First Impressions of the Rock Band Network

So, the Rock Band Network has been out for a while now, but I haven't really had a chance to mess around with it too much. However, I recently popped in that copy of Rock Band 2 and decided to take a look. I must say, it's quite impressive.

The RBN is located in the "Music Store" menu as a separate item, letting you easily sepearte the official Harmonix releases from the releases on the Rock Band Network. Once you get into the RBN store, it's sorted a little differently than the main store is. You have a few options here, "Top 10" which gives you the top 10 highest rated songs, "Harmonix Picks" which gives you a select number of songs Harmonix liked and hand-picked for that week, "Browse" which lets you simply sift through all of the songs, and "Random Song" if you'd like to be surprised.

If you choose Browse, there's gonna be a bunch of extra ways you can go through all the songs. by Artist, by Author (The user who charted the song), by Label, by Genre, by Language (yes, there are foreign-language songs on the network), by Title, or by Rating.

The sorting is obviously very deep, and will allow you to find any song on the network you are specifically looking for very quickly. It also seems to be built to handle thousands upon thousands of songs, which makes sense if the network becomes popular enough. At the time of this writing, there have been 168 songs released on the Network, which is quite impressive for only having been out one month.

One of the best parts of the Rock Band Network is the ability to download free Demo versions of songs. When I first heard about this, I was wondering exactly how it'd work, but it's actually quite smart. You download the demo-version, you're unable to use it in Tour Mode, Practice Mode, or Online. The only way you can play it is in Solo or Band quick-play. You can play it as many times as you like, however, you can only play through the first 30 seconds of the song, and it'll cut off and go to a "Demo Over" screen, complete with a "Buy Now" option.

This seems really effective in making people want to throw down their cash right away to finish the song. It also gives people a chance to see how well-charted the song is, and gives them a little bit more to listen to of the song than the initial preview-track at the Store-level.

Another great thing about the Rock Band Network is the support it's getting from artists. I've seen a few big-name artists on here such as Drowning Pool, Bang Camaro, Senses Fail, Third-Eye Blind, All That Remains, KMFDM, and probobly the biggest name so far, Steve Vai! I've also found out about a few unknown artists that I personally really enjoy such as DNA's Evolution with their track "The Heist" and The Hold Steady with their track "Sequestered in Memphis".

Overall, there's some great music in the Rock Band Network, and it seems like it'll keep expanding and growing larger. Maybe someday soon we'll see day-and-date Rock Band Network releases with Artist's releases on itunes or other music download services.

X10: Fable III didn't really piss me off

Peter Molyneux said before X10 rolled around that what he was showing about Fable III at X10 would get people "super pissed"

Kind of a bold statement to make about your game. If you're making a game that people are going to be pissed off about, then how could it possibly be good? I mean, it was obviously just a marketing ploy for people to check out what he was showing at the event, but instead of getting pissed off I found myself more interested in what he did end up showing.

The first thing he showed was a set of six new screenshots:


The game is set 10 years after Fable II, with you taking the reins as the son of Fable II's main character. Save data from Fable II could be imported to change the game slightly, but Molyneux went on to say it wouldn't be necessary, and the changes wouldn't be incredibly significant.

About halfway through the story, you will become the ruler of Albion, and this will play a much bigger role in your relationship with the town. Followers will become your new form of currency, and you will have to face many tough choices, which will leave you with either many or little followers.

There's also a new "Touch" system that people have been comparing to ICO, and I can definitely see the similarity. As you progressively become more comfortable with a character, you will be able to go from a handshake, to a hug, to a kiss, etc.

Another thing Molyneux talked about was the weapon morphing system. Over time, depending on your actions in-game, your weapon will change over time, becoming more accustomed to your character and it will change, just like your character has changed in the past two games.

