Steam Summer Sale 2012!

If you're like my friends who haven't fired up Steam for over a month (love that buddylist feature), Valve's infamous Summer Sale has been under way for about a week now. The format isn't quite as charming as last year's summer camp theme, but the hook this time is that a few times a day, we get to vote on what game (out of three) we want massively discounted next. Also, there are some achievements for doing things in Steam itself, but a scaled-back version of the multiple cheevos each day, last Summer.

Personally, I've been rather underwhelmed with the selection so far, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that of all the games that have been on sale this time around, I already own them. Oh, my first-world problems! What have I gotten thus far?

1. Two DLC characters for Dungeon Defenders
2. Trine 2
3. Mount & Blade: Warband - Napoleonic Wars and With Fire & Sword DLC
4. Europa Universalis III: Divine Wind
5. Take on Helicopters and the With Hinds DLC

 There's seventy-six items on my wishlist, so it's not like there's nothing I'm interested in. The one game I'm really hoping to see 75% off is Warlock: Master of the Arcane. Anywho, time to get in some Tribes: Ascend before bed. I never thought of myself as a Tribes-player, but it's grown on me rather quickly.

Blacklight: Retribution first impressions

I'm a sucker for ambiance, especially when it's tied into game mechanics, and BLR really hits that sweet spot for me. The two big mechanics, the augmented reality visors and big, clunky mechs, add just enough spice to the standard game modes to not make the game feel generic (a problem I had with the previous BL game). My only gripe so far is how the menus are constantly reminding you of ways to spend real money in-game. Compared to TF2, it strikes me as the devs and/or publisher not having much respect for the players beyond a revenue stream. Anyway, for the price it's definitely worth checking out. I bought the starter pack when it was on sale, and I'm not regretting it.

Street Fighter x Tekken: Redbox Review

Intro
Street Fighter games I've played:
SFII, SFII CE, SFII SCE, SFII Turbo, Super SFII, SF Alpha, SFA2, SFA3, SFIII, Super SFIV
Tekken games I've played:
1, 2, 3, 4 (briefly), Tag Tournament, 5, Dark Resurrection, 6
I generally prefer the generally projectile-less Tekken style of gameplay, but Ryu and I go back a ways. Two great tastes that taste great together, right? ...kinda.

Highly Lethal Artwork
The visuals and sound are straight from Street Fighter IV, which make this game a sight to behold. The characters and backgrounds have a cell-shaded look that make them appear to be graphic novel panels come to life. Each paired team has custom pre-match animations, which range from spine-tingling aweseome (Ryu & Ken) to just silly (Zangief & Rufus). Throw in victory-screen dialog and cinematic ending videos, and I found myself playing through the Arcade mode for the storylines. There weren't very many backgrounds, but they were quite colorful and animated, with cameos by SF and Tekken characters that didn't make it into the roster. The music is fitting, but none of the songs were particularly memorable.

Getting Up to Speed
For all the SF and Tekken games listed above, I've never devoted myself to truly mastering a character, much less getting competitive with one. Therefore, first stop for me was the Training mode. In an effort to get new players up to speed, Training mode has twenty Trials (read: exercises) per character to make sure you know a character's special moves and some combos. It's wonderful in theory, but the implementation is rather awkward. For each Trial, the sequence of moves is displayed on the screen, but only the names of special moves. If you have not memorized the names, pressing the Back button (for Xbox 360) displays all of the key presses for the entire sequence. It works, but for multiple attempts to learn a combo with a handful of Japanese terms in the directions, the process gets old really quickly. Also, completion of an Trial displays a victory sequence, with animations for both characters on screen. This isn't a problem if you're looking to master an individual combo, but for running through a sequence of familiar fireballs, hurricane kicks, and dragon punches, those extra moments add up. An example of a well-done list of exercises is the Dead or Alive series; their training mode will cycle through on-screen commands as fast as you can execute them. This may be my lack of devotion to a single character/game showing, but I found myself plateauing around exercise 13 or so, even for familiar characters like Ryu. The game will not show you what the combos are supposed to look like, so you're left to trial & error to figure out the tempo of button presses.











Call me a Luddite, but the ever-increasing complexity of systems in fighting games have been a turn-off in the last few years. (How many ways can I use Cross Gauge energy???) Thankfully there's a tutorial for the unique mechanics in this game, but like the Trials, it's awkward. The infamous Dan from SF games makes a cameo as an instructor, complete with narration. At first it's amusing to hear him ramble on and generally act dorky, but you'll find yourself hammering on the Start button pretty quickly to get to the actual instructions.

