Playing With America

Today I decided to test out the online portion of Rock Band to see if Harmonix really did manage to live up to their promise of providing a lag free experience with no delay for anyone while playing the game. For the most part, they nailed it, as the experience of playing with other people (at least in North America) seems about 95% problem free, with the occasional hiccup such as people’s own connections dropping out on them, or the inevitable Bail Out when you’ve been playing too long and it’s time to take a break.

I’m not entirely sure exactly how the hierarchy for finding other people to play with works. If you’re not playing with friends who are all agreeing to jam together and are simply waiting for an invitation, then you use a “search for other players” option. When this happens and other people fill the spaces up, you might be the “leader” or you might not, I have no idea what determines this. All I know for sure is that the leader is the one that actually controls which songs are going to be played. Sometimes I got to be the leader, other times, we found ourselves simply being band members.

It was an interesting experience. The Wife has currently created her singer to look a like a bit of an Ice Queen/Gothic Lolita/Maid type. I think that the folks we were playing with (who judging from the number after their names were likely sharing a console the way we were) immediately saw the Wife’s singer and figured, “Oh, so someone thinks she’s a girl, eh?”

As a result, they went for a band called Flyleaf with song, I’m So Sick, which is quickly coming be one of the most dreaded songs for vocalists in the game. Witness:

Much to their surprise, the Wife nailed it, and after that they went through a series of increasingly more difficult songs trying to shred her vocal cords, until they got to Metallica’s Enter Sandman and somehow failed to realize that they might not actually be good enough themselves to play it, causing their own failure out of the song within seconds of beginning, before the Wife could actually get a chance to sing. Not that it really would have mattered, I’ve seen her nail that song on Expert too. Over the course of the evening this same exact pattern would end up repeating multiple times; the new players–if they were leader–would see that the vocalist was female and without fail, they would go straight over to I’m So Sick to see whether the song could be passed or not. Either the people who do this just want to see if the singer is really a girl or not, or else they’re kind of mean-spirited and want to put a girl through one of the tougher songs in general just for having the audacity to be a girl playing a boy’s game, I’m not sure which. That’s the only really strange, consistent behavior we found during our playtime during the evening though, this obsession with making girls sing that song. Quite often once the song was passed, a lot of female vocalist songs would be subsequently chosen.

On the whole, it’s a neat experience, and if you get a good bunch of people, it’s pretty amazing watching them in action. We managed to get ourselves tagged as Band Leader for a while, and we had a wicked drummer on occasion that was just cruising through Expert in a truly frightening manner.

I’m really just looking forward to folks I’m already friends with with PS3s to get with the program and pick this game up. Playing with decent strangers is a lot of fun, but I can only imagine who it’ll be playing with friends around the world.

And one of these days, I’ll have to actually make a non-Rock Band related post and talk about that trip to Maine in more detail…

The Tour Continues

The Wife being able to sing at Hard and Expert on Rock Band is really helping things move in a way I hadn’t anticipated. The latest tally of our progress now shows that out of 18, 561 bands currently competing on the planet, we are now #43. Maybe it ain’t the top ten, but hell, it’s a lot further ahead than I thought was possible.

Also, we just got a Bowie 3-Pack today that includes Moonage Daydream, Heroes and Queen Bitch. Heroes in particular is quickly growing into a favorite of mine for the guitar, because that riff is just Damn Catchy. The fact that the Wife is just as much into this game as I am is both a pleasant and vaguely disturbing surprise, but to paraphrase The Exorcist, “The power of Rock compels you!”

No Limb Independence

I actually managed to get a little work done today for the new stuff for my agent, so guilt was not an issue. On the other hand, my right leg is now sore from entirely too long a session playing Rock Band with the drums. The good news is Easy and Medium are now done, although it was kind of touch and go towards the end of Medium. Part of the problem, especially for songs I knew pretty well was the old Guitar Hero problem of “phantom notes” where I knew drum beat should come in, and I’d try and hit it, which registered as false on the easier, more simplified note charts of these easier levels. But when I tried a song on Hard, I actually found it was somehow easier, and then, in a fit of insanity, jumped straight into Expert and actually managed to survive the first songs in as well, which surprised the hell out of me, considering the first time I tried I Think I’m Paranoid, I got shut out half-way through when I first foolishly took it on upon first booting up the game.

