Dare to Play the Game

Guitar Hero: Metallica tracklist, Tax Break for Game Developers and the US Senate concerned about Microsoft layoffs – Welcome to the column that had to lay off all of their fact checkers to stay liquid (not that we had any fact checkers before) known as Dare to Play the Game.

It happened. Again. For the second time in roughly 2 ½ years, I got the fatal Xbox 360 blow. The Red Rings of Death. It had glitched a couple of times after the last column and got only worse up until Saturday where it decided to go kaput. I never did get to the five star rating for Fable II Pub Games or completing the 4th episode of Lego Star Wars even though I was clearly within spitting distance. I really miss my 360.

In fact, the last couple of achievements I got were both related to World Series of Poker 2008. One for winning a quick play match (where I was down to a whole 245 dollars) and one for online play. That’s the nice thing about that game, even though the computer is very tough (they seem to very often pull out the ideal card at the ideal time), there is always people online who are willing to play. Proof positive that even if the game isn’t the strongest in the world, it can survive with a viable online community.

Ode To Gamer Girls

I was watching Attack of the Show last night and noticed something. Well besides Olivia. They have a segment called Fresh Ink. It’s about comic books and Blair Butler was on there. Now I’ve seen Blair before. She’s done X-Play before, especially when Morgan was out. She really didn’t catch my eye much there. However, she was quite cute here and her beauty has grown from the last time I’ve seen her. Also from listening to her, she does look like the type of girl I could hang out with, to pal around with. I might be staring at her rear when her back was turned, but I would certainly appreciate the other times too.

Game Development

Oklahoma’s no friend to M-rated games. But, still smarting from the defeat of an unconstitutional anti-games law back in 2006, some legislators still want the state’s contempt for mature games known. Through tax breaks.

Anyway, good luck with that Oklahoma. I’m sure Ubisoft was thinking about developing “Imagine: The Waltonz” but oh only if there were a friendly government where it could set up shop.

I’ll never understand why R-Rated movies get such a free pass and M-rated games which are equivalents get no such thing. Oh that’s right, because games are for kids. I was hoping that mentality went out about 15 years ago. Unfortunately, it still exists, especially in a backwoods state like Oklahoma. I’ve been to Oklahoma once, I wasn’t impressed and actually fled for the Texas border. Scary notion huh? Seriously, tax breaks for people who wish to film a movie or develop a game in your state isn’t a bad idea. It promotes state friendliness and might even lead to an increase in tourism and population. What does that mean for Oklahoma? More tax money in the long run. Like the article suggests, it probably doesn’t have a snowball’s chance, but at least it has more of a chance than a Showgirls sequel. Though the idea of Elizabeth Berkely being nude again on my television does make me smile.

Microsoft

Yes, Microsoft is slashing 5,000 jobs: 1,400 of them this week and another 3,600 over the next 18 months. U.S. Senator Charles Grassley wants to stop this bloodletting right now.

Apparently Grassley is confused and thinks that just because Microsoft spends billions like the U.S. Government that it is a part of the U.S. Government and not some multi-national corporation that can do pretty much whatever the hell it wants.

This is kinda a touchy subject, one that I can see both sides. On one side, you have Microsoft. Like every company virtually around the world, they need to cut costs. The easiest place to do this is unfortunately letting some employees go. Microsoft has honestly been pretty modest about their lay offs when other companies are doubling and tripling the amount Microsoft is proposing. However, there is some question about who is let go. Here is where the American government is inserting their two cents. The idea is that Microsoft might be (don’t know for sure) letting go American workers and keeping the ones on temporary visas (and obviously paid less) from other countries. That’s the same effectively as moving your operations overseas. We should encourage American to hire American. The problem is in Microsoft’s case, they don’t have to care. They can hire an entire trailerpark of legal foreign workers and all we can do is shake a crusty finger at them. Here is hoping that Microsoft is careful about who they let go and who they let stay. In the same breath, I’m not counting on it.

Guitar Hero

We don’t need ESRB leaks Metallica themselves have gone one better and released the full, complete tracklist for the upcoming Guitar Hero: Metallica on the band’s website. And it’s a good one.

You’ll find most of the band’s older classics represented (“One”, “Master of Puppets”, “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, etc), and should also find the selection of tracks from “other” bands – like Kyuss, Queen, Slayer & The Sword – to your liking as well.

If you are familiar with how I did Rockband 2 & Guitar Hero World Tour tracklists, I’m simply going to put the titles out there and assign a dollar value. They can range from $.01 to $2.00 or full price for a DLC song. In the end, that dollar value will indicate how much I think the game is worth to me. Again, this is biased to what I like to play and should only be used as a guide.

0.10 – All Nightmare Long
0.50 – Battery
0.50 – Creeping Death
0.25 – Disposable Heroes
0.01 – Dyers Eve

Nightmare Long is from the new album, Battery is from Master of Puppets, both are good tunes. Battery unfortunately was also in Rockband 2. Creeping Death is another great song (Ride the Lightning) with the notion of being the band’s most played song. One problem, they include Dyers Eve from Justice for All which is a ridiculously long song but not Harvester of Sorrow? Ugh.

2.00 – Enter Sandman
1.50 – Fade To Black
0.01 – Fight Fire With Fire
2.00 – For Whom The Bell Tolls
1.00 – Frantic
1.00 – Fuel

Now we are talking. Even though I am still peeved of how Enter Sandman was not transferred from RB1 to RB2, I can’t deny this is a primo song. Furthemore, Fade to Black was the ballad that gave birth to such tunes as One and Nothing Else Matters. Frantic & Fuel are also welcome additions and should be plenty of fun to play.

