This is actually a comment I posted on the mancouch entry, Rock Band > Guitar Hero, and it's kind of a copout entry, but I just finished Dead Rising 2, so when I put my thoughts together on that one I'll write about it. To summarize the entry, it talks about how although Guitar Hero came first [which is true, but only in title], Rock Band is better. And naturally, I agree!

Guitar Hero came first, yeah. Guitar Hero 1 and 2 was made by... the people who are now making the Rock Band series! Maybe that's why you can notice the huge decline with 4, 5 and 6. 3 WAS made by activision, but it was definately the closest to emulating GH1 and 2, and it was really good at that. But for some reason... Guitar Hero games ALWAYS feel... sloppy. Like they aren't ever properly calibrated. The game is uglier too. I dunno, if you just said one game over the other, and people would be like, "Aren't they the same game?" only people who actually play the game can say, "Well, no, they aren't." Guitar Hero actually has worse gameplay, which is hard to believe.

Rock Band has better DLC, better production, a lot better character customization, and just a group of people behind it who seem to genuinely LOVE music, as their tracks better emulate how songs are actually, "Played," even if it's on a fake guitar. Which of course, as mentioned, is going to change in Rock Band 3 when, "Real guitars," essentially come into play. But I'm more excited about pro-mode keyboard.

Even taking into account that both entries tried to create a kid friendly title; Band Hero and Lego Rock Band, Lego Rock Band has surprisingly great production value, as opposed to Band Hero.

So yeah. I love Rock Band.

So since I had in my introductory paragraph talking about Guitar Hero 1 and 2 being made by the people who made Rock Band, whenever I talk about Guitar Hero as a whole, I really just mean 4 5 and 6. Which is cool since when I talk about Rock Band, I am talking about 1, 2 and 3, and not really Lego [except when SPEFICIALLY talking about Lego], Beatles or Green Day.

I am vastly aware that I have not been writing anything. And I know I say that pretty much everytime I do write something!

I've been pretty busy, doing life things. Like that thing I wrote, months ago, about being unemployed? That's about 5 months outdated. I do have a job. It's an awful job that breaks about a bajillion legal rules on technicalities to do their best to pay you the absolute least amount of money possible. Which really sucks when I'm trying to buy games, and save up to move out, and essentially live, since although I am still living at home with my dad and brothers and I'm not paying rent, I'm paying for everything else; bus fare, food, which sounds like it would be cheap but you'd be surprised. I'm still, at the end of the 2 weeks between paycheques, having to put things on my damn credit card. I wanted to just use it for internet-based purchases [and XBox Live], but now it's almost a necessity for me. I pay it off everytime, but shit.

I don't think I've purchased any retail games in the last while, but I have bought a few XBox Live Arcade titles [Scott Pilgrim, Limbo, Dead Rising Case Zero, and I have the points to pick up Sonic Adventure when that releases on Wednesday], and I really need to be able to purchase for my next paycheque Dead Rising 2 [So stoked!] and Rock Band 3 [even stoked-er!]. I wanted to import a japanese copy of Pokémon White but... again, I'm not making enough money to really splurge on that. A $70 DS game is really not in my budget. But I want it so bad!

As far as looking for a new job goes... I kinda messed up an interview at EB Games. Bad. And nobody seems to be sympathetic about it even though it frustrates me more than anyone. I mean, hilariously, I only need a job that has me working 3 days a week at 6 hours a shift to make more money than I am now, and I'm essentially working 6 days a week. That's RIDICULOUS. Apparently, I'm being promoted to manager soon, so I'll just slap that silly nothing title on my résumé which should be a great booster. I've also learnt the importance of cover letters. Guys, if you just drop off résumés, they're going to glance at it, then throw it out. Write a cover letter. They'll give you a chance then. Seriously.

Other than job things, my life hasn't been all that exciting. I mean, I went on a vacation [for fear that certain people may actually read my blogs, as they have in the past, I'm not going to go into more detail than that. I would if I felt I could!]. That was really great. Playing a lot of Rock Band, with the potential of it being a normal social gameplay thingy. I played through all of Dead Rising Case Zero in one sit down; it is short, but it's a lot of fun. I'd call it a demo of the Dead Rising universe, except it's its own game. For $5, I mean, what do you expect? Actually, for $5 I'm blown away at this game. But I really like the main character of this game [Chuck Greene] and the mechanic of combining weapons is pretty awesome. I think I want to work on some achievements from Dead Rising 1, but those are hella hard. I did accomplish one that was essentially, "Repel a helicopter... with your fists." I'm kidding about the fists part, but you basically shoot a helicopter like 6 times with a sniper and it flies away, and the achievement unlocks. It was a lot of fun.

