Something nifty this way comes…

I knew something important was coming up soon…hmm…what was it?

• 23rd wedding anniversary (October 30)?
• My departure for the Army Warrior Transition Course (Nov 1)?
• The most important election of our lifetime so far (Nov 2)?

Oh yeah, that’s right -- none of these!

Rock Band 3 releases on October 26th! I’ve had this on pre-order for a long time and I’m looking forward to getting some keytar goodness.

In addition to all the cool features of Rock Band 3 like the seven player support, harmonies, great support for party play, and improved set list management, it also has a new character creator and an awesome set list.

I know what you are really waiting for is my list of the first five songs I’ll be playing on Tuesday, so without further ado…

1. New Order “Blue Monday” (Gamestop pre-order bonus)
2. B-52s “Rock Lobster”
3. Big Country “Big Country”
4. INXS “Need You Tonight”
5. Whitesnake “Here I Go Again”

…and a bonus #6 – Talking Heads “Burning Down The House”.

And I’m not forgetting our anniversary – we’re going to Daniel’s on Monday night (my better half is going to a conference out of town later in the week).

Enjoy your Tuesday!

Ladys and Gentlemen...The Beatles!

I've just come from picking up my copy of The Beatles for the Xbox 360 at GameStop.
It is only the crushing press of scheduled afternoon meetings that is preventing me from even now claiming Swine Flu and making a bee-line home to my fake plastic instruments to take it for a spin.
One cool thing is that it includes a Beatles shirt for your avatar. I can think of at least one person at my house who will be very excited about that.
And another cool thing that I noticed from the package is that you can have up to six players, which makes sense - drums and two guitar/bass plus up to three microphones.
As a bonus for pre-ordering - which I did yesterday afternoon, it comes with a code for three free download songs that apparently you get to choose from a selection. There's only one public downloadable song right now ("All You Need Is Love"), so not sure how that will work. I left it all in the car so I could actually get some work done this afternoon.
I also have a class tonight, so I won't actually get my mitts on this until about 7pm.

We picked up our new and improved drum controller (with cymbals) on Monday and it is pretty cool. Can't wait to take it for a spin on the Ed Sullivan show or in the Cavern Club with the Fab Four.

BTW, MSNBC had a fun little piece on the "funnest Beatles songs to play". I also saw some mention about some of the things Harmonix did in the development of the game to make it more approachable for n00bs who just want to play some Beatles music - like having all the songs unlocked out of the box and having Easy Mode always be "No Fail". Pretty smart.

You don't need to be good at it to enjoy it

There are two things you don't need to be good at to enjoy.

One of them is video games.

I feel like I spend a lot of time gaming. In truth, I probably don't really. My Puritan work ethic prevents long spells of any leisurely activity.

I might spend maybe two hours per week playing a game of some sort - under ordinary circumstances. Some weeks I play no games at all. Some weeks I might play Rock Band with the family for four hours in one evening.

And then we have the approximately 30 hours I spent over my Christmas vacation playing Advance Wars on my DS. When you've played a game so long you need to recharge the DS, you know you are doing some world-class time-wasting.

But even with all that, I really just suck at video games. I've sucked at video games since the Atari 2600 days - when my mom and I would get laughing so hard at making the Atari Basketball characters dance around we couldn't play the game. According to Alan Cooper, I should probably have given up, since I have not even attained Perpetual Intermediate status.
I am pretty sure the only games I've ever played to completion are:

• Goldeneye 007 on the N64. Still one of the greatest and most playable shooters ever and one of the very few movie licensed games ever to not suck.



• Freedom Fighters on Xbox 1. This is a seriously fun and interesting and OVERLOOKED game. Great story.



• Ghost Recon 2 on Xbox 1. I admit I used a walkthrough for a couple levels though. I'm ashamed.



• Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike on Xbox 1. This shouldn't really count as another game.



• Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter on Xbox 360. This time it is south-of-the-border butt kicking time.



• Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter 2 on Xbox 360. I actually played GRAW2 before GRAW1. I got it for Christmas 07 and it is really short and I finished it and loved it, so I secretly bought GRAW1 used for $9 and played that over Christmas last year too. Shhhh.

I came very close to finishing Crimson Skies on Xbox 1. I still have the save point on the last mission. Every now and then I try to play it through.

In fact, as an oldster, there's something about the idea of "finishing" a game that sort of rubs me the wrong way. In my day (that's old timer talk), games just got harder and harder until you reached some generally theoretical maximum like the number of digits in the score or in the level number or something like that. My lovely and talented wife actually believes that when a game says "over 100 levels" there are really only like 10 levels and they make level 10 impossibly hard.

On the Xbox 360, the Achievements system really forces me to play through games a lot more than I would normally do because I want my overall GamerScore to get up there to a respectable level.

Now, I've heard that some people I work with actually pay their kids to get achievements on their account, but come on now.

I spent about an hour in Frogger in early December trying to escort 3 lady frogs to their homes in one level to get the achievment.

So, I'm not a Pinball Wizard. I buy a lot of games, but I don't necessarily play a lot of games. I'm sure from the standpoint of the people getting the royalties, this is just fine by them. :-)

I say it loud and proud - I suck at video games...and I still like to play them anyway!!! So dance on little Basketball guys...dance on.