Cool Down

The weather, thankfully, broke today and it was a much more reasonable 26 degrees outside for the majority of the day. I actually managed to finish the articles for GameAxis for the month today, and in celebration, here’s the list of new songs that are currently confirmed for release on Guitar Hero III:

• “3′s and 7′s”-Queens of the Stone Age
• “Barracuda”-Heart
• “Cherub Rock”-Smashing Pumpkins
• “Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll”-Blue Oyster Cult
• “Cult of Personality”-Living Colour
• “Even Flow”-Pearl Jam”
• “Knights of Cydonia”-Muse
• “La Grange”-ZZ Top
• “Lay Down”-Priestess
• “The Metal”-Tenacious D
• “Miss Murder”-AFI
• “Mississippi Quen”-Mountain
• “My Name is Jonas”-Weezer
• “The Number of the Beast”-Iron Maiden
• “One”-Metallica
• “Paint it Black”-The Rolling Stones
• “Paranoid”-Black Sabbath
• “Raining Blood”-Slayer
• “Reptilia”-The Strokes
• “Rock and Roll All Nite”-Kiss
• “Rock You Like a Hurricane”-Scorpions
• “Sabotage”-Beastie Boys
• “School’s Out”-Alice Cooper
• “She Builds Quick Machines”-Velvet Revolver
• “Slow Ride”-Foghat
• “Suck My Kiss”-Red Hot Chili Peppers
• “Through the Fire and Flames”-DragonForce
• “Welcome to the Jungle”-Guns N’ Roses

The ones in bold are master tracks. And two of the songs, Paranoia and Mississippi Queen are also on Rock Band, which is VERY confusing to me. But I gotta’ admit, that is one good looking setlist so far…

Who’s The Winner?!

YOU DECIDE!

In this corner, we’ve got the upcoming Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii:

And in this corner, for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and rumored appearance on the Wii at some unspecified point in time, Rock Band.

On the one hand, Guitar Hero III has scored a major coup in that they have Tenacious D’s The Metal. That song alone may be worth the price of admission for many, and it sure is a big hook for me. However, they also took out Pandora and Clive Winston, a couple of my favorite characters and there’s that worrying report about the ease of the game. And while I appreciate the addition of battling guitarists as a new feature, I don’t know how much I personally would use it and enjoy it as it strikes me as a bit too “video game-y” that you would actually be trying to beat another musician into submission like that. They’ve also included a “note counter” by the score meter that shows you how many notes per row you’re hitting. These additions are the kind of thing that are made by people thinking in terms of GAMES, not music, and it’s clear that the Neversoft team are trying to get Guitar Hero away from just the pure, fun, spirit of playing music and trying to ground it in the score-conscious, achievement oriented culture of gamers. It seems to go against the Spirit Of Rock. Plus, again, it’s made by skaters, not musicians.

Then on the other hand you’ve got the amazing string of good news that just keeps coming for Rock Band. It’s been confirmed that the entire album Who’s Next by the Who is going to be available for downloadable purchase which is an AMAZING coup for the Harmonix crew (GO TEAM!) and the Create-A-Rock-Star mode is a thing of beauty. If you’ve got a half hour with nothing to do, sit yourself down and watch this video, which is of Harmonix showing off Rock Band for Gamespot. I wanted the game before. I’m going to DIE now if I don’t get it.

‘Course I need an Xbox 360 or a PS3 to play it, so I think this video may have just decisively swung me…

My Useless E3 Report

Since I’m not actually there this year, I’ve been doing what most gamers are doing; slavishly eating up every single video that comes on line, digesting it, and then pondering the implications for the year to come. First of all, the Big Three have all made their announcements and I have to say, things are looking pretty good this year. Microsoft had nothing too interesting to show as they’d already made most of their major announcements regarding the Xbox 360 previously, so while their show was solid, they had no surprises.

On a personal note, however, one thing DID occur during the Xbox 360 conference that personally enraged me to no end; Peter Moore, the head of Microsoft’s Xbox division, decided to “wow” the crowd by showing off his Mad l33t sk1llz on Harmonix’s Rock Band. He picked up his Fender Strat, joined the rest of the band (crewed by Harmonix regulars, you GO team!) set his guitar on easy and… words fail me… Instead, watch this video…

I’m sorry man, I know I’m not being objective, but the Guitar Hero player in me wanted to stand up and throttle someone. Dude, you JUST DON’T DO THAT.

