Sideshow & Syrana

I thought I’d bring back some of the Sunday Screenshot posts, since I have a bunch just sitting here on my PC. Some classics, too, back to when I first played in 2005.

Click for bigginess.

This was from the end of a quest in Uldum. The prisoners were trying to escape, but they needed to look like the other creatures. Budd is up to his old tricks again. You may remember Budd from such places as Grizzly Hills and Kelp’thar Forest.

Your new boss

There are a ton of great quests in Cataclysm. Blizzard definitely went all out. I really enjoyed the Worgen starting area. The quest line there felt epic and the story was well written. The Goblin starting area was great. They made it really fun with a lot of nice little hidden gems, like the Goblin Supermodels in Kezan having a gasoline fight (ala Zoolander.) The quests in both areas were unique and kept you busy without the repetition we have been used to.

The only other starting areas I’ve ran through were the Trolls and Gnomes since I wanted to see how those panned out. I enjoyed both of those, too, for different reasons.

I just recently ran through the Undead starting area. It’s always been one of my favorites. I like the atmosphere of those areas. Very creepy, with just a touch of life. The other reason is that is was the first area I ever ran in WoW, back in 2005 with Sideshow. It’ll always have that nostalgic feel to it.

I like the changes they’ve made, aesthetically, to Tirisfal Glades. Brill is much nicer now, not only with “new” Undead architecture, but with many more facilities and even a flight path. The quests in Deathknell have more to do with life after Arthas’ reign and Sylvanas building an Undead army. Once you’re out of Deathknell, a lot of the quests are similar to what they were, but they are much easier to run through now. Everything is laid out better and the flow was really appreciated.

Silverpine is also completely overhauled. The Sepulcher has received a complete makeover and is now a full-fledged Undead center of command. I really liked the Silverpine quests because they bring you more into the Undead’s history and their march into the future. You’re working directly with Sylvanas for most of the area while fighting back the Worgen from Gilneas. It makes you feel like you’re directly affecting the outcome of that area. Great job on the phasing and quest design there.

Meet your new friend.

Once you’re done with Silverpine, you go into Hillsbrad. In my opinion, Hillsbrad has, hands down, the best quests in Cataclysm. There is no doubt in my mind. I can honestly say, I’ve never laughed so hard at a quest in WoW. Starting with the first quest you get, Welcome to the Machine, you get to be a quest giver and you meet three very interesting (very real, some might say) NPCs. I can’t give away anything, otherwise it’s not as fun. Just go do it. (Otherwise, you can be a party-pooper and read the dialogue on the Wowhead link.)

Once that’s  done you will get to meet your questers (questees?) again on your travels through Hillsbrad. The area is also very well-done. No more dealing with (a high number of) Alliance gankers (if you’ve ever tried to quest here on a PvP server.) The Alliance has officially been removed from the area, at least town-wise.

It’ll take a lot to overthrow that line of quests from the throne, but I’ll keep trying the new areas. What was your favorite quest/quest line so far?

I find it sort of funny that I ended up purchasing Activision’s latest Guitar Hero release, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, the day before they killed the series. Now, personally, I’ve always been more of a Rock Band fan. The Rock Band series always seemed to be more about the music and interacting with the music, rather than trying to destroy an evil boss or seeing how fast you could shred.

The main reason we tend to steer towards Rock Band is the massive song library. Just including the four exportable Rock Band games we have; Rock Band (58), Rock Band 2 (84), Rock Band 3 (83) and Lego Rock Band (45), that’s 270 songs (plus or minus a few that were not licensed to export). Not included is Beatles: Rock Band since those songs can’t be exported and we didn’t buy Green Day: Rock Band. Then you add all of the normal Rock Band DLC (1,220) and the new Rock Band Network DLC (977), that’s 2,197 more songs to pick from. We have somewhere around 700 songs in our library.

Up until this point, I only thought Guitar Hero had two decent releases: Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero: Metallica. GH II because it was the one that we first bought. It was the game that “redefined” the music game genre. GH:Metallica because of the amazing job they did on it and the amount of detail that was put into it. It does help that I’ve been a lifelong Metallica fan, which helped me notice some of the great detail, but even to an outsider, it’s still a very well-done game.

Rush's 2112 Stage

Warriors of Rock is probably up there with those two. Granted, the theme of the game and weak plotline are pretty silly at times, but you know this going into a Guitar Hero game. While it had some pretty good song selections, I did find some of the songs boring and not very fun to play. What really sold me on the game is the inclusion of Rush’s “2112.” The way that they implemented it into the game made it feel really epic and the narrations by the members of Rush was a nice touch. That’s the type of song that Guitar Hero was made for, full of fantasy and very epic.

The final battle was neat, too, due to the fact that you needed to put together your two bands from the eight characters (each with different power-ups) to try to take down the main boss. My only gripe, while I am a Megadeth fan, is that all of the songs were Megadeth songs. I do agree with some of the critics when they said “with so many of the more iconic rock songs having already been used in previous Guitar Hero and Rock Band games developers are forced to use ever more obscure songs and/or acts” [The Metro]

All in all, it’s a decent game. Along with the ability to export songs from previous GH games (surprisingly including Guitar Hero: Metallica), it does give you a decent song library. If you can find it on the cheap (I think it was $20 used at Amazon) go pick it up.

A zombie shirt maybe? Or something else funny or offensive?

This one is perfect for Syrana, don’t you think?

Enter the giveaway Syrana is running over at the baby blog!