Sideshow & Syrana

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.

Well, hello.  Remember me?

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No? Ah well.  It was bound to happen.  I mean, I did go rogue ‘n all (as in not around.. I’m still a warlock through ‘n through.)

I’m getting more and more hands free moments now that our daughter is about 9 weeks old.  She sure is a snuggle bug.  I forsee Cataclysm in my future… maybe February-ish?

Just don’t hold your breath.

Unless you’re Undead.  Then it shouldn’t matter either way.

My focus for most of this year has certainly been on the impending arrival of my daughter and now the afterparty.  But that doesn’t mean NO gaming for me… just a shift in what I’m able to squeeze in.

I kinda hate to admit it, but for the past month or so, I’ve been really hitting the Facebook games.  I’m really liking CityVille right now.  I can’t help it… they are easy to play one handed on the laptop while holding babygirl.

Gotta do whatcha gotta do, amirite?

As Sideshow mentioned in his last post, we got a Kinect.  I really wanted Dance Central and Kinectimals …. so we have both of those.  I was surprised that Sideshow tried Dance Central first. (continue reading…)

I think it may have finally happened. I actually was able to procure something in-game before mostly everyone else already has it. I have been playing Gertbee, my (now) level 83 Dwarf Hunter more than Sideshow recently. No real reason, I just have been enjoying that character more. I also haven’t really been leveling in the new areas too much. I’ve quested most of Vashj’ir, but I’m taking my time. I’m in no rush to hit 85 and then bore myself. So, I decided to try out Archaeology.

I’m really enjoying it. It’s not extremely exciting by any means, but they did a good job with it. It gets you to see the world and to learn the history and lore in a fun way. Think of it as exciting as fishing to level up, but it’s relaxing. A lot of flying is involved, so you can do something else while you’re playing. Another benefit to archaeology is the chance of a rare item and there are a bunch of them. I got pretty lucky a last week when I saw that the current project I was unlocking was the Fossilized Hatchling, which is adorable. It was my first rare archaeology item, so I got an achievement for it and a new title, Assistant Professor.

But, then I found the item that I haven’t really seen on our server. (continue reading…)

I have been playing some stuff lately, I swear!

Although I’ve been a bit more focused at getting the new blog rolling, I haven’t stopped gaming altogether.  Granted, I haven’t played WoW in about a week, but I’ve been hitting up Facebook games again lately…

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Don’t look at me like that! They take little time! I have less time now with all this sleep I keep wanting.

Anywho, a couple days ago, CSI Deadly Intent for the Xbox 360 arrived via Gamefly.  Mind you, I added this along with several other console games several months ago while I was still one of the cohosts of Polygamerous.

Unfortunately, we had reduced back down to 1 game at a time and …. well, Sideshow has ultimate control over the list.  So, mine will get here when they get here.

This game is at least a year old, but if you are a CSI fan like myself, then you will probably enjoy it.  I had fun, but I wouldn’t pay the brand new, full price of the game.  I got about 10 hours of game play out of it and there is practically no replayability (unless you are just anal about achievements).

I played a previous one and enjoyed it (pretty sure I rented it or bought it used….can’t remember though).  There are still a few things that frustrate me in the game play though.  Such as, needing to uncover certain evidence or statements before moving forward with the investigation.  Sometimes my thought process was ahead of the game.

The voice acting is pretty good, since they use the actual actors from the show.  Well, except Catherine Willows.  I’m not sure why that was the only one done by the non-actor of the TV counterpart.  The look and voice were close, but noticeable to someone who watches the show regularly (read: too much).

Each case has an interesting story that unfolds with twists and turns so the suspect is never who you first expect (that would be too easy!)

I must say that I never learn my lesson that I would enjoy these type of games MORE on my computer than on a console.

Why?

Because the Xbox stick does not have enough fine control for sweeping the screen, watching for cursor changes.  A mouse is easier to maneuver in such a way.  Sometimes it was quite touchy in the game and I spent too much time trying to get the cursor where it needed to be.  The DS would also be better, I would suspect….although they had their own special version of the game with different cases…. probably to incorporate more of the touchyfeely platform.

All in all, I enjoyed solving 5 cases.  I’m a pretty good armchair CSI, if I do say so m’self.

I thought I’d do another game review. It’s been awhile, but it is only the second new game I’ve purchased since the last review. I’m doing much better. This time it’s for Just Cause 2.

I had bought the first Just Cause back in 2006 since I’m a fan of sandbox-type games like GTA and it looked like that sort of game. While it was that sort of game, it was pretty weak. I quickly made the decision to sell it on eBay and get something for it before other people heard it wasn’t too good. Which is why I wasn’t expecting much from it’s sequel. I played the demo and it was pretty fun, but it really didn’t explain much and sort of threw you into the action.

I read an early review, I forget where it was now, that said you shouldn’t play the game. In the review it went on to say that you shouldn’t actually play it, but don’t get it to actually “play” it, get it to “use” it. Just Cause 2 gives you a plethora (ooh, neat word) of tools and ways to destroy, kill, and make boom of everything in the game. The voice acting is really weak, but it a funny way, so it’s not horrible to deal with. The story isn’t really all that important anyway. Asian country is taken over by some crazy leader, super mercenary goes in and creates choas, everyone is happy, things explode, etc. The missions in the game are pretty simple: go here and steal this, go here and blow this up, rescue this person, take over this base, and all of the other standards.