0.25 – Hit The Lights
1.00 – King Nothing
2.00 – Master of Puppets
0.25 – Mercyful Fate (Medley)
1.00 – No Leaf Clover
2.00 – Nothing Else Matters

So we get Hit the Lights from Kill em All, but no Four Horsemen? I continue to scratch my head a little bit at this list. They get it so right (Master of Puppets) and so wrong (Hit the Lights) in the same span of 5 and 6 songs.

2.00 – One
0.10 – Orion
2.00 – Sad But True
1.75 – Seek And Destroy
1.00 – The Memory Remains
0.01 – The Shortest Straw

You had to absolutely know that One would be included. However, I am ultra happy that Sad But True made a showing. It could have been the odd straw out when their Black album is featured so much. The Shortest Straw is ironically not short, it’s another long winded song from Justice for All.

0.25 – The Thing That Should Not Be
1.75 – The Unforgiven
2.00 – Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
1.50 – Wherever I May Roam
1.25 – Whiplash

Sanitarium and a couple more from the Black album. My only question, is this Unforgiven 1, 2, or 3? I lost count. Whiplash is a nice inclusion as it has found its way into many covers including one by Motorhead. For the most part, these Metallica songs are good representations of their music and go over most of the albums (the important ones anyway) in their catalog. Now let’s turn our head to the bonus material.

1.75 – Alice In Chains – No Excuses
2.00 – Bob Seger – Turn The Page
0.01 – Corrosion of Conformity – Albatross
0.50 – Diamond Head – Am I Evil?
1.00 – Foo Fighters – Stacked Actors
1.00 – Judas Priest – Hell Bent For Leather
0.01 – Kyuss – Demon Cleaner
1.00 – Lynyrd Skynyrd – Tuesdays Gone
0.01 – Machine Head – Beautiful Mourning
0.25 – Mastodon – Blood And Thunder
0.25 – Mercyful Fate – Evil
0.50 – Michael Schenker Group – Armed and Ready
0.10 – Motorhead – Ace of Spades
1.50 – Queen – Stone Cold Crazy
0.25 – Samhain – Mother of Mercy
1.00 – Slayer – War Ensemble
1.00 – Social Distortion – Mommy’s Little Monster
1.50 – Suicidal Tendencies – War Inside My Head
1.00 – System of a Down – Toxicity
0.01 – The Sword – Black River
1.50 – Thin Lizzy – The Boys Are Back in Town

The last twenty songs are supposed to be a representation of bands that inspired Metallica as well as ones they played with. I can honestly say this is a good variety of tunes. I swear though if Ace of Spades is included in one more Rock game, I’m going to scream for Lemmy’s head. I’ll probably get flack for it but I am certainly most looking forward to the Alice in Chains and Bob Seger tunes. I’m not really into all of the old metal tunes as I probably should be but many of them are here but for the ultra hardcore only, so appeal will be limited. The total on this game comes to a dollar amount of…$45.12. Honestly, that’s not bad when you consider this sucker has 49 songs. However, this sucker will probably ship out the door for $59.99 when it should be about $10 cheaper. My suggestion, if can catch a sale or wait a couple of months, then go for it. Obviously, if you are a Metallica 4 life type guy or gal; then you are picking this up regardless of my input.

My safety net is gone. Microsoft is awful for annoucing what games are coming out from week to week in their Live Arcade format. Since my Xbox is out for probably a month, I can’t check on Wednesday morning like I used to what new game came out. Their website doesn’t say a thing either ever since they went to their new format (which stinks by the way, so does that Silverlight bs for screenshots). So since no new annoucements and I can’t find anything; I would say keeping playing The Maw if you haven’t beat it already. If you have, well keep in mind some new levels will be coming out shortly. That’s all I got.

Niki-Rock n Ball is a throwback to those old arcade classics where you simply had to beat all of the enemies to reach the next level (Robotron is a good example) but with a twist. Niki is trying to liberate his village from the evil monsters before it is too late. You must jump and hop accurately in order to get past many obstacles. The ZeLeLi amulet allows you to transform yourself into Niki Rock which is vital to defeating the monsters. Many stages and some good retro-like fun. It is only 500 points, might be worth a try.

Originally known as Super Wonder Boy in Monster World or Super Monster World: Super Wonder Boy or Super Wonder Boy in Monster Land, this 1987 game was part platform, part RPG (think Zelda), and a lot of fun. It starts you out as Wonderboy, the blonde haired kid wearing a loincloth. However, this world is different because you are given a sword to vanquish your enemies. Your path is still from point A to point B but it is no longer a straight line as many levels are mazes that go in all directions. Of particular interest is the trading system. Money is gained by killing enemies & finding coins. You can use this money to buy boots, armor, shields and other items. Sure this sounds like nothing, but back in 1987 this was a fairly new concept. This game is extremely difficult as there is no continue or password system. That aside, this is a fun game and at 500 points is worth the gamble.

Since my Xbox 360 will be gone for a month, my gaming options are focused at two logical avenues. One, I could always go back to playing World of Warcraft, even though I was pretty much done with it. Tempting, and it will probably see some playtime but I know the minute the 360 comes back, I’ll be back playing everything from Lego Star Wars to Poker to Pub Games. This leaves WoW in the dust but still a possibility. The other avenue is the Playstation 2 console. I have quite the list of Playstation 2 games, many of which are unplayed (I’m famous for buying something and it just sitting there because I forget about it). There is certainly enough material to keep me interested for a month (or longer if it goes that way). I might even learn to enjoy the console again. Heck, if nothing else; Sony made a darn stable system and there is a lot out there to play. So I’ll be busy re-discovering a system that was busy collecting dust and staying in front of the big tv-screen instead of going behind a smaller monitor. So kiddoes, may you find happiness this week in a console you might not have played recently and learn to love it again. Take care kiddoes.

As Always,
Kedrix of Aldrianian
(*The Forgotten One*)