My Left Hand is Numb

So, it's no secret that I'm a huge Aerosmith fan, so of course I was going to go out and buy Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.  Now, of course, my first complaint is that there's not enough Aerosmith in the game (each "level" has two songs by other bands before you get to unlock the three Aerosmith songs in that level).  All told there's 24 Aerosmith songs (plus an additional three from Joe Perry's 2005 solo album).  I will say that they have a pretty good collection of songs though.  Most of the songs (thankfully) come from Toys in the Attic (1975), and Rocks (1976).  There are four tracks from the first (self-titled) Aerosmith (1973) album, but they've all been re-recorded.  I like the new versions, but having spent the last 18 years or so having listened to the original, it's a surprising (but not unpleasant) change.

A good number of the songs that come from other artists are songs that I know pretty well, or have at least heard more than a few times, including Lenny Kravitz's Always on the Run, and Cheap Trick's Dream Police.

What really makes the game fun to play (and most especially watch) is how accurately they've modeled the movements of each of the members of Aerosmith.  I've seen them in concert a number of times, as well as seen numerous shows on TV, DVD or whatever, and I swear it's almost creepy how they've replicated the way the band moves and performs on stage.  Great examples include watching Joe Perry with his Voice Box while playing Sweet Emotion, and the way Steve and Joe sing together during Toys in the Attic.

Alright, so I'm biased, but damn this is a fun game.

Microsoft Game Studios Should Get Off Its Duff

Links 2004 was one of the first games I'd ever played on the Xbox, and it quickly became one of my favorites. I never thought I'd enjoy a sports game, much less a golf game, but Links 2004 was really fun. I've played one or two of the Tiger Woods games from EA, and they just don't have the same feel and play style that Links did.

So please, Microsoft, we need Links 2008 for the Xbox 360 this year.

An Open Letter To Microsoft

Here's the thing. I like my Xbox 360. Sure, I'm on my third one, but this one has lasted almost a whole year now. I like the games, I like the media center extender, and I think the Xbox Live Marketplace is great. I've bought a couple of TV shows, and rented a movie. I'd like to get another Xbox for my bedroom, because quite frankly, with the new Media Center Extenders from 3rd parties starting at around $300, it just makes more sense to buy another Xbox.

But here's the thing. I got mine in April of 2006, and I got the platinum system, which came with the 20GB drive. Unfortunately, only 12 GB of that drive is user-accessible. So, after almost two years of downloading expansions, arcade games, and stuff, I don't have any room.

I have less than 3GB free on my drive right now, which may not seem like a lot, but... I don't think I could rent a movie if I wanted to. And I want to. I don't have a specific title in mind right now, but there are a lot of movies out there that I wouldn't mind seeing, but I don't want to buy the DVD.

Maybe I should just sign up for Netflix or something. But you know, I don't even watch the DVDs I have now.

But back to my point.

$180 for a 120GB hard drive? That's a bit much.

And you know, as soon as I buy one, they're gonna come out with a 300 GB drive for $150 (which is probably more reasonable *ahem*).

So, this whole thing is a bunch of crap. If Microsoft is going to keep providing bigger and better offerings through the Xbox Live Marketplace, they need to make it easier (and more reasonable) for people to store the stuff they buy.

Been a while

I haven't posted a lot lately, so here's my official Post-Christmas entry.

I got two games for Christmas.

Wii Play (fun, but I wish my wife and I had time to play it together) and Super Mario Galaxy (it's a trip, and a little disorienting!)

I'm still playing The Orange Box and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.

Take My Brain - Please

Last month was my wife's birthday, and one of her birthday wishes was for a Nintendo DS and Brain Age 2. Obviously, this was an easy choice for me, and she's been loving it. Training her brain and playing soduku every night.

Me, I've been playing BioShock. I've actually played through it once already, but I'm considering having another go at it to get more achievements. I should probably return it to my Brother-in-Law, though.

I haven't got Halo 3 or the Orange Box, yet, but I'm hoping to get them both soon.

In Anticipation of Halo 3

Yeah, my wife's birthday is the day after Halo 3 comes out. I probably won't be buying it that week.

Besides, I wouldn't mind playing BioShock first.

Corruption

Well, I just finished playing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (on Medium), and damn that was a fun game. Unfortunately, it was a little short. I finished in under 23 hours of game play, and that was with a lot of back tracking and finding 100% of the items in the game. So, I do wish the game was a little longer, but it felt like the game was easier than the previous 2 (or especially the last one).

