirical take on the gritty Frank Miller aesthetic that was already taking over the comics industry (and would help to ruin it to some degree for the next decade) even back then. This was not a story about fun lovin’ “turtle dudes” that talked like surfers, loved pizza and occasionally battled with ninjas for fun and… more fun. Riffing off of everything from the origin of Daredevil to Miller’s Ronin, these turtles were deadly serious about their duty to kill a villain named the shredder, and when they got into fights, there was plenty of injury amputation and bloodshed. The comic walked a fine line between telling a story of its own and poking fun at some of the conventions of the day, and it became first a cult hit, and then gradually the monstrous merchandising machine that became the cartoons and movies most people think of today.

This was my first experience with the turtles, so I’m one of those curmudgeonly Elder Geek types that grumbles about the popular associations of the turtles with most people today. I remember a group that was actually very capable in combat, agile, serious, and bound by a similar code of honor as the samurai of Japan. They just happened to be reptilian.

This new CG animated film went a long way towards repairing the damage that the other media have inflicted on the series in the last few years. Taking an art design that matches some of the environmental realism of high end CG productions with a character design that is simpler and more Pixar-ish than Final Fantasy, this TMNT movie manages to approach a ratio of about 65% original comic and 45% animated series and movies in tone. The story itself seems to be a sequel from the live action movies, with Shredder already defeated and the turtles themselves having lost some purpose and gone their separate ways. Like the cartoons, they more easily identified by their differently colored masks, and like the cartoons, they can still be seen eating pizza, and Michaelangelo is still the joker of the group, with Donatello being more technologically oriented.

Everything else however seems to be taken from the comic, or as far into the comic as you can go with a PG rating. Raphael is definitely more of a loose cannon “Wolvie/Berserker” type, as he was in the comics. Leonardo is far more serious and concerned with concepts like duty and honor. And of course, there is the action. For the first time, these guys moved the way I had always imagined they would. Athletic, dynamic and dangerous. No other previous attempt has ever accurately rendered the turtles in action, but this one has done it.

The story moves along, and is never dull, though there are some pacing issues, some characterization that could have been developed, and there is never really a truly stand out moment plot/characterwise, though none of it is ever done badly. The story and characters never fall, but they don’t exactly soar either. The action however, is extremely well done, and the state of the CG animation and modeling is quite impressive. I think part of this might be that the movie is on Blu Ray, so this gave the film creators the ability to do virtually perfect transfer as they there was no loss of image quality due to attempt to compress it to get it all to fit on a disc. The end result is some of the most detailed animation I’ve ever seen, with some insane bells and whistles such as the fight between Raphael and Leonardo that takes place in the rain, and you can make out every single raindrop, and see every last one bounce off their shells and heads as they fight.

But probably the most impressive thing to me about this movie (aside from the fact that writer/director Kevin Munroe is an admitted fan of the original comics) is that this is NOT an American production. The animation was actually done by Imagi Studios in Hong Kong, and it makes a VERY impressive statement about what their animation industry is like now. I had thought that the only decent CG animation in the world was currently coming out of either America, or Japan, but if this is any indication of the future, then those guys in Hong Kong are gonna’ be one to watch.

Day O’ Oriental Prints

We’re actually getting pretty good at this Waking Up Before Sunset stuff now. But then today was particularly important for the Wife in that there was a gallery she really, REALLY wanted to visit, and they closed at 6:00 pm. The place is called, simply, Stuart Jackson Gallery, and is run by… Stuart Jackson. The reason the Wife wanted to visit was because she started up work on writing a tutorial article for a digital art magazine, with the subject being simulating the look of classic, Japanese woodblock prints. In her research, she found out that this particular gallery actually specialized in in nothing but, and she has a real soft spot in her heart for exactly this kind of art, but had never, ever seen a real one, only pictures in books and on the internet.

