I just hope this, like other bowling videogames, isn't horrible. I'll try not to get my hopes up. But, really, just think about it: a fantastic bowling game with motion sensing controls and online play...it would be the end of my (already diminishing) social life.
In other videogame news, I beat Freebird on Expert [in GH2] last night. I was really proud of myself until I tried to conquer Buckethead's song. So difficult.
If you haven't already played with Line Rider, I suggest you do so. I haven't used it since its first incarnation. From what I've seen on the newest official site, it's much more sophisticated and much easier to use. Basically, you draw lines, then press play, and watch as a little character goes flying down your newly created world on a sled; it's more of a toy than a game, but incredibly addicting and fun. And now they've announced that it will be released for the Wii and the DS in the spring of next year. This is probably the best news I've ever heard. I'm not kidding. I'm incredibly excited about it.
Via: wii.ign.com
Official Site: Line Rider
Official Press Release: Line Rider News
Best use of Line Rider (see below):
The good news is that The Tick is still hilarious. As many of you know, it was recently my birthday. And for said birthday, I had a little bit of birthday cash. I spend some on Disney's Robin Hood and the rest on The Tick vs. Season 1. I was a bit wary about buying it, as I remember the show being awesome, but I also remember The Super Mario Bros. show being awesome (which it turns out is terrible). But, as I threw in the first disc and jumped into episode 1, I realized (which rarely happens) that I had occasional good taste as a child. The DVD set has no extras and is missing episode 11 (due to some creative/legal issues). But, for $25, you can't beat 4+ hours of a fantastic cartoon.
So, this brings us to part 2 of this post. Where the hell have I been? I've been drowning under new media. Guitar Hero 2 + Zelda + the Wii in general + 2 volumes of Looney Tunes = no time to blog. Not to mention that work has been crazy busy lately. I would love to break all of these activities down and write up reviews of each, but, again, no time. So, I will say these things:
1) It was worth staying up all night in front of Best Buy for the Wii. Not only has this allowed me the opportunity to plug in 30+ hours into Zelda, but it contributed to an awesome birthday party (4 player tennis is infinitely better than 1 or 2 player tennis). 2) Zelda is a fantastic game. 3) Guitar Hero 2 is...well...fantastic as well. 4) Watching all the old Looney Tunes (I'm 5+ hours into those, without watching the extras) is a wonderful experience. Not only does it offer some great nostalgia, but I still find them to be genuinely funny. My Saturday morning hasn’t been this fun since I watched the cartoons when they aired on Saturday morning the first time.
Also, off subject, I tried absinthe for the first time last night, real pre-ban recipe absinthe. No, no hallucinating or anything. Apparently, that's just a myth and it would take a lethal amount of wormwood to actually create any sort of hallucinogenic effect. But, it is delicious (pretty much a strong anise liquor), and despite being 136 proof, tastes nothing like alcohol. Fantastic stuff. There's really no good reason this stuff is still banned.
I have been working a ton at both jobs so I haven't had much time to be on the internet as of late.
So heres what's going on-
Tomorrow is a big day for music. The new Hova album "Kingdom Come" drops. I didn't really like the single "Show me what you got" at first, but its grown on me, and now I love it. I don't know how he can do anything that would top "Reasonable Doubt" or "The Black Album" but even less then perfect Jay-Z is still damn good.
Tom Waits also hits us with 3 CDs of greatness. If you don't know already your a bitch...so heres the deal, title "Orphans" 3 discs each titled Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards. I've heard some of it and it is already in my top 3 releases of the year.
I haven't had a lot of time to play GH2, but I do know it fucking rocks. I went through all the songs on medium in one day (just to unlock) and am now doing it on hard. Sometime I kick ass and sometimes I get my ass kicked, but its always a damn good time.
I've read about half of Neil Gaimans "Fragile Things". So far I have enjoyed "How to talk to girls at paryts" the most, but it is all good.
I want a Wii. If anyone wants to send me one I'll give you my address. Thanks a bunch.
Like I said I have been working way to much...about 30-35 hours a week at Starbucks and 40 at AMF. I have been bowling like shit. My average has droped from 164 to 148. I need to get it back up quick...
Deadwood is still kicking my ass daily. I have now gone through both sessions and I just keep on re-watching it. I should just buy it so I can once again put Netflix to use. I miss all you assholes. Give me a call sometime and remeber to have a drink for me.
It was worth the ten hours I spent in the cold outside of Best Buy. I was the first in line for the Wii, and, oh gods, it's fucking awesome. Right now, I'm so fascinated by Wii Sports that I can't even imagine beginning Zelda...but I will soon anyway...and it will blow my mind I'm sure.
Buy one as soon as you can. And play Rayman; it's hilarious.
