Bytica

As mentioned in yesterday’s update, I rounded up a few buddies from ScoreHero to play through the Rock Band Iron Maiden “Flight 666″ DLC and record some l33t videos. It was ridiculous fun: even though we were playing most of the songs cold, we gold-starred every single song, often before we even reached the main solo.

I’ve started posting videos from these runs to my YouTube account, which you can see below. More coming later this week!

Since the release of the first Guitar Hero, both hardcore players and metal fans have pleaded for the release of classic Iron Maiden songs. We got a few scattered covers like “The Trooper” in the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II, or “Run to the Hills” in Rock Band, but what we really wanted was a serious album-like release: give us all of “Peace of Mind” or “Powerslave,” etc.

What we got today was way better: a 12-song greatest-hits compilation based on the just-released “Flight 666″ documentary / DVD / live CD release, in stores today. (I guess 06/09/09 was as close as they could get to the Number of the Beast). As mentioned in my previous blog post, it’s got 8 studio tracks from various albums and a few live cuts, and it was party time in ScoreHero IRC last night as people stayed up late waiting for the Marketplace to go live with the release, with players posting their DL%’s in chat, eager to start playing through the DLC.

As expected, the DLC is HARD. Like, Megadeth “Peace Sells…” hard. On Expert guitar, the rhythm sections have the expected chugging, but the solos zigzag all over the place and there are a few parts that will undoubtedly have players scrambling to survive the song. The charting seems a little haphazard in places, but nothing worth a serious complaint.

My only disappointment, if I have one, is that two of my favorite songs, “Aces High” and “Hallowed By Thy Name,” are live tracks instead of studio versions. While I’m amazed at how good Bruce Dickinson still sounds, he (and pretty much everyone else on the planet) can’t help but strain to hit the high notes on “Aces High,” and while the live “Hallowed” is a solid version, it also has that loose, live feel that lacks some of the orignal’s magic. But even with that small caveat, it’s an absolutely fantastic DLC release that I know I’m still going to be playing years from now.

At the moment, I’m getting a feel for the guitar and vocal parts (I’ve gold starred 7/12 guitar tracks), in preparation for recording some all-star full-bad videos tonight and tomorrow. It’s going to be EPIC.

In previous years, the latest Guitar Hero game would at the top of my list of must-see games. But this year, a new GH game doesn’t really hold that same allure, because… what else can they do? In previous years, they added co-op, online play, switched from covers to master tracks, and then expanded to a full band. But now, there’s not much else to do but roll out new songs. So while Guitar Hero 5 will be a first-day purchase for me, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot of my E3 demo.

My instincts were right, as Neversoft has added a few cool features to the game but nothing earth-shattering. The big bullet-point is “party mode,” where people can drop in and out of songs on the fly — the screen condenses and expands to accommodate up to four instrument tracks (and the vocal line up top). Band play has been tweaked so each player has their own Star Power (instead of the entire group sharing one pool), and a little meter has been added to the vocal area so you can see exactly where you’re hitting and missing within each measure. (It also looks like the god-awful song selection list from GHWT and GHM has been overhauled, and it’s about time).

On the multiplayer side, there are a whole bunch of new modes: along with Pro Face-Off, there’s a mode that rewards players by maintaining streaks, one where players start at a medium difficulty and shifts up and down according to how well you play, and several other modifiers. In some ways, it feels like Neversoft is taking the multiplayer in the same direction as games like Unreal Tournament or Halo: there will always be pure deathmatch, but they’ll keep adding simple twists which can be toggled on or off, and maybe a few will catch on.

But what I’m most excited about is the set list, with songs like Tom Petty’s “Running Down a Dream” and Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” on it. Activision has already announced the entire artist list (Muse! Dire Straits!), and while the actual songs will come later, I feel pretty confident that, after GHWT’s lackluster setlist, Neversoft is making things lean and mean and all parties involved are looking are focused on getting the best songs. It doesn’t seem like there’s much innovation left on the game side, so maybe what we’ll see now is a year or two of the big music game makers focusing on refining their games, and hopefully GH5 will be the first step in that direction.

I’ve been a fan of the Infinity Ward team for a long time, starting with their work on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault when they were part of 2015, through the first Call of Duty and right up to 2007’s Modern Warfare. Just about every game they’re released placed high in our old GameSpy Game of the Year awards, and Modern Warfare 2 looks just as awesome.

The awesomeness came in the form of a behind-closed-doors E3 demo at the Activision booth, where they were showing a ice-covered level called “Cliffhanger.” Your character, “Roach,” is part of a special ops team grouped with a Captain MacTavish; the two of you start the level doing some ice climbing up the side of a mountain, and stealthily making your way around an enemy camp.

