Rock Music, Zombies, and A Signal

I am now officially on Christmas holidays and England is officially meeting its end at the hands of an apocalyptic snowstorm, leaving plenty of time for video games. In the past few days I’ve had the opportunity to dive into one or two games released earlier this year so now seemed as good a time as any to blog about them. Go blog, go!

Rock Band 3

 Hell to the yes.

I’ve loved the past Rock Band games and have played them for countless hours, and with the additions to Rock Band 3 that Harmonix have been flaunting I’ve been very excited about this game. For me the most surprising thing about playing Rock Band 3 has been how different it feels from previous instalments in the series. Harmonix have of course wrapped the game in a new UI that’s both functional and aesthetically pleasing, but changes to the gameplay surrounding the core experience, as well as a refreshing soundtrack, are what really seem to define Rock Band 3.

The persistent band stand-ins, small cutscenes between sets, and the player’s band being featured in the background of menus, gives a greater sense of narrative in the career mode. The objectives in the career mode sets (e.g. activating overdrive a certain number of times, or getting a certain number of streaks during the songs played) mean that you focus on more than just scoring highly in the songs and the focus of the gameplay is often shifted. The quickplay mode and career mode also feel better intertwined than in Rock Band 1 and 2.

 Who wants to buy me a £70 Christmas present?

The base music collection in Rock Band 3 comes across as far more unique than previous soundtracks. I’m not enjoying it quite as much as the soundtracks of former games, but Harmonix had quite the challenge putting together a wide range of high quality songs that include a substantial amount of keyboard, especially after releasing over 1,000 songs on their online store. Considering that, this track list is very impressive, and it’s nice to see something a little different from a rock music rhythm game.

It seemed a little mean-spirited for them to include achievements that require the player to buy content from the store, and as I and my brother have a shared copy of Rock Band 2 it’s rather frustrating that it doesn’t look like we’ll both be able to the export the songs from Rock Band 2 to use with 3. Sadly I don’t have the Fender guitar or the keyboard which were really the two biggest draws for me, but fingers crossed, I’ll get my hands on at least one of them. Despite a few inconveniences though, I’ve still had an excellent time with the Rock Band 3 so far.

Dead Rising 2

 I don't know if you noticed, but there are zombies in this game.

I hadn’t played Dead Rising 1 and approaching this game I wasn’t sure if Dead Rising 2 would be for me. So far I’ve only played a little of Dead Rising 2 but as I predicted it’s not clicking with me. I know there are people out there with quite a lot of appreciation for the game, but the thing that interests me and that I’ve found considerably off-putting, is that the game is largely an amalgamation of a number of trends in gaming that have become worn out in recent times: Escort missions, timed missions, and zombies.

Running through a shopping centre massacring hordes of mindless undead can be rather satisfying, but I have the same problems with escorting, time limits, and zombies in Dead Rising 2 that I have had in most other games that have featured such things. Escorting strangers makes me feel like I’m babysitting the AI, continual time limits make me feel restricted, and I’m suffering from zombie fatigue after seeing them used so frequently in games over the past year or two.  The game seems to work for most people because it pulls off these things so well, but I feel like it’s probably just a game not for me. Still, I’ll soldier on in the hope that I may be able to “get” Dead Rising sooner or later.

Alan Wake: The Signal

I’ve had Alan Wake since the late summer, but somewhat stupidly it was only last week that I noticed I had a code for the first DLC pack for the game, so I downloaded the pack, booted the game up, and got to playin’. On the whole I enjoyed Alan Wake and its deliberately ambiguous ending, although I was a little doubtful of The Signal when I started playing. In the end it turned out to not be a fair piece of DLC. It was good to see them adding a little something new by extending the ‘words’ mechanic from the end of the main game into the DLC, and the strange reality-bending scenarios that The Signal sets up are interesting. The DLC doesn’t really do anything to deal with problems like the lack of enemy variety in the game, and you shouldn’t expect it to start answering many questions from the end of the main game, but it’s still a solid addition to Alan Wake.

Duder, It’s Over

And that concludes yet another week of them vidja games. I hope you all enjoy your respective holiday celebrations, I’d like to thank NinjaDuckie who this Christmas has given me the gift of meat-based platforming, and thank you for reading. Good luck, have machinima.

-Gamer_152