Apples commented on a Battle of the Bands...
Apples commented on somebody's picture...
That's a hawt character!
Apples commented on a Battle of the Bands...
I'll get around to this battle another day I guess.
Apples commented on somebody's profile...
You are exactly right, each character on my profile has a theme, color scheme, or backstory of some sort.
Apples commented on an article...
A woman with a taste for Bagel Bites... it gets no better than this.
Apples commented on somebody's picture...
Rock Band subscribes to good wholesome values... honest!
Apples commented on somebody's picture...
Someone remarked my characters were "too ****ty."
THIS is what too ****ty looks like.
Apples commented on a Battle of the Bands...
I've never thought PDA was a strong candidate for the disc. It's not bad per sed, but there is very little that stands out or impresses me about it.
Apples said...
An in-game screenshot surfaced a few weeks ago that I noticed looked a bit familiar. So I took note of it and pledged to investigate further once I got a copy of Rock Band 2. And sure enough, Apples himself made the cut into the game.
Harmonix devs are not without a sense of humor. Stuff like this proves how truly amazing they are. A little fan-centric reference just made my day, and I can't help but chuckle every time I see it.
So where am I? You'll have to figure that one out for yourself. Am I the extra bassist NPC? Am I a cheering face in the crowd? Am I the creepy merch girl? (Hint: no to that one)
Anyway, you can all take comfort knowing that as your jamming out to your favorite songs, my figure is somewhere right along side you. ;)
Apples said...
So I did the endless setlist by myself this weekend. I've done expert guitar/singing a couple times. This time, I went a little bit different avenue and tried solo ESL with expert drums and singing. Here are some things I learned along the way:
1. How well you can blindly sing the song determines your star rating. It doesn't matter if you drop a 100% on drums (like I did for a few songs), if you don't put up a semi-reasonable singing performance with it, you are looking at four stars.
2. Lack of unison bonuses in a 2 man band makes gold stars way too difficult. The gold star formula obviously assumes you're going to have that extra overdrive. When you don't, even nigh flawless performances won't help. 99%/99% Dani California with good streaks and overdrive usage wasn't enough.
3. Reptilia is deceptively tricky. It also highlights an inherant challenge with drumming+vocals. Its very hard to maintain a constant singing pitch while your body is bouncing around with the foot pedal and a fast 2 handed pattern.
4. Trying to wear headphones (useful when drumming) and a microphone headset (useful for singing without the big mic) both at the same time is really stupid. Even more so, when one of them falls off mid-song.
5. Things not to do during a song: Carelessly blow overdrive thinking you're in the clear. Carelessly ignore vocals thinking the song is over. (Hint: you fail fast) When these combine, your band fails I Get By at 98%... how sad. Only failure on the run.
6. Defeating tough songs is all about overdrive management. Using your singer to save your drumer, using your drummer to save your singer. Very challenging when both instruments have difficult means to activate overdrive.
7. If you want to try this activity on your own, here are the worst songs. Your opinions may vary slightly depending on personal talents.
Reptilia - Fast-paced drumming pattern plus precision singing. On their own each is managable, but together it is very awkward.
Don't Fear the Reaper - Bloody cowbell sections during all the hard drumming parts require you to have excellent drum mastery. (Because you're not getting a save) Fortunately I play this song religiously.
Outside/Run To The Hills - Both have the same generic structure. They require intensive drumming with non-trivial vocal parts.
I Get By - Chaotic drum intro pattern, vocalist nightmare song. Be sure to practice this ahead of time. This, plus run to the hills are the two toughest challenges IMHO.
Apples said...
Fellow Rock Band forum member pmpboarder calls me up randomly today and invites me to a local bar where a radio station is holding... a Rock Band tournament? AMAZING! A pretty random and lucky occurrence for our area.
Having a sum total of zero competitive experiences, and me sucking at competitive play, I was not really optimistic about going. However, you can't really go wrong with Rock Band, even a bad event would still be a fun time. So it's a date!
The two of us show up to learn some pretty harsh realities about the event. All competition is entirely score based, and the two of us would be going up against teams of 3 and 4. We also learned that many of the teams would be returning from several weeks of qualifying tournaments. So, we were facing a pretty competitive field AND we were outnumbered. Daunting.
Nevertheless, we plodded right into the qualifying round. Right before the event, we strategized that I should pull a guitar+vocals combination. Even with half-assed Apples vocals, we could hopefully swing the score a bit more in our favor. The host, having pity on our lack of bandmates, even volunteered to hold the microphone in front of me for each of our songs. (A little ridiculous having a human mic stand all night, but oh well)
Anyway, it's the qualifying round and we're up FIRST! It's our song pick, and we decide Foreplay/Longtime has the right group dynamics for our band. It's relatively long, high-scoring, and with isolated vocals sections. It was also a good song for "showmanship" which was bonus considering we expected to be knocked out first.
10-12 teams pass before us. After qualifying, we're exactly right in the middle of the pack... well below several uber-teams and squeaking past a number of mid-range opponents.
The tournament heads to sudden death single elimination, when the plot takes an unexpected twist. The top seed uber-team in the field gets paired up against the bottom seed... a son with his two parents. And what should happen? The uber team, the one that dropped nearly 2 million points on Cherub Rock, loses. Their drummer unexpectedly fails out of the Ballroom Blitz drum roll intro. The bottom seeded Mom and Pop load up the same song on their medium difficulty and proceed to cruise to victory.
For our round, we were paired up against a very skilled band of 4 players on everyone's fan favorite... Welcome Home. They play Hard/Hard/Expert/Expert and drop a fairly daunting score on us... 1.1 million. Knowing the margin for error was slim for a 3 instrument band, Apples rolled the dice and bumped the vox difficulty up to go with his expert guitar.
The song was a hell of an effort on all instruments. Coming out of the guitar solo, the scoring was dead even. It was all going to come down to which team could hum "OHHHHHhhhhhHHH" better for 2 minutes. And in the end, we squeak by with a razor thin margin of 20,000 points. Out of 1.1 million and 7 minutes of song, it was a virtual toss up. (With 3 players, the Big Rock Ending is maybe 15,000... so yes, it was THAT close!)
Meanwhile, other top teams clashed heads, moving us along to the semifinal round against another four man band. Luck shines down on us and we are treated to a random song selection of Don't Fear the Reaper, a vocal-guitarist's dream song. PMPboarder drops a hellacious drum performance on the field, and we finish with 98%'s and 99%'s across the board. Our adversaries play us neck-and-neck, but their drummer was not up to the task. In the end, the consistent points pmp dropped on drums was the difference in another razor-thin victory.
And that moved us into the EPIC finals showdown with the random song being... Timmy? TIMMY!??! Oh fuck. I can't guitar it well. I can't sing it well. I have to do both? 51% and 3 vox failures later, the Big Rock Ending saved us from certain doom. The score however was beyond pitiful... 180,000 points. How could we possibly win the finals with a friggin' disaster bait score like that?
The all-expert final band follows us to put us out of our misery, when the plot takes another unexpected twist. The mystical and sometimes demonic powers of TIMMY come directly out of the game to intercede on our behalf. "Messy" talkies, and tricky guitar riffs cause an instrument failure. And they can't get overdrive to save them! Miss! Miss! Damn you! Miss! Unison bonus! They missed! BZZT! FAIL! OH MY GOD WE JUST WON!
First place team takes home $500, which was conveniently split only two ways! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT JUST HAPPENED?! CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! TYSON GOES DOWN TO DOUGLAS! MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD!
So looking back on the evening, we lucked into an awesome event, went up against stiff competition, and snatched victory by some ridonkulously thin margins... all while having a fun time.
Credits for this crazy event have to go to a few key sources:
The Other Teams: Excellent sportsmanship and good times were had by all participants. The radio station gave everyone some prizes, so everyone seemed to leave happy.
Blind luck: In getting us paired against teams that we could *just* barely beat. Our bracketing was just such that we avoided a couple killer teams and got some favorable songs.
pmpboarder: For finding out about this event and convincing me to go.
The idiot completionist in me: I just HAD to sing+guitar my way through EVERY event in Band World Tour. I just HAD to have those "BIG IN" city achievements. If the idiot completionist in me did not grind through every BWT event, I could not have vox+guitar'd the way to victory.
The band which was a son and his two parents: Awesome family togetherness event. Even if you didn't win, that's a rare and special event which I envy.
Apples said...
Anyone that's checked my rocker profile, my pictures section here, or played with me via XBLive has probably noticed a certain pattern to my stable of characters.
There's Jodi Nails...
and Jenny Nails...
and Jackie Nails...
and Jamie Nails...
and Jessie Nails...
and Julie Nails...
and, of course, Judy Nails.
