Second Story Gamer

It seems even the money Xbox owners are pouring into the Live service is not keeping the servers alive this holiday season. People are reporting issues with the system and the inability to log in. I guess all of the people who got 360’s this holiday must be bogging down the system and its unable to handle everyone. Come on, Microsoft, you should be better than this. You make us pay $50 a year and now we have issues on what is probably the biggest Live weekend of the year (other than Halo 3’s launch of course). Hopefully, the will redeem themselves by giving the gamers something back for their issues. I, being out of town at the moment, am not experiencing any of these issues as my Xbox is sitting on the shelf unused, but I know many people are.

the Nintendo DS. Yes the DS has just managed to push across the line that the PS2 had drawn in the Japanese soil. The DS has now sold almost 21 million units, edging the PS2 by 50,000 as of now. Now, remember this is only Japan, not worldwide. The PS2 is still the worldwide leader by a huge margin as it has sold 120 million units worldwide, and is still surprisingly doing decent. The DS, meanwhile, has sold about 55 million worldwide. Look for it to break the PS2’s record in the coming years with the way its selling right now. You can literally not find a DS on the shelves at many stores even though it is a three year old console. That is a mindblowing fact in my opinion.

Team Xbox has just brought to public attention the fact that Microsoft has been experimenting with motion sensing technology for the past two years. Kind of obvious really. I mean with a bank roll that deep for the Xbox division alone you would think there would be plenty of R&D in every department but especially this area of technology after Sony and Nintendo have implemented it into their controllers. I think Team Xbox is saying that these controllers won’t appear in the Xbox 360’s lifespan but rather the next generation of the Xbox. Hopefully, that gives them enough time to make it a lot better than Sixaxis, which was slapped together in order to take some of the medias attention away from the Wii and its motion controls when it was announced.

The Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel, which really isn’t wireless if you want to use force feedback, has had a price cut and now it is $99 and it comes bundled with a Forza 2 Demo. Now was it just me or did it used to come with the full game of Forza? Anyways, this is a fairly decent deal, although I did see a Racing Wheel at Wal-Mart for $75… must have been a mistake. Stupid Wal-Mart people.

I recently borrow Spiderman 3 for the Xbox 360 from my friend. This game isn’t really that bad. The swinging mechanism is actually very fun. The bad, part is that is the funnest part of the game. It’s kinda bad when the best part of a game is the traveling in between missions. The combat is passable. It gets very tedious and repetitive after a while. The climbing on walls is horribly difficult. The camera inverts strangely and you can barely control yourself. I’m about halfway through it and the boss battles have been button mashers. The parts you have to diffuse a bomb are basically just mini-games slapped together. It may seem like I really hate this game, but it is not like that. I’m actually going back to play in between sessions of Rock Band, strangely. All in all, it is a fairly decent game, but don’t buy it if you have either of the first two. It’s really just more of the same thing.

It is not often that a game comes and just blows me off of my feet. But this year I’ve been on the floor more than I’ve been standing up. With games like Bioshock and Halo 3 coming out this year my Game of the Year race is going to be a tight one. But I can tell you right off the bat, Rock Band is definitely one of my contenders.
The Single Player mode in this game is probably its least appealing part. But, even this least appealing chunk of the game is many times more fun than any Guitar Hero. The reason it is much funner is that you can play more than one instrument. The one problem with Guitar Hero was that once you were sick of the guitar, that’s it. There’s nothing else to move on to. With Guitar Hero you can play the drums once your sick of the guitar or move on to singing once your done with both of those. The one gripe with this game is that you cannot switch instruments in the World Tour Mode. I personally do not see this problem. If you want to switch instruments often throughout the Campaign, just make three different bands and be different instruments in each of them. That even makes the game last a bit longer (as if it needed to).
The Multi Player is the best multi player if you have all four people in the same room. It is still very good over Xbox Live, but there is not that personal chemistry you get when you have people together. Today, I got three of my friends over and we played Rock Band till our hands were sore (I’m getting carpal tunnel any day now). It was a blast and nothing can compare up to it.
Now let’s talk about the instruments. First of all, there is the guitar(s). The guitars are very solidly built except for the strum bar. The strum bar feels a bit wobbly and that makes the note recognition slightly off. I love the new button design though. It really looks and feels like a guitar. It is not the cheesy feeling of the Guitar Hero guitars as this one feels solid. The guitarplay is basically the same thing as Guitar Hero. I could feel or spot no difference. It may have been slightly easier (I am playing Hard with no difficulty) but other than that it is top notch.
Similarly, the drums are built very solidly. In my few weeks of playing this game, I have probably abused the drums more than any other instrument for the mere fact that I have to pound on them. They still work perfectly fine and look perfectly fine. The only problem with the drum design is the foot pedal. It is used very often throughout the songs and, quite frankly, pressing it actually hurts your legs. It is just too hard to push on and not sensitive enough when you have two quick foot pedal lines in a row. The drumplay is very good. Unlike the guitars, they had to totally invent the drum beats. They are much faster than the guitar’s but there is more of a pattern. They would be absolutely my favorite instrument if the foot pedal was better, but I still love them.
The singing may be the short end of this perfect package. The microphone is a very good high quality microphone, but the problem with the singing is not in the hardware, its in the gameplay. The singing is just not as appealing as the drums or guitars. It just gets boring and it seems whoever has to sing gets the raw bargain in the band. It might be fun if you try singing and playing another instrument at the same time but I have not tried that yet. Now don’t get me wrong; the singing is horribly boring. It’s just that compared to everything else in this package it seems like the most boring part. And it does have huge competition.
All in all, this is a great package. The guitars are every bit as good as you expect and so are the drums (once you get over the foot pedal). There is no reason to not buy this package if you have the resources to. Do not get Guitar Hero over this game though. It is just a waste of money to buy Guitar Hero when you can get this game for just $80 more. If $170 is too high for your budget, you may consider buying just the game and picking up another guitar (if you have Guitar Hero) and the drums separately. Harmonix is going to eventually sell the components separately; it may be a while before that happens though. Don’t expect to see them before next Spring. So go out and buy this game right now for yourself, or make yourself the new favorite uncle by getting this as a gift.