My own personal intolerances aside, Microsoft’s showing was what I expected. There are lots of exclusive titles coming to Xbox 360, but in the end, they’re doing the same ol’ thing; bigger, better, faster graphics with little true innovation. They have some good games in the pipeline, no doubt about that, but since I still see Microsoft as merely refining and tweaking an existing paradigm. Still, they have some interesting titles that, were they not on a Microsoft machine, I would have considered picking up.

Mass Effect, for example, is a proud local product of Edmonton based BioWare, and is that rarest of things in video games, a science fiction RPG. I’m starved for really good SF RPGs, and I have to admit, them schnazzy graphics you see on the left sure don’t hurt either. Chicks in super tight, plastic body armor are always a hit with the kids…

Too Human is ANOTHER fine Canadian game brought to us from the good folks at Silicon Knights, who are in St. Catharine’s, Ontraio, just a couple of hours’ drive from Toronto. These are the same folks that brought us the excellent, and highly underrated Eternal Darkness, one of the best horror/action games ever made… unfortunately it was on the Nintendo GameCube, so almost no one got to play it.

This time around, they’ve secured themselves a super juicy exclusive deal with Microsoft, so only 360 owners will get a chance to try this science fiction, apocalyptic update on Ragnarok. Yes, it’s about Norse gods and the end of the world in a science fiction setting, and having seen some of the graphics and cutscenes for this game I can safely say it looks intriguing. I have no idea whether it’s actually any good as a game, but it certainly looks like they gave a damn about the story, and that counts for a lot in my book.

Eternal Sonata is the very definition of Whacky Japanese. Only from Nippon could an idea this insane be conceived. In this game, Frederic Chopin is lying on his death bed, mere hours from finally losing a fight against tuberculosis. As he loses consciousness, he finds himself in a dream (or IS it?!?) where a strange, magical world that is endangered, and populate by people with incurable diseases that give them fantastic magical powers and combat abilities. The game is based on Chopin and his music, but one of the most intriguing things to me about the game is the fact that it’s Co-op. This the first time I’ve ever heard of an RPG that allows people to play along together, and since the Wife and I are both big RPGs fans, this title would have been just perfect for us. Unfortunately since it’s on the Box Of Evil, that’s simply not going to happen…

Of course for Microsoft there was also Halo 3 and Project Gotham Racing and Madden Football, yadda, yadda, yadda… you know what, I’m bored. Moving on…

The intense looking man on the left is Reggie Fils-Aime, a man I have previously written about as “having the confident, quiet intensity in his eyes that comes only from knowing that police haven’t figured out your wife and kids are buried by the apple tree in the backyard.” He is the American face of Nintendo, the “fun company.” Let that sink in for a moment.

Anyway, Nintendo’s press conference went very well, or incredibly horribly depending on your preferences in video games. If you are the hardcore gamer type that grew up with a joystick almost permanently plugged into your hand (that would be me, by the way) then in some ways, this press conference signaled the death of Nintendo as a gamer’s favorite. However, if you are part of the new wave of millions of people all over the planet that would never, EVER touch a video game until you discovered the Fun In A Box that is the Wii, then this press conference signaled the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship with the Big N.

Nintend
o’s entire conference had one inescapable message. “We are mainstream.” Nintendo is getting people in from all walks of life that both Sony and Microsoft have spectacularly failed to engage. Unfortunately, one of the side-effects of this massive success is that they have little choice but to alienate the people that made them so popular in the first place, the gamers. It looks like for the next TWO YEARS, there will only be three games worth playing for people that like traditional video games; Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime: Corruption and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles. Everything else is either a horrible game that uses the Wii remote in useless, gimmicky fashion, or else the increasingly more popular “productivity ware”. For the Nintendo DS, more Brain Age style games are on the inbound, and the single most exciting piece of hardware of the entire show was revealed here at the press conference; a SCALE.

Okay, that’s not really fair, first of all, this thing is called the Wii Balance Board. It’s wireless and has two kinds of sensors, one for measuring weight and one for measuring placement, or balance. What this magical thing does is every day, good health maintenance activities such as recording your posture and weight distribution, reading your Body Mass Index and keeping a daily/weekly/monthly record of your progress, and using the bundled game, Wii Fit to go through a series of exercises that involve aerobics, stretching and yoga. Here’s the video:

My jaw dropped when I saw this thing in action, and I realized, in that moment, one, inescapable conclusion. Nintendo has got a license to print money on their hands. Not only have they managed to completely escape the usual stigma of Games Are The Work Of The Devil, they’ve also got an instant pull for both families and trendy; this damn thing is healthy. The Wife took one look at the balance board in action and said, firmly and with no uncertainty, “We’re getting that,” because to her, this represents an interesting solution; in the long run, it’s a cheap personal trainer. Of course any traditional gamer in their right mind who looks at this realizes that it’s lame beyond words in terms of actual gaming, but what’s a few hundred thousand gamers compared to MILLIONS of senior citizens, housewives and other fashionista types on the look out for something new and trendy? This, without a doubt, is it. The balance board is going to be flying off the shelves when it ships next year, and Nintendo has just sealed their position as #1 company in the console wars. The number of new customers they’re going to get from this one product alone is OBSCENE.

