Rock On!!!!

The long wait is over. Rock Band 2 is mine! I've had it less than a week, and I thought I would share my initial impressions. As a beginning note, my Rock Band 1 disc got a small crack in it about 5 weeks ago. Enough that I didn't want to play it, so for a month I was Rockbandless. So getting Rock Band 2 wasn't just upgrading it was coming back after a month's wait. This will likely color my impressions.

First basic song gameplay. It's pretty much the same. You have notes scrolling down the screen, and you hit the appropriate button, or drumpad, or pitch and you get points. The more points you get the higher your star score is. Pretty simple; it worked for Guitar Hero (which Harmonix the people behind Rock Band invented, before being bought by a rival company), it worked for Rock Band 1 – why change it.

Other gameplay. Nifty Nifty improvements – In RB1 playing solo, you just had a list of songs to beat, in linear fashion. This followed the structure of Guitar Hero as well. However in group play, you had a world tour. You had cities you could play it, and venues within that city. Each song or set of songs within each venue was a gig that you earned fans for playing, as well as stars, as mentioned before. Now this gameplay is there is RB2 for solo play. Now the old linear play is gone... which is a bit of a shame, it made for a great practice list. Other things you can do are challenges, and there are 9 tiers of them (IIRC). You beat a challenge at a lower level, and it unlocks one or more at a higher level. You play completely through a chain of challenges and you win something nifty, like special instruments or special outfits. These challenges change with time. If you download 3 songs from an album you get a “X album” challenge added. These are the two biggest gameplay changes, and for the better.

Now free-play changes to an extent – in RB1 you had access to all the normal songs; there were 14 (again IIRC) that were Boston/Harmonix bands that you could unlock. In RB2, you only start with about 20 songs in free play. The rest have to be unlocked in World Tour or in Challenges. There is one set of challenges (Marathon Challenge) that playing straight through that unlocks all 84 songs.

Speaking of free play, the list of songs has changed a look. There are more ways to sort the music and it scrolls faster. This is necessary. RB 1 had 58 songs, RB 2 has 84 on disc and another 20 that will be coming for free. But wait, there's more! You can put in your RB1 disc, update the game, and pay 5 bucks for and export feature, that rips all but three of your Rock Band games to your hard drive. Yes, the entire game content is exportable to RB 2. The three missing songs were due to licensing problems. So if you have Rock Band, and you buy rock Band 2 you have 139 songs right out of the gate. But wait, there is still more. Harmonix has released downloadable songs every week since Rock Band came out. So if you have been playing RB you likely have some DLC (short for Downloadable Content). Myself, I had 91 (I didn't realize it was that much). So at the point I have RB2, I had 230 songs in the game.

Wow.

And all of this extra music is integrated seamlessly into the game. It changes challenges (see above), any of it can show up on random setlists in Tour mode. They can be picked on normal choose your own sets while Touring.

Lastly there were a lot of minor tweaking – enhancements to the character creation area (not much but some), what your band multiplier is during multiple overdrives is easier to see, a drum trainer, and extra options like a No Fail Mode.

All in all it is a major improvement, not in any one area, but a whole.

Highly recommended.

And now back to strapping on a guitar and rockin' the world.
Games played since last post
Bioshock (360)
Rock Band 2 (360)

Viewing things in a whole new light.

I won my wife a new laptop for school from a sales contest at my second job. She hooked her old monitor up to it for a two monitor experience. She also decided not to use her monitor (as it is a 17") and wanted to use mine (a 15") - as she didn't see the need for the larger regular monitor when she runs two of them. So we swapped.

So all of that was to say I have a new bigger monitor!!! Woohoo!!! I never would have thought that the extra 2" would have made a difference, but they have. It allowed me to move up to the next higher resolution, and keep things roughly where I like them.

And my games look amazing. :)

And now back to creeping through an underwater city killing crazy splicers.