In the Fight
As much as I dislike multiple systems to keep track of in the heat of battle, it's nice to know that there's multiple ways to switch between characters. This is encouraged because a round is over as soon as one character is knocked out. This also makes it easier to learn a new character, since you can pair them with someone you're already familiar with to provide backup. Another system that affects you within matches is Gems, a concept almost harkening back to Marvel Superheros and one that I'm on the fence about. Each character has two loadouts for trios of gems; you edit loadouts outside of matches, and choose a loadout when you select characters before a match. Gems can be used to augment abilities (deal more damage, move faster) or assist you (reduce damage taken, auto-block), and have conditions for when they're activated, such as after sustaining X number of hits. Customizability is always nice, although there's something to be said for knowing that the only difference between your opponent and you is their characters and player skill. Also, the numbered list of available gems has quite a few holes in it, hinting at unlockables, so there may be balance issues if the most skilled players also have access to more powerful gems as well.

Online Play: No Noobs Allowed
Hopefully this issue will get fixed in time, but as of 3/15/2012, lag is so terrible that online matches are nearly unplayable and often are reduced to slideshows. When you can get a decent connection, you'll get the joy of experiencing a poor matchmaking system. This may be from a small pool of players from which to be paired against, perhaps a flaw in determining a well-matched pair, not promoting skilled players quickly enough, or a combination of any of those, but even when set for the "same" skill level, I was being paired with opponents who were vastly superior to me. They get bored from no challenge, I get frustrated at the utter inevitability of death, no one wins. At this point my only recourse is to play offline until I'm able to pull of a 15-hit juggle combo, and then I can begin to play online.

Something worth noting separately is that although two players can fight cooperatively online, for Xbox 360 it requires both teammates to have their own console and XBL Gold account. (Four players can fight in pairs locally, however.) Allegedly this has something to due with the architecture of XBL, although other games *cough(Halo series, UT3)cough* prove that it is fully possible.

Bells & Whistles
Every developer now seems to think that they need unlockable player titles, and Capcom has implemented this in the same way as SSFIV. As far as additional modes, there is a fairly useless character editor, due to lack of color options beyond defaults+white+black, and Missions, where you're given a unique condition for the match (no special moves, only Supers, etc.).

Conclusions
Street Fighter x Tekken is meant for hardcore fighting fans. Although there are systems in place to attempt to ease newcomers into the game, they are not implemented in a user-friendly way, and the gameplay has so much depth as to be unfathomable for anyone not already used to Capcom 2D fighters.

There is something else, however, that will keep me from ever buying this game unless a Game of the Year edition is released: on-disc DLC. Roughly a third of the content in the game is inaccessible, including 12 full characters, and you must pay to unlock it. I have no problem with DLC (it gives the development team something to work on after the game goes to the DVD factory), but if content is finished by the time the game "goes gold" and it's on the $60 disc, it's a blatant money-grab to intentionally withhold it from your customers. To add insult to injury, Capcom has allegedly had Youtube videos removed that show the "DLC" characters in use. I understand Capcom is a business and businesses exist to make money, but as long as this practice continues I refuse to further financially reward a company that has this little respect for their customers.

Steam Holiday Sale! (and Origin)

*sings*
"It's the most wonderful time, of the year!"

Now through January first, there are all sorts of crazy deals on Steam (Portal 2 for $7.50!), and like during their Summer Sale, there are rewards for earning Achievements in certain games, which coincidentally are also on sale. We even get a daily reward for using various features of the system. I have a 'coupon' for 30% off a Valve game; I already have all of their games, so the discount will probably go towards a gift. Seeing so many deals for AAA titles, I think I've reached the point where I can resist buying them for full MSRP and instead wait for the inevitable sale. Combined with the explosion of F2P games, it's a good time to be a PC gamer.

With that said, after perusing Steam I decided to fire up Origin to see what kind of holiday deals they are offering as competition. (I needed my BF3, don't judge me!!!) Drumroll please...

• The Sims 3: Barnacle Bay
• Bulletstorm

I can't even tell if those two being half-off have anything to do with the time of the year. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why Origin is destined to fail. EA is simply clueless. When physical production costs are reduced to $0.00, there's no reason for a downloaded game to cost exactly the same as what you'd find at Best Buy. And on a tangent, Origin apparently can't remember that Show: Favorites means it is not supposed to show everything attached to my account. Why does EA even bother to still display the BF3 Alpha and Beta? You can't install them any more.