If you read most of the reviews about MP3:C, they all pretty much say the same thing: This is the Wii's game for gamers. One of the reviews actually criticized the game for being more game than most Wii players could handle. That it was too involved, and wouldn't appeal to the casual players the Wii was designed to attract. However, most of the reviews are positive, saying that it makes the best use of the motion-sensitive controls to date.

I whole-heartedly agree. While Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a longer, more epic game, the controls were just modified Gamecube-style gameplay. With Metroid, you actually use motion and direction sensitivity with tools such as the grappling hook, access controls, and using your arm cannon as an overpowered soldering iron.

The game also gives you the ability to unlock bonus content such as galleries by earning points for scanning enemies, performing special movies, and reaching checkpoints, not unlike the Achievement system on Xbox Live.

I haven't had a chance to trade any friend vouchers in for friend credits yet, because none of my Wii friends have the game. But as soon as I do, that Mii Bobblehead (?!) is mine!.

Oblivion Revisited

OK,
I know I don't update this - ever.
I'm going to try and commit to updating this blog at least once a week, so let's see how long that keeps up.

So last night, I was having dinner with a couple of friends from out of town, and my buddy Rick asks me "So what's the deal with Oblivion, every time I log onto Xbox Live, you're playing Oblivion." This is the story I told him.

Oblivion was the third game I bought for the 360. (I bought G.R.A.W. and Fight Night Round 3 when I got the system.) I had sworn up and down I wasn't going to buy it, because I knew I would get hooked on the game, and I was supposed to be writing a book (which has since been published). I ended up getting it anyway, and I played it more than I should have, but I still met my deadlines.

When I started playing, I intentionally avoided the main quest. I thought it would be more fun to do all the faction quests first, and just explore the game. One of the quests I came across is the infamous "RockShatter" quest.

In it, Maeva the Buxom tells you a heart-wrenching story about how her good-for-nothing husband ran off with a family heirloom, a shock-damage mace called "RockShatter." Her husband is hanging out with a gang of bandits at Fort Strand near Anvil. Depending on your level, Fort Strand is easy money. Most of the bandits have decent loot, which you can sell in town and make bank.

Anyway, I'd work my way through Fort Strand, and find the villain, kill him, and loot his body.
At that point in the game, any reasonable person would have taken RockShatter immediately back to Maeva the Buxom, and collect their reward. But since it was a decent one-handed blunt weapon, I decided to hang on to it for a little while.

I hung onto it so long, in fact, that when I was running low on funds, I went back to Fort Strand killed all the bandits, and noticed that whathisname's body was still there. I went to look it, and lo and behold! Another RockShatter! Fully Charged! Zero Weight!

Well, I kept going back again and again, till I had something like 9 RockShatter maces. When I tried to give one of them to Maeva, she acted as if I didn't find it! Always with "Did you find RockShatter yet?"

Apparently, this exposed another bug in the game. The first bug was having the ability to pick up multiple RockShatters. The second was Maeve treating RockShatter != 1 as RockShatter == 0. Bethesda fixed the first bug, but not the second. Essentially, they told me that the problem was fixed in a subsequent patch, but did not apply retroactively. Meaning if I ever wanted to finish the RockShatter quest, I had to restart my game from a save prior to picking up the second RockShatter.

That was more than 100 hours of gameplay I would have to undo. I probably would have ignored it, but I ran into a problem in the main quest, where Count Hassildor's argonian assistant was running around in the forest. She's unkillable, but she'd always get attacked by bears and spriggans and the like.

So I put the game down for months.

Then I started from an earlier save.

So, basically, I've been playing catch-up, and I've only recently gotten past where I was before I gave up.

It's not Land of the Dead, or so they keep reminding me.

So I picked up Dead Rising on the recommendations of both my best friend Ethan, and my brother-in-law Jon.

You guys are bastards. I'm never gonna get any work done. At least the book is finished, but Oblivion threatened to kill that project.

So Dead Rising... It's about zombies in a shopping mall. It's a pretty fun splatterfest game, although, I have a few issues with it.
The problems I've seen with it are:

• The save system sucks


• The people you are trying to rescue are usually morons


• No in-game gamma controls


• Some of the enemies are harder than heck to beat

This is what the game has going for it, though:

• Zombies. You never run out of zombies


• The "Queen Bee" as a weapon


• Using pretty much anything in the enviroment as a weapon


• Being able to run around with a giant mini-fig head (It's a Lego term, look it up).

I've run through the game once, and got the worst possible ending. I guess I have to keep trying.