There are the expected scripted events, such as when you almost slip off the mountain and MacTavish grabs your hand at the last second, and a small bit of tutorial, such as MacTavish showing you how the heartbeat sensor on your rifle works. With all the wind and snow swirling around, you’re essentially invisible, and so the first section is loaded with lots of sneak-attack knife kills, as well as what I thought was a humorous moment when MacTavish tackles an enemy against a locker. Hey, nothing like slamming a guy against a metal locker to stay quiet.

Of course, things go to hell at some point, and you end up fighting your way across a large airfield, which also provides a convenient excuse for big stuff to blow up — something Infinity Ward has always been good at. The large -scale firefight leads up to the third section of the level: a roller-coaster snowmobile escape down the side of the mountain, complete with near-collisions, falling trees and impossible jumps.

While IW wasn’t answering questions about multiplayer, they did mention that there would be special co-op missions that unlock as you progress through the game. If you remember the airplane mission at the end of Modern Warfare, then you know what to expect: special one-off missions that sit outside the main storyline that you can play both cooperatively and competitively… which I just love.

You might be wondering, “well, how is this any different from other Call of Duty games?” In reality, other than the usual graphical improvements (which look impressive), it’s really not … and that’s just fine. In a way, Infinity Ward’s games show how pointless a show like E3 is: any developer could make a shooter and follow the CoD formula, just as Treyarch did last year with World at War, but there’s just some level of pacing, balance and polish that IW seems to get right — when you see their games, you want to play them, and once you stop playing, you don’t want to stop.

And as usual, Infinity Ward doesn’t show off these games years in advance; every single Call of Duty title shows up at E3 exactly once, a few months before a holiday release, and Modern Warfare 2 will be no different, coming on 11.10.09. In the words of Liz Lemon: I Want To Go To There.

A lot of people seemed kinda excited about Brutal Legend after seeing it at this year’s E3, but I’m having a hard time understanding why.

The demo that was running at both the EA and Microsoft booths showed what looked like a pretty basic action-adventure game, one in need of both polish and sizzle. One level had you driving a car racing towards… well, I’m not sure, because I never saw anyone finish the level. People kept driving off the side of a cliff, into the lava, or simply ending up lost without any kind of waypoint arrow or compass to show the way.

The other level was a pretty straightforward third-person button-masher, with the lead character grabbing his guitar for special attacks and beating up enemies. After just 30 seconds, it already seemed repetitive, and everyone I watched play the demo just gave up after a few minutes and walked off.

Maybe I just watched the wrong people playing, but if Brutal Legend’s main draw is a humorous story with Jack Black voicing the lead character, then the gameplay either needs to be more engrossing or lead you by the nose so you can experience the comedy. Of course, this requires that the game doesn’t get blocked by a current Activision lawsuit (which I can only assume is just ATVI lawyers looking to squeeze a few $$$ out of EA and nothing more). I think Tim Schafer is one of the most talented and certainly funny people making games, so I’d like to hope my impressions are way off, but what I saw at E3 seemed more brutal than legend.

I’d watched the booth demos of DJ Hero at least four times at E3 and was still having trouble wrapping my head around how it worked. But after meeting with the Activision folks for a few up-close demos, I think I’m starting to understand. And I think I like it.

From a gameplay-mechanic standpoint, it’s sort of like a three-track version of Guitar Hero, using a turntable controller with three buttons. The outermost green button corresponds to the left track, “Record 1,” while the innermost blue button corresponds to the right track, “Record 2.” The central red button is a “scratch” button. There’s a crossfader on the left, which you use to switch back and forth between record 1 and 2. As the track progresses, you’ll see either single-hit notes or scratching sections, where you either press down the corresponding button or hold it down and make a scratching motion with the turntable. Got it so far?

What you end up with is a game where you have two songs playing together and you’re switching back and forth and scratching. According to Activision, they’re licensing over 100 songs to create 80 unique mash-ups, and in addition to their own internal folks, they’ve also turned to some big names in the DJ scene to create mixes: DJ Shadow, DJ z-Trip and DJ AM. While they haven’t revealed many of the recordings, the few I’ve heard sound interesting, like the Beastie Boys “Sabotage” vs. the Foo Fighters “Monkey Wrench or Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” vs. Rick James’ “Give It To Me Baby.” It’s a weird case where the soundtrack could be so interesting that even people mildly interested in the game pick it up just to noodle along with the mash-ups.

In addition to the usual single-player score mode, DJ Hero will let two DJs battle back and forth, as well as a special mode where a DJ can battle against a guitarist on 10 special mixes. I didn’t get to play myself, so it’s hard to tell how intuitive the peripheral is to use, but if it’s solid, the mixes could make it an interesting addition to the music genre this holiday.

I was at a Guitar Hero 5 demo at the Activision booth Wednesday, and when asked if we had any final questions, I joked, “where’s the secret demo of Guitar Hero Van Halen“? Totally serious, one of the Neversoft folks replied, “Over in the Sony booth with the PS3 stuff.” Stunned, I made my way over there, and sure enough, there were two stations running a demo in full-band mode.

