The Death of Guitar Hero

First let’s get the obvious “our thoughts are with the people who were laid off” out of the way.

Now, how does it effect Rock Banders (and gamers in general)?

Well we could see the signs at least a year ago. Rock Band 3 was announced with the “real guitar” and piano hardware, what was Guitar Hero’s response? Warriors of Rock? Although the game has a bunch of good songs (most notably Rush 2112), it seemed like a desperate last gasp in comparison to RB3.

It’s only a wonder this didn’t happen sooner. Think about it, how did Rock Band advertise? It didn’t. Game sites and word of mouth made Rock Band popular. Now look at Guitar Hero and all those Bob Seger commercials. How much did those cost?

And then of course there’s the market over saturation. Seriously: Warriors of Rock, Guitar Hero Smash Hits, Guitar Hero 4, Band Hero, DJ Hero, Guitar Hero Aerosmith, Guitar Hero 5, Guitar Hero Van Halen, DJ Hero 2, Guitar Hero Metallica. And those are just off the top of my head! What was the logic in this? I could go on for hours, so let’s get to the benefits.

The immediate benefit is that Rock Band is suddenly a monopoly over the genre. And since Harmonix is a pretty well liked by everyone, this is sort of like having Santa as president or something. If a band wants to be in a music game they pretty much have to go to Rock Band.

The next big thing is that it forces anyone who is a new entrant to the music genre or a Guitar Hero fan to go to Rock Band. This will greatly help the franchise which is frankly no prize right now either.

What are the problems? First is the people who are saying this is the death knell of music games. It’s not. It’s sort of like saying HD-DVD dropping out of the HD wars was signifying the end of HD movie discs. Yet Blu-Ray is still around.

Even then, it’s not some sort of revelation that music games are in a slump. The problem is the image this presents might turn off artists from using Rock Band.

Finally the worst part is how shaky it makes Rock Band look. If a well established game like Guitar Hero can just collapse, can the same happen to Rock Band? A couple of songs and I could have been a Guitar Hero player. That’s a lost investment in hardware, software and downloadable content. They can at least use the hardware for RB3 but even then, what happens if Harmonix closes? Then where would we turn?

Book Review Halo: Contact Harvest

This is probably my first Halo novel not featuring SPARTANs or Captain Keyes. So rather than a simply prequel, this was an extension on the Halo universe. By Joseph Staten, the book can be divided into four main narrations: For the Humans there's Avery Johnson (a key character from the video games) training and fighting with the Harvest militia, and Mack and Sif, two Harvest A.I.'s. For the Covenant there's Dadab and Lighter-Than-Some, a Grunt and Engineer respectively, and the politics of the Prophets on High Charity.
Avery is haunted by his fighting with the Insurrectionists and his decisions. Undoubtedly the stars of the book to me were Mack and Sif. Their bickering is humorous and their development as characters is fantastic.

Dadab and Lighter-Than-Some's segments are great too. It's amazing that A.I. which speak through text and Engineer which speaks through sign language are the most fascinating characters in the book. The Covenant segments are confusing until you get used to the names.

The politics with the Prophets on High Charity is about as interesting as it sounds. Of course you want to get back to Avery and Dadab, but it helps weave the back story together, so it has its place.

The fighting sequences are great and a joy to read too. Overall if your a Halo fan or not, the book is a great read. I definitely recommend it.   

 

2010s Stinger503's Video Game Awards

2010s Stinger503's Video Game Awards

Biggest Game I Didn't Play But Wanted To
Nominees:
Battlestations: Pacific
Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood
Wolfenstein
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Halo 3: ODST
Winner: Halo 3:ODST - No doubt the biggest upset of the year was that I did not play ODST. It just didn't drum up enough interest in me as Modern warfare 2 or Beatles Rockband did.

Worst Game
Winner: None for 2009, I just never played a bad game this year, not saying there weren't any.

Best Music
Nominees:
Band Hero
Lego Rock Band
Modern Warfare 2
Beatles Rock Band

Winner: Beatles Rock Band, tons of great Beatles music. Undeniably good.


Best Cinematics
Nominees:
Halo Wars
Resident Evil 5
The Beatles Rock Band
Winner: Resident Evil 5 - Just amazingly well done.

