Man that is so dumb

"Hands Down" (Warning: Youtube) by Dashboard Confessional has been stuck in my head for the better part of two days now. I'm not exactly sure why a self described emo song would be in there but it is and I have a crazy hankering to play it on Rockband (ha! I just tied it to video games) but the problem is its 180 points and I only have 70. I could add points but I don't want to. What to do. What to do.

In other news that X-Plorer whose customization I analyzed in exhausting detail some months ago has broken. This fucking blows. Now I have four guitars and three of them are broken in some form or another. I'd like to believe I've just played them too much and messed up the gears (I certainly did play that custom til it could take no more) but most likely they're just meant to be break after playing for some time.

The good news is I have a replacement in the form of a GH3 Gibson wireless which is jet black (ok its just black) and to which I have attached the Weezer inspired lightning bolt strap. It actually looks pretty cool. Add to that the three months subscription to Live Gold that I bought for $5 today and I'm a pretty happy camper.

Now if only I could get some better updates on this thing. You must admit though, even if by "you" I mean "me", yesterday's post was the shit.

Oh hey its Paul McCartney

Portable Rock Band!

The great thing about music games, Rock Band and Guitar Hero and their imitators is that they give you the ability to feel like you're playing music even when in reality all one is doing is playing away on small plastic guitars. Despite this there is little denying that the games are fun, addictive and above all profitable. So how to transfer the concept to the handheld market?

The companies have certainly tried, Rock Band launched Unplugged for the PSP with a simple button mashing system while Guitar Hero launch On Tour for the DS with an included peripheral and mimics the fret buttons on the plastic guitar. Both seem fun, neither are actual representations of playing an instrument

Now comes Rock Band for the iPhone. The game doesn't reproduce the feel of the instruments either but at least it doesn't try to. Instead it takes the four available instruments (guitars, drums, vocals, bass) and modifies them to play on the touch screen, notes continue to flow from top to bottom but to play the note the only requirement is to touch the fret button that represents that note. In the case of the vocals there is no actual singing, instead the vocals flow like notes that the player must hit as they pass.

Here's the predicament: should they have tried to reproduce instruments or did they take the correct route? On the one hand I don't want to look like an idiot playing my phone like a guitar or singing to its microphone but on the other hand...I sorta do. The thing is, however, that had they done full on instrumentation instead of tapping notes less people would be inclined to buy or play the game. There is also no doubt that it would not have been a very good game. Not to say that Guitar Hero On Tour and its peripheral suck, its just that thats not the way its done on the iPhone.

The game does have the feel of a Rock Band game. The menus and interface are very similar to the console version and includes some great tattoo inspired images drawn up exclusively for this game (thankfully they dont reek of Ed Hardy douchness). It comes with 20 songs none of which feel like filler. There's some Smashing Pumpkins, Blink 182, Foo Fighters as well as some classics from Lynyrd Skynyrd and other bands. The list is robust and varied enough to keep it interesting but if they're not enough the in-app music store offers two song packages for $1.00. Thats fifty cents a song! cheap!. Hopefully it will be updated weekly and include some free songs (it had two free songs on launch). Super Power (or whatever its called) is included and triggered by tilting the phone, bass groove comes back, unison bonuses are there too.

There are some negatives that need to be addressed: firstly the game cannot be played on the horizontal screen, trying to play on hard vertically is somewhat impossible, especially when trying to maneuver through combined notes with both thumbs. There simply isn't enough space. There is also no character creation or even character selection, it seems that the characters take a back seat, there is only one screen with four characters, one for each instrument. When actually playing most of the screen is taking up by the notes, leaving only about 1/5th of the screen for video of the band playing. Unlike the console version (and for obvious reasons) the video is not unique to the song, instead there are about three different videos which play randomly. This isn't such a big deal as its impossible to actually pay attention to it when playing.

At $10 it might seem like an expensive game but lets keep in mind that other hand held versions of rhythm games retail for much more than this. Overall its a solid, entertaining game, with endless possibilities thanks to the music store and the ability to update seamlessly via the app store. There is multiplayer but its limited to local bluetooth and I don't know anybody that's going buy this game and the person I share apps with simply doesnt care so I wont be taking advantage of this feature. Same goes for the facebook integration but this doesn't matter.

Coming Together

The Beatles Rockband will arrive in a matter of days. After the controversies regarding the songlist, the price, the obtaining of the licenses and the hype its a bit hard to believe that in a matter of days we will be able to enjoy the experience promised by Harmonix.

