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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

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