Retirement

And so it is that the #1 spot is given up. Sort of. Technically, the Wife still holds the #1 spot right now, it’s just that there’s no longer any interested in maintaining it. Partly this has to do with the fact that 10 million points has been broken for the first time by a vocalist on the Playstation leaderboard rankings. Mostly it has to do with the bane of gaming, competitiveness. While the Wife was blowing past the other vocalists mostly just out of a sense of whimsy, the former #1 took her loss of position hard. Very hard. EXTREMELY HARD.

It’s no real surprise, actually. From the way girl posted on the forums, it became quickly apparent that being #1 meant a great deal to her. It was also very apparent that she was a very, VERY sore winner, making it a point of posting publicly to announce beating someone’s score, and including in her forum sig “#1 Vocalist” as well as a laundry list of all the songs she’d gold-starred. When she lost her #1 position, she grudgingly changed her sig but then actually went ahead and made a post on her blog within the Rock Band community website about how the Wife would, and I quote, “Pay dearly” for taking the position away from her. Since then she’s been banging her head playing the game as long as humanly possible, trying to regain the top spot and it was generally upsetting to the Wife, who did not enjoy being the target of hatred and venom from someone simply for being good at something. A sore winner the former #1 was, but as as sore loser, she turned out to be far worse.

So after breaking the 10 million point barrier, an announcement was made about the “virtual retirement” from competitive singing. The former #1 even went so far as to make a comment on the announcement with a loud, all caps, “YES!” and joy at being able to take the position again, because she really, really, REALLY needs it. The relief in her comment at having the #1 position in her grasp again was palpable, frightening and kind of pathetic all at the same time.

This is why bringing the competitive aspect into music games sucks. I gotta’ admit, I wasn’t real impressed with this girl and the sudden antagonism she directed Wife-wards simply because her precious #1 position was usurped. The only problem is, defending such a position will be a full-time job, and I don’t know how she’s going to maintain her top spot with all the other very, VERY good singers that are clearly better than her getting into the game now–and ESPECIALLY–after Christmas.

I’ve never understood how being publicly recognized as #1 could be the sole defining purpose in anyone’s life and this little experience certainly hasn’t cleared it up any….

Still The Same

Yup, more Rock Band.

Same Old, Same Old

Yup, more Rock Band.

5-Starring For Fun

Now with a fairly intimidating lead, the new project for Rock Band seems to be filling out “the missing bits.” Never in the few years that I have been playing music games did I ever expect to see an entire list of songs on Expert level all 5-starred, but this exactly what has happened for the vocals section of Rock Band today. I am aghast.

Ascension

Holy crap. #1 on vocals.

Little More Work, Little More Rock Band

Back to doing some work on the Kid’s Comic. Other than that, the Wife now commands the #3 spot as singer in the world of Rock Band. Yes, it is frightening to me.

Busy Friday

Shopping, laundry and the Neighbor came in for a while to thrash out on the drums in Rock Band. A good time was had by all, and he suddenly turned from being kind of “blah” towards Jet’s Are You Gonna’ Be My Girl, with its over saturation as in iPod commercial tune to “DAMN this song is fun to play on drums!”

Rampage Continues

The Wife has now climbed to the #4 spot, and went on some kind of Gold Star binge today. I have to admit, this is both pleasantly surprising, and a little bit frightening. While she’d shown an obvious love for traditional turn-based RPGs on game consoles, this whole “I’m going to sing the doors off our building” phase she’s entered caught me completely off guard. Not that I’m complaining, Expert level singers in Rock Band are still about as rare as Siberian White Tigers, so the fact that I happen to live with one certainly makes getting a full band together a LOT easier. Guitarists and drummers playing at Expert are a dime a dozen, but a singer? Not so easy to find.

Still More Boring-ness

Tidied up some stuff for the Agent and sent it away, including a new bio to reflect the fact that I no longer live in Singapore. Annnnnnnnnnnnd… played more Rock Band. The Wife is now on some kind of rampage and is quickly climbing up the vocalists charts, frequent appearing the in top 5 and event #1 spots for many songs. I dunno what’s gotten into her, it’s like she’s got a fever and the prescription is more cowb-… singing.

More Boring-ness

Finished up GameAxis articles played Rock Band.