Meanwhile over at Sony, THEY HAVE CHEWBACCA! WIN!! No, really, they had Chewbacca. Jack Tretton, the new Sony Computer Entertainment America prez, unveiled a new Star Wars themed PSP and had Chewbacca on hand to help him do it.

It’s a weird place to be if you “grew up” with Sony. I was already in my twenties when I got my first Playstation, and in that time, the Playstation “family” has provided me with more fun on their consoles than any other console I have ever owned. They dominated the landscape of video games for nearly 10 years with an unmatched number of quality action, RPG and miscellaneous games. They brought us Final Fantasy (writ large), the Grand Theft Auto series, and, most recently and most beloved to me, Guitar Hero. Now, in 2007, they are in last place, and their latest machine is barely moving off the shelves thanks to that US$600 price point which only recently dropped $100.

So it was with some minor dread that I checked out what they were offering this year and surprisingly, they seem in good shape. One year later, the horrendous price of the PS3 and the obvious lack of really killer titles are all about to end, and the new games in the pipeline really DO show off a tremendous amount of power in that slick, black looking machine. I’ve been really, REALLY tough on Sony the last year with their business decisions and marketing gaffes that have been borderline insanity, but finally, they are getting their act together in the games department and things are looking up.

Killzone 2 is not really my cup o’ tea, but this is probably one of two saving graces for the Playstation 3. For those that don’t follow this sort of thing religiously, when the PS3 was first announced, an AMAZING trailer was used for a game called Killzone 2 and no one could believe that something that looked that incredible could be a video game. Speculation abounded as to whether Sony was lying or not in their claims that the PS3 could produce graphics of this caliber. In the end, it came out that Sony had given “tech specs” to a company to produce a pre-rendered trailer that would “approximate” what the game would look on a PS3 and people immediately lost faith. Now, at this year’s E3, Guerilla, the developers FINALLY unveiled the actual game and trailer with that uses actual, ingame graphics. The results? It’s pretty damn close. Check it out for yourself:

This game is one
I may or may not play myself because First Person Shooters aren’t my favorite genre, though I do dip my toe in the likes of Halo and Counter Strike on occasion. But since the FPS is the dominant market amongst gamers, this is a crucial title for Sony and the wave of positive press in the wake of the Killzone 2 unveiling is going to be a major source of relief for the company. They really dodged the bullet on that one. But I said that there were two saving graces for the PS3, and here’s the other one:

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is not even made by Sony, it’s made by Japanese developer Konami, creators of the horrifying Silent Hill and excellent Suikoden RPG series. But when you think Playstation, Snake, and Metal Gear are practically synonymous with the console. There has been no doubt–especially considering the pedigree–that MGS4 would be a brilliant game. Similarly, there was no doubt WHATSOEVER that when Hideo Kojima, the game’s creator, showed off footage of the game, that footage was 100% legit. Kojima is notorious for shying away from pre-rendered footage, and every MGS game released thus far has never, ever employed pre-rendered cutscenes and has always relied on the strength of the obscenely powerful game engine, plus the inherent power of whatever console the game appeared on. Where a lot of the doubt for MGS4 came from was the question of exclusivity. For YEARS now, non-Playstation owners have watched MGS games come and go, and they’ve wanted them. Badly. With this latest iteration of the console wars, Microsoft spent epic–really, I mean EPIC–amounts of money to buy formerly exclusive titles from Sony’s partners and either get them multi-platform (that is, to appear on both the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360) or steal exclusivity outright and not have those games appear on the Playstation 3 at all, as seems to be the case with Namco’s wonderful Ace Combat and Katamari Damacy games. But the one game, the game that can sell a console alone, eluded Microsoft. Kojima himself insisted that this game could only–and WOULD only–be made with the power of the PS3, but flagging sales of the PS3 console combined with huge budget an MGS game commands had actually made Konami executives say that while the the MGS games were traditionally Playstation games, current circumstances might make them “take steps” to ensure the franchise remained profitable.