Steam Deal of the Day: Arcadia

For $1.70 today, you can get a rather blatant clone of Geometry Wars on Steam. Has anyone played Arcadia? I'd love to know if there is anything to differentiate it from GW. At the very least, the soundtrack sounded neat (assuming the trailer is representative).

Midweek Madness: $15 Portal 2 (and free DLC)

This week on Steam, Portal 2 is on sale through Thursday afternoon for $15! If you haven't experienced this game, buy it. Now. Although familiarity with the first Portal will give extra meaning to the beginning of the story, it isn't necessary to appreciate just how amazing this game is.

The DLC, titled "Peer Review", adds a Challenge Mode for both single- and multiplayer, and leaderboards for proving your obvious superiority to your friends.

Now I just need to clear some space off of my hard drive to reinstall it....  :>

I'm in the top three for the Bounty Hounds Online caption contest! X-D

Take a look at my captioning above, and if you like it, up-vote it. If I win, I'll receive a Nox Audio headset and 50,000 in-game credits. To see the other two finalists, go here. Voting is from now until the 5th. Excelsior!

Steam Weekend Deal: Frozen Synapse at 50% off

Frozen Synapse is now on sale for $12.50, or $15 for the soundtrack included. I've been wanting this for a while, so once I get it installed I may have to gush a little. Each purchase gets you two copies, so if you can find a friend to split the costs, even better! Or, now that you can trade extra copies of games on Steam, it might be worth it to wait until after the weekend, and see if you can trade the extra away for another game. Or more hats.

Humble Indie Bundle 3

If you haven't heard, there's once again a Humble Indie Bundle sale going on, for another five days. I think it's a wonderful idea for a fundraiser, and for the first time I threw my $.02 in (and then some). I haven't played all of the games yet, but here's a rundown of the ones I have tried:

Cogs: as a puzzle game, once you see some images/videos, you know what to expect. I like it, although I'm not too good at it yet.

VVVVVV: this was a pleasant surprise for me. The graphics are C64-style, including the loading screen ( X-D ), and the gameplay mechanics are almost Atari-simple. That said, there's a dorky certain charm about it. I can't help but notice that when you die, your character's expression goes from a big grin to a frown. The hook for me is that you're exploring and mapping out a rather large world, like in a Metroid or Castlevania game. There may not be any Steam 'cheevos, but I want to at least fill in the entire map. :-}

And Yet It Moves: I love this one. After a few minutes you start getting into a rhythm, and the experience changes from fighting to get used to the controls into enjoying the visually surreal environments. I'm rather excited to try for the 'cheevo that involves passing a level by just rotating it, without directly moving the character.

Since I paid a little more than the average donation, I also received the games from HIB 2. That was a really nice surprise, since I let time slip away and missed out on them originally...

Braid: Originally I had played this on the 360, but I'm wagering that there aren't any significant differences. The game is beautiful to look at, haunting to listen to, has some of the most original gameplay I've experienced in years, and has a surprisingly powerful finale. That said, if you want to know what the game is really about (Spoiler Alert!): It's the atomic bomb. Although the game is a masterpiece, the creator always struck me as pretentious.

Next I want to try out Machinarium, Cortex Command, and Revenge of the Titans, and eventually I'll get to them all. I was a little saddened that Cortex Command isn't currently available on Steam, as all the rest are, but I just need to clear out some hard drive space and fire up the installer. If you're still on the fence, go check out http://www.humblebundle.com/ and see how much money has been raised for Child's Play, the EFF, and the developers. It's pay-what-you-want, so even $1 will help and you'll get some neat games.

TF2 F2P: Why I'm Not Bitter

So, Team Fortress 2 is now free-to-play. Is this good? Bad? I say mostly good. If you're unfamiliar with Valve's model for the game, free-players only get basic item drops, can't instigate trades, and some other limits. If you're content with the default weapons or are uninterested in getting fancy hats, you might not notice what you're missing out on. By making any purchase through the in-game store, you get upgraded to a Premium account, which is the same as if you bought the game at retail. I feel slightly bad for anyone who recently paid full price (hi Maggie!), since all they get is a hat for their $20, but I'm not bitter about the game I paid for (three years ago?) becoming free.

