November 2 - November 6
Another week and another monster game that kicks in your front door, insinuates itself into your living room and eats all the leftover Enchiladas in the fridge while demanding to be played. You are helpless. You must comply.
Frankly, I have no choice. Friendships and partnerships are at stake here, people. Were I to go off the reservation and recognize, say Lego Rock Band as my game of the week, then let me assure you there would be no GWJ tomorrow. It would be the nuclear option. My partner, so often a sturdy rock of objectivity, has gone native. At night I picture him kissing pictures of Doctors Ray and Greg goodnight before his own wife. For too long now Dragon Age has whispered bewitching sweet nothings in his ear, and there is no hope.
I'm no better. I will be picking up Lego Rock Band. Rather than disguise my raving lunatic devotion to Harmonix beneath the veil of justification, I will just admit that were Activision to offer such a product under the tainted Guitar Hero brand I would pan it without consideration while I find the equivalent Rock Band product endearing. It's totally unfair, but I don't care.
The point is that I will leave it to other outlets to pretend to be ever vigilant in arrogant and naive objectivity. I harbor no such illusion about my own motivations.
Dragon Age: Origins is the clear Game of the Week.
PC
- Dragon Age: Origins
- Men of War: Red Tide
- Sacraboar
- Shattered Horizon
- Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition
Xbox 360
- Band Hero
- Dragon Age: Origins
- Dreamkiller
- Jurassic: The Hunted
- LEGO Rock Band
- Pro Evolution Soccer 2010
- Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition
PS3
- Band Hero
- Dragon Age: Origins
- Jurassic: The Hunted
- LEGO Rock Band
- Pro Evolution Soccer 2010
- Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition
Wii
- Academy of Champions: Soccer
- Band Hero
- Barbie and the Three Musketeers
- Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom
- Food Network: Cook or Be Cooked
- Hooked! Again
- Jurassic: The Hunted
- LEGO Rock Band
- My Baby First Steps
- Need for Speed Nitro
- Rabbids Go Home
- Ultimate Party Challenge
- We Cheer 2
Nintendo DS
- A Christmas Carol
- Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders
- Band Hero
- Barbie and the Three Musketeers
- C.O.P. The Recruit
- Dora Puppy
- Imagine: Babyz Fashion
- LEGO Rock Band
- Need for Speed Nitro
- Ni Hao, Kai-Lan: New Year's Celebration
- Rabbids Go Home
- Reader Rabbit Kindergarten
- Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron
- Style Savvy
- Sushi Academy
PSP
- Ghostbusters
- Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier
- Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron
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Whoa, there's other games than Dragon Age being released this week? Coulda fooled me.
Eezy_Bordone wrote:
Thankfully Dragon Age doesn't really appeal to me with it's hopelessly generic setting and art style, I've got way too much on my plate as is. I'm already almost dreading Modern Warfare 2 - isn't that next week?
Live: Boot Stackhead
PSN: AcidCat-
Elysium: The man with his finger on The Button.
Certis wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
Funny, I thought Certis would've done a guest shot in this post and write about ten paragraphs on Dragon Age.
Edit:
Hey-oh!
"Men like sex, thus boobies! Oogaba!" - dejanzie
"Something bad happens, A-Team is hired, things go wrong, plan comes together, fools are pitied and sh*t blows up. The end." - Mystic Violet
Twitter
I'll be getting at least one copy of Dragon Age, if not double dipping.
I'll also be strongly considering LEGO Rock Band. Any word on importing your DLC?
XBL: The Counselar
PSN: TheCounselor
Steam: TheCounselor
Wii
- Barbie and the Three Musketeers
- Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom
- Food Network: Cook or Be Cooked
- Hooked! Again
- My Baby First Steps
- Ultimate Party Challenge
- We Cheer 2
It's the End of Times, I tell you...The END of TIMES!!!
Steam: Atras
XBox Live: Atras
*slowly draws hand away from the button*
Alright ... good. Good.
Before you can respond to this though, you must collect 12 donkey rectums. - Pyroman[FO] deflating all arguments.
I read that to mean he wanted to know if RB1/2 could be played in Lego RB.
Eezy_Bordone wrote:
Is it a meme yet to equate sitting in a tub of urine with uber anticipation for a game¿ I've gotta my rubber ducky sanitized and ready just in case.
I don't remember a game I've put these kinds of expectations on. Ever. The anticipation is sweet and, I'm sure, unhealthy.
FSeven wrote:
While I did preorder Dragon Age - I'm just not really that excited about it. Perhaps the few rather dull early gameplay videos and my self imposed hype blockade are curbing my enthusiasm. Still, I have hope that I am wrong and will happily eat crow if proven so.
'Chaos claims the unwary or the incomplete. A true man may flinch away its embrace, if he is stalwart, and he girds his soul with the armour of contempt." - Gideon Ravenor
Yes, RB DLC works with Lego RB, but only the songs deemed "family friendly". It has a music store built into it as well, and again, only these songs appear in it.
Sean, I'd like to touch on your slavish devotion to Harmonix, because I myself am also in the same boat.
The key difference here to me is interoperability. Specifically, Harmonix's devotion to it (with the notable and justifiable exception of The Beatles RB) and Activision's total disregard of it. With the export option, Lego RB essentially functions like a big DLC pack with some pretty awesome songs in it. It also has compatibility with existing RB DLC (again, the family-friendly filter applies due to the target audience). Think of it as basically the same as the existing themed track packs that have been released.
