Curmudgeon Gamer
12 November 2007
Rock Band: FImp is Fun
Got to play one song's worth of the drum set with Rock Band on PS3 early this morning at the 24 hour Wal-Mart. It's great fun, as everyone and their brother already knows. On Medium difficulty, this ex-percussionist was able to get through the song without too many embarrassing mistakes, though mostly because the drums themselves are very generous about your timing.
I'd enjoyed Guitar Hero, though not enough to buy, and the formula translates to the drums very well. If you're wondering, it really is just Guitar Hero on the drums, where you're smacking the right one of a set of quads according to the icons on the screen. At times, you have to hit more than one. The limit for me so far was two at a time, which makes sense.
I didn't try much improvising a la Parappa, where improvising was the best way to really jack up your score, and since I wasn't familiar with the UI, I didn't know if my few riffs were helping much or not. Crossing the sticks just made me look like a dork. The mad scorefest that was the end of the song was a lot of fun, though I'm not sure the one-year old watching me knew what to think.
Unfortunately, the way the game had you bang the drums was pretty Ringo, which is to say it wasn't a very original arrangement and will likely convince another generation of hacks that all there is to playing drums is slapping at 'em as hard as possible, with the snare joining the high-hat every other beat. I'm hoping the two tougher levels have something a bit better than this quick demo's rim-smacking.
Still, is there a better social game out there right now? Rock Band puts the kabosch on anyone trying to argue to me that Mario Kart is worth inviting over the over-twenty [year-old] friends for a night o' fun. Rock Band extends the fun from air guitarists in Hero to has-been drummers like me. Cool.
So why isn't this out for the PS2 again? Curse ya', Sony!
(Update: It's a little difficult to find the PS2 version's due date. It's apparently Dec 10th, moved up to hit the sweet Xmas season spot. This is the first game I've been partially excited about playing in some time, WoW addiction excepted.)
I'd enjoyed Guitar Hero, though not enough to buy, and the formula translates to the drums very well. If you're wondering, it really is just Guitar Hero on the drums, where you're smacking the right one of a set of quads according to the icons on the screen. At times, you have to hit more than one. The limit for me so far was two at a time, which makes sense.
I didn't try much improvising a la Parappa, where improvising was the best way to really jack up your score, and since I wasn't familiar with the UI, I didn't know if my few riffs were helping much or not. Crossing the sticks just made me look like a dork. The mad scorefest that was the end of the song was a lot of fun, though I'm not sure the one-year old watching me knew what to think.
Unfortunately, the way the game had you bang the drums was pretty Ringo, which is to say it wasn't a very original arrangement and will likely convince another generation of hacks that all there is to playing drums is slapping at 'em as hard as possible, with the snare joining the high-hat every other beat. I'm hoping the two tougher levels have something a bit better than this quick demo's rim-smacking.
Still, is there a better social game out there right now? Rock Band puts the kabosch on anyone trying to argue to me that Mario Kart is worth inviting over the over-twenty [year-old] friends for a night o' fun. Rock Band extends the fun from air guitarists in Hero to has-been drummers like me. Cool.
So why isn't this out for the PS2 again? Curse ya', Sony!
(Update: It's a little difficult to find the PS2 version's due date. It's apparently Dec 10th, moved up to hit the sweet Xmas season spot. This is the first game I've been partially excited about playing in some time, WoW addiction excepted.)
Labels: firstimpressions, ps3
--ruffin at 10:41
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[ 2 ]
01 June 2007
Impressions: The Red Star
The Red Star for the PlayStation 2 plays like a variety of different games. Melee and projectile battles remind me most of the recent 3D dungeon crawlers like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, although Ruffin's earlier Metal Gear Solid comparison wasn't far off either. With a rigid, linear level structure, however, it's quite different from both of those games. Each level includes several boss encounters which have patterns and rhythms like traditional shmups. And the upgrading process at the end of each level reminds me of Xybots.Do these pieces make a fun game? So far, yes. I'm on level 6 of 21 and hope to finish this weekend.
As far as I can tell, however, the story is just as ludicrous as I originally thought last year. The license adds nothing.
Labels: firstimpressions, ps2
--jvm at 21:56
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[ 1 ]
30 March 2007
The hyped get hypeder: Invitation policy for the New E3
Joystiq said a few weeks ago that lots of journalists are being snubbed concerning getting invited for the forthcoming E3 2.0. A recent Kotaku post confirms that the game companies are fully in charge this time out concerning who gets invited and who does not.
Under the old system, one generally applied to attend, then supplied press credentials, and if they checked out: wham, you're in. Those credentials could be as simple as being loosely affiliated with a website. With the help of the (great) guys at N-Sider, for whom I've done all of one article, I was able to obtain entry credentials two years running. (I wasn't able to attend either time, but I still have my pass for last year. I would scan it and put it on the web, but the picture is from my driver's license. Ugh.)
It is understood that recent years have seen E3 become quite a rancorous display, an annual geek festival akin to DragonCon but sprayed with a light sheen of professionalism--very light, judging from all the booth babe photo collections that popped up every year. And it didn't help when they started holding public access days.
But the new system is just as bad in the opposite direction. According to Joystiq:
The result, to my eyes, is another intensifier of the tremendous influence that big game companies already wield over game journalists. Under the new scheme it's possible that, if you displease the Great Ones, you could mysteriously fail to receive your invite next time.