All of that seems great, but I think we're missing the part that's supposed to make us super pissed off. Well, Fable III is NOT AN RPG! Apparently there will be no XP, no glowing orbs, no leveling up no health bar, no red edge-of-the-screen effect to show you're about to die, none of that! In fact, Molyneux has stated that there will be no HUD elements in the game. Honestly, I'm not really pissed off about it, and it's hard to imagine many people being super pissed by it. This is quite surprising, and definitely turns the game into something much different, and something much better in this writer's opinion.

Overall, I'm pretty excited by what Fable III has to offer, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops in the following months till the game's release in Q4 2010. Until then, I'll watch the new set of Lionhead Developer Diaries. You can find the first one Here, just be sure not to get too pissed off about anything while watching it.

X10: Dead Rising 2: Case Zero Announced

Earlier today at Microsoft's X10 event, Capcom announced a very interesting piece of news. A prequel to Dead Rising 2, donned with the subtitle "Case Zero", will be released before the release of the full game, as an exclusive download on Xbox LIVE.

This sounds like a relatively interesting prospect, but I'm left wondering how the game will play. Will it play like Dead Rising? Will you play as Frank West? Will it work as DLC for the game? If it's coming out pre-release, how will it access the second game's on-disc files? Will it be a downloadable add-on for Dead Rising 1? The truth is, we don't know too much about the game yet. The one thing they have said is that it will bridge the gap between the first game and the second.

That seems like quite a bit of story, and it makes me wonder exactly how long the game will be... I'm guessing since it's downloadable, it won't be incredibly long, but a nice solid length for a prequel. My prediction, 2 hours.

So far pricing and a release date have not been announced, but Capcom has announced the release date for the full-version of the game as well as going on to say that it will have a simultaneous release on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. Be sure to look for Dead Rising 2 on store shelves this August 31, and get ready for some kickass zombie hacking and slashing, muthafuckers!

The Who to Have Super Bowl S-Mashup in the Rock Band Music Store

Well folks, it's Super Bowl Sunday, and while I normally don't follow sports, this story flows over well enough into video games that I felt it was relevant.

As we all should know, The Who is preforming live at the Super Bowl Halftime show this year. Harmonix is getting in on the deal by releasing a specially recorded version of the performance The Who plan to play, and they're releasing it directly after the Super Bowl!

They have announced on the official forums that it will be available for 160 MS Points on the Xbox 360, and $1.99 on the Wii... The PS3 version is said to be "coming soon" which I'm guessing is going to be the standard Thursday update for PSN.

This is rather surprising that they're releasing it on Sunday. Besides the 20 free DLC songs, which didn't really have a definitive release date, this is a first for Harmonix, and it'll be interesting to see if they do any more of this kind of thing in the future.

Fallen Earth First Impressions

I recently had a chance to check out Fallen Earth, a relatively new MMO from developer Icarus Studios. By "relatively new" I mean it came out last year, September 2009.

The game is set in the post-apocalyptic year of 2154, and the gameplay feels a lot like Fallout 1 or 2. However, the tone is not so much 50's-style. Instead it's got more of a Road Warrior vibe to it. This isn't bad however, and it works to the game's advantage.

As far as gameplay goes, you've got some standard MMO features in there. The skillbar at the bottom of your screen, mapped to the number keys. An inventory, Stat building, etc. However, the thing that sets this game apart is it's intuitive use of shooter controls. Instead of clicking on an enemy and waiting for your skills to re-charge so you can attack again, you simply equip a weapon, or multiple weapons (which you can switch between by holding ctrl and using the number keys), and attack with the left-click for primary attacks, and right-click for secondary attacks. The game also sets itself apart by allowing you to zoom all the way in, and go into a first-person mode. This turns the game into more of an action game than an MMO.

As far as social aspects go, I didn't see many people once I got out of the tutorial. I might of not been in a big hub world, or maybe the game just isn't very active. However, I do like the emotes they give you.

The big problem with the game is it's polish. The game isn't polished whatsoever, the shooting feels really bad, with the camera changing when you start shooting and changing again when you stop. It feels very shaky, but it's definitely not intentional, and doesn't feel as smooth as other first-person or third-person shooters.