Rating:

In a very strange story these days, with so many PR people swarming around and not many companies actions leaking out, Harmonix has apparently tried to make a patch for the PS3, but couldn’t because of Activision. Ok, so you may no by now that PS3 Guitar Hero III guitars don’t work on Rock Band for the PS3, which is a bummer for PS3 people because, unlike Xbox 360 owners, they don’t have the Guitar Hero II guitar. So Activision was set to release a patch last Tuesday (December 4th) that would enable the usage of the Guitar Hero III guitar. This is where it gets murky. Harmonix says that they have released the patch to Sony and Sony has approved it and is ready to release it but Activision is objecting the release of it. Sony, wanting Activision cooperation in the future (IMO) is holding the patch due to Activision’s “continued objection”. This is getting very ugly.
Harmonix has every right to come out with this press release because what Activision is doing is proving that they have to be afraid of Rock Band. Sure, Guitar Hero III may have sold many more units than Rock Band, but I can tell you now that public opinion is definitely more excited about Rock Band and come next year, if they do nothing to change the Guitar Hero franchise, Rock Band will outsell Guitar Hero easily. So Activision, by doing this, you are not only promoting Rock Band, but you are also showing that you tremble in fear of it. Great move guys.

Anyone looking to reignite their Halo playing urge should download the new maps that are now released. They are priced at $10 which seems a little pricey especially after they sold five million copies of the damn game. Well the only way you can protest that is by not getting the maps. So, don’t get them… yeah…. Ahhh who am I kidding, everyone here will rush off to by them anyways.

Mass Effect, a very highly critically acclaimed game, has now broken the fabled one million copies sold mark according to Microsoft’s Jeff Bell. This is a great thing because this game is amazing and deserves to do well in a market that has previously shunned very highly scored games (Pyschonauts anyone?).
Bell also said that Halo 3 has broken the five million copies sold mark and probably going to continue to rise until the buzz around it dies down. And how long did it take for the buzz around Halo 2 to burn down. Let’s see I think it starting dying right around the time HALO 3 CAME OUT. So, look for this game to have similarly long legs.

Spike is showing the Video Game Awards tonight but it seems as though the list of games that won have been released a little early. Here are the winners:

GAME OF THE YEAR
BioShock

STUDIO OF THE YEAR
Harmonix

BEST SHOOTER
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

BEST RPG
Mass Effect

BEST MILITARY GAME
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

BEST INDIVIDUAL SPORTS GAME
skate

BEST HANDHELD GAME
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

BEST GRAPHICS
Crysis

BEST GAME BASED ON A MOVIE OR TV SHOW
The Simpsons Game

BEST RHYTHM GAME
Rock Band

BEST DRIVING GAME
DiRT

BEST ACTION GAME
Super Mario Galaxy

BEST TEAM SPORTS GAME
Madden NFL 08

BEST SOUNDTRACK
Rock Band

BREAKTHROUGH TECHNOLOGY
The Orange Box/ Portal

BEST XBOX 360 GAME
BioShock

BEST WII GAME

Super Mario Galaxy

BEST PS3 GAME
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

BEST PC GAME
The Orange Box

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
BioShock

BEST MULTI-PLAYER GAME
Halo 3

MOST ADDICTIVE VIDEO GAME FUELED BY DEW
Halo 3

Personally, I don’t know if Bioshock deserved to win. Yes, it had an amazing story. Yes, it created an atmosphere unlike any other game. Yes, the game play was good and inter lapped with the story amazingly. But, I had constant framerate issues the last half of the game and the ending was very anticlimactic in my opinion. That being said, on any other year this would be game of the year without a question. But, in this year, with so many great games coming out, it is questionable to say the least.
And no Halo fanboys, there is no way Halo should have won Game of the Year. The single player gets almost tedious after a while. It deserves multi-player game of the year which is what it got.
Rock Band deserves the win more than Guitar Hero III. Harmonix innovated, while Red Octane put the same crap out again and slapped a new label onto it.
Another surprise is the Best Driving Game category. I bet nobody though DiRT would beat out the fabled Forza 2. I guess sometimes the funner game deserves to win.
Here’s a lesson for you game developers. All of the games that innovated in some way: be it graphics, game play, storytelling, or atmosphere won high awards. These games are: Mass Effect, Bioshock, Skate, Call of Duty 4, Rock Band, Super Mario Galaxy, and Orange Box. All of these games have roots in worn out old formulas. But unlike Guitar Hero and other franchises, they didn’t stick to those old shitty roots. They branched out and made the games even better. So for future reference don’t try to stick to the old formula just to be safe. Its less risky, but sometimes you gotta gamble a bit.

This game, originally a PS3 exclusive, will come out in demo form early next year. This game looks fairly okay I guess. I don’t know much about it. Everyone was making it seem like this was a huge grab for the 360 but it really doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me. Maybe if Metal Gear came over I would be a little more excited.

I just saw a rumor that Sega may be producing another Dreamcast. The first one, as you all may know, was defeated easily by the other consoles of the time. Sega may be trying again to penetrate the ever increasing gaming market. Will there be enough room for them? And will this attempt be as disastrous as Sega’s Sonic for the Xbox 360? I don’t know if those Sega fanboys could live.

Now, I’ve never been a huge racing game fan. I haven’t bought a racing game since i picked up a Burnout game for the Gamecube off some used game rack at blockbuster. Needless to say, the game wasn’t good at all. The game was ridiculously hard because it had you avoiding crashes to try to reach the next checkpoint within the allotted time. Oh yeah, you had to win the race too. I refused to play a racing game ever since. Ok, maybe I’m being a little dramatic, but I just haven’t had any interest in racing games since. But it may be Burnout that once again turns me back. This next Burnout, Burnout Paradise, is a free world game that can switch between offline and online play flawlessly. Its like that one online racer for the 360 (shows you how much I care about racing games) except for all of the issues that plagued it. What was that game called again? Ahh who cares, back to the point. Burnout Paradise looks like a very innovative racer that may change the way racers are made from now on. Hopefully this demo, which comes out December 13th, will be good enough for me to warrant a buy for this game.

The PS3 version of the game of the year contender The Orange Box (horrible name(and box art) by the way) will finally be releasing December 11th. The Xbox 360 version has been out for over a month now. Oh yeah, the game is plagued with many, many frame rate issues so if you have both consoles, get it for the 360 (for that and achievements).
This has been happening continuously with many multi platform games such as Stranglehold. Sony really needs to start helping their third-party developers or the PS3 will die off before it has a chance. The Xbox 360 continues to widen the gap between the two consoles and Sony needs to get their act together and maybe things will change. There is no way Sony can win unless they fix these problems though.

In what seems to be one the biggest gaming industry news of the year Activision and Blizzard are merging. These superhouses will make a company that will rival EA in terms of games developed and published. This is a great deal for both sides as Blizzard will likely get more resources even though they scarcely need any with their annual $1 Billion just from subscriptions form WoW. Discuss

Bioshock will be releasing new DLC and a Patch next week. Hopefully this will fix some of the buggy frame rate issues (make the game almost unplayable). The DLC is as of yet unannounced, but one feature is announced:IT WILL BE FREE!!! Thank you 2K for making this happen. I don’t see why other companies don’t make their DLC free. We pay enough just to get the game. Don’t they want to reward the people who payed $60 to play their game. It doesn’t make sense to me. Epic tried doing it but was shot down by Microsoft (gahh). Hopefully we can get more ad supported DLC like the first map pack for Gears of War was. It was supported by Future Weapons on the Discovery Channel, which i guess was relevant to a shooter like Gears. Maybe we could get a Sci-Fi show to sponsor Mass Effect or the Foo Fighters to sponsor Rock Band. Wow I am too much of an optimist.