Malik
(9/2/08)
I'm back from my long weekend...if you can call two days of
backbreaking labor and two days of relaxation a long weekend. It
almost seems more like a change in scenery in the old realm of
working my ass off.
In the Rock Band world, I tried out the three songs from Locksley
and I'm quite happy with them. In particular, they are fun sounding
and have a good fun guitar (expert) chart. I'd say the band has a
nice Hives-meets-Beetles type of sound going for them. There is some
insanity with the guitar strumming patterns (some very quick chord
changes and strumming rhythms), but nothing beyond the tier four to
five range that the songs fall in to. Definitely worth the $1 per
track price their listed for.
There's also a PAX 2008 pack available now. I've yet to try them,
see them, or really listen to any of them. However, the songs are
all pretty low in the tiers. Knowing how these bands tend to sound,
it's probably more of the type of music that will be best for the
vocalist and just "meh" for the other parts. That's not a bad thing,
but it still doesn't mean too much good either.
With only one more Tuesday out there before RB2 launches, I'm
thinking next Tuesday will find us with another less than amazing
pack. Why? I bet Harmonix is trying to bank some awesome DLC for the
first day (or week...will they release some DLC on the 14th or wait
for the 16th?) of RB2. Afterall, that's how RB was launched; with a
massive amount of initial DLC. It would only make sense to let RB go
out with a whimper and for RB2 to come in in a full on rage.
I don't have much else to say for today, beyond the fact that Tales
of Vesperia is awesome. I will need to try to finish this game
before RB2 comes along...otherwise, one of these masterpieces will
have to face some neglect, and that's just not right.
Malik |
Malik
(9/3/08)
I ended up buying
the music from the PAX Pack for Rock Band without bothering to look
anything up about the songs. I made a simple assumption (making an
ass out of you and, in particular, me) that the music wouldn't be
all that bad. Afterall, if Harmonix is trying to keep people happy
after the Moving Pictures incident, they wouldn't release bad
songs...would they?
Yes, they would.
Ok, Shhh is a fun
song. It's a lot like, on expert guitar, Die All Right!, but with
different chords. It's fast, heavy in sound, and is pretty fun as
long as you can keep up with constant machine gun strumming.
Living at the
Corner of Dude and Catastrophe is less than stellar on guitar. It's
not bad, but it's not good either. It's a lot of fast bass strums
followed by a chord. Not too bad, but also not all that inspired.
Still, it does offer one very interesting aspect of Rock Band. The
name is so long, with the artist name, that it doesn't fit on the
screen fully when the song is starting. The title acts like a bad
photograph with it's head being cut off by the top of the picture.
As for
Skullcrusher Mountain (or whatever it's called)...this song makes me
angry that I wasted even $1 (80MP) on the song. It's the lamest shit
that could ever be forced upon this wonderful game. I would say the
song is too "folksy" for RB, but that makes me sound like I hate
folk music. Peter, Paul, and Mary or James Taylor would both be far
more better choices for RB than this shit. It's slow in sound, it's
light, it's...it's not a fit at all for this game. To make it worse,
the expert guitar track is boring and painful to play. It's just
fast single note changes across the board with nothing to look
forward to.
Overall, the PAX
Pack reminds me of two things. First off, always reveiw a song
before buying. Always. Also, Harmonix needs to step up to the
challenge about now of giving some good stuff instead of promising
it for the future. If you're in desparate need of new music for RB,
get the Locksley songs (they are good and fun). If you still need
more, maybe get Shhh. Still wanting more? Maybe MC Frontalot if
you're a vocalist or plan to play as a band. Otherwise, I cannot
condone paying the full $3 for this. Maybe my money does go to a
good cause (Childs Play) for buying this, but not I only feel like a
charity ripped me off. I think I'd feel more fulfilled if I donated
to charity instead of having some shit put on my HDD in exchange for
a donation.
Worst case
scenario and you HAVE to get this music? Buy the tracks
individually. It's the same price as the pack and you can then
delete Skullcrusher Mountain separately and keep Shhh on the HDD.
Malik |
Malik
(9/4/08)
There's
a Rock Band update today. Basically, it fixes some impossible to
hit notes (drums have a few of those in some DLC tracks), it will
allow the store to still work in RB since the store is being updated
for the RB2 interface system, and it brings about the song export
feature to bring RB tracks to RB2.
One of the best
features is that it lowers gold star cutoffs for expert song
performances. How much so? What is the new score requirement (in
terms of times the five star value) for gold stars on each
instrument? Does this effect band play as well as solo instruments?
I wish I knew. However, it should fix some of the few songs that are
impossible, before this update, to gold star...even with a full
combo and a perfect overdrive path.
Last of all, that
link deals a bit with the song export feature. Namely, Run to the
Hills, Enter Sandman, and Paranoid will not export. In Europe,
Monsoon from Tokyo Hotel will not make it, but there is the DLC
route for that one. I have to say I'm surprised to see Enter Sandman
(I expected only covers to be excluded)...but since MEtallica is
going to have a whole Guitar Hero edition, it is not a total shock.
The one, however, that surprises me is that Train Kept A Rolling
didn't get excluded. Afterall, with the GH: Aerosmith edition out
there and Aerosmith being Activision exclusive now, I would imagine
that song to not be transferable...cover or not.
I do have to say,
the loss of RttH is not too sad for me. While I'm a Maiden fanatic
in real life, I definitely could do without that hellish drum track
and that annoying triplet pattern on guitar and bass. It's one song
I always dread.
Anyway, according
to various message board posts, it sounds like the transfer of songs
to your HDD takes about 1.5GB and 10-15 minutes. Not too
shabby considering I would have expected closer to 2.5GB and far
more time. Best of all, individual tracks can be deleted, for
those of us who are sick of Hole, FlyLeaf, Seven, and Green Grass.
It's nice that
this is coming before RB2, since Live servers will probably become
hell the day RB2 comes out and this limits what I'd need to download
that day by at least one download. Also, the gold star fix will give
me something else to strive for (since I've missed some songs by
only a couple hundred points on guitar) in the time between now and
the 14th.
I'll probably have
some thoughts on this update tomorrow. For now, it's a short post
day and I let my day job kick my sorry ass all over the place.
Malik |
Malik
(9/5/08)
Rock Band is going crappy again with an All That Remains pack
next week. I would comment, but as I've said, I think they're
holding back for RB2. Afterall, this is the final DLC pack
before RB2 is out. Hopefully a big stash of awesome is waiting
for day one of RB2.
Malik |
|
For Those Who Don't
Have Flash Plug-Ins...
Rested
XP News
Reviews
Videos Features
Forums
Archives Search
This Site Links
Contact Us Disclaimer
|
|
|