Rock Band breaks the bank, The Wii and HDD?, and why I’m not getting Guitar Hero 80’s this week – Welcome to the column that knows no shame and promises to bring it to the rest of you known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. I am the unfortunate guinea pig of the new website and blog format. I’m sure the administrators are pure pros at this but I feel all out of sorts. Hey, you know that Wednesday I talked about in my last column; you know the special lunch. It went very well thank you. No, there is no immediate fallout from it; but there is hope for the future and at the very least I gained a very close friend who will probably look differently at me now. (cause I’m a sexy beast…okay not really but it sounds good!) Sorry if I’m a bit weird; I blame it on the new format of the website. It makes me feel crunchy :).
Well, we are in the midst of a new website format, but I can still bring you Morgan. And it turns out that the pictures are just peachy; I just have to make sure that they are in the right size. Morgan in the right size makes me feel at home, it makes me feel whole. Mmmm, right size. Perhaps you should leave me alone and I will continue to dream about something being the right size (alrighty then.)
PS3, Xbox 360
Amazon.com has posted listings for the Rock Band Collection for both the PS3 and Xbox 360, and it comes to no surprise to anyone involved that the set isn’t going to be cheap. $200 will snag you a copy of the game, the drum set, a microphone, and either a wireless guitar for the PS3 or a wired one for the Xbox 360, with a potential release date of November 20th, which we’ll consider speculation until we hear something official. Breaking it down, with the game at $60, the mic at $30, drums at $80 and the guitar at $60, it works out to a savings of some $30 on the overall price, as well as a very sad bassist. Adding in another guitar brings the grand total to $260 or $280 if you opt for the 360’s wireless version, keeping things pretty much in line with current speculation. Mind you the prices are still subject to change…
Steel Battalion anyone? But at least this is a fun game. *rim shot*. I dunno, $200 is asking a lot. I hope they sell a version that has the game and a mic. If they stick to the notion that GH guitars will work on Rock Band, I won’t need that. That and I have no rhythm so I probably should not be allowed anywhere near a set of drums. So that leaves me with the mic. Yes, I do sing decently, and especially to rock music. That would put the set probably at the 89.99 price point. Pricey (ha!), but it would be far easier for me to digest. A quick point, but I picked up again GH1 this weekend for PS2. The original guitar for that system is much better than the 360 one. Nice big buttons. I got long and big fingers so :-PPPP.
PS3, Xbox 360
In a simpler time, Capcom made exclusive games for Sony’s PlayStation. (Yes, yes, it also created Nintendo titles.) Then the Osaka-based developer started making games for the Xbox 360. After that, it started making games for BOTH the Xbox 360 AND the PS3 — games like Devil May Cry 4. Blasphemy! Mega-Man creator and Capcom R&D honcho Keiji Inafune explains:
Until now it’s been hard for us to develop multi-platform games, but recently we have developed this development engine that allows us to develop a game in the engine and then put it on to PS3 and 360.
Developing Dead Rising and Lost Planet helped flush out everything in the development tool system — which is now pretty much complete, aside from the usual upgrades — so we decided to use that engine, make it for the 360 and the PS3 with Devil May Cry 4.
So, now we can get the game out into the hands of more gamers — because 360 has such a huge installed base already, especially in the US, and as game makers we want as many people to have the chance to play our games as possible.
And we make mad money beeotches! (smiles with grills and thumbs pointed way up). I still get a kick out of DMC3 SE for PS2; so I’m quite happy that the 360 will get DMC4 when it rolls in. (with the giant rims). Dante is one of the best characters in years and actually could make for a heck of a movie franchise done correctly. On the level of Resident Evil. But then so could Castlevania…*sigh*. Anyhow, kudos to all of this and would you please continue work on the Trilogy redux for 360 and maybe the Wii? Thank you, come again.
Wii
Nintendo of America’s George Harrison loves change. Repetition is BORING. And embarrassing. Because when he’s bored, he gets all fidgety. Starts making train noises and chugging around the office, choo-chooing anyone who gets in his way. So it’s not really a surprise, then, that when probed by GameDaily on the prospect of some changes to the Wii’s hardware somewhere down the line, Harrison can’t bring himself to rule it out:
“…it’s not out of the question on Wii, but we’re not even to our second holiday yet, so it’s kind of premature to talk about any revisions to the hardware itself.
OK, changes to the box itself, that’s cool. Some new colours would be a good start. But what about anything that plugs into the Wii? With Neo Geo games on the way and the possibility of GameCube downloads a year or two down the line, what about an external HDD?
Other people have talked about it and certainly memory management is something that consumers want to think about, whether it’s just Virtual Console games, so at this point we haven’t got anything we’re prepared to say about it.
Well, whenever you’re ready, we’re prepared to listen George, because that 512MB isn’t going to last another winter.”