The ultimate result? Less insightful commentary out of the big-site attendees, meaning more of its reverse: more blather, more mindless teenager chasing, more pseudo-hipster posing, and more hype, if that's possible.
The purpose of this, really? It is an attempt by Big Console's PR departments to more accurately micro-manage the essential First Impression, that point where the general public outside the NDA firewall first finds out about a new product. Recently, Sony was all about cutting off the flow of precious, life-giving hype to Kotaku when they broke early about Playstation Home, and that was only a couple of days early! Why would they throw such a fit over 48 hours?
It's because the big companies recognize that, what with the fickle and faddish nature of game press hype, given that its main consumers are notoriously fickle and faddish teenage boys, it can fall to a single malicious word to banish a promising game or feature to Teh Suckland. (Exhibit A: "Celda.") These are people who dismiss with ease, and are rarely willing to rethink their first impressions. By controlling the message (telling the world through specially-chosen people exposed to a big unveiling show), they attempt to make the hype-happy gaming world do their bidding, instead of trading snarky little jokes about Giant Enemy Crabs.
Does my premise sound unlikely to you? Well, think of it this way. Sit for a moment and imagine if someone had broken news of Nintendo's controller early, and instead of receiving a wave of mostly uniform appreciation for the device, using phrases like "It really does look like Nintendo is reach out to non-traditional gamers," they said more things like "It remains to be seen if Wii will become anything more than Gamecube 2.0"? Then all those cheering echo posts from second-tier sites, instead of being enthusiastic celebrations of Nintendo's bold direction, become, instead, responses to grave concerns. Features about Nintendo's bold new direction will instead chart the company's downward spiral, and probably include a good number of Wii jokes along the way.
What is that I hear? Do you think I paint an overly grim picture of the enthusiast press? Well cheer up Bunky. At least, in the end, all that's at stake here are silly little video games. If you want to get a look at this debate framing, echo chamber process on a much larger and sadder scale, well, you really don't have to look very hard to find it.
Under the old system, one generally applied to attend, then supplied press credentials, and if they checked out: wham, you're in. Those credentials could be as simple as being loosely affiliated with a website. With the help of the (great) guys at N-Sider, for whom I've done all of one article, I was able to obtain entry credentials two years running. (I wasn't able to attend either time, but I still have my pass for last year. I would scan it and put it on the web, but the picture is from my driver's license. Ugh.)
It is understood that recent years have seen E3 become quite a rancorous display, an annual geek festival akin to DragonCon but sprayed with a light sheen of professionalism--very light, judging from all the booth babe photo collections that popped up every year. And it didn't help when they started holding public access days.
But the new system is just as bad in the opposite direction. According to Joystiq:
The ESA told Hill, "It is entirely up to participating companies to decide whom to invite to the event. Thus, if anyone calls ESA to ask for 'tickets' to the event, that's what they will be told."Hill did receive an invitation after publicly saying aloud how nice it'd be to get one. (Further reading indicates that reason may also have something to do with E3 receiving more of a North American focus and Hill being in Australia, but the above quote seems to counter that.)
The result, to my eyes, is another intensifier of the tremendous influence that big game companies already wield over game journalists. Under the new scheme it's possible that, if you displease the Great Ones, you could mysteriously fail to receive your invite next time.
The ultimate result? Less insightful commentary out of the big-site attendees, meaning more of its reverse: more blather, more mindless teenager chasing, more pseudo-hipster posing, and more hype, if that's possible.
The purpose of this, really? It is an attempt by Big Console's PR departments to more accurately micro-manage the essential First Impression, that point where the general public outside the NDA firewall first finds out about a new product. Recently, Sony was all about cutting off the flow of precious, life-giving hype to Kotaku when they broke early about Playstation Home, and that was only a couple of days early! Why would they throw such a fit over 48 hours?
It's because the big companies recognize that, what with the fickle and faddish nature of game press hype, given that its main consumers are notoriously fickle and faddish teenage boys, it can fall to a single malicious word to banish a promising game or feature to Teh Suckland. (Exhibit A: "Celda.") These are people who dismiss with ease, and are rarely willing to rethink their first impressions. By controlling the message (telling the world through specially-chosen people exposed to a big unveiling show), they attempt to make the hype-happy gaming world do their bidding, instead of trading snarky little jokes about Giant Enemy Crabs.
Does my premise sound unlikely to you? Well, think of it this way. Sit for a moment and imagine if someone had broken news of Nintendo's controller early, and instead of receiving a wave of mostly uniform appreciation for the device, using phrases like "It really does look like Nintendo is reach out to non-traditional gamers," they said more things like "It remains to be seen if Wii will become anything more than Gamecube 2.0"? Then all those cheering echo posts from second-tier sites, instead of being enthusiastic celebrations of Nintendo's bold direction, become, instead, responses to grave concerns. Features about Nintendo's bold new direction will instead chart the company's downward spiral, and probably include a good number of Wii jokes along the way.
What is that I hear? Do you think I paint an overly grim picture of the enthusiast press? Well cheer up Bunky. At least, in the end, all that's at stake here are silly little video games. If you want to get a look at this debate framing, echo chamber process on a much larger and sadder scale, well, you really don't have to look very hard to find it.
Labels: e3, echochamber, fanboys, firstimpressions, hype, joystiq, media
--JohnH at 02:30
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