Lips

 

This week we talk about Halo 3: ODST, the Brutal Legend demo, the new Left 4 Dead dlc, Persona on the PSP, and Rock Band Unplugged among others. The big news this episode includes Super Street Fighter 4, a leaked document at Sega, and Splinter Cell: Conviction getting a release date. Plus, we let you know what games are coming out at retail during October.

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Hey guys. Long time no blog. Thought I'd let you know what's been happening with yours truly these past couple of weeks.

I've acquired a couple of games this past month. NHL 10 is, without a doubt, my favorite amongst these. Yes, I enjoy it even more than The Beatles: Rock Band. Surprising? Not quite. After I went through the Story mode and played some online with a couple of friends, the game got really old, really fast. I think the very limited track list (only 45 songs, plus All You Need Is Love that I downloaded) is to blame here. Now, I'm not saying the game is horrible, absolutely not. It's just very... limited for now. However, that's soon to change with the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as DLC in October, Rubber Soul in November, and Abbey Road in December. I guess it's a long-term love affair.

Back to NHL 10. The game is just freaking incredible. The one thing that stands out in this year's edition for me, aside from the subtle gameplay tweeks, board play and GM Mode, is the ambiance. The guys at EA Sports have done an incredible job recreating it. You actually feel like you're taking part in a good ol' hockey game, with fans bouncing out of their seats when the home team scores a goal, people banging on the glass when there's a big hit along the boards, the "oohs" and "aahs" when there's a great save or when a player hits the goal post. That's what makes this game so lifelike and spectacular this year. Once again, kudos to EA for another outstanding job.

I've also played some Halo 3: ODST. I completed the game on normal difficulty, by myself. I have to say that Bungie did a great job with this game. Once again, it's all about atmosphere. I loved the parts when I was playing as The Rookie, wandering alone in the dark streets of New Mombasa, trying to avoid (as much as possible) enemy platoons. The music blew my mind as well, such an immersive and profound score by Martin O'Donnell. As for when you get to play as other ODST, I didn't find those situations to be all that great. Yeah, they're fun to go through, but there's not a whole lot of meat on the bone here. I would have rather played as The Rookie the entire way through. Nonetheless, it's still a pretty good game and I'm always up for some Firefight or going through the campaign in co-op on Legendary.

Other games I've been playing include Lips, which is a surprisingly good game. The track list is quite good, and the fact that you can import songs directly from your PC or portable music device (ie iPod) into the game is very clever. There is a lot of potential behind this game, and I hope it gets pushed farther in future iterations. I've also completed Saints Row 2 for a second time, but this time around, I was playing co-op with Mr. Tony Smith. It was good fun, until the game started glitching out like crazy on us. It wasn't uncommon that my character would get stuck in vehicles or in a surface. That kind of took away from the enjoyment of the game. Mr. Smith and myself have now partaken in another co-op adventure. This time around, we're trying to go through Gears of War 2 on Insane (him) and Hardcore (me). We'll see where that leads us.

In conclusion, it looks like October is going to be another big month for video games. The ones I'm most definitely getting are DJ Hero, Brutal Legend, Borderlands and Forza 3. My poor wallet will hate me. Which games are you guys picking up next month?

Until next time, thank you for reading and have a safe, happy October.

Tonight, I have been playing my fresh copy of SingStar: Queen, and it has brought to mind a couple of problems with the current batch of music games (Rock Band, Guitar Hero) as they exist. More specifically, my problems are with the DLC platforms these games have created.

1. Song purchases are locked to a specific title on a specific console. SingStar songs will not work with Lips. Rock Band tracks won't work with Guitar Hero. Even Rock Band 360 tracks will not work with Rock Band PS3.
2. Songs are purchased for in-game use only. It seems counter intuitive that I pay to play a song in a game, but I can't throw it on my MP3 player.

First, I realize that none of these problems will ever be fixed as they are problems for me, the consumer, and the guilty parties would stand only to lose money by fixing them. Second, I realize my ideal solutions are utopian and could probably never be realized even if you were to convince everyone that they stand to gain by implementing them. Now, on to the solutions!  