So the natural question is... "What's up with Judy Nails?" and why do you have so many of them?
Well, it goes back to Guitar Hero (obviously) and it collides with Apples' theory of avatar selection. Many people pick avatars which are outlandish or extreme or colorful to suit their personality. Apples' theory of avatar selection holds to picking things which satisfy the following criteria:
* normal looking
* pleasing to the eye
* non-freakish
* happy or positive demeanor and actions
Now if you examine the GH2 roster of characters, there are very few candidates which meet all off those criteria. In fact, there's a convincing case that Judy is the *only* one that does.
Anyway, I played Guitar Hero 1 and 2 to death, and Judy was a regular part of that experience. When Rock Band launched, I decided to transplant something which was a familiar staple to my plastic guitar playing experience.
But that's when the problem arose. You needed THREE characters to get going in Rock Band... one for guitar, drums, and vocals. Pleased by the success of Nails #1, I decided another version was in order. But we couldn't have a mess of characters all named "Judy Nails" it would just get confusing. So Judy started getting sisters... Jenny, Jackie, Julie, etc.
They turned out so well and received such positive feedback from fellow players, I just kept going. By the time I wanted to make a non-Judy Nails themed character, the completionist in me wouldn't allow it. It wouldn't make sense to have 7 Judy Nails character and 1 non-Judy character... it would mess up the set.
Plus, each of the Nails characters has a cool theme to their wardrobe, and it would be unfathomable to try deleting them. You have Jackie Nails in the military outfit, Jessie Nails the athelete, Julie Nails the flight attendant, Jenny Nails the country singer, and so on.
So that's the story. It's not a wierdo obsession, just a strange conglomeration of events that unfolded to this end.
Apples said...
Its official, the announcement that surprises no one. Rock Band 2 is indeed coming. The only shock is that it is coming so soon. What does that mean? It's time for Apples to blog about it.
What does Apples expect out of Rock Band part deux?
Suppose you're building a house. You buy the lot, lay the foundation and then start adding rooms. You finish it up, then move in.
A year later, you decide the house needs expansion. You add on a new deck in the back, tack on a couple extra rooms, new coat of paint, and expand the garage to hold 2 more cars.
Thematically, that's how I look at Rock Band 2. All the basic framework of Rock Band 1, with new goodies tacked on. For example, we've got a good wardrobe of say, 100 items. The wardrobe could expand to a theoretical 200. We have "version 1" of the character builder and Band World Tour... we could be seeing "version 2" of those concepts.
In short, I expect them to take what they've got, learn from any mistakes, and then refine and polish version 1 into a glorious version 2.
What about song listings?
Rock Band 1, a mostly unproven concept, secured a solid setlist based on no prior reputation or recognition. A year later, with millions of sales and 15 million DLC paid downloads... they have the reputation to command the elite stuff. If they can build a superb setlist based on no reputation, they can build a KILLER setlist with the momentum they now have.
Right now, based on the initial wave of news, I'm getting a very GH2-esque feel to the setlist. Since GH2 was the pinnacle of that franchise, I consider my comment high praise. (If they want to take me literally and throw in GH2 classics like Carry On Wayward Son, I'll just call it the best setlist EVAR and close the case.)
What features does Apples want to see?
I don't really have a preference besides a few odds and ends. (cough, hyperspeed, cough) Really I'm looking at RB1 to RB2 the same way I approached GH1 to GH2... same game, same basic concepts... just with a new setlist and some incremental tweaks and refinements. At worst its a DLC songs pack of epic proportions. (But really, who expects the worst with the Harmonix logo on it?)
What else does Apples have to say?
Right now is a high time to be on the forums. Instead of the weekly "gripe about DLC" I see threads that are electric with rumor, speculation, and anticipation. What are the new features? What's in the setlist? Hardware? DLC compatibility? Have they been listening to us? So much potential. Aside from the PS3 hiccup everything is candy and roses.
Conclusions:
Rock Band 2 rocks, you should be excited about it. Not a very deep or scientific conclusion, but sometimes the deepest truths are also the most obvious.
Apples said...
If you ran into the Apples of 10 or 15 years ago, you probably wouldn't recognize him. He was less the avid video gamer and more the real-life sports gamer. Some might go so far as to say I was downright "jock"-ish.
While my sporting days are behind me, I still get a thrill out of watching teams share the field of competition. And that leads me to my favorite event, baseball's College World Series, which happens to be going on right now.
For those unfamiliar with the event (and those that *think* they know about it), it's an 8-team, double elimination tournament that happens over two weeks. The basic game follows the same basic rules as the pros, but in practice it is hardly played the same way at all.
It starts with the players. A majority of elite "pro" calibre players are drafted straight out of high school, leaving a largely level playing field comprised of non-pro or semi-pro talent. These are players that play for love of the game, not as a springboard for pro sports money. And they don't play for fame either... since college baseball barely registers on the nationwide sports radar.
This college player mentality is an absolute joy to watch on field. Each play throughout the game has a heightened intensity. Players are on their feet the entire game, cheering each other on. Every play is hotly contested, and there is no thought of "phoning it in" like so many pro counterparts.
The team concept is much more rigidly enforced as well. Pro strategy often consists of a glorified game of home run derby. In the college game, there is a much greater focus on manufacturing runs via creativity, scheme, teamwork, and sacrifice.
In an era of athletics which is very much "me first," it is quite refreshing to see this team-first, love-of-the-game mentality. Any sportsman who fancies the best in competition should check it out.
Apples said...
So there I was, browsing the forums, when all of a sudden, a new thread popped up. It was a new music video of Bang Camaro's epic masterpiece Pleasure (Pleasure).
After the video I start wandering around their website and found the most shocking development... Bang Camaro is out on tour and is coming to *my* crappy hometown! Amazing! It was like destiny intervened in the form of a big red band logo shaped like an X.
Friday rolls around and I'm banging on the club door for the 9:00 start time. Unfortunately, just because the ticket says 9:00 start time, does not mean the show actually starts at 9:00. It was more like 11:00. In fact, I was so annoyed I went up to the bartender and asked "You DO plan on having Bang Camaro at your Bang Camaro concert, right?"
Anyway, two minutes into the show, I could already tell it was worth the wait. If I could sum it up in one word, it would be doing the band injustice... so I will sum it up by saying it was a loud, fast, hard-rock experience oozing with intensity.
And not just audio intensity. Visually, it was a spectacle to watch. The guitarists took turns head-banging and engaging in some impressive theatrics. There were six singers (collective I will refer to them as the Rock Possie) each of them jumping, dancing, and fist-pumping to the rhythm.
On the subject of rhythm, the drummer was in exquisite form. Standing mere feet from the stage, one could physically *feel* his driving beat as it poured out.
Throughout the course of the performance, the band played all their best work. The Rock Possie engaged the audience throughout the night, giving them an opportunity to sing along with some of the best known verses. The performance culminated in a finale with a frantic rendition of Push Push (Lady Lightning).
All in all, I highly recommend finding the closest stop and supporting this tour. The collective works in Rock Band/Guitar Hero, do not fully do justice to the band's showmanship.
Conclusions and Awards:
Best Song of the Night: Rock Rebellion. With the entire crowd singing along, it has a certain dramatic feeling which is incredible.
Best Wardrobe: One of the lead guitarists. He had a cool hat.
Strangest Observation: One of the lead guitarists looks exactly like Karen O. of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs... same haircut even!
Best Use of the Rock Possie: For one song ending, they all picked up drum sticks and started whaling on the cymbals... crazy!
Grossest Thing: One of the Rock Possie was spitting beer at the audience. I don't care what anyone says... that's gross!
Areas for Improvement: Bang Camaro Band Tour T-shirts, I'd have bought one!
Most Forgetable: The bassist of course! (Did they even have one?... I kid, I kid)
Apples said...
A few days have passed since the onslaught of information on GHIV. As an avid fan of the genre, I sort of like to play prognosticator and predict what I see as the future outlook.
In the current generation of games, I predicted many trends to great accuracy. If you check out my very first blog post here, I gave an almost spot-on prediction for GH3 months ahead of time. In the Rock Band arena, many of my initial posts here suggested that downloadable content and cooperative play needed to be top priorities. (Nearly a year ago when these were generally vague or unannounced concepts)
Initial Reaction:
I won't lie, my initial reaction to the news was openly hostile. With so many striking parallels to Rock Band, it seemed a rip-off of the highest calibre. But looking past that initial reaction, hostility was not as accurate as something else... skepticism.