I don't feel the need to write a full review. For those, go here or here. They both support unique positions that I think are worth reading. But this is what I think about the game thus far:
Awesome. I have now finished the game on hard, and so I've had a chance to play through all of the main songs. All-in-all, I think this time around, the game is a lot easier. As I mentioned in the comments, the game initially seems a lot more difficult. It seems that way because there are more notes, more solos, and they come at you in various places. (Some songs, for instance, will start with a solo; GH1 almost always started with some standard guitar riff before going into a complex section). However, now that you don't need to hold the lower buttons down while playing for hammer-ons and pull-offs, the game ultimately becomes easier. I was able to blast through hard without ever losing a song, and I have 5 stars on over half of them. But, really, is this a bad thing?
The answer: no. And this is why. I enjoy playing this game for multiple reasons, but one of the main reasons is that I feel awesome when I play through a song well. And I feel even better if I play through a complex song well. It gives me that fantastic delusional thought that I can rock out to "Freebird" on the guitar. So, give me more notes to play, make it look absolutely insane, make it sound awesome, but then make it slightly easier to nail every note, and you've got yourself a happy gamer.
All that said, I'm thinking that expert will be quite a jump up in difficulty, and I'm looking forward to getting my ass kicked, so that I can use the practice mode a bit more. There are too many unlockables to be disappointed in the change of challenge. (You can unlock different guitars both by beating a difficulty level and getting 5 stars on all the songs for a difficulty level. So, once I'm well into expert, I'll probably go back and attempt 5 stars on all the hard songs.)
Before I end, I must complain about one thing that no one else seems to care about. Why the hell would you be playing Allman Brothers' "Jessica" or Heart's "Crazy on You" on the Vans' Warped Tour? The location and the song list didn't always match up, and it weirded me out. But, hell, if this is my only complaint, I'd say you've got a damn good games in your hands.
Someone got a hold of the list of bonus tracks for Guitar Hero 2. While most of them I don't know and wouldn't expect to know, there are some notable tracks. Every Time I Die has the song "The New Black" on there, there's a Buckethead song, some Shadows Fall, and then there's this: Strong Bad's Trogdor. Yes, from Homestarrunner... WhatTheFuck? Whatever, here's the full list:
Artist--Song
For those who are fans of the Devil May Cry series and haven't bought any of the games (I imagine I am one of the few), this is awesome. It's the Devil May Cry 5th Annivesary Bundle, which includes (surprise) Devil May Cry, Devil May Cry 2, and Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition for a meager $29.99. That's a lot of demon ass kicking for $30.
I would like to watch Lost, but I'm too far behind to start now. But, I do watch Heroes. So, here's an interesting article about how the two shows may be connected.
If you weren't convinced that Guitar Hero II was going to be awesome, read this.
Here's a better article about the Scarlett Johansson singing Tom Waits.
And it's been a while since I've linked to Lore Sjöberg's column, but this one is hilarious. It follows his foray into setting up a MySpace account with the ultimate punchline of his MySpace page.
The final tracklist for the main 40 songs for Guitar Hero 2 has been confirmed. They are as follows (separated into groups of difficulty):
Opening Licks
Danzig--"Mother"
Cheap Trick--"Surrender"
Motley Crue--"Shout at the Devil"
Wolfmother--"Woman"
Encore: Spinal Tap--"Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight"
Amp-Warmers
Kiss--"Strutter"
Nirvana--"Heart-Shaped Box"
Police--"Message in a Bottle"
Van Halen--"You Really Got Me"
Encore: Kansas--"Carry on Wayward Son"
String-Snappers
Alice in Chains--"Them Bones"
Foo Fighters--"Monkey Wrench"
Iggy Pop and the Stooges--"Search and Destroy"
Pretenders--"Tattooed Love Boys"
Encore: Black Sabbath--"War Pigs"
Thrash and Burn
Butthole Surfers--"Who Was in My Room Last Night"
Mathew Sweet--"Girlfriend"
Rolling Stones--"Can't You Hear Me Knockin'"
Warrant--"Cherry Pie"
Encore: Guns N' Roses--Sweet Child O' Mine
Return of the Shred
Primus--"John the Fisherman"
Rage Against the Machine--"Killing in the Name Of"
Sword--"Freya"
Thin Lizzy--"Bad Reputation"
Encore: Aerosmtih--Last Child
Relentless Riffs
Allman Brothers--"Jessica"
Heart--"Crazy on You"
Stone Temple Pilots--"Tripping on a Hole in a Paper Heart"
Stray Cats--"Rock This Town"
Encore: Jane's Addiction--"Stop"
Furious Fretwork
Anthrax--"Madhouse"
Lamb of God--"Laid to Rest"
Living End--"Carry Me Home"
Reverend Horton Heat--"Psychobilly Freakout"
Encore: Rush--"YYZ"
Face-Melters
Avenged Sevenfold--"Beast and the Harlot"
Dick Dale--"Misirlou"
Megadeth--"Hangar 18"
Suicidal Tendencies--"Institutionalized"
Encore: Lynyrd Skynyrd--"Free Bird"
I could go on and on about how this list is fantastic, but I'll just let the glory of it all sink in while you do finger warm-ups for rocking out to some Free Bird. Oh, and the game will have a total of 64 tracks, 24 of those being unlockable bonus tracks.