I guess it might be a little unfair to compare it to other shooters, but even compared to other MMOs, the game seems a bit too glitchy, I almost got stuck in one part where I had to sneak past some irradiated creatures, and by stuck I mean stuck in the wall. If they just took 6 months to put a nice layer of polish onto the game, I think it would have turned out much better, but as it is I'm not currently interested in playing anymore of it.

We Bought Modern Warfare 2

Wow! Big surprise here, we all bought Modern Warfare 2 on release day.
We also caught it all on camera! Watch all of the drama and action of our night, along with some interesting conversations about the game.

Modern Warfare 2 sells 3 million in the U.K.

Kotaku

To say I'm stunned would be a gross understatement. To put the numbers of sales for Modern Warfare into perspective. GTA IV the biggest 1 day launch sold 3.6 million copies and 6 million in the first 7 days. Modern Warfare sold 3 million copies in the United Kingdom alone. I am sure that shortly after this post we will have the United States first day figures and jaws will drop once more. Prepare for the 6 million first week record to be crushed all Dark Knight Style.

So far I've poured about 5 or so hours into the game and sadly school keeps getting in the way. Hopefully I will be able to play the shit out of the game this thursday and friday. We have a couple of cool Modern Warfare 2 things going up so be ready to celebrate Infinity Ward month here on geeksquisite, let the good times roll.

Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 3: Lair of the Leviathan Review

The third chapter in the Tales of Monkey Island series once again picks up directly where we left Guybrush at the end of the second chapter, about to get swallowed by a giant man-eating manatee. Well, he DOES get swallowed by it, and their ship ends up getting stuck in what appears to be the giant Manatee's ear.

Once again, I'm playing on the PC, and while the controls are not perfect, I'm getting more and more adapted to them. I still wish I could point and click for movement, but I honestly didn't even think too much about using WASD to move this time.

Now, let's talk a bit about the story, I'll try not to give too much away. After all of this searching throughout the past two chapters, you finally get to meet De Cava inside the Manatee and find out that he's crazy, You also get to meet DeCava's crew, who all have some pretty funny personalities, and there's also a very special appearance by somebody you might all remember from one of the other Monkey Island games. Needless to say, there's a nice amount of new characters in this Chapter.

However, the strong point of any monkey island game is the humor, and this is prevalent throughout. I'd actually have to say this is the funniest chapter yet. Without giving too much away, you get to make crazy pirate faces, give people voodoo-wedgies, and get to talk in manatee using a manatee horn. that last one is actually pretty funny, cause you only have a pre-set amount of phrases, and a lot of them are fairly ridiculous.

The length of the game is about the same as the past two chapters, clocking in at about 3-4 hours, 2 hours if you really know what you're doing. The ending cliffhanger in his one isn't quite as big as the past two, but it gets the job done, and leaves me anticipating the fourth Chapter of the game.

Overall, Lair of the Leviathan is the strongest in the "Tales" series thus far, and it delivers on pretty much everything you're looking for in a Monkey Island game, while being thoroughly enjoyable throughout for old fans and new fans alike.

For this, I give Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 3: Lair of the Leviathan a 5 out of 5

Uncharted 2 Behind the Scenes

I just finished watching this fantastic behind the scenes on Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Holding off until Christmas to play the game is going to be killer I tell you. Everything about this game looks absolutely incredible and seems to mesh my two loves games and movies like I've never seen before.

Video Games | Uncharted 2: Among Thieves | Behind The Scenes I: Tech and Gameplay

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Video Games | Uncharted 2: Among Thieves | Behind The Scenes II: Story and Art

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Video Games | Uncharted 2: Among Thieves | Behind The Scenes III: Making the Cinematics

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Left 4 Dead Survival Guide Trailer

I have to say I never really loved the one cutscene in the first Left 4 Dead. It was a okay and i watched it once or twice but thats it. Valve really looks like they are getting better and better at cutscenes though. So far while of the gameplay for the new game has been great I feel like the characters haven't grown on me like the first. This trailer however has a ton of personality and makes me much more excited to play these new characters. I'm personally torn between the Coach and Nick the conman.