For a few days now the PR machine for the game has been activated: in-store demos, television ads all in an effort to increase the hype, maybe even to let some oblivious people know that there is, in fact, a Beatles game coming. Like the preview trailers and the gameplay the actual commercial is a thing of beauty.

I guess the reason why I, and probably many more people, enjoy the commercial so much is because of the way old Beatles footage has been cleaned up, showing the Beatles in HD for the first time ever. Lets not forget that people who saw the Beatles live in their prime become fewer by the day, the only images we have of them are grainy videos and grainy pictures which make the whole thing seem like something unreal, something out of a distant history.

The ad brings the Abbey Road Beatles back to life, it gives us our best opportunity to see the group in person, gives us our best images of the group ever. Its pretty amazing, especially when you hear "Come Together" accompanying it. Sure we've heard Beatles songs in ads on tv before but only cover versions. In short, it makes you want to buy the game.

But its also kinda freaky. Two of the guys are dead and bringing them back to life in this manner is a bit like creating freaky robots or talking wax figures or some crazy automata of John Lennon and George Harrison. Then at the :17 second mark you get that image up there of a very happy John...should he be that happy? they tried to pull at the heart strings, and they were successful but they might have been a bit too successful.

Probably not though, its a great ad for what looks to be a great game one which if my band members cared for the Beatles as much as I do I'd probably have on pre-order right now.

By the way, the best part of the video? at around the :09 second mark, George Harrison checking out one of the guitar controllers. I'm sure more than one person has chocked up watching this thing.

Toyworks.

What the fuck is it with frontmen of emo bands writing comic books? first Gerard Way creates Umbrella Academy which, despite the fact that it was written by the frontman of an emo band, is one of the best comics I've ever read, and now Pete Wentz, Pete fuckin Wentz, decides he wants in on the action too?

I went down the the LCS today to pick up Deadpool and the final issue of Young Liars. First of all what a fucking shame that Young Liars ended after only 18 books, what the fuck? sure it got weird but it was a great read. The point is since it was the last issue I decided to look around for a replacement, my eyes were fixated on Fallout: Toyworks not only for its brilliant art but also because it was the premier issue (also, its not a big 2 book).

I bought it with little hesitation then decided to check what it was about on my phone, after I saw that Pete Wentz was a part of the creative team I nearly walked right back. I mean its not like they try to hide it: the guy's name is on the cover, it says "inspired by the music of Fallout Boy", it says "FOB" presents and it has the word "fallout" in the fucking title. Somehow I missed all of this.

After actually reading it, I'm happy to say that it doesn't suck. First of all the story is an obvious take on classic sci-fi memes: Stepford Wives, 100%, Sky Doll and so on. Secondly, Pete Wentz' name is on this thing to appeal to a certain crowd, his music is only an "inspiration" (and fuck if I know if thats the case, I havent listened to Fallout Boy since Milhouse played him on the Simpsons) its not like in the case of Umbrella Academy where Way thought up the concept, characters and universe and then took them to Gabriel Ba and Dark Horse to make it happen, so even that comparison is flawed.

Ok I may just be trying to rationalize my enjoyment of the book but fuck it,the emo crowd and the comic nerd crowd do not have that much crossover, so why promote this book using that guy's name? I bought it for the art, more people will buy it for the story, the pandering to a crowd is unnecessary. Then again we do live in an era in which good comics are canceled all the time due to poor sales.

This wont be the next Umbrella Academy but hopefully it is successful, hopefully its a good story (its already an interesting concept) and hopefully Image realizes that they dont need Pete fuckin Wentz to sell it. Of course I'm not saying what Fallout Boy is a bad thing (I just happen to not like them) nor am I arguing against new ideas for the comic book world, what I am saying is that it is utterly ridiculous that Wentz gets so much credit for it, to the extent that the books true creators, writer Brett Lewis and artist Sam Basri, get to play second fiddle.

(by the way I do realize the irony, which is intentional, of having the names of those two guys all the way at the end of the post while Mr. Ashlee Simpson's name is plastered all over the entry)

Bloody Dinosaurs

In 1993 Jurassic Park (the film) captured the imaginations and blah blah blah people got really into dinosaurs blah blah animatronics blah blah blah dna splicing and cgi, it was a great fucking movie. A year later a fighting game in which dinosaurs were protagonists came out, in 2009 I drive down to the swap meet and buy said game, Primal Rage, for seven dollars. I instantly feel like I overpaid.