Neversoft as a development shop has a checkered history. Guitar Hero 3 reinforced this in a dramatic way. It is a scary thing to see a once-beloved franchise in the hands of people who may not give it the proper respect it deserves. It's a bit like Tom Brady being traded to the Detroit Lions. Even if Brady is great, he's suddenly playing for a team with a reputation for incompetence. You may be pulling for him, but that doesn't mean you're optimistic.
From a design philisophy, GH3 was a profitable game looking to be awesome... instead of an awesome game looking to be profitable. The distinction is subtle, yet significant.
The ultimate point I walk away with: GHIV's road to success is a lot more difficult based on the reputation of GH3.
The Business End of Things:
Moving past the initial reaction, the next level is an economic and business perspective. And that means cost. This is intrinsically one of the most important things to a gamer, many of which do not have great financial means.
In a general sense, cost is a make or break concept for anything in gaming. It is curious to me that GHIV is going out of its way to make cost a big issue. A new guitar mechanic threatens to make past hardware obsolete. New proprietary instruments mean new costs... costs that could have been relieved with cross-compatiblity, but aren't. The reported sophistication of the new instruments will likely mean higher expense as well.
In short, GHIV is painting itself into a corner which requires gamers to make a signifcant fund expenditure. That is dangerous. With the current pricing model of $100 for GH:Aerosmith, I don't see GHIV debuting for less than $180 (In fact, there are indicators it could be even more due to the new instrument features) Rock Band has show us that this high price point is acceptable for a great game... but it would be downright unacceptable for a bad to mediocre one.
Feature Breakdown:
Without knowing everything about everything, the initial feature list looks good on paper. There is potential. But potential only has signifance with the proper execution. On-paper features suddenly lose their luster if they are badly designed or implemented. I'm not going to comment on any one feature because its premature at this point, and half of them could be vaporware for all we know.
The number one concern I have regarding the announced feature set is execution. All of these features are massive bodies of work. All of this work has to be done in a year's time. All of of this work has to be done across a number of console platforms. Coming from a software background myself, I can say that the amount of features and the amount of work across all platforms is absolutely staggering.
The main fear I have in the feature set is that GHIV is promising too much, too quickly and that the end product will be rushed and unpolished as a result. As an example, GH3 had obvious performance issues such as poor framerate on the PS2. It has careless achievement glitches on the Xbox 360. Now imagine trying to catch all of these problems on a software project which is orders of magnitude bigger. More features means more work, which means more places for things to go wrong, and fewer resources to polish everything.
How does this effect Rock Band?
I hate to break it to you, but all of this news probably doesn't change Rock Band's course too much. Whatever course has been charted for Rock Band, it was thought out and started on in late 2007, right after Rock Band shipped. The idea that Alex Rigopolous is going to break open his Game Informer, read up on GHIV, and suddenly change the company's course is downright preposterous. Harmonix is a professional organization with a staff of 200... they've been game planning their future since before Rock Band shipped. Although we may not have any details on "the next big thing," you can rest assured its already in progress. 200+ staff and programmers haven't been sitting idle since Rock Band shipped.
Conclusions:
In various ways in this article, everything I touched on ties into the "awesomeness" of the experience. Can GHIV be executed at a reasonable price point, with a good feature set, and an enjoyable experience? That's ultimately the question/concern. If it can, then it has succeeded, and it supercedes any "us versus them" or "good side versus bad side" arguments. A fun game is fun regardless.
Apples said...
There is a collective group of things that really irritate me about playing online. So I am going to get on my soapbox here and call them out, in the hopes it will improve the general calibre of my online bandmates.
I am not going to go too much into the "obvious" ones... someone hogging lead guitar is rude. Someone picking Dani California, Enter Sandman, or Welcome Home for the 19th million time is not original. Someone with offensive logos/names on their characters are downright unacceptable.
While these are all well known and frowned on, here are a few other quirks that really put a damper on online bands.
1. Song Selection needs to showcase each instrument. - I was recently in an online band that played the entire Thrash Pack, and then followed it up with Green Grass and High Tides. Working Man was the "finale".
What was wrong with that? I was the vocalist the entire time. Sure, the other 3 instruments had a blast, but did I ? I am not advocating any specific instrument that needs to be favored, but over the course of a 5 song set, each of the 4 band parts should feel that they had a chance to showcase themselves in some manner.
2. Use good etiquette in your band invites. - So you're putting together a band, and you need a vocalist. You see Johnny online so you immediately invite him to fill the slot. Unfortunately, Johnny is currently in a single player drum campaign. He accepts the invite, only to find the drum slot is filled. The invite is wasted, and Johnny is irritated to have his time wasted.
Moral of the story: When inviting a friend into a band, tell them what instruments are open, or what instrument you expect them to fill. The recipient isn't a mind reader.
3. Consistently failing the band is lame. Yeah, we all get caught up on "that one part" That's fine. However, it's a waste of time for the band if you're repeatedly and consistently failing. Even if you're barely staying afloat, it's a drag for the other band members to have to keep an eye on you all the time for a potential bailout.
There's a time and a place for "trying new things out" and "going for broke" but it isn't 3 times in a row on "Blackened."
Apples said...
When I was just a young lad
I asked poor Johnlok, about DLC
Will I see metal, will I see rock
Here's what he said to me.
Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever DLC, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.
When I was young, I was in love
I asked our dear Sean what lies ahead
Will we have albums, week after week
Here is what Sean said.
Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever DLC, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.
Now I have forums of my own
They ask their mods, about DLC
Will I see Led Zep, will I see Pearl Jam
I tell them tenderly.
Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever DLC, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.
Apples said...
Back in late May/early June, I registered on these forums. Around that time I wrote an introductory blog, which I re-read for the first time today:
http://www.rockband.com/rockers_blog_entry/Apples/65780
In retrospect, I think I was pretty dead on with my predictions. Since I was right, I feel the need to toot my own horn at the wisdom of my foresight.
On the future of the Guitar Hero series I wrote nearly 8 months ago:
"Quite frankly, I don't trust the franchise any more. In my gaming experience, I have seen time and time again a franchise fall into a certain pattern:
A relative unknown "strikes it rich" with a new and innovative concept. The concept succeeds, a fanbase grows, and things flourish. Unfortunately, the success suddenly changes things, and the powers that be try to change the winning formula in the name of a quick cash grab. In the haste and carelessness, the fanbase is alienated and the proverbial "golden goose" is slaughtered.
With GH3 changing development shops, and various Red Octane debacles regarding GH2 360, I can already see the writing on the wall. Metaphorically, you can't give grandma's winning apple pie recipe to your aunt and expect the same delicious Apple Pie."
In hindsight, this is almost prophetic. The PS2 version turned out to be a "quick and dirty" port with performance issues. The Wii version became a debacle with the mono/stereo issue. The game is drenched in poorly-placed advertising, and many of the design decisions I consider dubious at best. A large number of decisions specifically sacrifice gameplay in an attempt to maximize revenue.
Meanwhile, Rock Band is annoucing significant milestones in DLC sales and a positive, energetic fanbase has embraced the platform. Having seen all this unfold, it gives me great satisfaction to see that I hitched my horse to the right wagon.
Apples said...
Now that I'm done blogging about awesomeness, time for something completely different. Today I'm going to shift gears and go from awesomely real-life events into the realm of speculative fiction.
It's a slow work day, so I'm here thinking about Rock Band, lookin' at Rock Band stuff, as I have a tendancy to do. The latest OXM interview held some interesting nuggets of information, the greatest of which was the continued idea of user-generated song tracks.
So I sat down and began thinking--how would they be able to accomplish that under the current software framework and under the framework of XBL/PSN. For the longest time, it seemed like some pie-in-the-sky fiction tossed out as a sound bite to get people interested. Now having seen the elaborate software already in place, I am no longer certain it needs to be a fiction. So thinking about it, I decided a few major requirements would be necessary for the concept to work:
1. User generated content would need some level of QA or certificatation. Without that, people could easily submit junk which is buggy, glitched, or downright sucky. Anyone who's seen GH2 custom charts would understand this.
2. It would need to integrate with the current software build with minimal to no patching of the game disc. The game would basically need to see it as any other Rock Band track. This is due to the difficulty/impossibility of patching retail discs after the fact.
3. A strong level of control to insure that submissions meet the vision on content--stylistically, difficulty wise, and age-appropriateness.
4. The economics would need to be favorable to all parties involved.
First the tools. I would suspect these could be quite similar to tools already used in the Guitar Hero custom community. They would be PC based. The GUI would allow you to plot note charts for the 3 instruments, lay down the audio, and generate data for the vocals. The finalized data file would be put into the format of a standard Rock Band data file to meet requirement #2. All of this could then be sent out for the next step... certification.
