The best music game of all time is, no questions asked, Rock Band 2. It is fun, it is challenging, it has the best tracklist ever and it has allowed me to sing Pixies songs in Madison Square Garden.
They have a ton of good songs in this game, but they are missing something. They are missing the holy grail of music games, the band to rule them all. No, it is not Led Zeppelin, you idiots. The Beatles: Rock Band is coming this fall.
As you see from the (excellent) trailer, the game is a trip down the band's career. It looks sweeeeeet. Just in case we were wondering if the guys at Harmonix were going to nail the art design completely, they released recently the opening animation of the thing. And boy, does it look pretty. Check it out.
Showing posts with label Gaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaming. Show all posts
Friday, June 26, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The old charm of retro hardware
Some people like to use old, inconvenient stuff from time to time. Chrysler buyers. People that send letters on the mail. People that enjoy having vinyl records.
Yeah, vinyl. You know, the big black music thinguies from years past; that old analog contraptions that tried to do carry music using a sadistic looking, needle totting machine to scratch the thing into submission.
Well, in another dark, geeky corner of pop culture, we can find some cultists also venerating old pieces of apparently useless tech. People that enjoy using outdated relics that offer sub-par performance, annoying noises and basic, barebones, simplistic experiences. People that love old, basic hardware. Old videogames. Retro gamers.
I became a member of the cult awhile ago, when I misteriously obtained (cough - cough) a Sega Dreamcast. After much scouring the internets for games and scoring some old classics from Ebay, I must say that the thing has gotten quite a bit of play.
The Dreamcast, however, is not really that old. It came out in 1999, after all; it is barely older than the Playstation 2. Nintendo, however, came to the rescue, with what is probably the most evil ploy to make people spend money ever: the Wii Virtual Console, aka how to make me spend money in 25 year old pieces of code that look like ass on a HDTV, but we love playing anyway. I have given money to Konami way too many times to play Gradius, and that sucker is still fun.
The crown jewel on old relics, however, is my favourite Christmas gift ever: The Nintendo 64
that my wife got me this year. It is a cranky piece of hardware, and some games refuse to work. I really haven´t played that much with it. But it looks so good, under the TV, a tribute to all things fun and Mario that I just adore the thing. Same with the Dreamcast, really; more than the games, it is about owning a little piece of pop culture history - a piece that happens to be fun.
No, I won´t get into the "games back then were better". They were not. The Legend of Zelda on the NES is still fun, but it is a bit like watching a Battleship Potemkin - to appreciate what you are doing, you need to understand at least a bit what the game meant (Zelda is the original sandbox game, by the way; no Zelda, no Grand Theft Auto IV). Most games in some of the "transitional" generations (specially the clunky early 3D, Playstation, Saturn, N64 era) are downright klunky, and don´t have much to enjoy. The few exceptions (like Mario 64) are fun, but downright ugly; early 3D lacking the ultraminimalist charm of pixel art. Nostalgia has a lot to do with it.
In any case, old stuff has its charm. I like old stuff, specially the beeping interactive kind. Next time you see an old, forgotten videogame, remember that it is a little piece of history. 100 years from now, Contra and Bionic Commando (NES versions) will be treasured as we know treasure Harold Lloyd movies.
Yeah, vinyl. You know, the big black music thinguies from years past; that old analog contraptions that tried to do carry music using a sadistic looking, needle totting machine to scratch the thing into submission.
Well, in another dark, geeky corner of pop culture, we can find some cultists also venerating old pieces of apparently useless tech. People that enjoy using outdated relics that offer sub-par performance, annoying noises and basic, barebones, simplistic experiences. People that love old, basic hardware. Old videogames. Retro gamers.I became a member of the cult awhile ago, when I misteriously obtained (cough - cough) a Sega Dreamcast. After much scouring the internets for games and scoring some old classics from Ebay, I must say that the thing has gotten quite a bit of play.
The Dreamcast, however, is not really that old. It came out in 1999, after all; it is barely older than the Playstation 2. Nintendo, however, came to the rescue, with what is probably the most evil ploy to make people spend money ever: the Wii Virtual Console, aka how to make me spend money in 25 year old pieces of code that look like ass on a HDTV, but we love playing anyway. I have given money to Konami way too many times to play Gradius, and that sucker is still fun.
The crown jewel on old relics, however, is my favourite Christmas gift ever: The Nintendo 64
that my wife got me this year. It is a cranky piece of hardware, and some games refuse to work. I really haven´t played that much with it. But it looks so good, under the TV, a tribute to all things fun and Mario that I just adore the thing. Same with the Dreamcast, really; more than the games, it is about owning a little piece of pop culture history - a piece that happens to be fun.No, I won´t get into the "games back then were better". They were not. The Legend of Zelda on the NES is still fun, but it is a bit like watching a Battleship Potemkin - to appreciate what you are doing, you need to understand at least a bit what the game meant (Zelda is the original sandbox game, by the way; no Zelda, no Grand Theft Auto IV). Most games in some of the "transitional" generations (specially the clunky early 3D, Playstation, Saturn, N64 era) are downright klunky, and don´t have much to enjoy. The few exceptions (like Mario 64) are fun, but downright ugly; early 3D lacking the ultraminimalist charm of pixel art. Nostalgia has a lot to do with it.