First some background, when this came out I was in the fourth grade right in the middle of my love affair with my Super Nintendo. In retrospect I probably shoulda been outside playing sports, instead I was at home playing my games and wishing I had enough money to buy more. Primal Rage was one of the games I really wanted and never got so when I saw it for sale last week I knew I might be disappointed but I wanted it regardless.

I wasnt exactly disappointed; if there is one thing I've learned its that fighting games do not hold up as well as platformers so the fact that this game felt choppy and slow was not because the game is bad but rather because that is as good as it could get in 1994.

The game is one big bloody, testosterone riddled MMA dinosaur gang fight. First you select from a motley crew of horrible looking dinosaurs. Horrible as in you dont want to meet them in a dark alley, design wise they're actually kinda cool, even though some are blatant copies of each other (two T-Rex, two monkeys) in a manner reminiscent of Mortal Kombats many ninjas. The characters themselves appear to be models taken out of a Jason and the Argonauts movie, motion captured to give them a 3-D feel which, again, is strangely like Mortal Kombat. So similar is this to Mortal Kombat that one cant help but feel its intentional, even wikipedia seems to think so.

Story mode is actually kinda difficult to beat, ultimately without prior experience and without a game manual one is reduced to button mashing, its effective but by the second fight the opponent is not letting anything past its guard. The character I've been using is a nightmarish snake with legs named Vertigo, the only female character, she also has the longest reach and can teleport. Of course most fights devolve into two dinosaurs (or dinosaur sized apes) throwing bites at each others necks, trying to finish off the stylized health bars all while a disembodied voice urges you to RAGE! and tiny humans run around the background.

I do remember that the game was heavily advertised and there was a line of action figures (which I never had) and are still, I assume, easily available on eBay. They might be a bit too 90's for me to really want to buy now but I did want them as a kid.

Final verdict? its a keeper, especially now that I'm getting sort of good at it. I really hope that there is some sort of closure for the dinosaurs in the end but I wont know until I get past the third battle.

Bonus!
24 more songs were revealed for Guitar Hero 5. Some highlights? Hungry like the wolf, Feel Good Inc and fuckin BULLET WITH BUTTERFLY WINGS!!! full list at Kotaku.

Update!
I received my replacement RF Switch from eBay today, it took significantly less time than I expected and it works even better than I thought it would. Who knew the SNES, N64 and Gamecube could use the same switch? its like I'm playing the SNES in HD now, amazing.

Green+Black X-plorer

The first musical game I ever bought was Guitar Hero II, I got it at Best Buy and I only did so because GH3 was sold out. To my surprise GH2 was the standout title at the time because of its kick ass lineup of songs and the 360 exclusive X-Plorer guitar controller. Sure the guitar wasnt as realistic as the Fender that came with Rockband and it wasn't wireless like the GH3 model but it was undoubtedly unique and its white body was a canvas which I might someday customize.

But not with the stickers that came with the game. No, that was too easy, I had to give it a custom paint job and after seeing pictures online, after getting ahold of some acrylic paints and brushes I finally did the dirty deed yesterday.

First a brief history of the guitar: When music games were still only about guitars this game took me through both GH2 and GH3, when we finally went into the complete band game I admit I first went to the previously mentioned Fender but it simply wasnt as satisfying as the X-Plorer so I went back to it, I beat both World Tour and Rockband in hard with the guitar, formed a band, played online, bought a case for it, made some house calls. Its safe to say I have an attachment with the thing.

On to the customization. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do, something similar to the many Japanese inspired rising sun customs I've seen online. The colors came from a Celtic change kit. Not that I'm a Celtic fan but green and black is some kind of nice. I wasnt exactly sold on the design so I sketched out a few alternates. The lightning bolt motif was a nod to Rivers Cuomo (of Weezer) whose guitar strap features the bolt, in the end I decided to include the design on my guitar strap. As for the design of the guitar I went with an abstract modification of the rising sun with more pronounced geometric figures in green and black.

With that ready to go the painting began. First to slather the green in the designated areas, this created a nice green-white design which I almost went with. Not wanting to live wondering what could have been I decided to go ahead with the black, after the first layer the results were looking uneven and shiny. Luckily I was later told that acrylics require more than one coat and sure enough the second and third layers made the coloring smoother and even.

The resulting guitar is actually pretty cool, the colors came out just how I planned and the design is surprisingly similar to the original sketch. The yellow lightning bolt might not match with the green and black but its bright enough to liven up the dark colors. The custom might not be as great as those out on the internets but I am way too happy with it, I did love my white x-plorer but I like it a lot more now, probably because its now a one of a kind.