Certification of user-generated tracks would work much like Xbox Live Arcade certification. For those unfamiliar with the concept, Microsoft sits down and puts their Live Arcade games under the microscope, trying to break them, looking for flaws, checking for content appropriateness. This certification process would be a part of the Harmonix QA staff. They would give user-generated tracks the once-over and scour them for flaws. This would meet requirements #1 and #3 of the concept and insure the content is actually decent.
Those fortunate few songs meeting QA's high standard could then be signed up. The agreement could be structured to meet requirement #4: economics. The artists would get a piece of the action for their submission, the QA staff a piece for their labors, and then MS/Sony would get their distribution cut.
Signed up tracks would then head up to Xbox Live to meet the appetites for adoring fans. Buy, download, and ROCK.
I liked my idea so much, I made a flow chart:
Apples said...
Ut oh, leaked copies of Rock Band on the streets. Time to finish this blog series off now before the information is totally out of date.
Without further adieu, the exciting climax of the Blog of Awesomeness. Will good triumph over evil? Will rock triumph over un-rock? Will Apples get the girl? Those questions will not be answered here. Instead, some choice words from you, the community:
Q: It sounds like you did a lot in your time there, is there anything you wanted to do in game, but didn't?
A: LOTS--because the game is so massive to go through in one sitting. There were so many game modes and tracks I wanted to play through but didn't have time. If I could narrow it down to just "that one thing," I'd say the marathon ultimate setlist. That feature just intrigues me to no end.
Q: Related question: You mentioned speaking to the staff... are there any good questions you did not get answers to?
A: Yes, totally. I was in information overload all day, so I forgot to ask about a number of things. I wanted to ask about the possibility of instrumental tracks (for example, songs that would be good across 3 instruments, but not 4). I wanted to ask about the peculiar sharing of tracks with GH3. And finally, I wanted to ask "what's up with Tool" because their crazy fans have been posting in the same ultimate setlist thread for like five months straight.
Q: Name one cool thing about the game that fans may not fully appreciate yet.
A: I'll give you a couple. First, the game is more massive than people realize. Seriously massive.
Relating to specific gameplay elements, one thing that was sort of a welcome surprise was the new star system. Unlike Guitar Hero, you can actually get a 1 or a 2 star rating for a bad performance. Conversely, there's also something new to reward top playing bands. I think it's been slipped in a few screenshots, but I can't seem to find them at the moment. So I will refrain from comment on the off chance I'm speaking out of my posterior.
Also, the UI gives you visual feedback on how close you are to a given rating. For example, I'm holding down the final sustain note on a given song. I could see on the rating meter the band was at 4.999999 stars, then it upticked to 5 stars at the very last moment. It was very dramatic and awesome. A very useful addition to the user interface.
Finally, something you may not yet appreciate is the ability to collect additional energy phrases while overdrive is already active. On some songs you can use this to chain together LONG sections of the song in overdrive. (especially if you can whammy) It is way cool.
Speaking of whammy, the new whammy animation is also way cool. I gave mad props to the UI guy Aaron on that one.
Q: How was "Gimmie Shelter"?
A: A few songs have escaped the waves of preview coverage, including Highway Star, Enter Sandman, and Gimmie Shelter. Out of curiosity, I really wanted to try those tracks. By the end of the day, the only one I'd played was Enter Sandman. Every time I went down the setlist, something equally awesome caught the band's attention, especially in the DLC track section. So while I cannot specifically answer the question, it bodes well for the game that there are LOTS of awesome tracks to keep people busy.
Q: Lots of questions about the PS2 or PS3, especially relating to hardware compatibility.
A: I don't have a clue in the least, sorry. I was too busy enjoying the game to care how it worked.
Q: Your party blog was pretty tame. Weren't there any crazy drunken stories to tell?
A: As the saying goes: what happens at the release party, stays at the release party.
Q: Did you meet the song selection committee, and if so, did you suggest anything?
A: I did not get into that subject too much, because I'm sure that EVERY stinking fan that walks through Harmonix has "that one song" which is "perfect" for the game, and I imagine the staff gets sick of hearing it,. They obviously know what the good stuff is.
If I could suggest anything, it would have been Twilight Zone by Golden Earring. (good moments for all 4 band members to shine IMHO) As a wild and unreasonable request, I would have requested Salieri Strikes Back by Warmen, because I like the harpsichord.
Also, I wouldn't exactly be broken up about some hits from previous Harmonix games: The Trooper, Carry on Wayward Son, Search and Destroy, Caught in a Mosh, etc.
Q: Besides your cab ride, can you say anything else bad about your trip?
A: Not necessarily bad, but weird: Everyone at Harmonix kept calling me Apples, No one else in real life has actually done that, so it was sort of freaky. I'm just glad I didn't go with my other usual board names, like "Doodyhead" or "Stinkums."
Q: Can you get into the guitar hardware a little more? Specifically, things like durability.
A: One of the first guitars I used was one that QA had been massively stress testing for durability. And honestly, I didn't even notice at all, it played just like a regular guitar controller. I know the moment I say this, it will be a jinx, but IMHO the guitar will be just fine.
I expect the first week of release there will be a certain amount of skepticism on the guitar hardware. The new guitar is structured differently than the old one, and there will be a period of adjustment. It's not a bad adjustment, it's just different than what you may be used to.
Q: I AM SO JEALOUS YOU MET HELEN. In your blog on the ladies of Harmonix, were you being serious, or just flattering for the sake being flattering?
A: The cake is not a lie my friend.
Q: What did you have for lunch in the office?
A: Homemade-style barbecue ribs with all the fixin's. It was new and great for me, but to hear Sean talk, you would think they get this sort of treatment every day. 
One last random observation. During the live band performances at the launch party, one of the singers tripped over the cord on one of the guitars. With all the moaning about wireless guitars, it was a funny/ironic moment to see someone trip on a real guitar cord.
That's it... I'm sick of blogging! Go away and never come back! No, wait! Buy the game, then come back so I have some band mates.
Apples said...
Even on my return trip from Boston, I could not avoid a humorous Rock Band moment.
There I was, on a 3 hour flight from Boston to Minneapolis. At the time, I was hunched in the corner of a row, trying to sleep off the effects of too much party. The plane finished boarding, and a rather outgoing gentleman comes and fills the seat next to me.
Now I really wanted to sleep on the flight, but this guy had other ideas. "Bud" wanted to tell me his life story, and then wanted to know mine. He was a kind and well-mannered man, but he did not know how to stop talking, the kind of passenger you dread sitting next to on a long flight. After the first few minutes of dialog, I began to realize that I was not going to get any sleep on this flight.
Two hours later, we had discussed everything from his kids, to his home town, to the current state of major league baseball. Right around that time, he looks down and happens to notice the Rock Band rock-swag tee shirt I've been wearing. He happens to ask, "Oh, are you in a band or something?" (Pretty funny actually for someone as un-musical as myself)
Not really wanting to give a massive explanation behind the shirt, I simply said it was related to a new video game that was coming. Knowing this guy was in his late 40's or early 50's, I assumed he wouldn't know the first thing about games and would not want to press the discussion further.
I assumed incorrectly. He wanted to know all about it So here I was, attempting to explain the concept of Rock Band to a total gaming neophyte. After very little success, I opened with a pretty basic question, "Have you ever heard of Guitar Hero?"
His face instantly perked up. Apparently his children owned a Playstation 2 and in fact his wife had purchased their sons a copy. He went so far as to remark on his ability to get through Smoke on the Water. (I would presume on easy difficulty based on his explanation)
Armed with that knowledge, it was much easier to explain what Rock Band was. Once I got into the concept of the drums, he absolutely lit up with excitement. He expressed that he had wanted to buy a real drum set as a child when he was growing up, but his mother wouldn't allow it because she didn't approve of the noise. Once I mentioned how the drumming patterns were modelled by real musicians, he was practically in a frothing frenzy.
By the time the flight had landed, the guy has pressed me on everything from the song selections to the console platforms it would be available on. For some reason, he was really psyched for Bon Jovi--more psyched than a man his age should be. Based on all this description, he remarked that Rock Band "would make a good family gift" for everyone come Christmas time. He even went so far as to get my Xbox live gamertag should he get the Xbox 360 version.
Now I am no salesman by any stretch. But to see this guy's reaction to my haphazard explanation of the game, was nothing short of a marketer's dream scenario. If that isn't proof the game sells itself, I don't know what is. 
I guess this also goes to show that rock swag will come back to repay the swagoneers.
