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ROCK BAND (my cross to bear)

Incase I am wrong and someone noticed, I have been checked out of the ‘blogosphere’ (yech) for wuite some time. A big contribution to that is Rock Band for my PS3. I feel I am an informed enough person to give you a piece by piece examination of how Rock Band is holding up now that it has been out for roughly 6 months.  Before I get into current issues with the game, let me give you a brief overview from a rhythm game playing nobody such as myself.

Basic Gameplay: 

                                        GUITAR/BASS

I stole this picture from ign to show you how the gameplay works. The guitar and bass are a lot like guitar hero. You hit the buttons and strum to play the song and get points accordingly. You hit silver colored notes in succession to get energy for in which to  double the amount of points you and your fellow band members are bringing in until the energy dies out. 

                                                        DRUMS

Drumming is a similar task with the exception of two things, there is an orange bar that stretches across the whole note-chart for the drum column which signifies bass drum, it isn’t terribly a new concept but it is new… Secondly, when the drummers get the said energy as described above, they can only activate it at the end of a drum fill which comes in at selected points of each song when a player has enough energy to go into “overdrive” )the double your points thing.  I have a beef with that issue because I have been at the ass end of losing a song because i failed a ridiculous solo and my drummer had the energy to spend, but the song didn’t have a drum fill section for some time. I suppose it is a challenge of the game that I lost, but fuck it anyways!

                                                      VOCALS

Singing is alright. The microphone picks up your pitch  and does a pretty good job of recognizing octaves and all that sort of business. When singing, a circle starts to go around like a clock and gives you a rating per phrase based on how long you were able to stay on pitch and with the different rhythms and syllables and whatnot. In my corrupt opinion, Hard is the best difficulty out of the other three. Easy could be achieved even if you were wearing a big rubber halloween mask. Medium is alright but it fills up the dial awfully fast. Expert is something I have not been able to achieve. The dial goes soooo slow. This is where everyone can bash me for not being able to sing, but fuck you fuckers. Another thing that I enjoy is to play guitar and sing at the same time, it is quite fucking hard, but a good time when you get the hang of it.
                                                

 BAND PLAY

Rock Band got one thing spot on and it is the attraction of playing with the fullest band you can get. The more players you have, the easier it is to get a ridiculous score. If a band plays really well and they coordinate when they go into their overdrives, on a song like Mississippi Queen you could be getting 8x the points (on top of the 4x multiplier you have been rocking yourself). Times all that by 4 (for the other players efforts), and that 25 points PER note is now the beefiest thing since beef. All of these scores are put on the leaderboards (the best aspect of the game).

                                           CURRENT ISSUES

Now that I have given you a terrible overview of what the game is like to play, I will tell you what time has told about this epic game.

-Guitar’s are terrible. I have bought a new one myself and the gentleman at the store said he has bought 5 or 6 already for him. Although he is probably just making it seem more acceptable to put up with this shitty controller quality. The strummer is the basic piece of shit factor with this piece of shit. Look it up online. The other thing that sucks is the spring for the whammy bar, it is the thinnest thing I have seen in my life. It breaks easily if some new douchebag is going crazy on the whammy bar. 
-The music store has been rocking it lately. They have been releasing albums, namely, Doolittle by the pixies. In a couple of days they are releasing a lot of Who songs. Sure you have to pay for them but at least they will transfer to Rock Band 2 when it comes out. 
-ROCK BAND 2 COMES OUT FOR 360 FIRST, PS3 AT A LATER DATE FUCK THAT SHIT BITCHES. Fuck the 360 honestly. I have one in my house so all of you mother fuckers just shut up if you were going to ‘step up 2 the maxx’ with me. Just release them at the same time, I know you have a deal but you are pissing us all off over here in PS3 land. The S in PS stands for superior.
So buy it, I guess. Friend me. Thx.

Boner Soda

I was watching James Bond movies on SpikeTV (fresh programing guys) and I saw an advertisement for a product that my girlfriend seems to think that I need. I suppose the boner pill company Extenze has a penis enlargement beverage. I am not quite sure if it is for your erection or for overall penis size.  

The part that I don’t think was discussed in the marketing meeting was when a customer is going to drink this product. Extenze (Penis Nectar) doesn’t look like it is going to be able to assimilate with my sack lunch (GET IT?!). Everybody is more or less famiiar with Extenze commercials, I think it is safe so assume that drinking this in public is out of the question. 

The part that gets me is this is a drink that makes your peepee grow bigger. Someone is willing to drink something marketed to make my dick larger and at the same time there is a Sugar Free option because I have to watch those sort of things.

Console Gaming Accessories Have Gone Too Far

I remember a simpler time. A time when someone could buy a console, a couple of controllers and anything else you would want to buy would be another game. I find the Nintendo Wii to be the biggest culprit when it comes to exaggerated secondary controllers and accessories. In my experience owning a Wii I have come up with;

•  3 Wii Remote controllers
•  3 Wii Nunchuck controllers
•  1 Wii Zapper
•  1 Wii Guitar Hero controller
•  1 Wii Steering Wheel

Running - A Game Plan

One of my main goals currently is working to improve things that I find myself to be lacking in (writing interesting content) in order to raise the lower number in my range of acceptable-ness. My biggest weakness is my ability to run and not hate it every step of the way. I think that a lot of people are in the same boat as me so I am going to share what I loosely follow to get my “wind” up. 

The Couch to 5k Plan is something my good pal told me about a couple of years ago (relevant post much?).  The layout takes a couple of months dedication but the guideline gives a good strategy for working up to being someone who can go out and enjoy a run of considerable distance.

The one thing that noticably improved my running experience was when I was given an iPod Nano Video from my almost inlaws. Listening to music is a lot better than listening to my feet hit the ground and my lungs give out. 