It was a typical GH demo build: 6 songs, including 4 from VH, one from Queen, and another song from some other band (whose name I forget, sorry). It was a less-than-stellar setup, with lots of lag and flaky GHWT guitars with broken orange buttons or Star Power issues, but none of that mattered once I got to play “Panama” on guitar, which is one of those songs we’ve wanted to see since the first Guitar Hero.

I was there with Wedge from the  PMS clan, who’s a talented Expert player on multiple instruments herself, and the two of us blasted through all the Van Halen songs in the demo: “Panama,” “You Really Got Me,” “Jump,” and “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love.” I played Expert drums on the last three, which weren’t too tough on Expert (and I’m not a fantastic drummer). Other than obviously having a virtual Van Halen on stage, the game hasn’t really changed, which I’d say is a good thing: GH: Metallica was a great artist-oriented release, and if GHVH is of equal quality, I’ll be extremely happy.

Today was a weird experience for me: my first E3 demo in 10 years where I wasn’t writing for GameSpy. The Harmonix folks were showing off The Beatles Rock Band game at the MTV booth, and I sat in on a presentation before playing it for myself.

The booth housed a pretty roomy presentation area with a large stage, where five Harmonix and MTV folks took us through three songs: “I Feel Fine,” “Get Back,” and “Here Comes the Sun.” Yes, I said five people: the game now supports three-part harmonies, meaning you can have up to SIX people playing together: bass, guitar, drums and three separate vocalists. I’m not sure how conducive the Beatles catalogue is to partying, but if anything, the support for multi-part harmonies means you can have more people playing instead of watching.

If there was a theme running through the presentation, it was Harmonix’s desire to make the game more accessible to players. The “No Fail” option is now a toggle from the difficulty selection screen instead of buried in a far-off menu, making it easier for bands to turn on and off. Any band member who picks the “Easy” difficulty automatically triggers No Fail mode.  

Although I’m still not a fan of the Rock Band guitars as Expert-level peripherals (they continue to break all sorts of basic user interface design rules), the new Beatles-inspired guitars are undeniably gorgeous. There are three: John Lennon’s Rickenbacker; George Harrison’s Gretsch, and Paul McCartney’s Hofner bass. If anything, the gear’s so pretty that I want to experiment with ways of tweaking the fret buttons and strum bar so they won’t be so frustrating to play on Expert. The drums are basically the same as the previous Rock Band drums, just with some cosmetic tweaks and a Beatles bass drum cover emulating Ringo’s (which will be included).

In-depth with the new multi-part harmonies: all the parts are considered part of one vocalist track, and the game supports just about any USB mic (the Harmonix folks specifically mentioned the peripherals from Lips for the Xbox 360 and SingStar for the PS3). In band play, you can disable harmonies completely and have just the one vocal line, or you can enable them and you’ll see extra pitch lines in the vocal area. The score is largely dependent on hitting the main vocal, and then you get bonuses for hitting perfect two- and three-part harmonies. Instead of the old pie meter, there are now three small horizontal meters that fill up. It’ll be hard for newcomers to immediately sort out what the right pitches are for the harmonies, but there’s something inherently cool about a bunch of gamers singing “Here Comes The Sun” in three-part harmony. In a few months, I suspect it’ll be the kind of thing where it’ll be hard to go back to Rock Band without harmonies.

During the presentation, Harmonix’s John Drake took time to talk about the game’s visual style. It’s not clear if every song will have a unique background, but at least different eras will be represented in different ways: some songs might show the band playing in a bar in Liverpool, the Ed Sullivan show, or Shea Stadium, while other songs might be presented in what are being called “dreamscape” settings. For example, “Here Comes The Sun” is set on a colorful mountainside, while “Octopus’s Garden” is set — where else — under the sea.

After the presentation, we got to head out to the other half of MTV’s booth to actually play the game. If you’ve played Rock Band, there’s virtually no difference — the interface has barely been tweaked. I spent most of my time on guitar, playing “Here Comes the Sun,” “I Am the Walrus” and “Day Tripper.” None of the songs seem too difficult, but that’s not really the point — these are iconic, classic songs that are just fun to play, and 9.9.09 can’t come fast enough for me.

Sony had their press conference today, where they announced the worst-kept secret of the week: the new PSP Go. For those who don’t want to spend 6 hours trying to stream the 90- minute conference, here’s a quick summary:

-          Opening trailer montage of Sony games set to Queen’s “One Vision.” Nothing exciting.

-          President / CEO Jack Tretton gives a decent opening with a few jokes. “We consider ourselves industry leaders and press leaks are no exception.”  

