There’s no doubt Rock Band turned up the gain on mock rock video games, but this fall Activision will be firing back with the next installment of Guitar Hero – which evidentially is no longer just for guitars. The same Rock Band assortment of instruments will be part of the new game (mic for vocals, one guitar for lead and one for bass, and drums).
I’m really excited about the new drum kit. It’s like someone listened to my gripes about Rock Band’s set and ran with it. The cymbals pads will now be dedicated (no split duty with toms) and elevated above the other pads. Reportedly, the pads will be more quiet, and will be velocity sensitive (harder hits = louder sounds in-game). And as a very practical evolution, the drum kit will be wireless! Hopefully, they’ve got a better, more durable design for the kick drum pedal and I’ll be all set.
I’d still prefer to see a hihat located more on the far left and an additional tom pad, but these are steps in the right direction without taking up too much more space. Heck, I’d really prefer separate pads you can move around to suit your tastes, but now I know I’m crossing the line toward the real deal.
EDIT 6/02/08: better photo added
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Pros:
- It’s Indiana Jones
- Campy 50s schtick (when it works)
- Constant action (motorcycle chase, jungle chase)
- A few comedic bits that work
Cons:
- Aliens, WTF!
- Campy 50s schtick (when it doesn’t)
- Where are all the cool traps?
- Cate Blanchett’s terrible Russian accent
- Tarzan vine swinging
- CGI overkill
The verdict: Entertaining, but…weird. As they say, it’s the journey not the destination. It’s a good thing the journey in this flick is decent enough because I hate where it ended up.
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Last weekend was pretty active for watching movies – which means I was largely inactive. Here’s a quick rundown:
Iron Man
Exceeded my expectations! Not a thinker’s flick by any means, but finally a comic conversion I actually enjoyed, a lot. Granted, I’ve always like the idea of this billionaire inventor who actually engineers his way to super herodom, instead of all the freak cosmic ray mishaps that transform your usual caped/web throwing reluctant hero (thinking about it now, I guess Bruce Wayne is similar to Tony Stark, but Stark’s stuff is way better). Nice post-credits teaser, too.
An Inconvenient Truth
D and I finally sat down to watch this and it was very interesting. Like any docu, I suppose the info presented can be debated, but it is well done and engaging and the data depicted (and in particular the rate of change in the data) is alarming. We followed it with watching an update Gore gave at a recent TED talk. Who’s ready for solar panels and a hybrid? This guy. Heck, you can even get both in one.
Good Luck Chuck
Just like Dane Cook’s comedy – brash, crude, and at times, so much so to a fault. There’s some genuine laughs in there, but there’s a ton of in your face lowbrow gags as well. Not even Jessica Alba can make up for vision of Dane with the penguin in the closing credits.
Filed under Movies
I’m not going to go off on the current fascination with twitter. I’m not going to claim it doesn’t bring anything to social networking that can’t already be done 100 different ways. I’m not going to suggest it’s dragging down the signal to noise ratio of our infotainment sphere.
No, instead I’m just going to watch this for hours:
twittervision in 3D
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