Taxpayers in the state of Illinois are now fronting the bill ($510,528.64 to be exact) for a dumbass (Gov. Rod Blagojevich) who wanted to regulate the sale of "violent" videogames. The bill, rightfully so, was turned down and deemed unconstitutional. Ign explains the bill thusly:The Safe Games Illinois Act would have required retailers to use warning labels in addition to the existing Entertainment Software Ratings Board labels. It also would have forced retailers to post signs within stores explaining the ESRB rating system.
When will these people learn that violent society existed before videogames? I mean, sure, the Inquisition can be blamed on Grand Theft Auto, but the Crusades? Seriously, that was all because of violent movies.
Rumors that E3 (the big, annual videogame expo) would be no more were flying around the internets all day today. And, now, it's been confirmed that E3 is being put to sleep. Well...put to sleep as a giant money-devouring lights & laser show. It will be revived next year as a more "intimate" affair, "hosting press events and small meetings with media, retailers, and developers."
So, who cares? Well, not me. I'll still get the same videogame information and news out of E3 (or whatever they'll call it) next year as I did this year. So, who loses? People who weren't actual journalists or industry insiders that managed to score passes to the show only to play the videogames and never actually write anything about them or contribute to the overall buzz that press conferences are meant to create.
Geek out.
Ign's got the scoop on the 11 official tracks to be featured in Guitar Hero II. Of course, there will be many, many more, but here's what we're looking at right now:
After Nintendo announced very little about the release date/price of the Wii (they said that it would come out in Q4 this year and be less expensive than the PS3), they've now decided to tell everybody that it will come out this Fall (Q4) and less than $250 (less than the PS3). Seeing as analysts and anyone with a brain have been saying that the Wii will most likely be priced between $150 and $250, we have gained absolutely no new information on the release date/price. What I would like to know is why there are 221 news threads about this waste of an "announcement."
I found this site via Clive Thompson's blog (one of the contributor's to Wired). Jeremiah Palecek does oil paintings of scenes in video games. The one to the left, here, is an 8 by 4 foot painting of a scene from Counterstrike. He's got some fun paintings of Joust and Super Mario Bros. as well. Call me a geek, but this is the sort of thing I just find so damn entertaining about the internets. His site doesn't display well on Explorer, but that only affects about 2 of you.
A while ago, I posted about crazy people who were going to roll a giant Katamari through San Francisco. Well, they did it, and here are the stats:
Chris Kohler over at Wired's Game|Life covered the action as well and sums it up well:
Oddly enough, as you might have noticed, this was actually Katamari Damacy in reverse: they began the day with a huge Katamari, which got progressively smaller and lost items as they rolled it. Still, though: a job well done. And, as so many Bay to Breakers spectators say after watching the race: next year, I'm gonna run it.
I saw on the news this morning that PS3 has an official release time of late November and it is going to be $499. By that time I will be out of school and making the big bucks...but anyway I was wondering if I should plan on getting one or not.
I went to IGN and watched the trailer for Final Fantasy XIII which convinced me on the spot that I will buy a PS3 for this game alone. If you (dan/ciggy) haven't seen this you need to watch it.
Here is a video about Guitar Hero 2. Looks awesome. I like the last shot.
This is kind of a half assed post, but I'm sure Dan and Ciggy will have much to add.
I am downloading the Metal Gear Solid 4:Guns of the Patriots trailer right now, which if it deals with the patriots it will kick ass
This may be the only time that I wish I lived in San Francisco. A group of people are organizing a giant katamari roll, picking up stuff along as they roll the beast through the city. Made out of old refrigerator boxes and random stuff, this is what it looks like:
Normally I wouldn't link to a videogame review; especially when the game in question in the new Tomb Raider. However, I think it's a brilliant review. Instead of detailing the gameplay, graphics, etc., (it's already getting great reviews), he delves into the reason why young boys enjoy playing as Lara Croft (besides the obvious). This, in turn, morphs into an academic comparison of Slasher movies and being Lara Croft, more specifically the idea of the Final Girl and young male gamers identifying with a heroine in distress. Fascinating stuff, I say.