Best Voice Acting
Winner: - Billy Murray as Captain Price in Modern Warfare 2

Best Accessory
Nominees:
Facebook
Twitter
Wireless Headset
Winner: Wireless Headset

Best Multiplayer Games

* Best Two-Player One System

Nominees:
Resident Evil 5
The Beatles: Rock Band
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Left 4 Dead 2
Winner: (Tie)Modern Warfare 2 & Left 4 Dead 2 - Definitely equal, because of how good they are, but also by how limited they are. Modern Warfare 2's Spec Ops were great but only offline multiplayer is a huge issue. Playing Left 4 Dead with a friend is how it should be.

* Best Online

Nominees:
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Resident Evil 5
Halo Wars
Winner: CoD Modern Warfare 2 - By adding attatchments, weapons, titles, callsigns and killstreaks, they revolutionized online play again.

* Best Overall

Nominees:
The Beatles: Rock Band
Lego Rock Band
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Band Hero
Left 4 Dead 2
Resident Evil 5
Winner: The Beatles Rock Band - Just magnificent fun, especially adding microphones, just completely enhances the experience.

Best Xbox Live Arcade Game
Nominees:
Braid
Castle Crashers
Battlefield 1943
Shadow Complex
Peggle
Winner: Shadow Complex - Amazingly well made game. Great year for arcade games.

Best Music Game
Nominees:
Band Hero
The Beatles Rock Band
Lego Rock Band
Winner: The Beatles Rock Band - Build off of the great Rock Band games with more microphones, better unlocks and great music.

Best Racing Game
Winner: Burnout Paradise - Fortunately its demo wasn't fully indicative of the game. The game was quite good.

Sports Game
None- Just wasn't a big year to me for sports games.

Best RTS/RPG
Winner: Halo Wars

Best Action
Winner: Resident Evil 5

Best Shooter
Nominees:
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Left 4 Dead 2
Left 4 Dead
Winner: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Yet again one of the best experiences in shooters this year.

Best Level
Nominees:
Left 4 Dead- Final Stage of Dead Air
Modern Warfare 2- Second Sun
Resident Evil 5- Volcano
Shadow Complex
Winner: Second Sun - Turns the game on it's head. Completely unexpected.

Best Story
Nominees:
Modern Warfare 2
Resident Evil 5
Lego Rock Band
Shadow Complex
Left 4 Dead 2
Winner: Resident Evil 5 - Definitely one of the best stories of the year. Also has a ton of history behind it.

Best Game
Nominees:
Halo Wars
Resident Evil 5
The Beatles: Rock Band
Lego Rock Band
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Band Hero
Left 4 Dead 2
Left 4 Dead
Shadow Complex
Winner: Modern Warfare 2 - Although the campaigns a little lack luster. The Spec Ops and Multiplayer more than make up for it

Prediction for Next Year:
Alan Wake (again), Splinter Cell Conviction or Rock Band 3

Game Review: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Modern Warfare 1 was easily one of my favourite games of all time. It had a great story and excellent multiplayer. Let's get "No Russian" out of the way. Yes it's pretty crazy, but it at least has some context (your a CIA operative and are trying to get close to a terrorist). Think about Grand Theft Auto, a series practically built on the ability to kill civilians. And in the rest of the game you fail if you accidentally kill a civilian, so it balances out.

Now further on in the story it gets ludicrous. Russia invades the U.S. basically the plot of Red Alert 2, instead of Kirovs there's choppers and planes. Where was my iron curtain?

So from there it becomes your standard "We're the US fightin off the ruskies". And that's the same problem MW1 had, the fun parts are when your the English team, not fun is with the US team. Why is that? My favourite missions are when your methodical, not frantic getting hit from all sides.

Now getting away from the story is multiplayer. Which is fantastic! The upgrade for weapons keep the game fun. It's just a blast to play. There seems like a limited number of maps, amd of course it has the love hate relationship with me as always. There's also the co-op which I felt should have been integrated with the story.

Programming: 9/10 : Overall pretty good, but the glitches such as the javelin glitch and the "private ranked match" glitch show that there could have been a little more time spent
Graphics: 9/10 : Good, but starting to show it's age
Story: 7/10 : Kind of ridiculous
Atmosphere: 7.5/10 : Not as fun as MW1
Multiplayer: 10/10 : Improves on MW1 10 fold
Overall: 9/10 : Overall still a great game, but not a classic like the first.

P.S. I thought they were joking on Bleep Bloop when they said Dick Cheney quotes show up when you die. Sure enough, they do. *facepalm*