At this year’s E3, Kojima–at least for the moment–reaffirmed that MGS4 would indeed appear only on the Playstation 3, and the fans around the planet breathed a collective sigh of relief. Solid Snake is probably THE premiere action hero for gamers; he is tough, he is capable and he has absolutely NO idea how to talk to women. Since Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sonys of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater his long and complex story has been told. It’s full of plot twists, some poignant moments, and, at least in the case of MGS 3, some moments of sacrifice and honor so poignant that even The Wife cried at the end. Kojima has promised that MGS4 will be the end to the saga, and to whet the appetites of gamers even more, he presented a new trailer that is a personal landmark for me. This trailer may have the single best fight I have ever seen in my life. I mean by ANY standard. I have not seen a movie that approaches this level of elegance/cool in mano a mano combat and it’s doubtful that I will see a movie that tops this in the next five years. Check this out:

But aside from suddenly having two very hot properties back in the Playstation stable, Sony is doing something very interesting with their product. Rather than go for the mainstream, as Nintendo is doing, or More of the Same But Bigger And Flashier as Microsoft is doing, they are making the gutsy move of trying to create a kind of integrated lifestyle with the PS3.

This, for example, is called Home. It’s essentially Second Life for Playstation owners. A free service–the other cool thing is the Playstation Network, unlike Microsoft, is completely free–gives ALL PS3 owners an apartment that they can furnish, the ability to create a Home avatar, and the freedom to wander through a large virtual environment interacting–and playing with–other owners. Sony eventually plans to include a virtual movie theater and trophy/gamer space to make places where film buffs can watch (and presumably also buy and download) films that are going to be put on sale, and the trophy room will be where achievements completed in games owned by PS3 users will be enshrined to show how hardcore/isolated-from-real-life they are. It’s a fascinating and very bold experiment in community building, and has crazy features like buying a TV for your apartment that actually shows images, or being able to take your snapshots–or simply favorite graphics–and “frame” them in your apartment as pictures. The music you or transfer to your PS3 hard drive can also be played out of your apartment’s stereo and if you’re not happy with all the free default furniture or clothing, you can spend real dollars to buy more accessories. This is obviously heavily tapping into a market that has proven to be successful for The Sims games for years.

And now here, in no particular order, are some of the games that have gotten my attention for one reason or another:

Rock B
and. Whew, here’s another one where a bullet was dodged. Regular readers already know about my near religious dedication to the majesty that is Guitar Hero but will also be aware of my dismay at Harmonix, the creators of the game, being taken off the series. Rock Band however is Guitar Hero in mythic fashion with the ability to play guitar, bass, DRUM and VOCALS all at the same time, either in the same room or online.

Harmonix have already been making some promises are both insane and legendary. They are finally letting players CREATE THEIR OWN ROCK STAR, complete with “signature moves.” They have a new controller (A FENDER STRAT! WHOO!) that also has buttons on the lower neck of the guitar for doing solos. They finally got Metallica and Enter the Sandman will be one of the songs in the game. The other gobsmackingly amazing promise is that by the end of the first year, Rock Band will have ONE HUNDRED PLUS songs available for purchase and download. On top of this, they say they are going to be doing this in a serious way and including FULL ON ALBUMS. They’ve formed a “Music Advisory Board” withe likes of musician and producer Steven Van Zandt on board to help with songs selections of the future. I’m just about ready to give Harmonix my first born at this point for how good they are being to us.

The part for me that scared me quite a bit was that Rock Band was slated for a multi-platform release on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. Yeah, the PS2 simply can’t handle this game, I mourn that loss too. But then ol’ Peter Moore played the game at the press conference and people were noticing on the promotional advertising that there was only the Microsoft logo. Fans freaked out at the idea they would HAVE to buy an Xbox 360 for this game, but, God bless ‘em, the developers waded into the Rock Band forums themselves and said “No. Wrong. PS3 and Xbox 360 for Christmas. RELAX.”

So I’m extremely pleased about that. If I HAVE to get a new system to play this game, please, whatever gods there are in this cosmos, don’t make me have to get that Xbox 360 to do it. I’d do it for Rock Band, but I would die a little inside.

