Malik
(12/18/09)
Next week will see
Harmonix continue their long standing ways of
adding new artists to Rock Band. Of course, I'm not exactly sold
on Limp Bizkit being an artist we really need on Rock Band. I'm not
sold on the idea that Limp Bizkit is a band needed outside of the
summer of white rap-rock (that would be the summer of 1999).
At least another
pack of Weezer is always good fun, and another song from The
Offspring is cool. Now if only I still could find the enjoyment of
Rock Band enough to play again. Then again, I also need to find that
love for The Beetles Rock Band, since I'm now two albums down. The
last DLC I got for either game was before Thanksgiving.
Of course, a lot
of Rock Band is not needed when you have good games to play. It is a
great autumn to play new games. I mean I've been playing Nostalgia,
which was new a couple months back, like a man possessed. The game
is pure addiction, even if it has some major problems.
The main problem,
like with another airship centered RPG (Skies of Arcadia), is that
random battles can become overwhelming in a hurry. It's not like you
don't get benefits from so many battles, since there's a lot of fun
skills and abilities to unlock with SP (skill points earned after
combat) and to be used in battle. There's also a good selection of
weapons and some cool strategies, in a simplistic way, to take
advantage of.
The one problem I
cannot get over so easily is that you revisit dungeons a lot in this
game. I mean one dungeon, which I've grown to hate with a passion
(the mines), I've visited about a dozen times and have at least one
more side quest there. The game is based around completing the plot,
but you can also take side jobs to unlock new areas and to get some
cool bonus equipment. These side quests, for the most part, all take
place in the same dungeons over and over again. Maybe if the game
changed things up with more areas, I could overlook the tedium of
these issues more readily. At least the tedious parts are bonus
material and, therefore, self inflicted. I can let that go better
than if the game required you to revisit the same hellish boring
places for all eternity (like Mass Effect did with the identical
dungeons throughout the game).
I should be
nearing the final few dungeons of Nostalgia, so I might return to
Rock Band (or Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal...which I halted
playing abruptly thanks to Nostalgia) soon. Plus, I'm on vacation,
so I'll probably be far more focused on fun for the next couple of
weeks.
On a final note,
it's great to see the Mariners getting so many good players (Chone
Figgins and Cliff Lee!!!) and making some damned smart moves in the
offseason. It helps me to forget that the Seahawks are seven point
favorites (at least the last time I looked) against Tampa Bay this
weekend. Yes, I consider that a sad thing, since almost any other
team, at home, would definitely be favored by far more than a single
TD against the crap-fest that is the Bucs. At this point, it's
better for the Seahawks to lose and to raise their draft pick status
than to go out and slaughter some bad opponents.
Malik |