The retail Limited Edition comes with a code for an Xbox Avatar t shirt. Going on marketplace.xbox.com to redeem my code gave me the above error message. The game does include a male and female version of the shirt but apparently my guy is unable to wear a female avatar shirt? Thank you xbox.com for reminding me that my avatar is male!

Last week I heard word of a deal impossible to pass up. Target currently has the Limited Edition of The Beatles: Rock Band on clearance at prices as low as $60 dollars. Many thanks go to Vo for helping me pick up a bundle! For awhile I’ve wanted to have a full band set for a good price and really this is the best package available. For the price I couldn’t say no. At one point I was debating pulling the plug at the $250 price point so this worked out perfectly.

To keep things short I would assume anybody reading is familiar with the Rock Band series. Essentially The Beatles: Rock Band is “Rock Band” themed entirely around The Beatles. Regardless of how you “feel” about The Beatles and their music, their game is a carefully crafted explosion centered solely around the band that comes highly recommended for one with any interest in rhythm games.

For many years dating back to the original Guitar Hero I’ve grown to appreciate developer Harmonix and preferred their games over recent Guitar Hero offerings from Neversoft. Where the Rock Band series seems to have matured Guitar Hero seemed to have been run into the ground with a few (too many?) poor offerings. To be fair Guitar Hero: Metallica has some amazing songs but sadly is not an “ode” to the band in the same vein as The Beatles game is. Guitar Hero: Word Tour will always have a soft spot with me because of the three included Tool songs (Parabola, Schism, Vicarious) and a downloadable In Flames song Disconnected.

Everything about the The Beatles: Rock Band just “works”. Loading screens are kept to a minimum at all points. The menus are quick, clear, and functional. After playing Fable 2 and having to sit though a loading screen after pressing Start and then being presented with muddy menus afterward the responsiveness in Beatles is much appreciated. The graphic designers at Harmonix or whatever outsourcing shop they used also is impressive. They must have not had the license to use any video footage of the band so all the movies are animated and many shots use manipulated real life photos. These videos are not the most entertaining bits ever created but the video is in very clear 720p with minimal compression and compare well the FMV of Lost Odyssey and contain many easter eggs for fans.

The selection of songs in the game (song list) encompass the bands run 1960-1970 and contains many of the classic well known songs as well as a few that work well to play on plastic instruments. When I play these games I prefer to play guitar over any other instrument. After a few beverages or the right circumstances I’ll sing and my coordination is rancid so drums are what I play the least. On guitar some songs in the game can be boring or just not complex enough to play. This again is not a breaking point of the game but finding a good balance with the players skill and what difficulty to play on is required. That’s not to say a skilled guitar player won’t find a challenge as some songs can be challenging on Expert but nothing like some of the harder songs from Guitar Hero past. One of my favorite songs to play is “Come Together” on vocals because of the free sing sections as I found it fun to say random things. On guitar Helter Skelter, I Want You (She’s So Heavy), I Saw Her Standing There, and Revolution were my favorite to play as they are faster and more complex then most of the other songs. When playing as a “band” I did try singing and playing guitar at the same time as the game does come with a mike stand. Some songs if you know the lyrics it’s completely possible and fun but trying this I did come to a new respect for singers who play instruments and sing at the same time. That is ef’n hard.

If I had to nit pick one thing I found missing was the free drum at the start of songs that Rock Band 2 has. Also the wammy on guitar I only found made a difference on very select notes. It’s very hard to make these songs your own and when playing the songs sound more like recordings then actual playing. The game makes up with it with very atmospheric cloud noise but still when playing these games I like to ef around a little bit. For vocals it comes recommended to choose the setting “lower original vocals” as when singing I like to hear the singer more then the default setting allows.

So far I completed the Story mode on Hard/Expert guitar getting 5 stars on all songs. I also was able to complete the story mode in 24 hours thus earning the “Day Tripper” achievement. I’ve also did some random solo quick play on all instruments. Played one night as a “band” with one other person playing with me and the game performed as expected. In the future I do plan on getting a few of the downloadable songs but no album packages I don’t believe. If anybody has gotten any of the downloadable songs please let me know as I would like to hear what ones are best to play especially on guitar. The one song I will download is “All We Need is Love” as proceeds go to charity.