So many of my friends are gamers, but when I consider how many of them:
...play on PC, and
.....use Steam, and
.......play TF2, it's not surprising that I've never played TF2 with any of my friends. Now that there is no financial barrier to entry, they have no excuse to not at least try it. And anyone who has gamed socially knows, games are exponentially more fun with friends. Being able to unite your R/L friends in one or two games will make their first experiences better as well, since they'll have each others' support and won't have to deal with as many jerks online, nor alone.

I will suck less. By comparison.
With the exceptions of the original Dead or Alive and Wipeout XL, I've never focused so much on one game that I become truly great at it. With a whole slew of new players who are worse than me, hopefully future matches won't be the trainwrecks of hyper-competitive players insulting their own teammates because not everyone is playing at an e-sports level of efficiency.

Be ready to do some coaching, 2Fort combat vets.
The downside to a whole slew of new players is that the absolutely larval newbies may still be learning basic strategies, like an Ubercharge on a Heavy is a bit more valuable than on a Sniper. Or even how to use Ubercharge. If the old-timers simply get frustrated and start filling the voice channels with feces, that impression is going to stay with the newbie and harms the community as a whole.

I find it fascinating to hear that already, some veteran players are using their Proof of Purchase hats to distinguish themselves from newcomers. We'll see if human nature drags down the gaming utopia that Valve appears to be working towards, but I for one welcome this grand experiment in PC gaming. I don't believe that full retail games will ever die out, but hopefully this will spur other large game developers to try out F2P financial models.

Steam F2P: Round One

Steam is now distributing a handful of microtransaction-based free-to-play games, and the first one I'm trying is Forsaken World. With some more playtime I'll write a review, but so far in the first hour or so I haven't found any deal-breakers. The graphics remind me of WoW but not as angular, so it runs quite well on my aging gaming rig. Overall it feels a tad generic, but there's still plenty of opportunities for unique gameplay to emerge.

MineCraft on Xbox 360?!

At E3 on Monday, Microsoft announced that MineCraft would be coming out on Xbox 360 sometime near the end of the year. Normally I wouldn't care, but a couple specifics caught my eye:

• cross-platform functionality between 360 and PC
• Kinect support

I can't help but wonder why bother including Kinect support, other than to add a bulletpoint. It doesn't seem like the kind of game that would be improved at all by marching in place, flailing your arms, and/or saying "inventory" aloud vs. using a controller. Whatever cross-platform features are implemented should be more interesting... and ACHIEVEMENTS!

Hackers Ruin CoD: Black Ops Matches Also

I was excited to see that Call of Duty: Black Ops is having a free (multiplayer) weekend on Steam. That is, until I encountered one or more game hackers in a match. If you've never played a recent CoD game, one of the handy features is a "kill cam" showing who killed you, from where. After getting killed immediately upon spawning (multiple times), I watched the kill cam for as long as it displayed. The camera of the player in question was moving in an unnaturally jerking manner, racking up kills through multiple layers of walls. It was quite obvious that this wasn't the behavior of a normal player, and 'his' 77-0 kill/death ratio seemed a bit odd as well. Teammates agreed that it just wasn't fun anymore, and we all left the match.

This is why I don't mind paying $50-60/year for Xbox Live. It may be a walled garden, but Microsoft at least tries to keep an even playing field by punishing cheaters. Only time will tell if CoD: World at War settles down from an online Wild West, but between that and Black Ops on PC, I won't be taking for granted a fair (fire)fight any time soon.

Playing with Imaginary Friends

In CoD: Black Ops, you can play "Combat Training" bot matches. It surprised me to find that the PC version names the bots after people on your Steam buddylist. It was nifty at first, until I thought about how few of them would actually play a FPS online, let alone B.O. *le sigh*

CoD: WaW Hackers

Looking through my pile of clearance games to play, I decided to try out the multiplayer in Call of Duty: World at War. (Don't know why, but I recently heard the siren-song of ranking up in CoD again.) The first thing I noticed while waiting for the match to start was all sorts of colorful player names, some cycling through multiple hues. No biggie, that might just be a bonus at some insanely high level. Once I got into the match, however, things went downhill. The entire upper-left quadrant of the screen quickly filled up with automated messages from a couple players hawking a YouTube channel apparently about game modding (a bannable offence on XBL). I reported them, but soldiered on through the match since leaving early shows up as a loss on your record. It didn't help that occasionally I would see a player levitate across the level in mid-air. I can't prove this, but I think some of my opponents may have been invulnerable as well, unless there's a perk that allows you to survive melee attacks to the back of your head.

Normally I wouldn't care about what others are doing for fun, but the spamming messages obscure my vision, and I'm paranoid about getting suspended/banned from XBL because the automated matchmaking throws me into games that may be hosted on modified consoles.

My question is this: why is there so much blatant game modding in World at War? I play MW 1 and 2 also, but have never noticed such a flagrant disregard to the TOS. Is it simply because the game is older and not policed as strictly as the 'big guns' of XBL, MW2/BlackOps? Or is there something about WaW that makes it easier to hack? 

OnLive: It Just Works

Intro
The concept for OnLive is pretty cool: you install a small client program or use their set-top box with your TV, and as soon as you click the Buy button (or Free Trial button), you're playing the game, in flippin' sweet graphical goodness. No installs, play on any computer, easy peasy. The whole concept is that the games are running on their servers, so you're simply sending keystrokes/mousing to the server, and watching a video stream of the action in real-time. If you're computer can handle YouTube, it should be able to handle any game on OnLive. So, does it work as advertised?


OnWard to Victory!
I decided to try the 30-min. trial for Unreal Tournament III, a game that I already own. That way, I could compare the two experiences. Just like the company claims, as soon as I clicked the button to start the trial, I was looking at the title screen. I played a round of Warfare and one of CTF, against bots. I was a little curious how well a twitchy shooter like UTIII would work via streaming, especially since I use wi-fi (something OnLive doesn't recommend). If this works, the only thing more demanding regarding accuracy would probably be Homefront, since Counter-Strike isn't offered for some reason. ;)  Amazingly, it worked. Really well. There was a tiny bit of lag, but on par for me with playing online. Never did I wish I was playing my installed version instead, and that's the big thing for me; if you can forget that the game you're playing isn't installed on your computer, mission accomplished for OnLive.

If you don't want to be restricted to playing on a computer, purchasing some AAA-titles will score you an OnLive 'mini-console' for free. It's a little box that you plug into a wired internet connection, your TV via HDMI, and a USB keyboard and mouse if you don't feel like using the included wireless controller. When the price for the device is $100, spending $45 on Warhammer 40k: Space Marine (pre-order) and the mini-console and the game Darksiders doesn't seem that bad of a deal.

A nice bonus to having someone else handling your game's hardware is that the game will look as pretty as they can make it look. Although it's rather early to see this in action, one conceptual advantage to OnLive is that they can upgrade their servers to whatever's cutting edge, freeing you from the expensive cycle of hardware upgrades. Also, they offer a $9.99/month PlayPack subscription that gives you access to 50-something games at a time. Provided that the selection changes regularly, it would be like NetFlix for computer games. Some games also offer rentals for a few days at a time, something that you can't exactly do through Steam or store-bought PC games. Not all of the games offer this, but that may be the game publisher's decision.


OnDead
Maybe I've gotten too used to the Steam school of storefront aesthetics, but the vertical-scrolling list of available games seemed rather quaint. When your library of games is small, however, it works. As an unproven concept, OnLive is in a catch-22 where publishers don't want to invest in an unpopular system, but it won't become popular without compelling games/prices. The list of upcoming AAA titles like Duke Nukem Forever and the new Deus Ex are encouraging, but this definitely isn't Steam yet. One oddity when I was playing UTIII was that it was in widescreen format, with the video options being customized so I couldn't change it. I suppose that shows how determined OnLive is about promoting their service as an alternative to gaming consoles (vs. PC gamers). Just like Steam, if the company ever disappears so do your games. And with no local files at all, your OnLive games are VERY gone. For some reason I felt inspired to actually look over the TOS agreement when I updated the client, and something stood out to me: apparently OnLive can delete your account if you don't log in and actually use the service for a year. I'd be curious to see if the TOS for Steam has anything like this. I still reinstall old games on occasion (American McGee's Alice right now), and I'd hate to think that a chunk of my gaming library would just vanish if OnLive doesn't offer any new games that I'm interested in for a year or more.

This isn't a ding against OnLive, but I'm wondering if they're slightly ahead of their time given the current state of American internet access. When the ISPs have things like undisclosed bandwidth caps & traffic shaping to combat what they consider "excessive usage" of their advertised unlimited plans, it makes me nervous to pay full price for, and then play for hours on end, a game that could cause service charges or get my internet cut off for the rest of the billing cycle. (But considering how much NetFlix some of my friends watch on their Xbox 360, maybe I'm just paranoid. :> )


Conclusions
I really hope OnLive survives to reach the critical mass that Steam saw, with tons of new games big & small added all the time, and crazy-cheap sales. Right now I can't see myself paying $50-60 for a game when the company doesn't have a very long track record for their completely new concept yet, but if three things happen I could definitely see myself splitting my online purchases between OnLive and Steam:

1. OnLive emerges as a stable company that will still be around in a few years.
2. They offer impulse-buy sales for games. Under $10 is my sweet spot.
3. American ISPs legitimately upgrade their infrastructure, enabling truly unlimited, fast connections.