Games played since last post:
None - look at the timestamps. :)

It's all about the Bioshock

Having finished Halo, and taking some time to play a couple of rented game (Too Human and The Darkness), I finally sit down to play the next game I am going to tackle.... at least until Rock Band 2 comes out in a just over a week.

The game is Bioshock.
The setting: a scientists/entrepreneur built a city underwater in 46, inviting all the people he thought would fit into his utopia (a Randian/Nietzschian Utopia I get the feeling). The game is set in 1960, and you are a the survivor of a plane wreck, who made it into the city.

There is a lot of bio-engineering going on – most people in the city are changed and crazy. You end up getting a shot that alters your genetics (giving you the ability to shoot electricity) right away, and you go from there. The visuals of the city are very art deco, and the music is eerie – except when the radio plays music that is in game, like The Blade Runner song, or Lady Day esque God Save The Child.

And that brings up to the little girls. They have some amount of gene material that when you use it, allows you to get more mutated (such as gaining stronger skin for extra health or defense). You can get this stuff two ways – doing a full harvest, which gets you more, but kills the girl, or getting it from her without killing her which gives you less. But one of the mad scientists tells you if you let them live, you will get something special from her. Being the person I am, I'm saving the girls. It was right after killing the “Big Daddy,” a girl's guardian, and getting the prompt on what do do with the girl that “God Saved the Child” plays the first time.

Back when I played Doom the first time (and Heretic to a similar extent), I was completely drawn into the world by the music, the graphics, the atmosphere. I haven't been that drawn into a FPS for a long time. Until now. This game is the most atmospheric game I have played in forever.

I've beat 3 levels of 16, so I'm not that far into it, but I am really really enjoying playing this thing. Amazing.

And now back to creeping through an underwater city killing crazy splicers.

Games played since last post:

Too Human (360)
Half Life (PC)
The Darkness (360)
Pac Man (Arcade on PC with emulator)
Moon Cresta (Arcade on PC with emulator)
Solitaire (PC)

Back in the Saddle again....

Well.....

It's been about 2 months. Wow. I didn't expect to be gone that long. Well, I have returned. And let me explain why, then we'll get to the video games.

The demands on my time have lessened – I've not got any callings in my church right now, the big one I had was reshuffled to someone else, when a member of the group I was in got called to a more important position, and that always means a new group. So I was released. I've successfully limited my time on the internet. I was surfing about 6 boards a day. I've limited that to three, and I limit my time on them. I've stopped working on the RPG game that I have been working on for years (my Fantasy Hero Campaign).

Then there is the big one – the wife arranged to get herself back in school to finish her degree. She is taking 15 credit hours of 300 & 400 level classes, plus working. So she is at school, at work, or working on her homework. So I am now left with extra time, and at odds with my time – this post is being written while she is at class, as a matter of fact.

So what does that mean for this blog – well without the wife around, and more importantly for this subject, without the wife around playing video games on the consoles, I have been keeping myself occupied playing games. So without further ado – my game report.

I decided to finish Conan that I have been playing in fits and starts since I got the machine. Fun game. Enjoyed it, and it was really cool to actually beat a game again. So with that on my mind I decided to beat another one.

I started Halo about a week and a half ago. I beat it yesterday. Really cool game. Great story, great narration, amazing graphics, especially on a last gen machine. I was completely blown away – and the game had an easy mode that was easy enough I could beat it.

So now, I am playing Too Human (a rental through Blockbuster, my second job, so it is free). Level 5, and enjoying it. And just today, while the wife was playing her Digital Devil Summoner (no idea which one), I decided to play a game on the PC I haven't played for a while – Half-Life One. I have Orange Box for the 360, but before I play HL2, I wanted to beat the original. I've cleared the first 2 of 17 levels.

So that is what I am up to. Expect further updates, and reports on progress of games, plus other various and sundry comments on games.

And now back to killing cybernetic Goblins and Trolls, and being visited by the Valkyries way too often.

Games Played Since last post:

Too Many to mention