I love music and combining video games and music for years now has still been an experience I find fun. Since the days of the Heroics Trilogy up to yesterday something about the faux experience of playing instruments and being able to play “music” still means something. With all the talk of the decline of the music game genre The Beatles: Rock Band comes along and makes me forget about all that noise. Even if one is not a fan of The Beatles if you have a plastic guitar sitting around pick up the gameI promise at least a few of the songs will be fun to play and sing along with. Undecim 4

Nuf said…

On the first campaign mission of “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ I seriously died INSTANTLY after waking up/spawning. Figuring I was in for another long ride I got my mind set for more self inflicted inner turmoil and frustration but ultimately MW2 ended up being a completely reasonable game in comparison to it’s predecessor.

MW2 is a First Person Shooter about lightly interconnected implausible military themed scenarios. The stories of the Modern Warfare games from what I could gather are about theoretical global warfare and putting the player in control of multiple highly trained operatives around the world in the middle of it all. In both games I ultimately didn’t pay any attention to the story and found many of the characters annoying (OSCAR MIKE!) but you don’t come to a COD game for a life altering narrative.

I came to prove my gaming cred to absolutely nobody and beat this sucka on Veteran difficulty.

MW2 did fix a series of issues I had with the first game. One was putting a face to the player character as John “Soap” MacTavish makes an reappearance first as a hand holder NPC with plot armor then in later missions as a playable character. Clearly with this type of game he’s entirely one dimensional but I’m glad to see one of my major complaints with COD4 addressed if only slightly.

With COD4 most of my displeasure came from a complete lack of actual “Modern Warfare” and with it  frustratedly high difficulty. From a players perspective infinitely spawning enemies and poor enemy AI seriously drove me to look up game play videos just to pass seemingly impossible checkpoints. MW2 is still an overtly scripted experience as all COD games are but after beating the game I can assure there are absolutely no infinitely spawning enemies. There are still a few sections where there will be guys just sitting in a room inexcusably waiting for you to walk in and shoot you down but for most of the game the opposition isn’t just hiding and camping carefully placed by a level designer to murder you. This is a very welcome change as I honestly felt at times the enemies were taking action as expected including unscripted movement, flanking, running, taking cover, and even sometimes forming retreat!

This completely blew me away…

After getting past the first checkpoint in the first level (after dying seven times in five minutes) I started noticing some of the voice acting talent and honestly it was quite surreal. While reloading I heard 50 Cent (Window Shopper) spouting some military mumbo jumbo to me. While crossing a bridge Lance Henriksen (Frank Black) barked some orders demanding me to take his helicopter. After storming a church Glenn Morshower (Agent Pierce) said something similar sounding to every line of his in the movie Black Hawk Down. All this happened while Keith David (The Arbitor) had the “•Follow” title over his characters head ironically telling me to follow him. MW2 honestly has some pretty good voice talent and voice work but sadly all this talent had little to work with.

Clearly I played MW2 on the Veteran difficulty acting as there was no other option. Campaign Play Time: 10:47:53. If played on “Regular” this would be a 5-6 hour game max. This was my first playthough and I did not resort to any FAQ’s, walkthoughs, or video assistance as I needed for COD4. The campaign really is only one reason to show up at the party for this one. Over the last few days I’ve played a few multiplayer matches and mostly got my ass handed to me. Most of the multiplayer I believe revolves around rewards systems but plays very fast and the community is huge and abrasive. Every game I played somebody tried to pronounce my gamertag and in return giving me shit. Matchmaking is quick and I was able to get into games in half the time it takes for Halo 3. Sadly I was not playing in a party of friends but wouldn’t mind playing more if the opportunity presents itself.

Also there is the Special Ops mode that serves as the co-op offering. These are separate missions many themed off levels in both COD4 and MW2 all short with multiple levels of difficulty. There is no story behind the missions but honestly playing a few of these gave a thirst for scenarios like this included in the campaign with the co-op aspect. I’ve been able to play a third of the Special Ops missions co-op and on Veteran these are hard especially if you and your partner are  separated as there are no checkpoints. You die you start over. The most interesting mission we played was “Overwatch“. In this mission one partner is on the run on the ground attemping to get to the end while the other is in the air in a AC-130 similar to my favorite section of COD4. The concept of giving my real partner cover from the air was noble and hopefully future COD games incorporate this type of option included as part of the campaign.