A shout out to "Bud" from Western Wyoming, with the wife and five kids... may you rock true in life. But next time... let a man sleep in peace!
This is the end of the blog. The next blog will be the much vaunted Q & A blog. I have plenty of good questions I will answer, feel free to add more before Friday.
Apples said...
Judging by the lack of comments on my previous blogs, I'm not sure if anyone's reading these things. But since I've already written then up, I'll just keep posting them. Maybe I need to work on my writing style here.
The choice of venue for the release party was rather confusing Hard Rock Cafe: Boston. Why would Harmonix have their release party at a T-shirt factory? As it turns out, there's actually a restaurant attached to the T-shirt factory. It was a totally swanky establishment, with relics of rock star past and present.... guitars and drums signed by the greats! It was a red carpet event, with no shortage of awesomeness at the venue.
The centerpiece of the party at all times was the stage of live bands. Many of these are well-known and recognized for their contributions to the bonus sections of Harmonix games. That Handsome Devil and Breaking Wheel did amazing live performances including their respective bonus track hits from Guitar Hero 2.
Death of the Cool, another of the live bands, was headed up by a talented lad who has done much of the guitar note charting for Rock Band and Guitar Hero. His prowess on the stage was just as great as his prowess on the 5 colored fretboard. (ie: he rocked at both)
So besides the awesome bands, there were several game stations set up to play some Rock Band. You would think that the Harmonix staff would be tired of Rock Band after months of toil on the project, but instead they rocked the house to the ground. The gentleman who charted the drum tracks even sat down and did some insane robot-level, no-look stunts in the tough drum parts of Won't Get Fooled Again.
There was also a demo station set up for the new iPod game Phase. Unfortunately, I am firmly in the MS Zune camp, so I couldn't be too impressed with the enemy music player. But if I was an Apple guy, I might have liked it.
Some time earlier that Friday, I dropped my camera on the ground. As a result, I was unable to grab any cool pics of the party. Later I figured out that the memory card had just come loose. I wish I had a few pictures, because there were lots of cool things going on at all times.
The rest of the party was just drinking, mingling, and joking among friends. It was amazing how many times some random HMX staffer would recognize me from the forum and come up to say hello. I had fascinating conversations with every one. Based on their stories, I'm sure that each staff member in attendance deserved every ounce of goodness in that party.
After the party, I'm pretty sure I got scammed by a crooked cabby on the ride to the hotel. When I got in the cab, the first thing I asked was a rough estimate of the fare, which he quoted at roughly 50 to 75 dollars. 15 minutes later, I am at my destination and the fare is suddenly quoted at 150 dollars! I only had $130 in my wallet, so I found myself short on cash and scrambling to make sense of the situation.
When I explained this to the driver, suddenly there were threats to call the cops and drive me back to the city. I shot back that I had no reasonable expectation of paying double the initial estimate. Then I asked how he could come to this $150 price point without even turning on the meter for the ride. I dick around a bit more and suddenly he backs off a bit--now the fare is magically $120 instead of $150. I would have hammered him further, but I was liquored up, in an unfamiliar city, with no leverage on the situation... so I paid up. Whatever that was all about, I was just glad to get the hell out of there without a problem. A definitely un-rock way to end an otherwise rocking evening.
Coming up next blog: Apples has a strange and awesome Rock Band experience on the flight home. Intrigued? You should be.
Apples said...
I may be out of my office on Wednesday, so I'm posting Wednesday's blog early.
For those up on current events, right now is a good time to be in Boston. The Red Sox recently earned the World Series crown. The New England Patriots are undefeated, and seem poised to capture yet another Super Bowl title. Clocking in just behind these two all-star teams is the team at Harmonix. Having spent an afternoon amongst these righteous dudes and dudettes, I came to learn a simple truth: Harmonix makes good rock star games because they have a team filled with rock stars.
Over the course of an average Friday, I met dozens of Harmonix staff members across their office. I spoke with audio engineers, animators, programmers, artists, and QA staff. Each one was a rock star at their respective discipline. They were all perfectly pleasant to speak with. They all offered intelligent dialog and insight into their field. And the results of their efforts were quite obviously first rate. In fact, the only way I was able to get unintelligible dialog out of any of them was to get Sean full of alcohol at the launch party. (It sounds a bit like [link="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09iFKeG1b78"]this[/link] if you were curious.)
It starts at the top of the organization with fearless leaders like Alex Rigopolos. Anyone who has seen his Rock Band interviews online would easily describe him as a charismatic and eloquent individual. This description was spot-on true for every interaction I saw of him throughout my time there.
Moving on, the members of the design team were a fascinating lot. Chris Canfield's bloggings are already well-known and make for fascinating literature. Equally fascinating were the musings of Aaron, who was the lead for the game UI and shell. Having dealt with software design and presentation issues at my own job, I could instantly relate to the challenges of a project as demanding as Rock Band.
Beloved forum member Anarkeith was absolutely delightful to meet in person. He is also a hell of musician and gave an absolutely top shelf performance with Anarchy Club at the launch party. He also gave me a lovely CD of the band's top performances. (It coincidentally doubled the size of my audio CD collection from 1 to 2 discs.)
Down in the trenches, the QA team was a righteous bunch. (although I never did figure out which one of them visits the forum as HMXQualityControl) They laid down some wicked performances as band mates during my game time there. The best of these performances belonged to local forum guru Johnlok, who amazed me with expert drums/expert vocals for numerous tracks. It takes some serious skills to be able do that.
The only guy I didn't meet in person was Matt Moss, who is apparently too cool for school when it comes to visitors. I did see the awesome trebuchet in his office though, so I'm willing to give him a pass based on my love of medieval weaponry.
And then there was the community team, including the legends in flesh HMX Sean and HMX Johnlok. We teamed up for the all forum-moderator band and blasted through some righteous tracks. As you would expect, they are as cool in person as they are on the boards. They both went out of there way to make sure I was welcome in their office at all times. I would have been happy locked in a closet playing single player all day, but playing in a group band with them was all the sweeter.
The office itself is a cross between Candyland and Disneyworld. I played Rock Band in an absolutely plush gaming setup with the volume cranked and a well-stocked refrigerator nearby. Scorehero.com has already chronicled the wonders of their offices in the past, so I won't bore you with an encore. Throughout the day, staff whizzed by on their scooters or dropped in to play a quick set with me. Everyone's desk was decorated with the most awesome assortment of toys and posters. In short, it was a beautiful way to spend the day. Next on my immediate agenda is convincing MTV that they need a Harmonix branch office here in Nebraska.
To top off the experience, I received an absolutely swanky bag of swag from the lovely Emily out of Product Development. Unfortunately, they were out of the swag-tastic drum sticks I had seen on the van tour. But perhaps that was a good thing given how badly I stunk at drums. 
The T-shirts were awesome and coincidentally spawned a cool incident I will mention in a future blog.
Oh and I almost forgot. There's a certain obsessive myth going around the forums relating to the ladies of Harmonix. The myth would have you believe these rock goddesses (Emily, Helen, Grace, Heather, and more) walk around the office on air, silken hair flowing in the breeze, and eyes sparkling of diamonds each of them ready to enchant a man with a simple wink of the eye. I would be glad debunk these myths if I could, but as it turns out these myths happen to be true every once in a while.
That's it for now. Tune in tomorrow when Apples recounts the drunken debauchery of the Rock Band release party. Same rock time. Same rock channel.
Apples said...
When I started this game review segment, I wanted to have it sound as fair and objective as possible. No one is served by fanboy game reviews gushing with one-sided propaganda. Having read, and re-read, and re-re-read my review, I realize that it's simply not possible to do that. The game is simply too good not do anything but gush. So here it goes,
Back around early April, articles appeared on Joystiq and various gaming sites giving gamers an early concept of the idea behind Rock Band. Based on this vision and the reputation of past Harmonix games, the project instantly fell on my radar. Six months later, the hype and expectations are massive, nay, they are MASSIVE, and yet Rock Band appears that it will deliver on all of it. Here are my impressions after a day at Harmonix with the retail disc.
So where do we start. First, there's the guitar. And for simplicity's sake, I'm going to lump guitar and bass in the same section, since most comments will apply to both. The guitar part is inevitably going to draw a myriad of comparisons to its predecessor Guitar Hero. And for the sake of metaphor, it's like comparing chocolate ice cream to chocolate chip ice cream. They're both delicious, they're both chocolaty, but there are subtle differences. The user interface is new. The guitar itself is a much larger piece and will take some getting used to. The solo buttons will be challenging to master. Having said that, I think people will learn the new twists quickly and be better off for it.
