Happy Birthday To Me

This past weekend it was my birthday. The entire weekend was pretty uneventful. I got a bunch of gift cards and some jerky and meat sticks. Actually the meat sticks were some of the best that I have ever had.

I was wondering what to blow my birthday money on and then I realized that the new Guitar Hero World Tour for the XBox 360 should be coming out soon. In fact, it will be out October 27th. Unlike Rock Band, this new game is going to have GOOD peripherals. The drums and the microphone are supposed to be way better than what is currently available for the Rock Band game. I actually bought Rock Band and immediately took it back when, right out of the box, the drums and the mic didn't work.



For you Guitar Hero fans, this new edition is supposed to be something special. Make sure you check out this other video on YouTube (embedding code disabled by request?). Once I pick it up I will make sure I write a review about it.

 

Review Of Rock Band On The XBox 360

It's no secret that I like video games and have been "rockin' out" to Guitar Hero 3 for several months now. I have about 6 or 7 songs left to beat on hard and it's NOT going well. I can't seem to get my pinky finger working. My poor unused digit starts to ache and then it begins clicking and it's all down hill from there.

The other day i decided to go out and pick up Rock Band and see what it was all about. I started to unpack everything and began the assembly. The Guitar was the fist thing out of the box. After some assembly, I immediately noticed that the new black and white (corded) guitar was really flimsy. It was lighter than my normal "Explorer" guitar and the fret buttons appeared to be a lot cheaper. Also, the "strummer" didn't have that familiar click that the explorer had, it was more, well uh, "musy." It did have a couple of cool features, there was an effects selector to determine sounds during solos and a second set of fret keys down closer to the body of the guitar. The general feeling I got from the guitar is that IT WAS CHEAP.

The drums came out next and went together very nicely. The only thing I noticed was that the cord for the bass pedal seemed short. I tried out the drums on the training mode in an attempt to get the hang of it. After about 40 minutes of playing, the drums quit working. Yep, they just quit working. NO, not just one of them as indicated on so many discussion boards, but the entire set. No power, nothing! Well, that was disheartening to say the least.

Next out of the box was the mic. I plugged it into the supplied USB powered hub and guess what? IT didn't work. Great! I was afraid to plug in the guitar and see if that would work. What do you know, it did! I ended up playing the game with a friend for about an hour.

I have no complaints about the game play. The concept is fun, the graphics are OK, (the are better on GH3) and the music selection is outstanding. However, it seemed like you had to play a bunch of the songs over and over as you went from city to city. Now that I think about it, it's just like a real rock band I guess.

The next day I took it back to target and got my money back, even though the box said not to do that. Yeah right. Target took it back and simply asked the question, "was there anything wrong with the product?" To which I responded, "yep, 2 out of the 3 items don't work."

Today before writing this I went out in search of information about the Rock Band peripherals and it seems that the quality is suffering across the board. Initially, I was thinking that I got a lemon, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Evidently there is a 3rd party vendor getting ready to launch some peripherals. I may wait for those.

Bottom line - It's not worth it, YET! I will probably go out and get the game by itself and maybe an extra guitar, but that's it for now. Give it some time and you should be able to build your band set with some quality pieces from other manufacturers and have tons of fun with 3 other friends. It should be worth the wait.

 

Halo 3: The Review

After playing it for the first time the other night, I just have to say something about it. Halo 3 is simply awesome. If it weren't for the XBox 360 crashing all the time I could waste even more countless hours playing the stupid thing.

OK, here's the Skinny. The game play is fantastic. New weapons, new vehicles, and even better maps for the player vs. payer mode. The story line is well thought out and the cinematic interludes are a welcome break. Your character has some new abilities. You are now able to carry special extras like bubble shields, flare, deflectors, power-drains and all kinds of other things.

There are all kinds of new vehicles. A 4-wheeler "ATV" type thing, a new "chopper", a new flyer for the good guys and a new tank. This is what Broadsideonline had to say. "Halo 3 is unique in that almost anyone can easily pick up and play. The control scheme is straightforward and solid, making even the most First Person Shooter-inept players feel right at home, while instantly enjoying taking out the monstrous hordes of alien Covenant forces and the disgustingly zombie-like Flood. Players run through the campaign or story mode as Master Chief, the last surviving member of the elite Spartan military group. Able to run faster and jump higher with abnormal human strength, players can be all they can be while running the gauntlet of enemy forces as Master Chief. The campaign mode offers a wide variety of locations to go through, each extremely detailed and beautiful to look at."

If you have a 360, I would highly recommend checking picking up a copy. You won't be disappointed.

I know, I know - this doesn't have anything to do with marketing, but then a gain maybe it does. There was so much hype about Halo 3, game store literally had tens of millions of dollars in pre-launch deposits. There were excellent pre-release trailers on TV, and the gaming magazines were giving Halo 3 their full attention. The Canadian press reports, "...over $170 million in sales on day one and calling it the biggest entertainment launch in history... $170 million works out to, at most, 2.83 million copies of "Halo 3" - a fraction of the 8.3 million "Harry Potter" books that sold in the United States on their respective premiere days."

The Halo 3 buying frenzy had an unpredicted side effect. The week that the game launched, Microsoft enjoyed a doubling of the previous week's sales to the highest level yet for 2007.
And in addition, the return of Master Chief meant the system outsold the Nintendo Wii for the first time in 26 weeks.

 

The Growing Game Console Market

The game console market hit a high in 2007 with a record 12.8 billion dollars being spent. From the Xbox360 and PS3 to the Wii, people are spending a record amount on systems and games. Jupiter Research says that by 2008, the game console penetration for households in the U.S. will be more than 50%.

During the 80's, I remember pumping countless quarters into the newest games that found their way into the arcades of the day. This was when the the Atari 2600 and eventually the Commodore 64 were the kings of home gaming. Obviously, video games have come a LONG way since the days of Space Invaders and PacMan. The market back then was a pretty specific demographic. Today, if you take a look at the players of video games, it spans a much broader demo. Some gaming authorities claim this level of spending is contributed to the innovation brought to the table from software producers and hardware manufacturers. I think there are additional factors that have contributed as well. Consumers that have always played video still do. Whether it is on a PC or a gaming console, the market for potential customers continues to grow as the people are tending not to drop out of the market. I know quite a few 40 year-olds that are playing video games with their children as well as friends. High speed Internet access and online gaming has introduced a new element that will continue to grow as the industry provides new and more complicated games that are tailored to the older generation of gamers.

Advertisers have been on board with this trend for some time now. The next time you are playing your favorite game, take a moment to look at the surroundings. See how many ads you see in the game. Most games, that have a modern setting, have some form of ads in them. From Pepsi and Coke to Quaker State and Pennzoil. For those of you have have played around in Second Life, you know exactly what I am talking about.

 

Boxhead

The newest installment in the Boxhead franchise has just been released. For those of you who have been waiting...here it is.