On the second mission “Cliffhanger” your player character starts right on the edge of a cliff. Not even paying attention I when I was given control I ended walking straight ahead falling right off the cliff. This almost brought me to tears I found it so funny as 99.9% of the time “go straight ahead” is the correct course of action in these type of games. This moment is what I’ll remember most about this game. So much is so good about this game where as so much is so bad. The action at times can strongly riveting (anything with the javelin and predator missiles) where on a few parts I actually found myself saying “holy shit”. The action at times can be so awful and broken (No Russian) it takes the player so out of the game and is borderline insulting.There is also a vehicle in this game named “Punta Gorda“.

Undecim 1

Don’t let the annoying “take my picture” research game from Bioshock 1 distract you. That is fixed to a degree in 2.

Don’t let the annoying hacking game from Bioshock 1 distract you. That is fixed to a degree in 2.

Many tweaks have been made to game controls and mini games over Bioshock 1. The most welcome is the addition of permanent melee strike. In the first game you HAD to bring out the wrench to interact melee where on a 360 to switch weapons you have to go though a queue or pause to switch. After the first area you would just stop whacking stuff around the world when you received more then a few weapons.

Whacking tables and corpses with a drill arm is oddly satisfying.

For some reason Bioshock 2 picked up a Dead Space style to level switching giving an uncomfortable feeling making areas feel like a “game level” then “Rapture Location”. In the first game all the areas had a good way of making everything just “connect” where in Bioshock 2 for many of the levels you take a train from level to level. This was a change I didn’t care for but is nothing close to a game breaker. Most of what I ultimately didn’t like about the game are slightly nit picky but worth mentioning to people debating plunking $60+. There are HUGE texture loading issues on the 360 version that has always been a problem with Unreal Engine powered games. There are also times when all you will want to do is clear out an area so you can explore but a random enemy spawn will distract you. Also look for obvious video compression on all FMV sequences/overlays including the ending that contain high pixelation.

A few minor distractions I found odd was Bioshock 2 takes place 10 years after the first one but for some reason it bothered me that Little Sisters were still calling Big Daddys “Mr. Bubbles” but I guess for 10+ years I’ve been calling vanberge “vanberge“. Another logic hit was on how the player character would still be able to eat sardines and gallons of alcohol though a gigantic metal suit but again don’t bother over-analyzing.

I played the campaign on “Hard” difficulty with vita-chambers turned off, quest marker turned off, and adaptive training turned off. Personally I wouldn’t suggest those settings for most on a first play but overall Bioshock 2 I would say is far from a “Hard” or cheap feeling game.  In comparison to Bioshock 1 throughout the game world there is a higher influx of ammunition and additional opportunities to get money so inventory management is hardly ever much of a problem.

I played one game of the multiplayer and didn’t find it added much but if anybody would like to try it out let me know. Playing Bioshock 1 and taking the time to browse the grossly comprehensive Bioshock Wikia is personally suggested to get full enjoyment out of Bioshock 2.

Michael Abbott absolutely nailed writing a post about Bioshock 2. Nothing I’m able to write will compare so honestly time is well spent reading his take on how the memes of fatherhood and choice in the narrative effected him. Also required reading is Mitch Krpata’s thoughts on why we need sequels and how Bioshock 2 just nails it. I also suggest Chris Dahlen’s essay on the game as well.  All three of these links offer a much better reading material then a traditional IGN or Gamespot review and are recommended.

Bioshock 2 was the first game in a long time I was sad to see end and I feel that says alot. During my living hell of FFX and Modern Warfare it’s a weird feeling to actually finish a game and wanting more. I leave you with this….

Bioshock 2 on the pause screen shows a shark swimming around an underwater utopia. Now that is cool shit.

I still wish they kept  “Sea of Dreams” in the title.

Today i decided to register for the 2010 Spectrum Health Irish Jig. The race is on Saturday, March 20th 2010. Mens race starts at 9am, and the woman’s race starts at 9:35am. Back in 2005 I ran this race after not even coming close to training for it (as a 32:00 time proves) and after failing to do any races in 2009 I wanted to make sure to do at least one this year. The Irish Jig is only a 5k so I should be able to finish without a problem. Here is the .PDF with all the information that I was unable to find posted publicly online but is making the rounds at work. Here is the link to register.

