Here are a couple of shots from a presentation made by Harmonix founder and CEO Alex Rigopoulos in which he talks about the pros and cons they considered when trying to decide whether or not to make a guitar game:
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
The “pro” argument is all you’d need to convince me!
Update: It looks as though Jeff “Coding Horror” Atwood beat me to the punch and has even more details. Damn you, Atwoooooood!
The latest videogame to get featured on South Park — and lampooned a little to boot — is Guitar Hero, in an episode (in)appropriately titled Guitar Queer-o. The episode guide has this brief summary:
Stan and Kyle are hooked on Guitar Hero. But Stan’s superior skills on the video game damage his friendship with Kyle.
Here’s a quick snippet from the opening act, in which Stan and Kyle play Kansas’ Carry On Wayward Son, one of the songs featured on Guitar Hero II:
Can’t see the video? Click here.
When Randy saw the kids playing Guitar Hero and tried to impress them by actually playing Carry On Wayward Son on a real guitar and singing as well, only to be told “that’s gay, Mr. Marsh”. Not only does the real guitar fail to win the kids over, but later that night, Randy finds out that real guitar-playing skill does not translate into Guitar Hero skill. The bit where Thad, the professional backup player, played Guitar Hero without a console — “acoustically” — was a laugh-out-loud moment. I don’t want to spoil the story, so I’ll just simply say that the “real vs. virtual” and “rock star” themes get pushed farther, to hilarious results.
The episode aired last night and won’t air here in Canada for a few more weeks, but it doesn’t matter — the entire episode is online at South Park Zone.
I’m working on an article (working title: Walled Garden…or BEER Garden?), so here’s something to keep you amused in the meantime…
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
Well, I can’t make a reference to Battlestar Galactica (the 80’s version) without making one to Star Wars, can I? How ’bout the video that’s making the rounds right now — this so-bad-it’s-good performance of the Star Wars theme on trumpet for the “talent” portion of an old beauty pageant?
Can’t see the video? Click here.
Remind me to tell you folks about my worst on-stage music performance ever sometime.
The description of the video on its YouTube page is as follows:
I work in TV Sports, this tape has circulated amongst our tape rooms for years, I figured it was only natural to be on YouTube. I’m of the understanding it was a statewide beauty pagaent, and Stacy is Miss Douglas County. I have no idea who she is, or if she even knew there was a talent portion of the contest.
It’s believed that the tape has origins in the Kansas City area, and I thought it was a Nebraska beauty pageant.
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
You’ve probably heard of Radiohead’s latest album, In Rainbows. They’re bypassing the record industry, and you can buy it directly from them, either as an audio CD or as downloaded MP3s. For those of you who have downloaded or ripped the album, here’s the album art for your enhanced listening enjoyment!*
Image courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
* May not be the actual album art.
A refrain we use quite often here at Global Nerdy is that Microsoft’s consumer offerings make you feel as though you’re dining from the table scraps from the dumpsters of the customers they really love: corporate drones running Office, Exchange and SQL Server. However, there are a couple of bright spots in their more recent consumer items:
This move isn’t just uncharacteristic of Microsoft, but in light of the recent Appledickery — that is, Apple’s war against its own fans — it’s downright inspired:
Twenty years ago, the portable music player of the time — the Walkman — could only be a Walkman since it was a single-purpose hardware whose sole task was to play cassette tapes. That era’s video players, cellular phones and handheld electronic games also faced the same mechanical limitation — each device could only perform its intended task. Under the hood, each of these device types was quite different.
These days, there isn’t much that separates music players, video players, phones and handheld electronic games. While the user interfaces are different, they’re all just general-purpose computers that vary in processing power and memory. This fact is not lost on the vendors, but many are hoping that consumers are still stuck on the mechanical-era “upgrade treadmill” mindset. Apple seems to be thinking this way, but Microsoft apparently isn’t. Kudos to Microsoft for treating their early adopters properly.
Screenshot from Rock Band. Click to see the screenshot on its original page at full size (it’s huge).
Let me get the tiny bit of disappointment that I have with the upcoming game Rock Band out of the way first: What? No keyboards? They’re the most computer-ready interface devices to make! You suck.
That little gripe aside, I’m looking forward to Rock Band, the next step in the evolution of the Guitar Hero game. While Guitar Hero let one player at a time “play guitar” and Guitar Hero II let a single player “play” either guitar or bass, Rock Band offers, Rock Band lets up to four people play simultaneously, each one taking the role of guitarist, bassist, drummer or lead vocalist. As you can see from the screenshot above, gameplay looks like a hybrid of Guitar Hero for the instrument roles and Karaoke Revolution for the vocalist role.
Joystiq has just published the news on Rock Band’s release date and price. Rock Band for the XBox 360 and the PlayStation 3 will hit the shelves in the U.S. on Friday, November 23rd, with the PlayStation 2 version following on December 10th. November 23rd is “Black Friday” — for our non-American readers, this is the Friday of the American Thanksgiving long weekend. Being the last holiday before Christmas, it’s the biggest shopping day of the year and a day which puts a lot of stores “in the black”, hence the name. Shopping malls in the U.S. open ridiculously early on that day (we’re talking hours before sunrise) and the crowds are insane. Occasionally fights break out; perhaps the makers of Rock Band want shoppers to have the full rock concert experience — the Woodstock 1999 experience, that is.
The full Rock Band bundle will sell for the following consoles:
The bundle will include:
According to Wikipedia, the following songs have been announced for the game:
I think this is a pretty good collection of songs; a number of them are either in my accordion repertoire or were on the set lists of bands with whom I played keyboards.
Most of the tunes listed will use the original master tracks. I suspect that the game will use the bowlderized lyrics for Radiohead’s Creep (“You’re so very special” rather than “You’re so fucking special”), and I hope that Don’t Fear the Reaper has a special “cowbell” mode. I also think that The Perfect Drug might’ve been a better Nine Inch Nails tune, even if only to give the drummer a challenge (there’s a killer drum solo near the end of the song).
The inclusion of a tune by Boston-based synthpop band Freezepop seems a little odd — they’d fit better in a game that offered keyboard controllers. This may be a prank by a Wikipedia contributor.
Well, tomorrow’s the big night — the second annual bowling tournament where Atlanta-area Furries take on Atlanta-area Klingons takes place at Midtown Bowl (1936 Piedmont Cir NE, Atlanta, Georgia). A hearty Qa’pla! and Meow! to all who are attending!
Someone set up a poll at Poll Boutique where you can vote for your favourite team. As of this writing, the Furries and Klingons are dead even, each with 50% of the vote.
In honour of this weekend’s event, I would like to share the most appropriate music in my collection for this event: the ever-lovin’
Star Trek Fight Music [1.8MB MP3]. Enjoy!