Culturegeeks

…and failing!

Sign me up, yet again.  Rock Band 2 tracklist.

I’m assuming it’ll work with existing equipment.  I know they’re offering a ridiculously expensive (yet incredibly fucking awesome) drumkit for like $300, but I can’t imagine them trying to get everyone to buy yet another drum/guitar/mic…

I’ll paste the list after the break:

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So, the history of the Guitar Hero franchise goes a little like this:  Harmonix makes rhythm game software.  They want to do a guitar game.  Red Octane makes unusual controllers.  Harmonix and Red Octane join forces to release Guitar Hero.  It does awesome.  They release Guitar Hero II.  It does awesome. Harmonix has an idea of a little game called Rock Band. 

I’m not quite sure how it happened, but they split up, and Red Octane was left with the rights to the Guitar Hero name.  Although, from what I gather, Harmonix still gets royalties.  Guitar Hero: rock the 80′s or some such thing comes out.  No one cares for it much.  Guitar Hero III came out.  It was…pretty good.  The guitar got better reviews than the Rock Band one, which really makes sense since that’s Red Octane’s specialty.  But then Rock Band came out, and everyone stopped talking about GHIII.  Red Octane was surely feeling pretty peeved.  They all gathered around in their meeting rooms and tried to think up the one game that would trounce Rock Band and reestablish their domination of the Guitar-playing game genre.

Here’s what they came up with.

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My friends at WFMU just announced this:

This Monday morning 2/4 I (Trent) am going to hosting what I THINK will be the first-ever instance of playing Rock Band live on the radio, from 8-9am on WFMU.org.

If you want to stop playing on easy and medium, here’s a good place to start:

Tips from the developers

The classic mistake that new players make is to stomp on the pedal from a great height, leaving their foot floating in the air between hits. This is poor pedal technique, and it doesn’t take long for poor pedal technique to result in leg pain, especially on challenging drum songs.

Good foot pedal technique, on the other hand, isn’t painful because it’s all about moving your foot as little as possible. The less energy you use on each hit, the more hits you can perform, and the better a drummer you’ll be.

Personally, since I don’t own it yet, I haven’t had a chance to try drumming. Looks like fun though. I can tell you that I have totally fallen in love with singing… what an ego boost to have people compliment your singing! Now I know why those fools try out for American Idol year after year.

Found on Evil Avatar, news that the February issue of the Official XBox Magazine will have 3 exclusive tracks for Rock Band.

Serious? You’d better believe it. The disc bundled with OXM’s February 2008 issue contains 3 songs that you’ll find ONLY on this disc:
* Freezepop — “Sprøde”
* Bang Camaro — “Rock Rebellion”
* Count Zero — “Shake”

Does anyone else think it’s quaint to actually have to put a disc in a drive to get new content?

It’s online, it’s free, it’s seasonally appropriate, and it’s much trickier than I thought it would be:

Hand Bell Hero

RAWK! (via MetaFilter)

Game over, man, game over.

When my wife and I left to go to Portland last week, we packed two suitcases, two backpacks, two coats, and Rock Band.  We left the diaper bag at home. 

It wasn’t on purpose, but it may as well have been, as this is the most fun I’ve had playing games for years, and we still haven’t played with the full four people. 

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