Oh, For The Love Of…

Wait, what? I just beat this game yesterday and you’re telling me that you already have $10 worth of bonus levels ready to sell in two weeks? Why didn’t you just add them to the game! Admittedly, these levels look spectacular, and I will be begrudgingly buying them but… c’mon EA. I thought you had changed. You had done it, you broke from your usual type of game to do the Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space fare of 2008, and I thought you were really trying. But you weren’t were you? You were just waiting to put the screws to us again.

In closing: Could this content have been put on the disc instead of distributed as DLC? You betcha. Does it have to be $10? Nope, should be $5, max. Is Digital Distribution a double edged sword? Yeppers.

Just a Little Anectdote About Mega Man 9

Downloaded Mega Man 9 today after listening to last week’s RFGO! but I’ve got so many other games to play that I feel like an ass for not blasting some Robot Masters.
Anyways, the funny thing is that I went to download it and it took literally 1 second to complete. It was pretty funny. I hit confirm, and then it was done, the game was on my hard drive. Sort of funny considering how Mark and where pulling our hair out waiting for the COD5 beta to transfer. I forsee an 8bit COD that you can play on your watch.

Portal: Still Alive – Worth It For Some

Well, look who sneaked in to the living room while Mommy Dead Space and Daddy COD5 Beta were “watching TV on the couch.” Where did you come from, little fella? Haven’t really seen you for, what, about a year now right? What’s new? Oh! You go some new levels and a complete list of new achievements? Well, well. My little boy is all grown up, isn’t he?

Seriously though, you can download Portal: Still Alive as DLC for the 360 right now. Nothing like being able to instantly purchase and play the best game of last year! If you have the Orange Box, you might want to hold off unless you feel like you really want to try the 18 bonus challenges. I got it because I knew I’d like to have Portal on my HDD for all eternity. I still think that it is the ultimate tech demo for non-gamers to see. Most everyone just says it’s “Confusing”. Whatever, I got it right off the bat.

You Put Zombies In GTA4 And I’ll Do Anything You Want… Anything

I hate to see the concept of Zombie-ism whored out on so many levels in video games. They seem to be everywhere nowadays: Left 4 Dead, Dead Space, Resident Evil 5, World of Warcraft… not to mention the “oldies” like Half-Life, Dead Rising and Stubbs. If done with the cleverness and panache that the living dead truly deserve, they can be great games. Still, if Rockstar wants to put Zombies in to GTA4 as DLC, I’ll most likely buy that shit on principal, SON! The sign above (found at the Rockstar Social Club Site) doesn’t actually say anything close to the Zed-word, and Rockstar has yet to announce the actual DLC.

But could you think of a better way to get people back in to GTA than by turning the game into a survival/sandbox zombie apocalypse free for all?!??

I guess posts like mine aren’t helping the Zombie-Originality Cause.

Demotopia! – Mega Man 9 (Xbox 360)

If you haven’t downloaded and played the trial for Mega Man 9 on one of the many systems that it is available, then you are fucking up, pure and simple. Look, I understand that you aren’t a big fan of retro games, or that you owned a Commodore instead of a NES but it won’t hurt you to try out a little sample. It’s free. If anything, it’s worth it just to see such a seemingly old game on a top of the line, current-gen system. Okay, come back when you’re done….

Played it? Yeah? WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THOSE ELEPHANTS?!?

I’ve got a real good feeling about this…

Awesome timing LucasArts! I just finished Force Unleashed a few days ago (loved it) and what do I see first thing as I sit down to the internet this morning? DLC incoming in the fall. You boys deserve a good firm handshake for all of you hard work. Really, well done. I can’t wait for it. Could you imagine co-op play, though? Give me a level where I can tear ass around Coruscant icing Trandoshan Slave traders along side a buddy and you can have all the Microsoft Points in my account.

BONUS!

These guys make the stuff Mark and I did in High School Video Production look like the work of drunk, blind six year olds.

Arcade Summer: XBLA Makes Up For Past Transgressions

Can you feel it? It’s on the way, people. Two months of seriously awesome games heading to XBLA. 1942, Geometry Wars 2, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Braid, Galaga Legions and Castle Crashers.

We’re already headlong in to this little season of radness, 1942 and Geo-Wars 2 are available for download at relatively low prices. Watch this space for reviews on both titles.

Next up is Braid on Aug 6th, Bionic Commando (w00t!) on the 13th, Aug 20 sees Galaga Legions and the Coup d’État: Castle Crashers on Aug 27th. Some August huh?

Potential My Gripe or My Fave: Rock Band DLC Song Transfers (Updated)

Update: YESSS! Rock Band 2 was just announced, and that “all the current and future DLC will be compatible with both versions of Rock Band, as well as the same instrument controllers” – so put this in the “my faves” grouping.

I have to hand it to Rock Band-developers Harmonix – they’ve always done right by me. Whereas I feel gypped by the monster that is Activision and Guitar Hero III, Harmonix has always seemed to give us what we want (but sometimes not when we want it). Their DLC songs are cheaper (and usually better than the crappola offered by GHIII), and the full-album DLC idea is just about awesome.