Video Games | Left 4 Dead 2 | Leaked Zombie Survival Guide Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

God of War 1&2 PS3 Trailer

God of War 1 and 2 are coming to the ps3 in november on a single Blu-Ray and in High-Definition for the first time. I'm really looking forward to this mainly because I have never played the second game since by the time it came out I had already moved onto next-gen gaming. From what I've heard it's only going to be 40 bucks for the two games so it's a great deal especially if you haven't played these incredible games yet.

Video Games | God of War Collection | Remastered Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Trine PC Review

I recently had the chance to sit down and play through Trine with my friend Matt. We played on the PC, an Xbox 360 controller in his hand, and a keyboard at mine. Let me tell you, it was a great experience.

Trine is a game much like The Lost Vikings in that they give you three different characters to control. You can play single player, or you can have one or two more guys join in for co-op action. It's also a lot like LittleBigPlanet in terms of how the platforming feels, which I think is a good thing... Not to mention the difficulty of the platforming feels very old-school, and in fact, me and Matt spent an hour trying to master the final level.

The story is pretty generic, and at times, me and Matt were both jokingly comparing it to Lord of the Rings. However, it still gets the job done and gives you an excuse to go through the levels, not to mention it does flesh out the characters probobly the best I've seen any platformer do before. Even if they are just generic stereotypical characters.

However, let's not just sit here and compare it to other game and movies... Trine has some individuality as well. First and foremost, this is probobly the best looking side-scrolling game I've ever seen. A lot of developers try to bring things into 3D while keeping the 2D gameplay roots, but they usually end up creating some uninspiring visuals. Trine Proves you can do both, and do both well.

But enough about graphics, let's talk about gameplay. Each character plays differently, and has their own unique abilities, and you can switch between them at will. Not only that, but each character has their own little skill tree, much like Diablo. The size of the tree complements the length of the game, and you're not left feeling you missed anything by the end.

Let's go over each characters specific abilities now... The Barbarian can do various sword attacks, and also gets some charge moves, this is your main melee combat guy. The Thief has arrows, and also a grappling hook which is useful for getting places other characters can't reach. The wizard can draw lines and shapes to make various platforms, as well as move them around, and other objects in the world, simply by clicking and dragging, in fact he can't attack at all, in order to kill an enemy, you have to drop something on their head. On the controller it's made slightly more difficult using the stick and the A-button, making the keyboard the ideal way to use the wizard. All of the other characters seem to play better on a controller, however, making it kind of confusing what platform they were focusing on.

This didn't turn out to be too much of an issue, since Matt tended to stick with the barbarian or the thief, and I stuck with the wizard or the barbarian mostly. In fact, the character switching in two players lends itself to the puzzle solving as well, and you can solve puzzles differently than you would have to in single player. I think this works to the game's benefit and makes you want to go through the game multiple times with multiple players.

Overall, Trine is a fun charming little game with some old-school difficulty to it, and some cool new features that I haven't seen before, such as the wizard's box drawing abilities. The execution is solid, and while the story leaves something to be desired, I still had lots of fun with it and it's definitely worth checking out for anybody who enjoys platformers or action RPGs.

I give Trine a 4 out of 5.

Final Fantasy XIII Trailer Dubbed

I know, I know, this is the third time we've posted this video but I swear it isn't my fault. First Square Enix released the trailer with no english translation, then a english sub version, and now finally an English dub. Not must to say since you've all pretty much have seen this footage 3 times. All I can say is that the dubbing is quite good and probably the best i've heard for a JRPG possibly ever. Enjoy!

Video Games | Final Fantasy XIII | TGS 09: Official US Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

AVATAR The Game: Story and Features

Alright so AVATAR The Game isn't an MMO? DID I MISS A MEMO, like what the hell. I remember for the last year are so up until about this summer that it was going to be an MMO. Now according to this video it's a 15 hour campaign where you play humans for a shooter for like 7 hours and as a Na'vi in a more melee focused campaign. Now I'm not saying thats bad in fact the game looks pretty dam good and I really do like Ubisoft. On top of that they've been working on this for 2 1/2 years unlike most movie games where you only have 10-14 months. Still when the hell did this become a third-person single player game and not an MMO. Seriuosly how did I miss that?