Firing up the guitar for the first time, I instantly recognized that distinct and lovely Harmonix style of note charting. On paper, I was skeptical of a good number of the song selections, fearing they would not translate well into the game. This concern turned out to be unfounded. The same minds which plucked the gems together for past Harmonix games have come through yet again in outstanding fashion.
Although I did not have time to try every song, there was no "Heart Shaped Box" situation, where I found myself not entertained. Every track seemed to have something unique or interesting to keep my attention. While there have been long standing concerns that the guitar is now "dumbed down," "forgotten about," or "boring", I can safely say these ideas are overblown at best. I may not have seen Buckethead-style thrashing, but I did see striking similarities to the much-beloved stylings of Guitar Hero 2.
Eventually it was time to put down my axe and pick up some sticks, as in drum sticks. The first and striking impression of the drum set is that it is truly a beautiful piece of hardware. Someone put the drum set in front of me, and I just sort of sat there and marveled it. Then they turned on a song, and I found myself getting my ass kicked.
If you have no drumming experience, (like myself) the initial experience will be challenging. Not challenging in an "OMG this sucks" way, but challenging in an "OMG awesome, I need to learn this" way. This is exactly the type of feeling I experienced picking up a guitar controller for the first time ago--something I find very promising. I'm not going to expound on the drums too much, because everyone already knows how awesome the drums are, I'm simply going to confirm it to be true.
And there are vocals. Having never played the Karaoke Revolution series, I didn't really know what to expect out of this. Several hours later, I was totally on board with it. In fact, I was so much on board with it that I filled up my Zune today with a bunch of Rock Band tracks so I could learn the lyrics. While I don't fully understand all the nuances of the vocalist, I understand it well enough to see it is just as deep and robust an experience as any of the other instruments.
Looking back on my first afternoon with Rock Band, the one thing that stands out is the group dynamic of the experience. At a time when Guitar Hero 3 introduces a much maligned adversarial multiplayer experience, Rock Band is adding an absolutely plush cooperative experience. Each instrument in itself is a single player endeavor, but the unison phrases, band multiplier, and shared rock meter bring welcome new group dynamics.
There I was, chugging my way as bassist through Rockaway Beach. The drummer was lighting it up, and activated overdrive. I followed suit, followed shortly by the guitarist and singer. Suddenly we were blasting along with an 8x band multiplier and nailing a dramatic unison phrase while the points were flowing in. Even though I had never met any of my band partners, we were all high-fiving and laughing it up after the song.
On another occasion, our drummer had gotten cute and dropped his sticks mid-song, causing a terrible failure for the drum part. The rest of the band watched as our group rock meter plunged perilously low. With mere seconds to spare, the bassist picked up a timely energy phrase, activated overdrive, and saved the band from imminent failure. We went on to finish the song with a five star performance pulling out victory from the jaws of certain defeat.
The afternoon was filled with a bunch of these memorable moments. And afterward, I felt I had only scratched the surface of the game disc. I had minimal time to touch Band World Tour, a library of download tracks, single player mode, achievements, online play, the character builder, or the leaderboards. And I am seriously jonesing for 3 other expert players to do the marathon setlist mode. On the off-chance you don't enjoying a certain aspect of the game, it is so massive you should be able to find something of sufficient awesomeness to keep you busy.
I'm going to bring this review to a close now. I could go on for hours on the minutia of the user interface, song selection, and oodles of fun band experiences, all of it positive. But I think at that point the blog stops becomes a review and starts becoming a spoiler. And the game is too good to spoil. Suffice it to say it is as clean, polished, and FUN as any of the past Harmonix titles.
At a time when I have blogged and lamented an era of "disposable gaming," Rock Band has come through in spades with an enduring and deeply satisfying experience. Harmonix is bringing us nothing less than a full-blown masterpiece. The scary part is that it has the potential to only get better over time.
That's it for today lads. Tomorrow Apples visits with the amazing Harmonix staff and tours their offices. What will he think of these crazy cats? Tune in to find out. Same rock time. Same rock channel.
Apples said...
A few weeks ago, I received a curious email in my inbox.
At the time, I was a bit confused. Was this the work of malevolent pranksters? Was this the latest in internet scams? Was this some new fashion of junk mail? In fact no, it was a real and legitimate offer.
Having not had a vacation from my job in over two years, I was intrigued by invitation. I have never been to Boston, never been to a live music show, and rarely travel in general. Based on this and my enthusiasm for the impending Rock Band launch, the party invitation was a convergence of opportunities too great to ignore.
Along with the invitation was an offer to visit Harmonix offices. I would get to play some Rock Band, have some lunch, and rub elbows with the rock star staff we all know and love.
And so travel arrangements were made, hotels were booked, and bags were packed. A day would be spent in the lap of awesomeness. I traveled far and soaked it all in. Having just returned from this extraordinary adventure, I wish to tell a tale deserving of song and dance to chronicle the experience. But since I cannot dance nor sing, I have composed a blog intead. The blog is miles in length, so I've parceled it out into sections. I have enough blogging material that I will be putting out a blog every day this week to tell the tale of my travels and extol the awesomeness of every moment.
Here is how I plan to break down the week for those wanting to follow along:
Monday: Introduction (see above)
Tuesday: Impressions of Rock Band the game. Coined through a full afternoon of joyous in-game experiences.
Wednesday: Impressions of the Harmonix staff and offices. It was a fascinating encounter to meet the legends behind the legend.
Thursday: Impressions of the release party. An evening of drunken debauchery and insane rocking!
Friday: Bonus Blogging: Open Q & A from the community.
For the Friday special blog, go ahead and send a private message to me (APPLES) with something you'd like to know about the game, the trip, the blog, or the offices. I will be happy to discuss or clarify anything within reason. I went for myself but I represented each and every one of you out there.
I will not answer questions pertaining to unannounced information. For example, "what secret DLC tracks are coming?" I will answer things like "What were your impressions on guitar difficulty?" or "Is Matt Moss really as crazy as we all think?" (Hint: answer is YES to that one)
That's it for now lords and ladies. Tune in tomorrow when Apples posts impressions of a day of Rock Band gameplay experiences. Can the game we've admired for six months possibly delivery on its mile-high expectations? Tune in tommorow to find out. Same rock time, same rock channel.
Apples said...
Early next week, prepare for the ultimate in epic blogging experiences.
I will be in Boston in a few days for a much needed vacation. I have built in time for a lovely detour to visit everyone's favorite Rock Band development office. Having an invite there is like having a golden ticket to Willy Wonka's crazy chocolate factory. (and significantly less fattening!) I expect it will be no less than an epic experience.
Normally I hate travel. I hate airplanes. I hate the waits, the lines, etc. In fact, I haven't flown anywhere in over 12 years. And I have a proclivity for getting lost to boot. But for this trip, I am starting to get pumped. It's a shame the Patriots are on a buy week, or the trip would be perfect.
The plane is reserved. The hotel in Bumsville/Framingham is reserved. Watch the weather report, because Hurricane Apples is blowing in to town.
Apples said...
Okay maybe it was a lame pun, but it seemed funny at the time. Hey, don't look at me that way, it's Friday and I need a vacation! 
Apples said...
2000 years ago there was a man by the name of Maximus Decimus Meridius. He was Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, and loyal subject of the true emperor Marcus Aurelius. During his valiant exploits, he came upon a gladiatorial arena of foes, who he single-handedly dispatched. Upon the conclusion of this spectacle, he asked a very simply question, Are you not enterained? as he spat upon the arena ground.
Fast forward two millenia. This past weekend Neversoft unveiled its much-hyped, much-anticipated sequal Guitar Hero 3. The question posed by Mr. Decimus Meridius seems a valid one to ask of this title, especially one promising to up the bar in the genre it practically created.
In the interests of full disclosure, I will state that I've been a skeptic of this title for months. However, I've also been hungry for something new, something fresh in my gamer diet. So with anticipation I headed out for the midnight release festivities.
Five hours later, the final boss went down in defeat. At that point something strange happened. I didn't re-tread my favorite setlist tracks. I didn't peruse the bonus songs. I didn't even bother with the store unlocks.... I simply went to bed. The next day revealed a similar pattern of disinterest. And today I could only muster the energy for a few plays of the riffilicious Cult of Personality.
So what does it all mean? Well, GH3 does deliver on the big things. The engine and gameplay are a spot-on match to its predecssors. The software is robust are largely error free (although I *did* catch a few glitches in the UI). The new Les Paul controller is a dreamy piece of hardware. On this glowing list of accolades, you would think GH3 has continued the formula for success. But on the contrary, it only serves to highlight the totality of its failure.