Speaking of Scott Pilgrim, I'm anticipating Ubisoft releasing a patch that fixes the various glitches in that game. Honestly, Scott Pilgrim is so much fun, but it freezes, and the achievements are incredibly glitchy, I've never seen a game that was put up for sale so broken [Oops my bad Sonic the Hedgehog in the year 2006 I forgot that Games on Demand is still trying to sell you for $25 when I could probably buy you for like a quarter at some local bazaar!]. But it breaks my heart because it's Scott Pilgrim, AND a genuinely fun game!

So I'm poor, but my life has something resembling structure, and I do has them games to play, and them friends to talk to and etc. But hey, if anyone is feeling generous enough to buy me a Japanese copy of Pokémon White... ;D

It's been so long since I've been so excited for video games in general.

I remember a time when E3 rolled around, and it was pretty much the most exciting time of the year. For me, it was pretty much the Sega or Nintendo conferences, and then when Sega died out, the Nintendo conference exclusively. I dunno when, in general, the industry just didn't interest me. I mean, sure, I still love video games [obviously], but I wasn't so excited for so many things at once.

This year is different. And I'm going to talk about it all.

Let's start with Pokémon!

Pokémon Black and White

This morning, they revealed 7 new Pokémon, and confirmed Reshiram and Zekrom's types [these are the legendaries revealed almost a month ago], as well as a glimpse at the region, the professor, and some new features.

Reshiram, the box legendary for Pokémon Black Version [see what they did there?], I didn't really like his design all that much. To me, it seemed like it'd be a pretty obvious psychic type. But then with Zekrom's type being accidentally leaked early, people started to assume the theme of the games would be nature vs technology, or, ying and yang. Thanks to Reshirams classification [the White Yang Pokémon] and his typing, it looks like BOTH theories are completely possible. Because of his typing, I think I could really grow to like Reshiram. As he's the very first Dragon and Fire type Pokémon. Hell. Fucking. Yes. Yes, I did continue to delay saying his type. WHATEVER. I'm picking up Black version, hastily.

Zekrom is, alternatively, the box legendary for Pokémon White Version. He's classified as the Black Yin Pokémon and is Dragon/Electric type. So, he's badass. And I love his drill tail. I think I want to import White version because I'm an impatient asshole.

I dunno if I want to talk about each of the new reveals in detail, but I do want to talk about my favourite reveal first off, Gear!

Why do I love him so much? Because he's fantastically weird! He reminds me very strongly of Bronzor, and I liked HIM for being weird. I also like it because it's abilities, either Plus or Minus, basically give it a connection to a previous generation Pokémon [in this case, Plusle and Minun!] without making them an evolution or prevolution [and I can't remember the last time this has happened, beyond Miltank being introduced as the alternative to Tauros]. I definately plan on raising one, but since my in-game teams are never, "Geared," [haha] towards double battles, I'll probably just raise it in one of my, "Tower," boxes [my Tower boxes are basically the Pokémon I raise but don't go into teams. In my Heart Gold game, instead of having Towers, I have a Heart and a Soul box]. I hope it evolves into a towering thing with 2 faces. I dunno. I want this thing to be hella awesome.

The other one I like in particular is Meguroko. First off, I want to start with what bothers me; he's another Pokémon that could very well have been water type [and, don't get me wrong, I am not complaining that it's NOT water; we have enough of those jerks], but instead is a ground type. Specifically, Ground and Dark. It's typing doesn't bother me as much as it's taking the strange principal that made Hippowdon so weird/cool. On that note, he's awesome because... WELL LOOK AT HIM. HE'S AWESOME. He also has 2 great abilites; the first is a staple, intimidate, which lowers the opponents attack one stage [the more defensive option]. It's other ability is a new one called Earthquake Spiral, or some translate it I guess as Overconfident which makes more sense but sounds less epic, which raises it's attack one stage for every Pokémon he KOs. Which is so cool.

The other reveals include our standard bird, the pidgeon Mamepato, the chinchilla Chiramii, the uh... "Dream Eater," Munna [do not get me started on this one], the zebra Shimama, and finally the fire ape Hihidaruma, whom I kinda like due to it being fire type [this is standard] but I don't really like another fire monkey Pokémon.