As to be expected, the big trick to surviving the later levels is going to be getting better limb independence. One of the big things screwing me up right now is the fact that my hands and feet want to act at the same time, so, if I need to hit the kick pedal twice, but only have to whack at the high hat once during that double kick, my hand wants to knock at the high hat twice as well. It’s gonna’ take some doing, but I think I can manage it. I don’t have any aspirations to become a drummer, but the motivation to actually play and survive Expert is there. Like with Guitar Hero, once you get to playing at the Hard and Expert levels and are banging away pretty much note for note, suddenly, the game takes on a whole new level of fun. Especially with songs I know well and really like. I’m particularly motivated to try and get Maps by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs down. That’s got a whacky, fun drum beat that only really comes into its own in Expert.

Oh well. All in good time.

More Rock Band

One of these days I gotta’ get around to doing some actual work…

Touring The World

Unsurprisingly, aside from a few errands on Bloor, almost no work was done as I continued my World Tour in Rock Band. Surprisingly, the Wife was a willing accomplice in this, and took up the vocals, kicking it up from Easy to Hard, thus allowing us to experience the full Band World Tour Mode, since it only allows you complete access if you’re playing on a minimum of Hard.

I don’t know how long it will last, but the Wife is now #6 on the planet for singing Celebrity Skin on the Rock Band leader boards. Man, I was IMPRESSED.

Rock Till It Hurts

My right shoulder is already protesting in anger from too much abuse at the guitar and drums. But it’s incredibly difficult to stop. Rock Band now possesses me in a big, BIG way. I’ve already bought a three pack of songs from The Police as well as My Sharona. I’ve also found to my horror that my Percussion Freaks skills from the arcade drumming game have seriously atrophied from the years without practice and I’m going to have to work to get my foot/hand coordination back.

I’ve also found that after getting used to how the Fender Strat plays (ie, play it like a GUITAR, not like a guitar controller) the responsiveness of the thing is amazing, and it feels so good in my hands that I’m finding it hard to go back to the old Guitar Hero controller. It’s an amazingly solid piece of equipment that can almost pass for a real guitar. Even the Wife has gotten into the act, and is now doing a solid piece of singing, actually being able to hold her own on Hard mode. I’ve also recruited the Upstairs Neighbor to join the band and that means that the World Tour mode is now open to me. While it’s true that people who can easily 5-star songs on Expert in Guitar Hero will find the guitar portion of the game not challenging at all, I can barely finish Freebird on said mode, so the game is still kicking my ass for certain songs.

But the thing that really puts a smile on my face (aside from playing something seriously kick ass like the guitar in Gimme Shelter by the Stones) is when everything comes together and the crowd starts singing along with the song. All of a sudden, for those moments, you ARE a rock star, and it’s a guilty, delicious, virtual feeling.

Upon Getting Home And Trying Rock Band

Oh my God.

This game is AWESOME…

Fresh Maine Lobster

And it was good. Incredibly messy, but good. I kind of feel bad, because the In-Laws showed me the lobsters were about to dine on, and one of them was staring forlornly with this, “Why? Why are you doing this to me?” look on its face. That was probably the one that tasted so good for.

Gobble Gobble Round 2

So stuffed with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and clam chowder that I am going to burst. Nausea from too much food in full effect. Must… sleep… off…

Around Town

A quiet day in Maine. REALLY quiet. The fact that there are no sirens, trains, or drunken people singing loudly in the dead of the night is unnerving. Did some shopping, bought some gear with our Much Stronger Canadian Dollar, and met an Aunt-In-Law who will be hosting the Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. Also realized that Uncle-In-Law has a gigantic high-def TV but doesn’t really know what HDTV is. I anticipate a long lecture tomorrow about the basics of progressive scan television…