It starts with the little things. The venues are grittier, the art is dirtier, and the tone is darker. The setlist style is weighted loud, fast, and metal. The UI and HUD are less intuitive. Battle mode adds frustrating and luck-based elements to an experience deserving of neither one. The witty loading screen quotes are now cheezy or insulting. Overt advertising is tattood to everything except Judy Nails' newfound bosoms.
Putting those things aside, the true meat of the game are the songs. Guitar Hero delivers in spades with a fistful of well-known artists and blockbuster tracks. Unfortunately, "popular tracks" do not equate directly to "fun tracks." The elaborate and satisfying HO-PO chains of GH2 have been replaced with a style focusing on heavy chords and fast strumming. Many main setlist songs are lacking in interesting riff patterns or entertaining solos as a result. (Or worse, they're downright forgettable altogether) These changes to the style of the notecharts are a detriment to the overall enjoyment of the game.
At its core the most attractive thing about the past two Guitar Hero titles was the "soul" and "personality" of the charts. Whether it was Woman's distictive riff patterns, Mother's crazy end solo, Jessica's delightful ho-po's, or Freebird's jubilant wankery, each track was a distinctive, unique, and beloved piece of the experience. Even the "gutterball" songs like Freya and Psychobilly Freakout had their acquired charms. The harshest critic of past GH titles would be hard pressed to name more than a handful of sub-standard songs.
With Guitar Hero 3, it's more like DDR set to a guitar controller. No personality. No uniqueness. No soul. With a few exceptions I felt totally removed from the playing experience. There are gems to be had, but you are required to sift through a mountain of chaff to find them. It smacks of a design team that are gamers and not musicians. So to answer the brave Maxmius of ages past... I am truly not entertained. You can copy the gameplay, copy the characters, and copy the look... but you can't copy that intangible "it" factor which turns a game into an experience.
Apples said...
So here I am, flipping through the early NFL games. And thanks to the FLIPPIN' LOVELY regional broadcast schedule, my choices are a sub-500 Chiefs team or some garbage NFC North teams noobing it up. No thanks! To pass the time, I flip in the old Guitar Hero 2 disc... something I haven't done a great deal lately. And it leads to the most bizarre and suspenseful turn of events ever.
I will preface the events with a few facts about myself. First, I am average to above-average at best at rhythm games. Anyone who would witness a performance would characterize me as an "enthusiastic amateur" at best. Second, I have a history of choking at critical spots, either when going for gold stars or high scores.
Anyway, back to Guitar Hero 2. I randomly flip through the setlist, belting out some average-level scores for my skill level. Somehow I end up on Expert level and decide on Killing In The Name a song I rarely play but usually enjoy.
Song starts out, and I am uncharactaristically rocking. First verse... no problem! Second verse... mistake free as well!
Then around this time, the wild thought starts to perkelate in my mind... you're in the hunt for that 500k score achievement. In 6 months of owning GH2 360, this hasn't even REMOTELY been on the radar.
Song continues... time for the solo. What a botch. I muck my way through with a crapload of overstrums. Boy I suck at that part.
Now is the moment of truth... the noise build. I've not once in my life done any good at this stupid thing. ACTIVATE TEH STAR POWHURS!!!!
8x'ing.....
STILL 8x'ing....
OMGOSH STILL 8x'ing !!!!!
CRAP 8x ends... Oh wait, star power ended. Keep going buddy!
Now we're into the final chorus and I know I am right in the thick of things. So what do I do? Time to look down at the score and break my combo in the process. You idiot choker! Stop choking!
It's okay, you're still in the hunt, it just has to be a mistake free finish. NO MISTAKES BUDDY! Time for the big finish! STRUM STRUM STRUM POINTS POINTS POINTS. Oh god it's too close to call!!! I can't look! No wait, looking away is worse!
The song ends. No achievement blink sound.... OH NO I'VE CHOKED AGAIN!
BUT NO!
It's a hit! 505k on the nose! IT'S A FLIPPING MIRACLE!! AND THE CROWD GOES WILD! (note that a mistake during a 4x combo costs at least 6,000 points... so I *just* made it)
I immediately spring out of my seat. The guitar gets thrown aside, and I'm jumping up and down, something akin to Carlton Fisk's home run celebration. I throw in a few Tiger Woods fist pumps and I'm yelling at TV in excitement.
And right at this point, in the midst of all this jumping around, I land square on one of my 360 controllers and fall over in a heap. Diagnosis: one broken analog stick and one medium level ankle sprain.
Was it was worth it? Probably.
Apples said...
Last week I ran the following thread, soliciting the forums for comments to be included in a "thank you card" of sorts. This week, the post office tells me that said project has safely reached its destination... Harmonix HQ. Now that the project (appropriately codenamed: "Project Awesome") has run its course, I am happy to remove the shroud of secrecy.
First let me say that I was very pleased with the final results. Between this forum and scorehero.com, I received about 28 pages of responses. At an average of 8.5 responses per page, that's roughly 240 unique comments. In fact, the volume of comments was so large that I had to find a larger container to mail off the damn thing. I damn near crushed the poster trying to fit it in too small a mailing package.
So first, here's a preliminary version of the layout and message:
Conceptually, the original idea was to make this a giant rockstar poster. However, due to the overwhelming number of responses, the poster became a banner. And a pretty massive banner as you can see from the next picture. I estimated the final dimensions to be at least 12-14 foot long by 2 feet high.
Every comment received during the course of the project was added to the card along with the corresponding name and forum avatar. For those who did not have forum avatars, I whipped up some snappy placeholders using the Rock Band instrument logos... so everyone's entry looked pretty sharp.
So what are those strange little squares along the bottom of the banner? Well, I had a sort of brain fart one day and decided that a ROCK poster needed some musical references worked in somehow, to showcase the musical heritage of Rock Band and Guitar Hero.
So, the whole bottom of the card is lined with album art. And not just any album art, the albums for all 30+ announced Rock Band songs, numerous GH1 and GH2 hits, and a few "wishlist" albums like AC/DC's Highway to Hell. I confess, some albums I included just because "the art looked pretty"... not very scientific, but it turned out really nice.
To conclude the project, I attached the following message on behalf of everyone:
"Righteous Harmonix Dudes and Dudettes:
As we move into October, we all anticipate that the deadline for the Rock Band software looms very near on the horizon. To commemorate this event, the rockband.com community forums, combined with Harmonix fans everyone, have constructed the attached token of our appreciation.
We wish you all the best of luck, and thank you for creating a musical experience which we are all passionate about.
Very Sincerely and Respectfully,
-The Fans"
Congratulations everyone, you've all made Project Awesome a smashing success.
EDIT: I have gotten a lot of comments from folks looking to see how their specific name turned out. Here are some high-res photos I grabbed of the banner. My webserver is not a lightning fast operation, so bear with if it decides to crawl/fail. And if you're up for a real challenge, try to find the person that cheated and got his name/avatar on the card twice! :)
Meaty Close Ups of the whole thing:
http://72.198.210.201:81/RB/3.jpg
http://72.198.210.201:81/RB/4.jpg
http://72.198.210.201:81/RB/5.jpg
http://72.198.210.201:81/RB/6.jpg
http://72.198.210.201:81/RB/7.jpg
http://72.198.210.201:81/RB/9.jpg
Close up on the album pics: http://72.198.210.201:81/RB/8.jpg
Scorehero section: http://72.198.210.201:81/RB/11.jpg
Side View: http://72.198.210.201:81/RB/2.jpg
Attached Letter: http://72.198.210.201:81/RB/10.jpg
Constructing the banner: http://72.198.210.201:81/RB/1.jpg
Apples said...
I have had a bunch of just strange, off-the-wall type coincidences following me around this week. The type of stuff so bizarre it bears repeating.
It started on Monday when my sister came into town for a visit. While checking over her shoulder, I saw her IM and email nickname was "AppleJax12345". I asked her how she got that, and it was a natural fit since most of her friends call her Jax. (and she likes the cereal by the same name)
So yeah, your friendly forum personality Apples has a sister AppleJax. Two fruit-related user names in the same household. It sounds like such a contrived coincidence I barely believe it myself.
One coicidence, sure, it happens. But today's incident was even more bizarre. I have a cold and it's raining buckets outside. To top if off, I woke up late and had to skip breakfast. In short, a pretty miserable start for the day. Fast forward to mid morning, I am now pretty hungry and have a craving for chocolate donuts with chocolate frosting on them.
NOT AN HOUR LATER, my boss and co-owner return from a business meeting with a box of leftovers from entertaining a prospective client. What is in the leftovers? Among other things... a pair of chocolate donuts. I've heard of wishful thinking, but never of "wishful thinking that magically comes true an hour later". 