So you can imagine the squeals of delight that ensued when she realized that not only was there a gallery in her new home, it was a mere 20 minute stroll away, buried deep in the shissy bowels of Yorkville, past the numerous sushi restaurants and dog grooming services that charged more for a poodle styling than our entire income for 6 months totaled. Stuart Jackson himself ended up being a friendly, very knowledgeable guy who was extremely happy to spend some time with us, showing us the prints, explaining the techniques, the history, the styles and pretty much every other question the Wife had, so she was EXTREMELY happy with the whole experience. Prices on these prints varied from a hundred or so dollars to over ten thousand, depending on things like size, quality, condition and rarity. I have a feeling that we’re eventually going to end up with a few of those prints hanging off the wall at some point, but they are admittedly gorgeous, and when you see how much talent and craftsmanship is put into them–and then realize this is a dead art form that even modern Japanese print block experts can’t replicate today–it sort of makes it easier to justify the cost of these things. Or maybe I’m just being an illiterate dunderhead, because it somehow is easier for me to see paying money for something that is readily recognizable upon viewing, that shows an immense amount of obvious skill, and is something that is not easily replicated today. As opposed to something that can be done in three minutes by simply throwing paint on a wall and declaring it a bold criticism of today’s ennui and post-modern obsessed society, that’ll be $65,000 please and thank you for supporting the arts, buh-bye.

On the Rock Band side of things (yes, my anticipation just grows and grows with each passing day), an image has finally been released of the actual, physical box this behemoth game will be released in. You can click on the image to get a bigger look at it. It should probably come as a surprise to NO ONE at this point that I’ve pretty much caved and decided I can’t take a chance on patiently waiting for the Canadian release date, since it could be anywhere from a week to four months later. I’m weak. I need to RAWK. I can admit this. I will be getting the game while visiting the In-Laws in the USA and have made peace with this decision.

Pre-Christmas Shopping

Once again, we were semi-successful in pushing back our waking hours. We’re still waking up obscenely late, but at least now when we do, the stores are still open. As a result, the Wife decided it was time to make a trip down to the mall (in this case, Eaton Centre) to beat out the crowds that will be doing some seasonal shopping. On the subway, she decided to kill some time by whipping out her sketchpad and drawing people around her. We happened to be in a car with a Toronto Transit Commission attendant, a big, friendly, smiling black guy, and as soon as he saw what she was up to, he demanded the he be the subject of her portraiture, which she was more than happy to oblige. It’s little, random things like that remind me of how much more lively Canada is than Singapore ever was.

In addition to her picking a few more clothes appropriate for the winter, I finally managed to buy a new recharger for my cell phone (it’s been dead for the last week, as a result of one of the cats chewing right through the cord), a birthday present for the Best Friend, and a meet up with someone from Singapore. The Wife did the meet specifically because this guy had just been back to Singapore and she had requested he make a run to one the local art supply stores to buy a whole bunch of pencil lead that, for some bizarre reason, is not sold here.

Aside from that the only other thing of concern to me today was a random look through the Rock Band forums and the surprising discovery that on a thread talking about least favorite songs in Rock Band, Courtney Love’s Celebrity Skin is #1 with a bullet. I have no idea why the music fans seem to dislike Courtney personally, since this seems to be their main beef with her, not her song, but her song seems to suffer as a result of its association with her, and many are quite unhappy with its inclusion. There was even one poster that went so far as to say, and I quote:

“Boo for people who killed Kurt Cobain.”

I obviously haven’t been following this much outside of the initial, “Oh, Kurt Cobain killed himself” shock, so maybe there’s a chunk to this story that I’m missing. All I know for sure is that I actually like the song, and it’s one of the ones I’m actually looking forward to playing the hell out of. I have no intimate knowledge of the aftermath of Kurt Cobain’s death and Courtney Love, I only know that it’s a catchy song, it’s a lot of fun, and whether its guitar or drums, it’s gonna’ be a hell of a song to play the crap out of.