At this time I’m planning on just walking down to the starting line but if anybody wants to run together or meet up personally I think that would be really cool.

I forgot to post about this back in June. Email today sent to me from “The Best Buy Rewards Zone Program”

You may remember receiving notification in June 2009 about changes to the Reward Zone® program. This is just a reminder to explain the changes that will be affecting your point balance.Please take a moment to review the important elements of points annualization.What is points annualization?

•In February, Reward Zone program accounts with 250 points are automatically being issued reward certificates to the nearest $5 level

•Any remaining account balance below 250 points will be forfeited

•The annualization of the program is based on your purchases as of December 31, 2009

Apparently Best Buy needed to make up a word to hammer the point home that the Rewards Zone Program is now a joke. What this means is you HAVE to spend $250 dollars with Best Buy within a year to make even being part of the “Program” worth it. If you don’t hit that goal all your purchases are worthless to the program when February rolls around.

Last time I checked I was at about 180 points. Today I’m back down to zero.

I used to carry my Best Buy card with me everywhere. Today I ripped it up and threw it in the trash. Seriously what a bunch of idiots it’s just a worthless matter of control making the customer think their purchases are going to lead somewhere. Honestly it’s not even worth it’s weight in my wallet for a five dollar gift certificate.

According to Wikipedia the primary psychological effects of cocaine include euphoria, supreme confidence, increased energy, and a craving for more cocaine.

Look at this explosion.

The game plays much like how I wish Grand Theft Auto games would ‘play’ more like.  In Crackdown you are a super hero police officer who’s only task is to level up, collect orbs, jump around, kill people and take a bite out of crime. You don’t go on dates, you don’t play pool, you don’t have to try to make Little Jacob ‘like’ you so he can sell you guns. In Crackdown you just obliterate waves of evil enemies, take their guns, then scale a 100 story building to jump roof top to rooftop.

I played much of this game coop and sadly I was not the “host” of those games. In return that means any progress made on killing the Generals and Kingpins was lost. My level progress was saved and after reaching level 3 agility co-op going back and killing all the Generals and Kingpins took an afternoon.

Most of my frustration came from almost instant spikes of difficulty and some confusion on mission objectives. Playing co-op I was always trying to play catch up with my partner and in doing so I wasn’t able to fully access my situaion thus I would end up dying quite a bit.  I would need to “Regenerate” at a location many times far away from the objective. An option to spawn in the general area of your co-op partner would have helped.

After a shipping Snafu I ended up getting Crackdown for free but many places have it between $10-$15 dollars. After defeating all the Generals thus ‘beating’ the game and completing a few choice Achievements I got 380g on one play though. I got 380′ish Agility Orbs and 100′ish Hidden Orbs. The package is a good deal. There are a series of weapons I didn’t even bother to try. I never completed any of the rooftop missions or the driving missions and a series of Achievements I didn’t even try to get.

If living in the mundane of GTA4 makes you sluggish take some illegal drugs and play Crackdown. Using jja’s undecium rating sytem I would give Crackdown a 2.

Go beyond status messages

Share updates, photos, videos, and more.
Start conversations about the things you find interesting.

This is absolutely the LAST feature I would want tied to my personal email. Clearly I’m not a “status update” kind of guy. Nobody cares what I’m doing anyway.

I opted out. I made sure I was sharing nothing then on the bottom of your gmail there is a link “turn off buzz”. It took so much work to migrate towards one personal email account years ago. I came close to switching today after Buzz. It bugged me in one day I could have something “social” being tied to my “personal” email. Sadly I believe I can’t “stop” anybody from following me. I fully understand that many google services are tied to your google profile but still this one is a pill I didn’t want to swallow.

I would say this is required reading for anybody using Buzz.

There is already a lot of insanity on the web it’s impossible to catch up, keep track of everything and be apart of every conversation. Right now I’m swimming in Google Reader items as I have been for months.

1000+

I’m drowning in web projects I can’t even find the time to start or even clean up abandoned ideas. Google Buzz is just another hopeless distraction I can’t be apart of.

Really I would love to know how everybody deals with this problem I can’t imagine I’m the only one. Honestly it frustrates me and could use any tips, rules, or methods anybody employs.