The real essence to this game is the sandbox portion. The map is huge and maybe to a fault, but once you’ve been somewhere, you can call a chopper to take you there later. The huge map gives you a crap-load of things to do. You need to collect “Chaos” points to buy things on the black market which you get by destroying things and “completing” areas (basically blowing up all of the leader’s contraband.)  There are probably 50-100 villages, bases, and other areas to complete, including 2 major city-type areas. Good luck on trying to get the 100% completion achievement.

The cream-of-the-crop tool that your buddy uses is his grappling hook. He had it in the first game, but it was pretty weak. You can now hook it onto one thing and then hook the other end onto something else. This creates endless fun and chaos. Oh, yes, you can hook it onto innocent people. It never gets old hooking an innocent old lady and then hooking the other end onto a truck speeding down the highway. Or hooking a enemy vehicle and then hooking the other end onto a tree. They stop quickly. Hell, they even made a “Grappling Hook Trailer” for the game,

I haven’t completed the story, mainly because I spend so much time just traveling around and creating chaos and seeing what neat things I can do with my grappling hook. Did I mention he has an unlimited supply of parachutes, too? Steal a plane, jump onto the nose (why not?), jump off, parachute down, grapple onto a car, ride on the roof for a few miles, then jump and parachute off of a bluff. The possibilities are endless. Realism? Who cares?

Verdict: Buy, if you’re in the buying mood, otherwise definitely rent it and give it a shot. The demo doesn’t do it justice.

I finished Mass Effect 2 on Sunday night. It was an amazing ride and Bioware created an amazing game full of epic moments and a great story.

This game was started from my Mass Effect 1 savegame using the import feature, so all of my major decisions from the first game were copied over. I did change my class-type (not sure what it was) and also my face. I thought my last customized Shepard looked kind of odd, so I wanted to make him look more normal.

Since ME1 has been out for years, I can talk about some of my major decisions from that game that I carried over (that I can remember.) I know that when the decision came to kill Wrex, I chose to let him live. Also, when the decision came to save either Ashley or Kaidan, I chose to save Ashley and sacrificed Kaidan. I chose this partly due to not using Kaidan as much and the fact that my Shepard was a bit “interested” in Ms. Williams. I also let the Rachni queen live instead of killing her.

The rest of this post contains major Mass Effect 2 spoilers! Please do not continue if you’re still playing, unless you don’t care about seeing major plot points. I wanted to post my outcome and decisions for others to compare since it seems like there are dozens of possible outcomes.

(continue reading…)

Image courtesy of Robbert van der Steeg @ Flickr

You ever notice how weird time is? The amount of time in a day is the same… every day.  But some days time seems to drag and other days it flies by.

I definitely find this crazy “fast flying” time to be the case when I take vacation days.  Especially those vacation days where you don’t actually leave the house.

I had some time off over this last week, and I had all these plans of things to do during that time.

All these things I wanted to tackle could be boiled down to 3 main categories:

1. Spend time with Sideshow
2. Play games
3. Write blog posts and maybe get a bit ahead of myself!

…I can tell you 2 outta 3 ain’t bad.

Of course I got to spend time with Sideshow.  Besides it being our birthday, we like to … well, play games together. (continue reading…)

So, we finally did it. We finally tackled Rock Band 2′s Endless Setlist 2 with our virtual band, “We Have Heads.” 84 straight songs with no stopping (except some pause breaks, cuz we’re gettin’ old.) I was completely insane and did the whole thing on Drums on Hard. Syrana was just as crazy and did it on Vocals on Hard. So, I can’t walk or raise my arms and she has no voice. We’re probably the saddest couple in the world. We should join the circus. But, we had to do it since Syrana said she would. (continue reading…)

On Friday, October 30th, after work, Sideshow and I decided to get some Rock Band time in.  First we checked to see what battles were available and saw there was a Halloween Battle!

The songs We Have Heads performed:

Dragula by Rob Zombie

Date with the Night by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Afterlife by Avenged Sevenfold

Sideshow was on drums while I was on vocals.  Both of us were on the hard difficulty.  Now, to hit the top on the battle leaderboards, you pretty much need a full 4 piece band on expert.  So you can imagine our surprise when we saw:

And no, I’m not going to mention that we were the only ones to complete the battle within the first hour it went live.  >.>

I thought I’d give an update on my gaming and an overview of my play-style.

Sideshow is currently at 80 and has been there for many months now. In all honesty, he’s probably as far as he needs to be. He has a few Naxx pieces, some PvP pieces, etc. I have no interest in getting him fully top-tier geared. That’s not how I play. I drop in to enjoy my free time with whatever I feel like doing at the time. I usually do a few dailies, hit up a few battlegrounds, and maybe run some stuff with guildies. I may start PuGing more when the dungeon changes come out in 3.3. It’s not the act of raiding that I don’t enjoy. (continue reading…)