But we’re at a crossroads, folks, and I bet you didn’t even know it. What happens to all my DLC content when Rock Band 2 comes out? I have at least 30 songs downloaded so far, and I’m sure there’ll be more to come. Considering that the average song costs $2, that’s $60 in DLC investment alone. It would be awesome if I can play the songs that I already paid for in Rock Band 2 (maybe even with whatever new features the RB2 will have?). I don’t want to have to pop the old Rock Band back into my Xbox 360 just to play some old songs – I want them to follow me to my new profile. Let me build a DLC library!

My Faves: Top Six (Actually) Classic Albums For Rock Band – Indie 90s Edition

I, like Tyler, feel that the folks behind Rock Band may not truly understand what a “classic” album is. Judas Priest? No, sir. That being said, I’m here to give them a little free advice, in the form of lists of albums that should become fully-downloadable DLC albums.

The 90s are when things get heated. Everyone’s got an opinion. We’re still feeling the reverberations of this decade, and I can see this list changing over the years. I had a hard time fitting only six albums into one list, so I split them by popular releases and indie titles. This is the indie list. Let the comments flow:

90s! Unite!

My Faves: Top Six (Actually) Classic Albums For Rock Band – Popular 90s Edition

I, like Tyler, feel that the folks behind Rock Band may not truly understand what a “classic” album is. Judas Priest? No, sir. That being said, I’m here to give them a little free advice, in the form of lists of albums that should become fully-downloadable DLC albums.

The 90s are when things get heated. Everyone’s got an opinion. We’re still feeling the reverberations of this decade, and I can see this list changing over the years. I had a hard time fitting only six albums into one list, so I split them by popular releases and indie titles. This is the popular list. Let the comments flow:

90s! Unite!

My Faves: Top Six (Actually) Classic Albums For Rock Band – 80s Edition

I, like Tyler, feel that the folks behind Rock Band may not truly understand what a “classic” album is. Judas Priest? No, sir. That being said, I’m here to give them a little free advice, in the form of lists of albums that should become fully-downloadable DLC albums.

Unlike my 70s list, my 80s list is influenced a little more by the singles that some of these albums produced, and I would be okay with skipping a couple tracks from each of these records. I must also admit that The Pixies’ Doolittle would have made this list if it wasn’t already dropping next week.

Onward, 80s!

My Faves: Top Six (Actually) Classic Albums For Rock Band – 70s Edition

I, like Tyler, feel that the folks behind Rock Band may not truly understand what a “classic” album is. Judas Priest? No, sir. That being said, I’m here to give them a little free advice, in the form of lists of albums that should become fully-downloadable DLC albums.

Let’s take a page from the 1970s first, okay?

Review / My Faves / My Gripes: Rock Band’s Album Selection

When news first hit way back in July 07 at E3 that Rock Band would provide full length albums as DLC, all of our heads were bedazzled with thoughts of getting to play whole LPs like Weezer’s “Blue Album” and Ini Kamoze’s self-titled debut, featuring the record shattering hit “Hot Stepper”.

Sadly, the first album released was Judas Priest’s “Screaming For Vengence”… Not a good start. I think I and every other literate, halfway intelligent non-mouthbreathing person on the Earth collectively sighed and did a slow, Three Stooges-esque face wipe in disbelief. My hopes of playing either classic rock anthems or late 90′s punk/alt/rock were dashed by patent leather and studded bracelets. I hate when people go for the low hanging fruit of track selection that is Heavy Metal. Prime example: KISS. I hate KISS. You know why? Because everyone knows who they are, but no one knows their songs. People think KISS and they think make up and costumes, not classic rock. Name me two KISS songs. “I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night (And Party Every Day)”, and…? What? That’s right, nothing. Because they suck. Now, name me one Judas Priest song. “Breaking the Law”? Good job, you must have watched Beavis and Butthead when you were younger. The same goes for The Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd to a certain extent.

NOTE: Snail Face = Bad

Screaming for Vengeance gets 5/5 Snail Faces

Backwards Influence

Rock Band has a crazy hold on me. I just downloaded The Cars’ debut album (the music album, not the RB album), which was recently made available as a DLC purchase for the game. I actually plan on listening to the album today and seeing how much I like it and if it will warrant a purchase. I know The Cars very casually, and their biggest hit, “Just What I Needed”, I first heard from a Ghoti Hook cover about 10(!) years ago:

It’s really strange that I, a very choosy listener, am actually going to listen to an album because of a video game. What a tangled web we weave.

modernization

I just found out that one of the new COD4 maps coming through DLC this week, Chinatown, is actually just kind of a re-skinning of the map Carentan from the Call of Duty 2 multiplayer. I had to watch a video to remember which map Carentan was, you know, because COD2 was so two years ago, and it was a pretty fun one. After watching a video of some Chinatown action, I can totally tell that they are just different flesh on the same skeleton.

I actually think this is really cool. I loved some of the previous COD maps so much, that I wish they could just put them into the new ones. Can you imagine how rad it would be to play in Eder Dam with all the modern weapons? The only thing that would make it perfect would be if you could ride in the vehicles, too. Check out video of this map here, or just wait five days and make your own.