Also, if more games offer the rental option, I could definitely see myself trying them out on long weekends. I'd highly recommend downloading the client and playing a trial or two to test the OnLive service before plunking down any cash, but it's definitely something to keep an eye on. 

Bungie is Making a Steampunk Game

Bungie has sent word to Seattle's steampunk community (of which I am an upstanding member), that they need models for a photoshoot pertaining to an upcoming game. So to recap, my handsome mug might be in a steampunk video game, made by the Halo folks. My head just exploded from the awesome. Good thing I can touch type.

Minecraft!!!

Yep, I finally did it; sprung for the full version of Minecraft. The first thing I did? Started on an underground lair in the side of a small cove. I'd heard about the Creeps, so I wanted someplace safe to hide at night. The only way to get to it is by swimming, so it's been perfectly safe so far. As a kid that grew up with Legos (and still has them), I'm in heaven. <3

Lego Rock Band: Under-appreciated Gem?

INTRODUCTION
I've been playing plastic-guitar games since the original Guitar Hero came out for PS2, and have tried all of them except for RB: Green Day (one of these days, though). The descriptions for Lego Rock Band made it out to be a slightly different experience from RB1, which is apparently the era in which it was developed during. Was it worth the $10 at Gamestop? Read on.


THE FEEL
Not even completely through the teaser cinematic, it's obvious that this is meant to fit in with the other contemporary Lego games: a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the source material, that happens to be family-friendly. I couldn't help but notice that some of the pre-made characters are Lego versions of the RB standbys like the Duke of Gravity. Much like in RB3, cinematics are used to tell the story of your band's rise to superstardom. While demolishing a building, ghost hunting, and fighting off a sea monster, among other Challenges, I caught myself cracking up (and maybe even squeeing at one point) at the genuinely funny videos. And that's coming from someone jaded enough to not flinch at anything he encounters on /b/.


MECHANICS
If you've played any RB games, the gameplay is exactly the same. One small difference is that when you fail, you can work your own way back in without relying on a bandmate's star power. Since the game is meant to be accessible to younger players, the difficulty ratings for songs seems to be a bit more generous, and I believe there are a couple more ratings to better show differences in difficulty. My hard drive has exported tracks for RB1, 2, and a lot of downloaded songs; the game detected the RB1 and downloaded tracks, filtering out any that are apparently deemed inappropriate. It was nice having a decent number of songs to choose from, since the tracklist for Lego Rock Band is rather "meh" for me.

A nifty addition that the builder in me enjoyed is that you have a home-base that you navigate around rather than static menus for campaign stuff. Your band can be seen just hanging out, and the characters you hire such as your manager and roadies will occasionally wander through. As you progress through the campaign you will unlock decorative items to buy and position around your home, although there is not as much variety as in a game like The Sims. Along with your band members, the roadies and members of you entourage can be customized as well.


GRAPHICS, SOUND & CONTROLS
Exactly what you'd expect from the RB series. The visuals during the ghost-hunting challenge was the funniest (intentional) thing I've seen in a video game for as long as I can remember.


CONCLUSION
Will I be getting rid of Rock Band 3? Heck no. As a one-time experience, however, I'm loving Lego Rock Band. And for achievement-hunters, there's nothing too hard (except for the Endless Setlist). My usual RB buddies didn't really care for small issues such as long-ish load times, but that may be because we're quite used to the more-refined systems in RB3. For $10-20, you could do worse. A lot worse. *cough(GH Rocks the '80s)cough*

RIP Parabellum

Yesterday I was looking for stuff to clean off of my computer, and realized I still had Parabellum installed, that scamp of a F2P shooter with some innovative concepts but poor execution. I decided to give it one last chance before sending it to the same fate as the Companion Cube, but what happened when I tried to start it up?

It couldn't check for updates. The helper program for that, GamersFirst LIVE!, no longer shows Parabellum in its list of F2P games to download, nor does the GamersFirst website list it. Guess it was just too advanced for its time. Or a lousy game.