-          Jack talks high-level stuff: Sony accounted for 30% of sales in 2008; Sony is committed to the PS2 as long as consumers are; PlayStation Network had a “monster year” in 2008.

-          Uncharted 2: heavily scripted / cinematic stuff, but a really fun live demo where your character fights his way through an old hotel until choppers fire missiles on it and you have to dive out while it collapses.

-          MAG: this is the 256-player online multiplayer FPS, demoed fully live with 8 players on stage and the rest of the players at various locations worldwide.  It’s sort of a deeper, more tactical Battlefield game; looks intriguing, but wow, what a challenge it’ll be to balance.

-          Handheld time: Tretton talks about the PSP, market position, upcoming bundles and introduces …  

-          … Kaz Hirai, who comes out to unveil – surprise! – the PSP Go!. As reported, it’s a smaller unit with a slide-down control pad, 16GB on-board memory, and no UMD player — all your games and other content are downloaded. A just-launched PC app called “Media Go” is the new (and hopefully easier) way to access PSP content, and a host of new video partners also start providing video today as well. The PSP Go! will be available Oct 1 in the US for $249.

-          Gran Turismo PSP: 60 FPS, 800 cars, 35 tracks, Oct 1. No real footage to talk of, tho.

-          Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, another PSP title, is announced by Hideo Kojima. 10 years after MGS 3, in the 1970’s. Kojima calls it “a true sequel to the Metal Gear franchise” and not a spin-off or side story. 2010 release.  

-          Resident Evil coming to PSP, along with a Little Big Planet title. A trailer with other upcoming PSP titles reveals little.

-          Tretton talks up PlayStation Network and Home. Of course, there’s a cheesy lifestyle video to go with it.

-          Big announcement: A new Rockstar game, Agent, exclusive to PS3.

-         Assassin’s Creed 2: instead of the trailer that closed yesterday’s Ubi press conference, we actually get a live demo, and it’s pretty cool. We see the main character, Ezio, use a sweet flying contraption created by Leonardo DaVinci, and the audience cheers at a rooftop double kill. Hey Ubi, you couldn’t show us anything this cool yesterday?

-         Final Fantasy XIII trailer. The game looks just gorgeous. I want to go to there.

-         Surprise! Final Fantasy XIV!  And, in Tretton’s words, “the PlayStation 3 will be the ONLY console” you can play it on when it releases in 2010. Whoa! The crowd gasps. But wait, there’s another reveal in the logo: there’s an “Online” in the title. Suddenly, everyone’s thinking back to PC / PS2’s FFXI, which never really took off, and the crowd’s applause is more polite after that. Tretton jokes that at least they kept one announcement quiet.

-         Not to be outdone by Microsoft and Nintendo, Sony has motion sensory tech in the works, and Dr. Richard Marks (who worked on the EyeToy), comes out to perform a lengthy tech demo of a new controller with a glowing sphere on the end that can be tracked. It’s a fun, entertaining demo, but it still feels like Sony’s got a lot of catching up to do in this area.

-         Mod Nation Racers is the next title in Sony’s “Play Create Share” genre, following in the steps of Little Big Planet. It’s sort of a Mario Kart-style game where you can customize your own characters and cars and build your own tracks. Not overly sexy, but could easily be a massive hit.

-         The Last Guardian trailer, from the folks who made ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. Wow. Just wow. This could be the kind of game that people buy PS3s for.

-         A short teaser for Gran Turismo 5.

-         Finally, God of War III, with a few minutes of live gameplay. They’re gonna sell 10 jillion copies of this game.

Overall: A solid showing for Sony. The approach showed some welcome restraint, letting the games do the talking. They’ve got some nice exclusives and maybe they’ll finally turn the PSP into the handheld we’ve always wanted it to be. B+

Before my first appointment today, I spent a little time checking out LEGO Rock Band, which has three large stages set up at the Warner Bros booth. It’s basically a reskinned Rock Band with a new batch of songs (there might be some duplicates from existing Rock Band games) and a slightly more family-friendly air about it.

Of course, everything’s been LEGO-fied, such as the notes now being little LEGO blocks and the band members all being LEGO characters. There are some little tweaks, such as a new “Super Easy” mode (essentially the same as Guitar Hero World Tour’s “Beginner” setting, where it doesn’t matter what notes you hit) or players losing studs instead of failing out and potentially causing the band to lose a song. All existing Rock Band and Guitar Hero hardware will be compatible with the game, so you won’t have to worry about adding any new plastic controllers to your collection.

There are a ton of questions the devs aren’t answering yet. Will existing Rock Band DLC work with the game? (I’m guessing not.) What online support (if any) will it have? But otherwise, it’s clearly Rock Band through and through, and with songs like Europe’s “The Final Countdown,” Blur’s “Song 2″ and Foo Fighters’ “Breakout,” I won’t be able to help but buy it when it’s released later this year.