So this is where all my money goes…

The Credit Card pipe is a smoking device which is very nimble and cute. Can be kept loaded and stored in a wallet if need be. It appears to be easily cleaned but requires small metal screens. I have never used or even seen one in person but maybe Santa is reading…?

Three Video Games I Am Playing Currently Right Now

1. GRAND THEFT AUTO IV - The long anticipated, open-world game is everything everyone else wrote about it and more. I am currently a couple of missions away from completing the Main Storyline. What can I say that hasn’t really been said? A couple of things that I found impressive that may not have been covered by the mainstream gaming media; waiting for a police officer (or angered carackee) to grab a door handle, hit the gas and watch the dolt hold on as he is dragged out like a breaking story on Inside Edition. Turning to the right of left sharply will usually cause the pedestrian to be placed under your rear tire. Also, for some reason if you are in a police chase and you are in a car. Some officers will crouch behind your trunk for a spell until they rush your passenger door, when they do this just back up. I also enjoy shooting driver forcing them to use their steering wheels as pillows
2. MLB ‘08 ‘THE SHOW’ - Ever since RBI baseball for the Nintendo Entertainment System, I have had a very special place in my heart for baseball games. I have always found them to be the most in depth and in touch with both the sport and game quality. MLB ‘08 ‘THE SHOW’ has a couple of features that I found to greatly improve this classic genre. The feature “Road To The Show” allows you to create a character, assign him a position and lead you through an RPG style attribute system. That sounds all well and good but add in the fact that a player will only have to be active in plays they are involved in directly. I chose to be a pitcher and found it to be one of the harder positions on the team (of course). How you perform has a direct effect on boosts in attribute points. Outside of single player, a real life game score frames online play so you are somewhat connected to the real world. I will be paying attention to any developments for MLB ‘09 ‘THE SPECTACLE’ or whatever, ugh.
3. MARIO KART WII - Perhaps you had zero foresight and purchased a Nintendo Wii as your sole console. The good news is Mario Kart Wii is one of only four or five games you will need to buy until next generation. Mario Kart Wii has 32 courses (some new, many rehashed) and 24 characters (20 you will recognize). It is standard Mario Kart you have always loved. New additions include Online features such as Ghost trading and Time Trial rankings amongst players all across the world. You can inch your way up the speed king ladder by battling the ghosts of players who have times a little bit better than yours. I find it gives you an opportunity to find out how to shave a second or two off of your personal record. I find the online ranked matches to be the smoothest online experience I have ever had with Nintendo apart from a game close to my own heart: Mario Strikers Charged. I find the game ot be very entertaining and full of things to make the experience as easy as possible (as far as menus go). I do hav eone criticism and it is Nintendo’s giant hard-on for the Wii Wheel accesory. The game calculates how often you use the wheel and will reward you based upon your percentage of races using the wheel. There has never been a piece of equipment since this one to make me want to say this.

Would you like to learn Chinese?

I was recently enrolled in a Elementary Mandarin (Chinese) course at my local Junior college (which I highly recommend). The way of teaching it has been pretty standardized to one set of three books. I learned a thing or two from this, I would say, PERHAPS A BIT MORE?

I am really here to talk about a website that I found helpful in learning some of the more “popular” or “street” elements of a language I know nothing to almost nothing about. Chinapod is a website that has daily audio clips that range from absolute beginner to advanced media coverage in Mandarin. The girl in the beginner lessons (which are free) sounds incredibly hot, but from what I know about hot sounding radio chix, they are often messes.

To my knowledge there is a similar site like this for French, Spanish and one coming soon for Japanese. 

Settlers of Catan

I never really liked board games growing up. I would always be terrible at them and it would never be my fault. I would always lose to a series of unfortunate dice rolls and no decision on my part would have changed the game for me either way. When my friends who were back from college coerced me into playing a board game for an hour or so, I was skeptical. This board game was named The Settlers Of Catan.
There was no board, there were little hexagons and cards. I had little to no time for this tabletop nonsense. I had a couple of drinks and then I was finally ready. I guess these little hexagons came together randomly to form an island that we would be using as the play area. These spaces we put down were illustrated to show a specific resource that would be essential to playing the game. A number was assigned to each of these spaces that would correspond to dice rolls.
When the dice is rolled everyone gets a resource card and the goal of the game is to expand and develop your settlements using these cards. Trading and strategy are the main happening in each turn. There is no combat or war, there is only economic competition and passive attacks such as placing a “Robber” character on each space, rendering it fruitless (Read: Not real fruit).
 
It looks fairly complicated but I assure you will understand everything shortly after starting and even faster if you are playing with someone who has played before. You can find the game on Amazon or your local game (not video game) store

SModcast

When I am not listening to the other two radio shows that I listen to (Ron and Fez and sometimes Opie and Anthony), there is one show that curbs the pangs like no other and that is SModcast. Chances are, if you are a fan of such films as Clerks or Mallrats, you will enjoy thismostlyweekly podcast hosted by Kevin Smith (Silent Bob) and Scott Mosier.The format of the show is very very light. The topics are rarely current and usually don’t have anything to do with what is happening in the media. Most shows meander along following tangential parts of stories but somehow they always tie it all up with a nice bow in the end (unlike my posts). A couple of different shows topics I have listened to are Matrix world questions, how great the movie Conan the Barbarian was, what if you were a ghost?
Each show is almost an hour and there are no commercial breaks. I find myself listening to SModcast most on long car rides. Time passes quickly and it always seems to calm me down a little bit and lighten my mood. There is always one hearty laugh in each show I have listened to. Give the show a listen and support something that I enjoy.