Video Games | Avatar | TGS 09: Story and Features Overview

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

TGS 09: Final Fantasy XIII Japanese Trailer now with subtitles

Yo we already posted this vid so I'm not really gonna comment on it but hey now it has english subtitles for us not Japanese speeching gents so enjoy.

FFXIII Japanese TGS Trailer

Video Games | Final Fantasy XIII | TGS 09: Subtitled Japanese Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

TGS 09: Epic New Final Fantasy XIII Japanese Trailer

Just watched this pretty epic 7 minute FFXIII trailer and while I didn't understand a single fucking word they were saying I couldn't help but be captivated by the whole presentation. This felt a lot like a story trailer but since I don't speak japansese and it isn't subtitled the visuals is all I can go on. Oh and did I forget to mention there is a decsent amount of gameplay footage in there to. The game comes out December 17th in Japan but probably won't hit the US and Europe until like May or June. Which isn't that bad because considering I will probably sink a ton of hours into the game it would be a good idea for me to not have to worry about classes while playing Final Fantasy XIII. So go now and enjoy the beauty that is FFXIII.

Video Games Final Fantasy XIII TGS 09: Japanese Trailer

XBox 360 Playstation 3 Nintendo Wii

TGS 09: Dead Rising 2 Demo

Here's a bunch of footage of the upcoming Dead Rising 2 from Capcom. The first game came out a while before this site and the podcast so I don't know if anyone really knows but I really disliked the first game. That's not to say I wouldn't be open to a sequel if it was done better. The ideas in the first game were fantastic the problem was the execution. I thought the controls were a bit loose but tolerable, it was the missions that really killed the game for me. I just never found any of it compelling and most of the survivors you found were just plain annoying. The new game is looking really good at the moment so lets see what happens, enjoy the footage.

Video Games | Dead Rising 2 | TGS 09: Demo Gameplay Part I

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Video Games | Dead Rising 2 | TGS 09: Demo Gameplay Part II

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Video Games | Dead Rising 2 | TGS 09: Demo Gameplay Part III

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

and some extra footage of the game running:

Video Games | Dead Rising 2 | TGS 09: Slicecycle Gameplay (Cam)

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Video Games | Dead Rising 2 | TGS 09: Ramster Ball Gameplay (Cam)

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Video Games | Dead Rising 2 | TGS 09: Headache Gameplay (Cam)

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

TGS 09: New Avatar Footage

I was really unsure of how well this game would turn out since game properties based on movies don't tend to be all that great but this looks pretty promising. My only problem with this game is that it's been called an MMO but I don't know what they are talking about. I haven't seen anything other then a cool third-person shooter. I know there are third-person shooter MMO's I'm just saying I wanna hear about how thats going to work cause right now it just looks like a campaign.

Video Games | Avatar | TGS 09: Combat Trailer, Part 1

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

TGS 09: Ninokuni Japanese Trailer

I'm so excited for this game even though I know nearly nothing about it. It's this games pedigree that make me yearn to play it on my Nintendo DS, first is it's a level 5 RPG and second is that the art is done by FUCKING STUDIO GHIBLI!!! That is all that needs to be said in my opinion so go enjoy this beautiful trailer.

Video Games | Ninokuni | TGS 09: Japanese Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

TGS 09: Final Fantasy XIV Trailer

Hard for me to really get a lot out of this trailer but I'm still curious. I'm sure this game will have crazy sales in Japan but I just don't know if in this post WoW MMO world we live in that this game will find a large western audience. It will be really interesting to follow this game and see how it does in the market. Of course this game probably won't be out until 2011.

Video Games | Final Fantasy XIV Online | TGS 09: Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii