Posts Tagged ‘xbox 360’

Rock Band 3 Songs Announced

Monday, August 30th, 2010

…and there’s no Bon Jovi. The complete official list is available from rockband.com.
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Skill Atrophy

Friday, April 16th, 2010

I haven’t really been playing any of the rhythm games, like Guitar Hero or Rock Band for quite some time. Been too busy playing stuff like the Ghostbusters game, Brutal Legend, and Bioshock lately.

But the other night, I just wanted a quick game to kill some time, and I didn’t feel like playing a battle against the AI in Brutal Legend. (That had been one of my go-to time wasters for awhile, but that lost appeal pretty fast.) So I put the first Rock Band in the Xbox for the first time in probably four or five months.

I, of course, assumed that I could pick up right where I left off and tried to play ‘Number of the Beast’ on Hard right away, and promptly failed out. Ultimately I came to the realization that I really do need to work my way back up to Hard, especially since hand-to-eye coordination isn’t really a natural skill of mine. And at the rate I’ve been going with getting distracted by other games, I probably won’t ever make it through all of the songs on Hard.

What’s really funny about the whole thing is that I can still do ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ perfectly on Expert without a problem, but then again, practice does count for something.

Still playing Brutal Legend

Friday, March 5th, 2010

I already posted when I finished the main story arc in Brutal Legend. Usually with adventure games like this one, that’s where I stop. Yes, there are usually still side missions left in many of the games that I’ve stopped playing, but for the most part it’s the main quest that I’m playing for.

Plus, I’ve been meaning to start Bioshock. I know, I’m way behind the times, but it was the release of Bioshock 2 that reminded me that I had wanted to play the original. And I still do want to play through that game, because everyone I know who has played it has nothing but positive things to say about it.

So why am I still playing Brutal Legend? Well, there are still a lot of side missions left; I’ve been mopping those up and collecting the rest of the solos, legends and landmarks. Like most Xbox 360 owners, I have to admit to having an addiction to that little ‘plink’ noise that the achievements make when they come up, and there are still plenty of achievements in Brutal Legend that I haven’t collected, and a fair number of them aren’t that hard to get. Just a lot of trundling around the map and finding stuff.

Ultimately, the answer boils down to one thing: escapism. Brutal Legend doesn’t pretend to be anything profound. It’s just fun. And a lot of the remaining items that I’m hunting for are stuff like the Legends and the Landmarks. If you’ve been reading the blog, you know I have a fascination with album cover art, especially from heavy metal albums. This game just lets me wander around through a heavy metal world. It’s fun.

I suspect that’s why I’ve been putting off playing through Bioshock. Because while that game promises a bit more substance than Brutal Legend, it’s also going to be a lot heavier. And that’s something that I’m a whole lot less likely to want to face when I come home from work in the evening.

So I finished Brutal Legend…

Monday, February 15th, 2010

I finally finished Brutal Legend this past weekend. It’s taken me awhile to finish the game, even though I didn’t find the main story mode to be particularly difficult or long. (Having the Xbox decide to develop the Red Ring of Death does tend to put a crimp in my gaming schedule.) Honestly, I could have done with a longer story mode. I didn’t find anything to be all that great about the multiplayer mode, especially since none of my friends have Brutal Legend. If a few of my friends were interested in playing some stage battles, I might get more mileage out of it. But as it stands, the multiplayer mode holds no real interest. (Most of my friends would rather play Halo Wars.)

The rest of my follow-up is after the jump. Consider yourself warned: there are spoilers after this point, so if you’re haven’t beat the game yourself and don’t want the end spoiled STOP NOW.
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Back up and running

Friday, January 15th, 2010

I got my Xbox back from Microsoft yesterday–fully repaired and ready to go. Now that I have my game system up and running again, I’ll post more about Brutal Legend.

I have to say that I’m fairly impressed with Microsoft’s service during the whole repair process. Requesting a repair was easy enough and they got the system turned around pretty quickly. I wasn’t expecting to get it back for another week or so yet.
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Brutal Legend is Awesome

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

I picked up a copy of Brutal Legend on Black Friday, when Best Buy had it for $39.99. I had been hesitant to pay the full $59.99 price tag after all of the talk that I had heard about the real-time strategy portions of the game. For years I’ve had problems with RTS games. I’ve just never done well with them. (It’s odd, because my day-to-day life is an exercise in multitasking, but I can’t handle the level of multitasking that RTS games require. Silly, but true.)

But at that sale price, I figured it was at least worth a shot. Especially since I had been looking forward to it so much since I had first heard about the game. Black Friday was nuts, but I did manage to get all of the stuff that I went out for. Brutal Legend turned out to be the closest call on that count though. I got one of the last Xbox 360 copies that my local Best Buy had, at least from what I could see in the bin. I had to dig pretty far down into the bin to find it.
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Brutal Legend comes out today

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

Just a reminder: Brutal Legend comes out today, for those of us who weren’t at Gamestop at midnight.

(No, yours truly was not among them. One, I needed sleep last night. Two, I don’t have $60 to drop on a game at the moment. Household repairs have a way of derailing the ‘entertainment’ section of the budget. I will start posting more about my experiences with the game when I can afford to get it.)

Tom Petty Tracks for Rock Band

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

According to the Examiner.com, two tracks from Tom Petty were added to the Rock Band store yesterday. (My Xbox still isn’t talking to Xbox Live though, so I won’t be getting them today at least. I’m pretty sure it’s the router that’s the problem.)

In terms of the challenge of playing these songs, they probably made solid choices. Both “I Won’t Back Down” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream” have decent guitar parts. “Runnin’ Down a Dream” has a drum track that I know I won’t be able to follow, and the guitar work in the solo is pretty impressive. “I Won’t Back Down” will probably be more of a fun party track.

Unfortunately, I would have preferred different tracks–personally, I think singing “Free Fallin’” and “Refugee: would rule. Unfortunately neither is actually a very complicated song, so no matter how much I would enjoy singing them, I don’t think they’re going to make either available as a download.

I’ll post again with my review of the tracks–when I can get them to download.

Brutal Legend Demo Coming Soon

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Gamespy reports that there is a Brutal Legend demo coming in September.

I can’t wait for this. One, this is going to be the first time that I’ll actually be able to get my hands on a playable version of the game in any way, shape or form.  Two, having a demo is going to let me decide whether to ask for a preorder on this for my birthday or whether I should buy it for myself.

(Plus, if I ask for it for my birthday, the telemarketing calls from Gamestop will go to my folks’ number and not mine, and after years of my brother’s gaming habits, they already get them.  I don’t need a computer calling me up to tell me about the midnight party for the release of the next expansion pack for World of Warcraft.)

Also, check out the screenshots posted over at Gamespy.  They’ve got some new ones that I missed while I was distracted by work and the new Bon Jovi release.  There’s one really cool one that shows Eddie with demon arms playing the guitar.  There’s also a good shot of Doviculus–the guy looks like he’s about ten feet tall.  That’s something that seems to be missed in a lot of games; the scale often seems out of whack, or isn’t used properly.   Big villains should be just that–big. Ocarina of Time got it right at the end when Ganon rises up out of the rubble and you realize that taking down Ganondorf was just the warm up act and this round was going to hurt.   Doviculus looks like he’s got a little bit of that going on.  He looks like he’s just big enough to be ominous.  Every other video that I’ve seen of the game looks like it was properly designed, so I have no doubts that scale will be used properly here too.

Now I just need to figure out why my Xbox stopped communicating with Xbox Live so I can actually download the demo and play it.  Looks like I should get started–I only have a few days left before the beginning of September to get it working.

Brutal Legend sponsoring Dethklok and Mastodon Tour

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

Brutal Legend will be sponsoring Dethklok and Mastodon’s upcoming tour, according to WorthPlaying.

They even plan on having game stations at the concerts so that the fans can try out the game right at the show. In some ways, this may not help expand the reach of the game very much. Most of the metal fans (at least the ones I know) usually tend to be gamers already. They’re all stoked for the release of Brutal Legend already.

However, the deal does come with advertising spots on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, thanks to the Dethklok/Metalocalypse connection. Adult Swim reaches a large audience of gamers, some of whom might not have been introduced to Brutal Legend otherwise. If they at least check it out, they might find out (like those of us who have been watching the trailers and demos) that there is more to this game than metal, and that will help the game do well.

I haven’t heard anything to indicate this, but maybe this partnership will mean that some Dethklok content will make it into Brutal Legend. It would be awesome if they gave out codes for an in-game Dethklok goodie at the concerts, kind of like the Tenacious D guitar that you get for pre-ordering.