Another For The Pile

We ended up picking this up earlier today at the local game store. We found out about a vintage game store in the neighborhood that also sells new stuff, and small shop staffed by actual owners with deep love for games wins out over monolithic retail chain with disinterested minimum wage teenage staff in my book Every. Single. Time.

After playing through it a bit, the Wife and I have both had that realization where we look at each other and wonder why the hell we didn’t pick this up sooner. Despite the fact that it got rave reviews when it first came out in October. I’d seen the Ratchet & Clank series floating around on the PS2 for years, but never really got into it because of the “cute” graphics. I am now experiencing regret over that decision, because this latest version on the PS3 is an unbelievable amount of fun. Looks beautiful and has a bouncy, playful sense of humor that hearkens back to a more innocent time in gaming before the idea of fun was having sex with a hooker in your car, before running her over with said car and then taking back the money you gave her, then beating on her corpse with a bat a few times for good measure. I think we just discovered another franchise that we will be faithfully collecting as each new sequel comes out, provided it lives up the promise of this first PS3 outing.

Also, I have a replacement guitar for Rock Band. The first guitar that came in the box was okay. It was functional, but I noticed right from the start that strumming up was something that only worked intermittently. This was fine playing at any level below Expert, but for some of the extremely fast shredding sequences of certain songs, you NEED to strum up and down, and whenever I did that, I saw myself come dangerously close to failing out. At first, like any reasonable gamer, I wondered if perhaps it was simply because I sucked. However, after getting the new guitar (which in Rock Band lingo is a “Gen 3″ guitar that uses new magnetic induction technology instead of physical contacts for the strummer) and taking it out for a spin, it was like a revelation. Guitar lines in Run To The Hills which had put me in the red “You Are About To FAIL Because You SUCK” zone were suddenly easily survived, with me staying in the green the whole way and never being in danger of failing. For once, I could legitimately blame the instrument instead of myself. It also helps that the new guitar’s whammy bar works, since my own actually broke down just a couple of days ago.

I’ve been discussing this with others, and it seems like the consensus is this is not a problem of design, but of manufacture. The Strat looks GREAT on paper, and the actual theory behind its design is clearly superior to the Red Octane peripherals. And when you get a Strat that works as designed and intended, it blows the old Guitar Hero guitars out of the water. The problem is that Harmonix and Electronic Arts lacked a chief advantage that Red Octane had; established relations with the unscrupulous owners of factories in China. Red Octane is owned and operated by some Chinese folks who seem to have connection and family already established in Hong Kong and China so they already knew how the system works in China where people make large promises about what a factory is capable of doing… but won’t deliver on this unless they get their palm greased with some green under the table. Harmonix and Electronic Arts pretty much fell into the same trap that Microsoft did with the Xbox 360 and horrendous failure rate; they failed to grasp that when you sign a contract with a Chinese factory, paying the agreed sum in the contract will merely get you stuff that LOOKS like it works, but will actually fall apart in short order. Getting product that ACTUALLY WORKS requires more money beyond what is contractually agreed upon. Red Octane understood this. Harmonix and Electronic Arts are now probably slowly making this realization.

Oh well… at least the new guitar works great…

Another Quiet Sunday

Uncharted is slowly being finished on Crushing Mode. Maaaaaaaan is this game hard. Rock Band continues to push the PS3 to its limits with near constant use. This game is EVIL…

The Miracle Of Rock Band And The Internet

Today we actually played Rock Band with some friends in Singapore. With zero lag. This is one of those times when I’m truly amazed at how far games have come. Unfortunately there’s no voice chat on the PS3, so we had to use an instant messenger system on nearby computers to communicate, but wow… actually playing with folks exactly on the other side of the planet with instant response.

Also, our sleeping hours are starting to creep up again, so it looks like the next few weeks will be one of those weird ones where we’re waking up at 9 in the evening and not being able to actually go shopping until half-way through the “day” when the sun finally comes up and stores open…

The Majesty Of Rock Returns

Oh Harmonix, you may have killed a little bit of my soul by giving into the Infinite Money Pit that is Microsoft, but I just can’t make myself hate you when you do stuff like this:

It’s gonna’ be a long wait to November.

Still Writing

And of course, I’ve finished up Uncharted on Hard and am now working through it at the hardest difficulty level, Crushing, which is… Really, DAMN Hard… Also, in a total surprise move, the whammy bar on my Fender Strat Rock Band controller has died. Time to put in that order for a replacement. Good thing it’s still under warranty…

It’s Coming

There is both good news and bad news in the inevitable announcement of Rock Band 2 which has been officially announced for later in the year.

The good news: It’s coming in September and will address most minor criticisms people had of the first game.

The bad news: It’s only coming in September for the Xbox 360, as Microsoft dropped some cash to make sure they got it first, with the PS3, PS2 and Wii versions slated for a November 17th release. Things like this really don’t do much to ease Microsoft’s reputation as one of the worst things to happen to the console industry.

However, to ease the pain, here are some of the songs already announced for the 80+ playlist.

Dream Theater “Panic Attack”
System of a Down “Chop Suey”
Red Hot Chili Peppers “Give It Away”
Foo Fighters “Everlong”
The Muffs “Kids in America”
Motorhead “Ace of Spades”
Cheap Trick “Hello There”
Elvis Costello “Pump It Up”
Journey “Any Way You Want It”
The Who “Pinball Wizard”
Joan Jett “Bad Reputation”
Social Distortion “I Was Wrong”
Avenged Sevenfold “Almost Easy”
Bon Jovi “Livin’ on a Prayer”
Steve Miller Band “Rock ‘n Me”
Rage Against the Machine “Testify”
Billy Idol “White Wedding Pt 1″

More Gaming

Just a bit of Uncharted and Rock Band…

Another Quiet Day

Did some shopping, played some Band World Tour in Rock Band and watched with amusement as the Wife sang with a group that had been very politely asking her if the #1 singer would deign to interact with the plebes and grace them with her voice. She did pretty much the way I expected, which is to say that her scores averaged between 98%-100%, and she got a bunch of message afterwards expressing amazement.

Another Boring Post

No prizes for guessing what I did today…