Now contrast this with the utter clusterf*ck of the Guitar Hero franchise as it exists today. You've got half a dozen major GH games released in the last two years with only some cross-compatibility between the games. Even in cases where you can export songs (from World Tour or Smash Hits into GH5, mainly) it's only a fraction of the entire set. Furthermore, you've got band specific games like Metallica and Van Halen which contain other artists and have no compatibility at all with the current core title. The end result of this is artist segregation across multiple discs. You want to play a Queen song in GH? Well which song you want to play dictates which disc you have to pop in. The central library adopted by RB is clearly the better approach, and while I appreciate that they're at least trying to go in that direction, they're making a huge mess of it at the same time. You can argue about engine differences and which one you like better all you want, but this single issue just kills it for me, personally.
Hmm... looks like I better finish up Brutal Legend before next Tuesday. While I am interested in Dragon Age, I'm pegging it as a sale purchase on Steam sometime in the Spring. Next week will be my big "OOOOO SHINEY!" week.
Xbox Live: ElDuder8 | Steam: the_dude8 | PSN: ElDuder8
Can I ask a dumb question? I like Rock Band as much as the next guy, and I do understand the appeal of getting more songs in what is essentially a big DLC pack. But is there really a need for new Rock Band content to be delivered in Lego form? Is there something about the rock experience that a Lego character can deliver that a regular animated character can not? I understand the idea behind the Lego Star Wars games, in terms of accessibility, but as far as I can tell the mechanics in Lego Rock band aren't fundamentally different, just the visuals. So why do we need to Lego it up?
I'm not being critical, I'm just honestly befuddled and interested.
Oh and Dragon Age! Yay!
Clemenstation wrote:
XBLA / Steam: Dysplastic
You sir, despite your cute avatar are dead to me. As are all you other console FPS, music loving plebeians.
The true hard core Role Player and D&D gamer has been long starved for a worthy successor. The Witcher was a tasty snack, and we all acknowledge the failure that was NWN2. But there was a spark of hope back in 2005 when first were heard the echoings of a 2nd coming.
And now that 2nd coming is only hours away!!!! ALL BOW TO DRAGON AGE!!!!
(Seriously though, I'm going to be absolute rubbish at work this week
)
Dragon Age looks great, I'll snag that sometime early next year. So many games, so few dollars.
"Have you tried forcing an unexpected reboot?"
XBL: trueheart78 | Backloggery: trueheart78
If I had to guess, I would pin it to accessibility to a younger demographic (children) and also nostalgia for us older folk who grew up playing with Legos.
I don't get it personally, but the design choice isn't lost on me either.
My take on it is that this is a platform directed at younger players, with a song list tailored to them. So in general, you don't have to worry about inappropriate songs being available to young kids. The graphics and such too.
From my brief exposure, if you have RB2 and don't have kids then Lego Rock Band probably has little to offer you.
Certis wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
They all sound better if you add "Ultimate Sith Edition" behind them.
Anyone else actually hear Moss' voice in their head when they read posts by trueheart78? Hurry up season 4!
'Chaos claims the unwary or the incomplete. A true man may flinch away its embrace, if he is stalwart, and he girds his soul with the armour of contempt." - Gideon Ravenor
Frankly, the blockish handling of sex and relationships in Dragon Age has driven me off. I might pick it up used or on sale at a later date.
Quintin_Stone wrote:
Google Profile
See, I totally see the logic behind a song list tailored to younger players - but I'm surprised that the Lego brand, particularly the Lego people, are so strong that having their graphical representations in a game is a selling point. I used to play with Legos a lot when I was a kid, and the selling point to me was always what you could build, not the aesthetics of the pieces and characters themselves.
Oh well. Whatever gets young'uns rockin is fine by me.
Clemenstation wrote:
XBLA / Steam: Dysplastic
Clearly, you got old
I remember a time, as if it was yesterday, that I wouldn't watch anything unless it was animated! 'twas a looooong time ago. I'm sure younger kids will appreciate a Rock Band tailored for them.
FedoraMcQuaid wrote:
XBLive: Interstate 78 / PSN: Interstate78 / [url=http://steamcommunity.com/id/I
A Lego game is like a thumbs up to shopping parents, saying "This game is safe for your kid." The use of legos is probably less about aesthetics, and more about targeting an audience that's already bought into the Lego brand of games.
FSeven wrote:
As the father of a six-year-old who literally devours the Lego games, I can assure you that for at least one little boy the Lego brand married with Rock Band is a point of unimpeachable genius.
I felt -- I feel -- that Shawn, Rob and Julian were making out with the game, and as their friend I felt it was important to point out that they were making out with an ugly chick. - Cory Banks, keeping it real
Dragon Age for me, dear sirs.
Gamer Tag -- Edgar Newt
Mr. GOH wrote:
My interest in Barbie and the Three Musketeers is gone since I found out it wasn't an M-rated game.
You should wait for the inevitable Unrated edition, then. I hear it's pretty saucy.
Shattered Horizon on the PC deserves a nod from me as it appears to be very interesting. There could be much 3D fun to be had like the Descent games of old. The trailer also featured (obvious, but under-used) eerie silence when viewed from a camera in space.
Having said that, I did earn my consumer whore points this month by pre-ordering Dragon Age with the extra content.
I believe there is no sound in the game except the sounds from your suit, which is how it is in space.
We have a thread here with some more info.
Eezy_Bordone wrote:
I have pre-ordered both Dragon Age and Shattered Horizon. They're such vastly different games, but both look awesome.
Fletcher wrote: