Archive for the ‘Articles and Rants’ Category

Rock Band: Two #1 (in the WORLD*!) Expert drum scores, leaderboards question, Rock Band vs. Drummania.

Monday, December 3rd, 2007

Update: see lots of my 100% Rock Band 3 Pro Drum scores in this post.

Rock BandThat’s right, I have two of the HIGHEST ROCK BAND DRUM SCORES in the WORLD*!

 

Okay, this isn’t nearly as impressive as it sounds, but I’ve gotta milk this for all it’s worth, since this’ll surely last a whole…hour? (day? week?) Actually the first one is pretty good, five gold stars:


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Some Thoughts on TimeShift

Sunday, November 18th, 2007

timeshift125.jpgI had been looking forward to TimeShift for a while, but getting closer to release my excitement had been waning a bit. People sounded a bit unimpressed, the time powers weren’t really as interesting as they first seemed, and the delays meant it was no longer as groundbreaking as it may have been. I was able to borrow the Xbox 360 version from a friend, so I quickly played through it (I think it only took around 10 hours to beat). Overall, it was a fun, solid game. But, I feel like there were many things they missed out on.

 

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Elite Beat Agents song list revealed!

Tuesday, October 17th, 2006
We don’t normally post news items here, but since we run one of the largest Ouendan fansites, we just had to comment.

elite-beat-agents-125.jpgIt’s finally here, via Wired’s Game|Life, the Elite Beat Agents song list:

  1. Walkie Talkie Man – Steriogram
  2. ABC – Jackson Five
  3. Sk8er Boi – Avril Lavigne
  4. I Was Born to Love You – Queen
  5. Rock This Town – Stray Cats
  6. Highway Star – Deep Purple
  7. Y.M.C.A. – Village People
  8. September – Earth, Wind and Fire
  9. Canned Heat – Jamiroquai
  10. Material Girl – Madonna
  11. La La – Ashlee Simpson
  12. You’re the Inspiration – Chicago
  13. Survivor – Destiny’s Child
  14. Without a Fight – Hoobastank
  15. Believe – Cher
  16. Let’s Dance – David Bowie
  17. Jumpin Jack Flash – Rolling Stones
  18. Makes No Difference – Sum 41
  19. The Anthem – Good Charlotte

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Why we play Guitar Hero instead of “the real thing.”

Thursday, October 12th, 2006
After the amazing response to the Guitar Hero videos I put up, I just wanted to take a moment to respond to some of the comments.

guitar-hero-125.jpgIt seems for every Guitar Hero video posted by anyone, there will inevitably be comments like, “Go buy a real guitar!”, “What’s the point?”, “Get a life!”, and so on. I think people overestimate how much time it takes to learn how to play these games. If you play other music/rhythm games, the concept is similar and the learning curve is a lot lower. Even if you’re playing for the first time, it’s pretty simple.

Here is a list of reasons why people play Guitar Hero instead of the real thing:
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Nintendo bit Generations games originally to be two per cart?

Sunday, August 20th, 2006

While a lot of people love the new Nintendo bit Generations games for the GBA, many people (myself included) think they’re priced a little too high. Why couldn’t they put a few on one cart, and/or all of them on one DS cart, and sell it at full price? Well I’ve been messing around with the save files, and found something interesting — there is a second section in most of the save files for a second game:
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The best Game Boy cartridge case mod

Tuesday, August 8th, 2006

Okay, let’s be realistic here — we’ve grown up. We all have fond memories of playing bulky gray Game Boys when we were supposed to be doing homework, or getting that sexy new Game Boy Pocket in the killer ice blue limited edition color. Maybe you still play it, maybe you sold it off when you got a GBA, or maybe it’s collecting dust in some drawer. But chances are, you still have some Game Boy cartridge cases lying around somewhere. So what are we to do with all those old cases?
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Stop making me Crazy.

Tuesday, June 27th, 2006

I shop at used game stores a lot. The GameStop near me has been having “buy 2 get 1 free” since December, so I’ve been buying tons of games. The thing is, I always feel like they’re judging me every time I buy something (usually many things). I’ll get comments like, “Oh, well at least you’re getting ______.” So every other game I got is total crap? Listen, I know you work at a game store, and you don’t know me, but that doesn’t mean I just randomly pick stuff off the shelves because of the pretty boxes. I know what games I’m buying. What exactly are the qualifications needed to work at a used game store, anyway?

To be fair most of the people seem cool, and seem to really like games, but do they have to be so damn condescending all the time?
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Fable: The Lost Chapters — The choice is yours…sort of.

Wednesday, June 21st, 2006

fableLC_1.jpgI beat the game last week. The original content took me just under ten hours, and the whole game took about 13 hours, which is really short for an RPG, and even short for a regular game. I did avoid a lot of the side-quests (didn’t really interest me, although I did get married twice, and totally scored like four times!), and there were plenty of other things to do — find all the silver keys, open all the demon doors, etc. Then obviously you can play through multiple times and try to be 100% evil, 100% good, a pure mage, a pure archer, etc.
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A counterfeit GBA ring operating out of my car hole! Er, ebay!

Saturday, June 3rd, 2006

I realize I’m a bit late to the party here, as this has been written about many times before on the net, and even Nintendo has their own site about it. Unfortunately, I never saw any of those sites until after I got burned. I frequently scour ebay for good deals on games, particularly handhelds. One such good deal was a used copy of “The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap” for a crazy-low Buy-It-Now price of about $14 including shipping, when the stores sell it used for $27! I’ve gotten a lot of DS games for really cheap, and they’re all in great condition complete with box/manual, so I thought it was just another good find. I grabbed it right away, being totally unaware that there are tons of GBA scammers out there.
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i am 8-bit doesn’t know the code.

Tuesday, April 25th, 2006

iam8bit.jpgI recently bought the i am 8-bit book and I really like it. However, I noticed some of the pieces contain an attempt at the Konami Code. I say attempt because none of them is correct.

From the book:

Page 78: “Putting the Super in Mario”
Piece: Painting of Mario with Peach naked on a bed. Mario has the code written on his hand. The facing page has the title screen to Contra (dialogue: “Bro, that wop plumber jacked our moves.”), so it’s clearly supposed to be the code.
Code: U U D D L R B A start – Close, but missing the second L R. It’s not even because there wasn’t enough space, he could have put it right above the B A.
Page 111: “Up, Down, Up, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A, B, A, B, Select, Start”
Piece: Painting of a nude woman with many video game tattoos. Code is only in the title.
Code: In the title. Again, it’s close enough that it’s clear it’s supposed to be the Konami code, but it’s actually way off.

From the second exhibit (no book yet, just photos online):

Title: “The Many Different Stages in the Doldrums and their Constant Battles with Eternal Life”
Piece: Painting with a Contra theme. Shown is the Konami logo, Bill and Lance, and a “.Com” in the style of the Contra logo. The code is written on the right.
Code: U D U D L R L R A B A B select start – Contra themed art, and it’s way off.

I’m aware that there are some variations of the code, but those usually involve switching B and A to other buttons (like X and O) to adapt it to a different controller. Some change the directions, like turning your controller upside-down and entering it, but the beginning is still always “same same opposite opposite,” if you know what I mean. I also imagine some people are doing this from memory, and the code gets told differently by different people (everyone I knew thought it was select start at the end). Even so, if you’re creating a whole art piece for an exhibit, don’t you think the least you could do is google it to ensure accuracy? Even when I’m posting on a forum that two people will read, I still google names and things. Notice how I spelled “i am 8-bit” in lowercase, the way it’s written in the book?

The exhibit is supposed to conjure feelings of nostalgia, and at the end of the day with all those mangled codes, I suppose it does just that.