More Disappointment

Someone leaked 24 more songs from the new Guitar Hero 5. This list sucks even more than the previous one. This one includes some of the artists I was most anxious to find out about, namely MMJ, The White Stripes, Sonic Youth, but the songs for each group leave a lot to be desired. No Wordless Chorus, no Seven Nation Army.

Again, not that these songs suck (at least not most of them) I mean Lithium live? thats gonna be a trip, but if we're gonna get only one song for each band lets get a consensus going, lets get the most representative song. But enough of the bitching, heres the list and heres hoping the next leak will redeem these last two, if not then we'll wait for The Beatles Rockband.

Attack! Attack! UK - "You And Me"
Bon Jovi - "You Give Love A Bad Name"
Darker My Love - "Blue Day"
The Duke Spirit - "Send A Little Love Token"
Elton John - "Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)"
Face To Face - "Disconnected"
Garbage - "Only Happy When It Rains"
Kaiser Chiefs - "Never Miss A Beat"
Kiss - "Shout It Out Loud"
Love and Rockets - "Mirror People"
My Morning Jacket - "One Big Holiday"
Nirvana - "Lithium (Live)"
The Police - "So Lonely"
Rammstein – "Du Hast"
The Rolling Stones - "Sympathy For The Devil"
Sonic Youth - "Incinerate"
Screaming Trees - "Nearly Lost You"
Sublime - "What I Got"
The Sword - "Maiden, Mother & Crone"
Thin Lizzy - "Jailbreak"
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - "American Girl"
The White Stripes - "Blue Orchid"

Info, as always, from Kotaku, picture from Flickr.

List of Songs

The nice people at Guitar Hero have released a preliminary list of songs that will appear in the fifth installment of the series. Now, this player of old video games finds it difficult to get into the new generation games (they're way too complicated) but I have made obvious exceptions for two kinds of games: fighters (which are essentially 2-D anyways) and music games. So the initial announcement of bands to be included in GH V got me way too excited, the list released today? not so much.

The preliminary list of songs is as follows:

Band Of Horses - "Cigarettes, Wedding Bands" ?
Beastie Boys - "Gratitude"
Beck - "Gamma Ray"
Billy Squier - "Lonely Is The Night"
Blur - "Song 2"
Bob Dylan - "All Along The Watchtower"
Children Of Bodom - "Done With Everything, Die For Nothing"
Coldplay - "In My Place"
Darkest Hour - "Demon(s)"
David Bowie - "Fame"
Deep Purple - "Woman From Tokyo ('99 Remix)"
Elliott Smith - "L.A."
Iggy Pop - "Lust For Life (Live)"
Jeff Beck - "Scatterbrain (Live)"
John Mellencamp - "Hurts So Good"
Kings Of Leon - "Sex On Fire"
Queens Of The Stone Age - "Make It Wit Chu"
Rose Hill Drive - "Sneak Out" ?
Santana - "No One To Depend On (Live)"
The Bronx - "Six Days A Week" ?
Thrice - "Deadbolt"
Tom Petty - "Runnin' Down A Dream"
Vampire Weekend - "A-Punk"
Wolfmother - "Back Round"

Not that these songs are horrible (on the contrary) but its a bit disheartening to think that that is the Bob Dylan song, that that is the Blur song, that that is the Bowie song. Guitar Hero has a history of including some deep tracks but when you only get one song per artist one has to hope that its one of the artists top one or two songs. Again, not that All Along the Watchtower and Fame suck but they're most certainly NOT Like a Rolling Stone, Rock n Roll Suicide of Changes.

The list contains a lot of standards as well as songs from bands that apparently are the next big thing (that I havent even heard of to be honest) and it does leave enough room to be hopeful that the White Stripes, My Morning Jacket and Gorillaz songs will be exceptional but it also leaves room for them not, well, not be.

Picture Post 3

Someone actually made this game. Cant wait.

-Picture courtesy of Super Punch

The Beatles Guitars

These are a thing of beauty.


Two new guitars (a Rickenbacker and Gretch) that will be available (separately I believe) for The Beatles: Rockband game which comes out this summer. The set will include a replica drumset and a few other things, and itll cost and arm and a leg ($250). I probably wont pay that much for the game but I have no problem throwing $100 for one of these. Fuck look at that. Time to sell more shit on eBay.

Read more at Kotaku.