The regions professor is named Professor Araragi; the first female professor in the series. I don't care too much for that, but I know some people like it, for different reasons, and I don't care all too much for her design. I think it's mostly her hair. But yeah, I guess it only makes sense; I can't imagine someone as badass as Professor Rowan giving you something as dopey looking as Mijumaru. My dislike for that stupid otter is beyond recognition. On that note, I love the pig! Crazy times.

The new features announced include something called, "Random match," which lets you battle against someone randomly on Nintendo WFC. Don't get me wrong, this is awesome, but it's been available on Pokémon Battle Revolution for 3 years now; it's about time it finally made its way to the main series game. And the GTS features that in Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Heart Gold and Soul Silver have ALL had a building dedicated to them, are now all available in [what I understand] every Pokémon center. If it's unecessary, it's also really really nice. And from what it looks like in some snapshots, the Pokémon following you feature introduced in Heart Gold and Soul Silver will be returning; I hope they improve on it [as in, getting to choose which Pokémon in your party is out, rather than just the first one in the party, having the option to turn it on/off, etc].

That's what you missed, on Glee! ...I mean Pokémon.

Rock Band 3

Oh. Shit. Son.

So, first off, let's start with band size; increasing from 4 [Guitar, Bass, Vocals and Drums] to 7 [Guitar, Bass, 3-part Harmonies Vocal, Drum, and the new instrument, keyboard!]. Holy shit. Apparently the character creator is, "Better," but I hope it keeps the same almost-realistic-almost-cartoony style of the previous Rock Band titles, so I can recreate my band members of old [Gold on guitar, Alexis on bass, Monaco on drums and Silver on vocals]. If I get to create the other 3 band members, I'm definately creating Nevando on the keyboard, and a couple of girls to be Silver's harem as the other 2 parts of the vocal harmonies. That'd be ridiculously awesome. Character creation is serious business guys.

The keyboard charts look so awesome.

So basically, it looks like it's a 2-octave keyboard. I can play those! And newly included in the game is a, "Pro mode," which basically charts the songs into almost realistic musical things. This doesn't bother me on the keyboard so much, in fact, I imagine playing a lot of the keyboard in pro mode [believe me, I can't wait to play keyboard in this game!]. My problem is, I want to continue to play fake guitar. Not almost-real guitar. I play Rock Band to be a pretend musician! Not to pretend to be a musician. I'm not against having the game as a learning tool, after all, I believe Harmonix, unlike Activision with their Guitar Hero franchise, has a true passion for music [and not just their rhythm based music games], so honestly, great kudos for including the option, and the crazy 107 button guitar controller. If people learn to play guitar while playing Rock Band 3, that can only be a bonus. But I do not intend to join in on this. So it's great that pro mode is an option, and not a change in the game.

There's a new filtering system, this was brought in due to, by years end, they plan on having over 2000 songs in the current Rock Band library. This makes sense. What came as a surprise to me is some of the filtering options; like song length. And set list battles that can be posted on Twitter and Facebook. Mmm.

I don't like so much the drop-in drop-out feature that recent Guitar Hero titles have already included. I know it's made to be more party oriented, but... wait your turn. Seriously. I dunno. I guess I'm an asshole in this way.

The tracklist for Rock Band 3 is said to include about 83 songs, which is fantastic. Currently revealed setlist? I'm... not all too thrilled about. I like that there's Metric, the Power of Love will definately atleast get my brother to play that one song, and I do love me some Bohemian Rhapsody [and I mean, a lot], but a lot of these songs don't seem to be... aimed towards me. They feel more aimed towards musical assholes; the ones who, in high school, decided to learn about music and decide that they had superior taste in music so they would like things like Crazy Train. I don't care. But it's only half and I ALWAYS love what Harmonix comes up with in the end.

And since I haven't read or watched anything from anything else, here are some titles I am looking forward to hearing about at this years E3:

Zelda Wii
Metroid Other M
Golden Sun DS
Marvel vs Capcom 3 [Deadpool and Dante confirmed!]
Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 [Yeah, the first game was surprisingly awesome for a franchised game]

Honestly, I think what I miss the most from past E3's is my Nintendo fanboyism. I love my 360; the PS3 is a fantastic console in itself. But they don't quite have the heart that Nintendo's franchise has in their games [or rather, has in the past]. Nintendo, please make me a fanboy again. A stupid, blinded-by-bad-judgement fanboy. Please?