Here’s the song listing so far:

1970s

• The Who – “Won’t Get Fooled Again”
• Mountain – “Mississippi Queen”*
• David Bowie – “Suffragette City”
• Black Sabbath – “Paranoid”*
• Blue Oyster Cult – “Don’t Fear the Reaper”
• The Ramones – “Rockaway Beach”

1980s

• Rush – “Tom Sawyer”*
• Bon Jovi – “Wanted Dead or Alive”

1990s

• Nirvana – “In Bloom”
• Stone Temple Pilots – “Vasoline”
• Weezer – “Say It Ain’t So”
• Foo Fighters – “Learn to Fly”
• Metallica – “Enter Sandman”

2000s

• The Hives – “Main Offender”
• The Strokes – “Reptilia”
• Queens of the Stone Age – “Go With the Flow”

With the exception of the songs that have an asterisk, all the others are the original master tracks. Un-freakin’-believable. Playing guitar with Kurt Cobain singing along, that has me so happy I could barf. Speaking of barf, on the other end of the scale we have:

Guitar Hero III

Okay, that’s being a bit unfair, but I think the gamer snob in me is starting to come out. I should really be more enthusiastic about this game, but that thought, “this is not done by musicians but by skaters” continues to nag me.

The other thing that has recently alarmed me is that IGN themselves have finally gotten a hands on with the game, and the one thing horrified about it; they reported that they jumped straight into Expert and finished it, on the first try, with an average of 96% accuracy. That alone has me worried and not entirely surprised.

The thing you have to understand about Harmonix is the company was founded by MUSICIANS. They originally started out trying to make interactive musical experiences to get the less musically inclined excited about making and being a part of music. These early forays failed to sell, and eventually they hit upon the idea of combining music with GAMES, first in early attempts like Frequency and Amplitude and finally with Guitar Hero. But they love music first and they know what they are doing. Neversoft the new developers, the Tony Hawk guys, LIKE music. They do not love it, it is not in their heart and soul the way it is for Harmonix, and now it is starting to show. IGN’s early report is that the arrangements of the buttons for the tunes seem to make “less sense” than they did in GHI, GH2, and presumably GH80′s, which is the last true Harmonix GH game. They also report the arrangements are far, far easier, and that it looks like no song in the game is going to be a Bark at the Moon or Hanger 18, and that at this stage, the game can be finished with little to no challenge, on the first sitting.

This, I believe, is part of the Activision’s efforts to make the game more “mainstream.” One of the criticisms I’ve sometimes heard leveled at Guitar Hero is some players don’t think Expert level is “fair” and they want to be able to finish it without having to practice all the time, because “It’s not right that only a few people can finish expert, we should ALL be able to, or it’s not fun. Why should that guy be able to unlock more accessories or get cooler guitars when we both paid the same amount of money?” This “new and improved” Expert system is the answer to that.

Despite this though, I know that I will get this game. And I will enjoy this game. The track list is still very impressive so far, and Slash of Guns n’ Roses fame will be a “boss” that you have to guitar duel with in the game. But for me, while the music there, the rock is not. That’s gone, with Harmonix, over to Rock Band.

Aside from that, a
few other titles that are catching my eye right now are a puzzler called EchoChrome for the PS3 Playstation Network and the PSP. The only way to describe this game is “Escher + Tetris + LSD” and that doesn’t even begin to do justice to how whacky and original this game is. Really curious about it.

The other is a blast from my Playstation past, is Wipeout HD. Another downloadable game slated for the Playstation Network on PS3, this is the mindbendingly fun Wipeout series but with High Def graphics and, of course, online play. I can think of a few folks I’ll be able to hook up with online in Asia and other parts of the world to sit down, geek out and blow the crap out of each other while racing in hover craft that go in excess of 500kph.

And that is my overlong, long winded and heavily biased, non-journalist take on E3.

Work & Geeking Out

Aside from writing up the next installment of the kid’s comic and doing some shameless promotion of The Wife, I’m just glued to all the fun of E3, which, to me personally is kind of like Christmas. I may have hated the noise and gauche presentation of the old LA Convention Center madness, but I still really dig getting new info on games, and this E3 seems to have finally turned things around for Sony; it looks like the Playstation 3 no longer sucks and may be worth owning by next year.

I Have Seen The Face Of Music Games

And it is Rock Band. My God, a leaked video of an early prototype for this game got out onto Youtube and when I watched it, I just about died. This is the ULTIMATE party game, there simply will be no other alternative if you settle for nothing but the best. This particular video shows off Welcome to the Jungle by Guns n’ Roses, though Harmonix has already stressed that even that song itself is not yet locked down for definite inclusion in the final game. The video shows four people rocking out, with THREE of the usual meters, plus another at the top of the screen that runs the length. The first meter is lead guitar, the center meter is drums and the right meter is bass guitar, with the upper bar being for the singer.

MUST. GET. THIS. GAME…