Archive for February 2008
For those of you who have already had the problem of your Rock Band drum pedal snapping in half right in the middle of your best shot at Gold Starring “Run to the Hills”, you know how frustrating it is that the pedal is made of plastic and somewhat poorly designed. We recently had the pleasure of testing an aftermarket product called Mega Pedal and our experience was a good one (mostly anyway).
Finally! We have been wondering when Guitar Hero was going to awaken from their coma and start selling us some songs. Well, take out the feeding tube, folks because they’ve shouted out hard with a master pack from No Doubt. Hopefully they’ll stay awake and we’ll start seeing some more releases on a more frequent schedule before they give up completely and move on to Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.
Here are the three No Doubt tracks that have been released in the Xbox LIVE Marketplace today (later today in the Playstation Store – no word on Wii folks) (videos on the click):
The track will cost 500 Microsoft Point, but since this is Guitar Hero, at least there is a FREE trailer that you can download showing you how the songs play in the game. (Just log into the game and at the main menu go to New Downloadable Content).
For all of those folks who would have held off buying Harmonix’s Rock Band due to its $170 price tag, Disney Interactive Studios may have a game tailor-made for your wallet.
According to the press release today, with Ultimate Band “Kids, teens, and tweens [can] join in the jam session….and choose guitar, drums, bass or front man [without the need to] buy costly, single-function peripherals”. UB promises the “biggest names in rock, alternative, popular, emo, and indie rock music”. (There’s that emo thing again - I had to ASK MIKE what the heck that was recently on the forums.)
Nintendo DS users will have the ability to create their own original songs using the DS touchscreen and the game is slated for release during the 2008 Holiday Season for both the Wii and Nintendo DS platforms.
For those of you keeping up to date on the announcements that Rock Band writes on their site - you may have seen the one posted today telling folks to delete and re-download a few of the songs in order to correct some little bugs (these little bugs apparently do not affect gameplay).
Apparently, the early bird chokes on the worm. 
Several players reported that once the songs are deleted, they are no longer available either in the online store, nor in their download history as the directions suggest. This may be a “Canada” specific bug since most posters seem to be in Canada, but we suggest you hold off on the update just in case!
We’re finally getting a week of DLC that makes me happy! Here are videos of the songs by the Nine Inch Nails, and then videos in-game of the drums being done on expert. Thanks GurnKiller et al for their handy drum work!
And, for your reading pleasure, below the videos is some background on the songs themselves taken from the Rock Band official website. Enjoy!
Week of 2/26/08 - NIN pack (click to watch)
March of the Pigs Drum Chart video
The Collector Drum Chart video
The Perfect Drug Drum Chart video
February 26, 2008
NIN DLC
Just imagine that we’ve turned your plastic guitar into a plastic synthesizer, and given you a piercing stare, a soul patch and a spiffy black wardrobe. Now you’re ready to try your hand at three of the dark lord, Trent Reznor’s greatest moments.
Nin Inch Nails: “The Collector”
This wasn’t one of the three hit singles that came off the “With Teeth” album. But if ever a NiN song was tailor-made for Rock Band, this is it: Pounding drums, old-fashioned lead guitars, and a suitably world-hating lyric: You are of course warned not to grin while singing “I am the plague, I am the swarm.” Trent Reznor was doing his best not to hang out in celebrity circles while making this album, choosing instead to hide away in his haunted mansion in the garden district of New Orleans. But he did make one notable friend during this era: Dave Grohl played drums on most of the album, including this track. Grohl was already our Rock band MVP for appearing in the game with three bands (Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, and Foo Fighters), now he’s up to four.
Nine Inch Nails: “The Perfect Drug”
One of the oddballs in the NiN catalogue, this song was recorded for David Lynch’s film Lost Highway. But it’s never been on an NiN album, and it’s never been played live—according to a BBC interview, Trent Reznor was afraid that the drum solo would make their touring drummer’s arms fall off. In the same interview, the perfectionist Reznor named this as his least favorite NiN track. We’ve included the “straight” version (instead of one of the half-dozen remixes that came out on an EP), and it’s guaranteed not to make your arms fall off—unless, of course, you play the drum part really well on expert.
Nine Inch Nails: “March of the Pigs”
It’s no wonder this became one of the seminal Nin Inch Nails tracks; as nobody’s managed to cram quite this much paranoia into a tight three minutes. Or this many dynamics, with its jumps from ominous calm to full-throttle onslaught. As the advance single for the second full-length album The Downward Spiral, this helped turn them from a weird cult act into weird superstars. If you have no trouble mastering the drum part, you might want to apply for a job with a live band: The song’s in an impossible 29/8 time signature.
By Mike
It’s becoming more and more obvious to me that Europeans and Aussies are pissed. I sent 10 of my best ninjas out to find the real reason why Rock Band, one of 2007’s best titles, is still unavailable for the European and Australian market. It’s been several weeks, and only one has just finally returned, badly wounded, with a story to tell.
The Ninja was able to interrogate the roommate of a friend’s sister whose husband knows a manager at Amazon.co.uk, who’s tight with a security guard who dates a Harmonix developer’s sister. Using unspeakable techniques of persuasion, he was able to find out the real reason why Rock Band is locked into the United States, still.
Both the European and Australian Department of Customs are pushing Harmonix, very hard, for more cowbell and they aren’t backing down. Rumor has it that there are tens of thousands of units already in both countries, being stored in old nuclear weapon silos, guarded by each country’s armies with both Harmonix and the United Nations on site.
While neither Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd or United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown responded to our request for an interview, we were able to get an interview from someone who claimed to be the Chief Negotiator of Video Game Relations for Tony Blair. He stated that Retired Honorary Tony Blair started the demand for more cowbell, enlisting Australia’s help, whose 478th largest export commodity just happens to be cowbell.
The Harmonix Developer who’s dating the security guard, Tony Blair, and both parliaments were not available for comment, and 9 of my ninjas are still missing. Please stay tuned for more information on this breaking story, as we at rockgamer.com continue our relentless investigation into this developing story. Tony Blair, who would have thought?
By Mike.
Looks like Activision is still trying to deal with the mass of dissapointed Wii rockers who found out the hard way that their rocking was one dimensional. As we reported about a month ago, the CD replacement program for the goofed mono version of Rock Band had started. However, it seems like this wasn’t enough, and Activision started offering refunds. It doesn’t make much sense to us, I can’t imagine that so many are upset enough that they would rather have their money back than a replacement disc. Now, if you have the Wii version and are upset that there is still no downloadable content, this could be your chance to…. Well, I’ll let you come to your own conclusions on that.
GLaDOS? Um, ok.
With the recent announcement of the song “Still Alive” coming to the downloadable content list of Rock Band, I noticed something that I hadn’t felt since I started playing this game in December: a chasm between me and other players. Suddenly I wasn’t feeling like I belonged on the message boards because they were all speaking a new language that I didn’t know and in which they were all fluent. So, it got me thinking about how Rock Band has found its success in the marketplace and where it will go in the future. Here’s what I learned.
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