(To be fair, they were white cake with chocolate frosting, but that's damn close!)
In the sprit of capitalizing on strange luck and coicidence, I'm going to hop in and buy up some tickets for the lottery this week. And maybe with wishful thinking coming true, perhaps now is the perfect time to predict some Pearl Jam or Led Zeppelin in the Rock Band setlist. You heard it here first folks.
Apples said...
I seriously need to evaluate my daily routine. Less eating before bed, less idle web browsing before bed. Lately whenever I do these things I end up with whack-o dreams and/or wake up feeling totally exhausted.
This has manifested itself before, in part one, a post about a trippy dream visit to Harmonix HQ. Fortuantely, this newest dream includes no Matt Moss references, perhaps a subconscious move to avoid his thumb-wrestling prowess. Today's dream post comes on the heels of reading a bunch of news about Rock Band's nationwide tour. I can only assume that this was a major influence in today's tale.
Anyways, I'm heading off to my local Target, presumably on or around launch day. The local target is a notorious crap-hole, so its inclusion in the tale is a bit curious. Anyway, the electronics counter in the store has been replaced by the Rock Band bus. In front of the bus is a bar counter and some stools. I step up to the bar and try to order a copy of the game.
The barkeep says that the only thing they're serving currently is Jello. I am a bit confused by the whole thing, and somehow I get the idea that if I order enough Jello, I'll be allowed to buy the game. I order a whole rainbow of Jello colors, but I am still not allowed to order the game. The barkeep and I get into a heated argument, during which I somehow club him unconscious and hotwire the Rock Band bus!
From there, I go on an in-store rampage driving over the displays, shelves, and cash registers. It's something straight out of Grand Theft Auto. At some point, I take a turn and plow through a solid wall out of the store. The bus rampage continues to the nearby McDonald's, where I place an order. When I am instructed to proceed to the drive-through counter, I instead drive through the restaurant (literally) plowing holes in the building.
After McDonald's I gain a police pursuit, but the Rock Band bus is so massive that it plows through any roadblocks set up to stop it. After driving around town for a while, I decide that the police chase has become boring, and I need to go to the movies.
The bus crashes into the lobby of the local theater and comes to a stop. The theater is not a normal movie theater though. All of the staff and customers have been replaced by freshly-hatched yellow baby chicks. There's such a massive amount of them, I can't even enter the theater (think Captain Kirk and the Tribbles episode).
Outside the theater again I take off again in the bus. This time I drive around and crash into a yogurt factory. The bus crashes into a vat of yogurt several stories high and becomes stuck. I hate yogurt so I am paralyzed to escape.
At this point, I am quickly arrested for my rampage. My story somehow gains notoriety, but everyone is upset I've been arrested, almost as if it were a great injustice. (I mean, I *only* destroyed a half dozen buildings, no big deal) I am brought to trial and there are picketers outside holding up "Free Apples" signs. I get inside and the judge in the case is actually Tom Brady, of New England Patriots fame.
Fortunately, I wake up before the trial gets underway and I am no longer in handcuffs, phew! Good news for me, bad news for yogurt factories everyone. 
Apples said...
So I'm sittin' around randomly today, playing Dead Rising on my 360. (The game is blueprint for how to muck up a top 10 title, it pains me so)
Anyway, I get a friend invite from some randa-dood, who wants to chat. He was of a similar skill level in GH2 and had noticed my name next to his on a number of song leaderboards. We discuss the finer points of expert Misirlou before he closes with "Hey Apples, why do they call you Apples???"
It was a pretty funny question to me at the time and got me thinking about all the crazy and oddball things that end up in people's logins and usernames. Usernames and nicknames can occasionally give you some interesting insights into a person.
In the case of this person, his Gamertag was "Spartan Warrior12345" or some such nonsense. Before I had even accepted the invite, I thought to myself "oh great, another random teenage Halo nerd" (This happened to be spot on, shocking and sad)
I've also seen some rather amusing incidents among friends and co-workers where they selected a rather unflattering (or x-rated) username. Said username then gets mentioned in unforseen company, such as a boss or spouse, leading to a situation amusing for me and awkward for them.
So I guess the moral of the blog post, your user name can tell all the world about you, so choose it wisely.
That's all good, but you're dodging the quetsion. Why DO they call you apples? What are we supposed to read into that? Fruit lover are ya?
The name Apples dates back to my college days. Back then I played a popular PvP MMORPG called Dark Age of Camelot. I ran around with probably the most notorious guild on the server. We would commonly engage two or three times our number in PVP (8 of us versus 20 or 30 live opponents). Our tactics were so successful that we were commonly accused of cheating, hacking, and all manner of sundry behavior. (all of which were the invention of poor sports and sour grapes)
Anyway, after a particularly nasty romping by our guild, a member of the defeated team somehow gets ahold of our voice chat server. He joins and starts to vent at me for killing him during every major skirmish. Voice chat at the time was very primitive, so this guy's rant is a random garbled mess. So someone baits him on a bit, and he starts shouting into the mic, "APPLES!" "APPLES!" "I HATE ALL YOU APPLES!" for a good 30 seconds.
I run with it and launch into a commentary how I like apples so much, especially the green ones. Other guild members follow suit, which only enrages our visitor further. He finally pipes up "I said A**-HOLES, A**-HOLES, NOT APPLES!" (of course we couldn't figure that out with all his garbled voice chat)
The clarificiation was too late. By then "apples" had taken on a life of its own. Word spread via the game chat and message boards, and "Apples" became a sever-wide slang term. Since I was the originator of the whole incident, I was cerminiously dubbed "Apples" by friends and guild members, a nickname which has stuck ever since.
So how 'bout them apples?
Apples said...
I was in my room and I was just like staring at the wall thinking about everything. But then again I was thinking about nothing. And then my mom came in and I didn't even know she was there she called my name. And I didn't even hear it, and then she started screaming: APPLES! APPLES!
And I said: What, what's the matter? And she goes: What's the matter with you? I go: There's nothing wrong mom. And she goes: Don't tell me that, you're on drugs!
And I go: No mom I'm not on drugs I'm okay, I was just thinking you know why don't you get me some Rock Band forums? And she goes: NO there's a database error! I go: Mom I'm okay, I'm just thinking. She goes: No you're not thinking, you're on drugs! Normal people don't act that way! I go: Mom just give me some Rock Band forums please! All I want is a Rock Band forum, and she wouldn't give it to me! All I wanted was a message board, just one, and she wouldn't give it to me!
| Database error |
| The database has encountered a problem. | |
Please try the following:
| |
| The www.rockband.com forum technical staff have been notified of the error, though you may contact them if the problem persists. | |
| |
Apples said...
Last week I was the lucky beneficiary of a free copy of the latest release in the "Dynasty Warriors" series... a popular beat-em-up style game for the Xbox 360.
This week the box sits gathering dust on my shelf... the latest vicitim of a disturbing gaming trend I call "disposable gaming". An annoying number of my recent game purchases have fallen into this trend, so I've decided to rant about it.
So what is this "disposable gaming"? I think it blossomed with the PS2 generation of games, and has perpetuated itself ever since. Disposable gaming is a label applied to certain elements of game design used to limit or reduce the overall life span of a game. This sounds complicated, but gamers experience this all the time. In short, it describes a gaming experience which is short, limited, and lacking in replay value. Once you've beaten the game, you might as well just throw away the game disc (thus the term disposable) because you'll never play it again.
The classic example I use is a recent racing game, Burnout Revenge. What should be an awesome racing experience is dampened by the design decision to use a lot of recycled content. A single map may be re-used a dozen different ways over the course of the career. First you'll race it against other cars. Then you'll race it by yourself as a time trial. Then you'll race it again, but this time you'll go clockwise around the track instead of counter-clockwise. Finally, you'll race the track again, but this time against a special boss. By the time you've beaten the game, you're so sick of the track, the game is totally unappealing to play through again.
Other elements which contribute to disposable gaming:
Lack of difficulty: A game will pass you through no matter how badly you suck. This sort of welfare system removes the challenge aspect of a game. Unfortunately, the challenge is usually intrinsic to the overall enjoyment.
Lack of content: If you're an Xbox fan, the Live Arcade falls into this trap. A certain popular and anticipated title recently offered had only 4 stages and was beatable in under 45 minutes. How immersive and entertaining can a game be if it can be 100% mastered over a simple lunch break?
Lack of fun: Some games are just destined to fail. They're based on bad concepts, they're lame rip-offs, they're buggy, etc. In short, the game doesn't fulfill the purpose of a game, which is to entertain.
OMG WTF!
Thursday, November 20, 2008