Tying up some loose ends.

I’ve been rushing to finish up Lost Odyssey and R6V2 to make way for GTA4.  Having just completed the story in Lost Odyssey I can definitely recommend it to anyone who likes jRPG’s and has a 360.  It’s a solid game and I’m looking forward to going back to it and doing more side quests.  I’m close to finishing R6V2, just a few chapters left.  Hopefully I can rush that tonight, maybe in coop, and be totally ready for GTA on Tuesday.  I wanted to grab Mario Kart Wii this morning, but am currently without a car, so I’ll have to get that and talk about it later.

But they’re still calling it Guitar Hero?

This week Activion’s CEO, Bobby Kotick let slip that in Guitar Hero 4, “We’ll include a lot of other instruments, vocals.”  I’m assuming that this just means drums, bass and singing, not the keytar we are all waiting for.  I don’t really want GH to follow in Rock Band’s steps.  Guitar Hero was good for it’s ability to use songs that were very guitarcentric.  With the addition of drums and singing, they lose the one thing they had going for them.  Leave Rock Band to Rock Band, fools.  They’re still selling a ton, why mess with the formula and copy something else?  Also, if they think I’m going to buy a new plastic drum kit, they are out of their goddamn minds.  The little self respect I have won’t allow me to fill up my dorm room with two fake drum sets.  I don’t care how much better their drums are, if I can’t use my Rock Band drums with the game, I’m not playing drums in the game.  Period.  The biggest thing either of these games can do to stand out is make it so you can import your own music into the game.  That will probably end up being the deciding factor in this war.

They don’t understand this “internet”

Metal Gear Online had some huge hiccups in its already roundabout, long beta registration processed.  It’s not being done through PSN and you have to sign up for 2 different accounts to get in.  As I don’t own a PS3 this doesn’t really matter to me, but it did make me wonder.  Why not do it through PSN?  This seems to give a good amount of credit to the on going rumor that this could be coming to 360.  I can’t think of any other reason to take it out of the systems built in online structure.  Or this could just be another sign that Japan doesn’t do online gaming very well at all.

It’s been a slow week.

After hearing about Rock Band 2’s marketing campaign being put together, I noticed a small mention of it on 1up.  According to them, it is coming this fall, but there won’t be any new hardware.  I’m glad I won’t have to buy some new fake instrument, but why bother putting out a new one at all?  I thought their plan was to make it a platform, not a yearly installment heavy series.  It’s not the end of the world to have to switch discs to play different songs, but their DLC is going so well I don’t see the point in another physical product.  Maybe they’re figured out a way to let you play all the old stuff you have (including the songs on the disc for the first game) in the second one.  I sure hope so.

Quote of the Week

“I stopped in front of the sluttiest woman I could find and honked the horn, she didn’t get in my car, meaning she wasn’t a hooker.  And I was like, ‘God fucking damn it.’  So I ran her over!  Just because I was annoyed.  I didn’t even feel like running people over.  I just wanted to kill her for not being a hooker.”

-Chris Kohler (Game|Life) on Retronauts episode 41, discussing GTA.

This week’s Defeated is brought to you by: TI-86.  It’s the ninja of hand held gaming systems.