In any case, old stuff has its charm. I like old stuff, specially the beeping interactive kind. Next time you see an old, forgotten videogame, remember that it is a little piece of history. 100 years from now, Contra and Bionic Commando (NES versions) will be treasured as we know treasure Harold Lloyd movies.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Rocking fake plastic guitars and not getting it
I will probably elaborate on this subject a bit more later, as it is something that is very close to my heart, but both Nicholas Carr and Rob Horning (via Andrew Sullivan) need to be seriously smacked down from that very high horse they ride around. I love rampant snobbery as the best of us; I am happy to be labeled a music Nazi, living up there in the Ivory Tower watching seventies movies and proclaiming they are "alluring", "elegant" and "brilliant post-Marxist deconstructions of the male ethos" if needed.
But seriously, critizing Guitar Hero by quoting the post-consumption theorizing of Jon Elster? I know Jon Elster, sir (seriously, I do. I told you I am thick-rimmed glasses intellectual) and he will call you bullshit in that statement. They really don´t get the point.
Guitar Hero (and its awesome, badass, glorious full-band successor, Rock Band) it is not music for people that don´t have time for learning to play music. It is not a cheap, fast food version of glory for morons; melody and rythm for dilettantes, those guys too lazy and lacking the level of true awesome to learn to play guitar (or drums) for real.
Why? Well for starters there is a whole bunch of people out there that will never be able to learn to play a real instrument. I love music; I have a ton of it. I workship all the right bands and musicians. I am a member of the "in" crowd, card carrying hipster armed with iPod and Gigabytes of awesome music. Despite the fact that I fart good taste, I am completely, utterly, totally devoid of music talent. I can not hit a note to save my life. My sense of rythm is non-existant. My fingers are as good as iogurt when trying to strum a guitar. I can´t follow a drum pattern even if it was 10 beats per minute. You get the idea.
What someone as musically inept as myself has left to fullfill his music fantasies (Glory! Fans! Arenas!) is either rocking out in the shower (sad) or getting into the fake plastic guitar business. It is that simple. Those games are basically a better, more fun way to enjoy music; not just listening, but playing along even if you are completely talentless. You focus and the music and let go; yes, it is just a game, but it feel awesome. If turned all the way to eleven, you do it with three friends, in a friggin´ band, and call it Rock Band, possibly the best party game of all time this side of Wii Sports.
Of course, having fun is probably not good enough for those that crave the pain of learning. It is not music if you don´t make your fingers bleed. Whatever. I will never be able to learn for real; let me enjoy my cheap imitation.
But seriously, critizing Guitar Hero by quoting the post-consumption theorizing of Jon Elster? I know Jon Elster, sir (seriously, I do. I told you I am thick-rimmed glasses intellectual) and he will call you bullshit in that statement. They really don´t get the point.Guitar Hero (and its awesome, badass, glorious full-band successor, Rock Band) it is not music for people that don´t have time for learning to play music. It is not a cheap, fast food version of glory for morons; melody and rythm for dilettantes, those guys too lazy and lacking the level of true awesome to learn to play guitar (or drums) for real.
Why? Well for starters there is a whole bunch of people out there that will never be able to learn to play a real instrument. I love music; I have a ton of it. I workship all the right bands and musicians. I am a member of the "in" crowd, card carrying hipster armed with iPod and Gigabytes of awesome music. Despite the fact that I fart good taste, I am completely, utterly, totally devoid of music talent. I can not hit a note to save my life. My sense of rythm is non-existant. My fingers are as good as iogurt when trying to strum a guitar. I can´t follow a drum pattern even if it was 10 beats per minute. You get the idea.
What someone as musically inept as myself has left to fullfill his music fantasies (Glory! Fans! Arenas!) is either rocking out in the shower (sad) or getting into the fake plastic guitar business. It is that simple. Those games are basically a better, more fun way to enjoy music; not just listening, but playing along even if you are completely talentless. You focus and the music and let go; yes, it is just a game, but it feel awesome. If turned all the way to eleven, you do it with three friends, in a friggin´ band, and call it Rock Band, possibly the best party game of all time this side of Wii Sports.
Of course, having fun is probably not good enough for those that crave the pain of learning. It is not music if you don´t make your fingers bleed. Whatever. I will never be able to learn for real; let me enjoy my cheap imitation.
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