Update: Looks like things are getting better at least I can block people I don’t want following me. Time to go back and make sure to block everybody.

Update 2: I love this story. Well it’s serious in nature but still it’s the truth. Seriously Buzz is just a nightmare. Buzz assumes that everybody lives these glorious lives where ones entire social circle  integrated and loves one another.

Update 3: Yeah just hitting the “turn off buzz” icon is not enough. Quote from Google Help documents…

Disabling Buzz

If Buzz isn’t for you, you can turn it off it by clicking the turn off buzz link at the bottom of your Gmail (it’s near the basic HTML link). Please note that this will only remove the Buzz label from your Gmail account.

To completely stop using Google Buzz, you also need to block all followers and delete your Google profile (which will delete all of your posts and connected sites) before clicking the turn off buzz link.

Abysmal…

Update 4: New York Times puts everything together here. Hopefully more people read this and hopefully massive changes are done to Buzz. A single click “opt out” would be nice. Also I’m unsure if “blocking all followers” means I lose everybody on Google Reader? I might need to get a hotmail account.

I have these thoughts because recently I’ve been playing a game called “Lost Odyssey“.

I don’t think I know a single person I could possibly recommend this game to.

I beat it and put at least 50+ hours into it.

The game is a plays like a traditional JRPG with all the pros and cons that come along with it’s given genre. Bulleted list time.

• The FMV’s are in beautiful 720p HD.
• The incessant loading screens are borderline unbearable.
• The main storyline, the idea of immortality, is truly interesting till the end.
• Inconsistent boss checkpoints standard/ save point system blows.
• Voice acting is above standard.
• For average RPG players grinding will occur to be able to complete the game.
• A Thousand Years of Dreams sequences are a strong mechanic and have interesting, emotional stories.
• Battle pace is very slow.
• For Turn Based Combat there are some interesting twists Final Fantasy old schoolers will appreciate.
• I hate having children (Cooke/Mack) in my Party (See Palom and Porom).
• As expected the soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu is fantastic.
• Having to watch the entire ending sequence plus credits to unlock the final achievement sucks.

This could go on for ages.

I originally got into this game in a  lonely mans hunger of a more traditional RPG experience after playing Mass Effect 1 last April. Only recently have I gotten back into the game after originally losing interest and recently working hard on finishing previously purchased games rather then continually buying new ones.

A few weeks ago I actually attempted to battle the final boss. This includes fighting two bosses  that during many unexpected scripted elements  on top of requiring a large amount of time to work though my first attempt ended when the final form does “Stone” on my entire party and I die. This is very late into the fight and I lost at least over an hour of time including watching cut scenes. One skill I didn’t equip my team was a block to Stone and I lose unable to fight anymore. This is 3am in the morning and I was utterly demoralized. I felt I deserved to win I put in more then enough time into this game and I screwed up one thing and I had to try again. My brain hurt I was furious. And I wanted my 125g.

Yesterday I plotted a plan to tackle Gongora one more time.

Leveled my characters, went to the auction house, learned new skills and equipped the right ones.

Though this frustration I understood why JRPG’s  still attracts me. Even though the combat isn’t as exhilarating as so called “Modern Combat” these games never attempt to give the fake gamey feeling of ‘balance’.  Lost Odyssey absolutely requires you to understand the game mechanics to excel. It’s not trial and error, it’s not the game cheating you. At times things are hard for a reason and mostly it’s your own damn fault.

There has been discussion on the internet (recommended – nobody is going to listen/read ect Part 1 Part 2) of why the popularity of JPRG’s has diminished. Honestly I feel the same way to a degree mostly saddled by my memories of previous titles I’ve enjoyed a lot more then recent offerings. Also I don’t know a single person I would even come close to recommended a JRPG to anymore where as in High School I had a series of friends that shared a similar zest for this type of entertainment. Tastes change I see mostly around time constraints and that is understandable.

It’s sad to a degree. Recently I’ve been playing in small doses for over six months Final Fantasy XII and it’s very well put together. Action oriented and built for smaller one hour dose play times. I would love to see people play it and be able to discuss it but knowing so many people turned off after Final Fantasy X I don’t blame them.

Thankfully nobody was around last night when I beat the game. Seriously I did a David Draiman fist pump and overall my mood is lightened.