Each week I seem to rant about the Wii (much to the chagrin of the general public) and this week is no different. What is the first thing that the Nintendo rep wants to change about the Wii? Expand its internet connectivity, nope; try to influence more third party games, nope; an external hard drive, haha…not even close. The freaking color. Yes, because my life is not complete until I have a pink Wii. Cause you have to color coordinate. More proof that the Wii is a fashion gimmick statement that fails to bring the heat. Neo Geo games on the way is positive, but those games are not small and will fill up that 512mb real quick. External needs to be critical and in the 120-160gb range to stay competitive. If I see anything mentioned about a 60gb upgrade or even worse none at all; I’ll just have to make a column about it, and you don’t want that. No you don’t. *sees cease and desist letters in his mailbox*
Releases for the Week of July 25th, 2007
It was only inevitable that with Contra doing well in the sales department for XBLA that Super Contra would soon follow. More aliens, harder gameplay and better graphics. It’s everything in a sequel you could want. I played Contra plenty of quarters and hours worth(I beat it naturally). However, I think for Super Contra, I played it twice and last a whole 5 minutes each time? So yeah, its harder. Painfully so. At 400 points and loving the Contra experience from pillar to post, it will be hard not to play this at some point.
Wing Commander Arena is going to be one of those games that people love or people hate. It sports up to 16 player free for all dogfights or 8 on 8 teamplay. For those who were born a little late to experience Wing Commander, it was a flight simulator space combat game that was used as the inspiration or model for all space combat games that were made after. This arcade adaption will be a slight deviation from the first person perspective used throughout the series. This will be played from a top down perspective on a 2d plane with the third access reserved for special maneuvers. There will be single player modes and pilots can choose from up to 18 ships that will unlock along the way. Not my ball of wax most likely but there should be a following for this one and it will cost you 800 points.
An interesting but very good trio this week. We start out with a very weird twist on the golf game idea with Kirby. This can be played by one or two players on a floating golf course in the sky. It’s divided into stages (8 stages, 64 holes) and Kirby likes to go into holes, quickly. (that’s all of the innunedo I can fit into the VC section for one week :)). Gameplay is that there are enemies and you must hit them all to disapear with the last one becoming the hole. It’s an interesting take on the ancient game.
Devil’s Crush is one of the true classics of the Turbo-16 family. This incredibly fun and great sequel to the amazing original (Alien Crush) involved all sorts of new bonus stages and enemies including skeleton knights, sorcerers, and other things that go bump in the night. I recommend this one without reservation as a game that any age group can play and have a great deal of fun with it.
The last title is Shining Force from the Sega Genesis system. The grand and true (you can ignore Shining in the Darkness, most of us do) introduction of a very good but almost forgotten rpg series by now; Shining Force. Shining Force was a third person turn based strategy rpg. It had a lot of depth (30 characters with up to 12 in the party at once) and was a lot easier to pick up than most standard rpg games. Battles were conducted on grids and of course magic and swordplay were frequent. Recommended for RPG fans.
PS2
Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80’s
Nascar 08
NHRA Countdown to the Championship
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Special Edition
PSP
Alien Syndrome
Final Fantasy II
PS3
Nascar 08
XBOX 360
Nascar 08
Wii
Alien Syndrome
DS
Dynasty Warriors DS: Fighter’s Battle
Ultimate Puzzle Games: Sudoku Edition
Chameleon: To Dye For
I’m currently listening to Great White thinking how they should have made it to the new Guitar Hero game (Step on You would have been perfect). But more importantly I’m kinda perplexed. I pre-ordered it from Buy.com since they had a decent price going but then Best Buy had to top it and I wouldn’t have to wait for them to ship it. I tried to cancel but Buy.com didn’t let me :/. So yeah, the order has shipped now but alas I probably won’t see it until Friday at the earliest. Naturally I’ll do a review but I want it now! :). Outside of that Persona 3 should be fun, I’ve played the first two and they are interesting RPG games. PSP gets a couple of remakes and so does the Wii (imagine that). Sadly the PS3 and 360 only get a game that rednecks love. I’m sorry, but I can’t get behind a game where people drive in a circle. You wonder why they crash sometimes; it’s because they are bored! (I’m sure Nascar fans will flame me, but they have to be able to form sentences first..bwhahaha, kidding kidding, I know there is an audience…*wait* too bad their IQ has problems with three digits, I’m so going to get it…)
I made a new good friend this weekend and that friend happened to have an old xbox. One of the games they had was a copy of Morrowind / GOTY edition. I had never played it and was interested it due to the compatibility update so I gave it a 20 minutes whirl. It’s interesting, I like it. But it does look like there is some serious time involvement to be had. I also taught this friend and a friend of hers how to play Texas Hold Em Poker (yes I do know how to play, quite well thank you). Also did the nice thing of giving that friend an old poker game for xbox for them to mess around on. But the interesting thing was when I came home; I played a scenario on my 360 for the Hold Em Poker game. One that I had not beat in about twenty tries. It was the Short-Stack Scenario and was the last one on the list before the achievement. *blink* I beat it. I never felt out of control; I played my game and beat them at theirs. You know what they say about karma, I taught two cool individuals how to play and in turn it made me a better player (at least for one day :)). It certainly made me smile. Perhaps this tired old man can do some good in this world (but in unique ways). Have fun kiddoes.
As Always,
Kedrix of Aldrianian
(*The Forgotten One*)
07/25/2007 @ 2:43 pm
Once again you have to slam the Wii.
Yes right now it has the gimick factor, but when that’s over all the third party games will come out….