Solution A- License directly from record labels 
In this scenario, the labels themselves would sell a license to a song for gaming use. This license would allow for the song to be used across music games across platforms. This would obviously increase the work required as the song would have to be developed for each music game (SingStar, Lips, Rock Band, Guitar Hero, maybe even DDR) while payment would be made only once. The license would also include the standard DRM-free MP3 for playback in players and on computers.   

Solution B- License directly from game developers/publishers 
This solution would not be as comprehensive as solution A, but it would be a marked improvement over the current system. The license would be usable across games from a given developer or publisher. This would insure that a Rock Band track purchase would work with Rock Band on any platform rather than requiring multiple purchases. This solution would also not preclude inclusion of the MP3 track.

These problems stem primarily from my frustration with Rock Band and Rock Band Unplugged, the recent PSP edition of the franchise. Songs are now being re-released for Rock Band Unplugged that I have already purchased but will never get to play on the handheld because I refuse to buy them again. I buy most every song I want on my 360 version therefore leaving nothing for me to buy on the portable and diminishing its value. My only options are to either artificially stop myself from buying some songs on 360 so that I feel justified in buying them on PSP or give up all together and buy them on both. I'm sure Harmonix, Microsoft, Sony, and Big Music would hope I might choose the latter, but I refuse. As it stands, since the infrastructure to sell downloadable content for games is controlled by the owners of the platform, it is unlikely we will see any show of good-will allowing content to cross over to their competitors. They look at non-transferable DLC as leverage to lock you into their platform for the long haul. I look at it more like a low-blow. Sure, they may be able to knock the guy down, but everyone knows it wasn't truly a win.
 
Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Is there any way this could work? Any compromise that would work? Does anyone else see this as a problem?

I was drunk in Walmart (it happens more than you would guess) and walking through the cheap bin of games and in that state and on that night... I just had to have Lips...

All the Enthusiasim but only Half the People in this pictureO

Well I ended up meeting my buddy who informed me that the rest of the crew wasnt going to make it over that night.  So i decided my impulse purchase might have to go back to the store the next day.  Well 4-5 cocktails later we tore into that box faster than Douchbags tear open Akon CDs.
We were off and rockin.

The next morning I pretended to stay asleep for like an hour in hopes that the game would wake up and go to work or something.  To my horror the game was still there and had cooked eggs.  I have to admit we did have way more fun than I was expecting and I can see playing it again, Im just afraid I lost like 20 points of Street Cred and 10 points of cool.  2 Stats I have been grinding since middle school and every setback hurts that much more.

Update: I did a little research and there are 500 other GB users who have atleast played this game so Im not TOTALLY alone
Stay classy

This week's show is surrounded with sadness; Gus Yoo has bid farewell to Distributed Failure. He may come back down the road, but for the time being he will no longer be pooping on air for your listening pleasure. We're sure as hell going to miss him and hopefully he hasn't been scarred too deeply from chatting with us for all these weeks. Here's to you Gus Yoo, the man best known for his poo, you were one of a kind!

We start this week's show like every other show (big surprise?) with "What We've Been Playing" and discuss such games as Bionic Commando, inFamous, Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, Resistance: Fall of Man, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Wheelman, and much more! We follow that up with some gaming news including the leaked trailer for "Project Trico", the news of Atlus bring Demon's Souls stateside, and more. We end the show with a tiny dump of sausage and can only think to plug my sausage of pixelation.

The show was a little "wack" this week due to all the crizzle-crap that went down, but it still turned out to be an alright episode. Stay tuned for a more upbeat episode next week...who knows, we may even have a special guest! I hope you enjoy the show and don't forget to rate us on iTunes! :)

• Site: Pixelated Sausage
  
• Podcast: DF #58: An inFamous Bionic Commando

Question for next week: What will you miss most about sir Gus Yoo?

I don't think I've been on here since before the New Year. Therefore I'm wishing everyone a really belated Happy New year. I've been up to my neck in college work and actual work(to earn money).

I was going to post my own little "

Nothing will humble a man and de-masculinize him more than walking into a local video game store and asking the clerk for a copy of LIPS. Just walking up to the counter drains any ego one may have left. I know others have done it too, because the first Gamestop I visited had no copies left. "Yeah [smirk], I guess somebody must be buying that game," the employee chirped. "Well, I hope my wife likes it," I replied, hoping everyone in the store heard WIFE. The clerk returned an untrusting look, like he'd heard the line a thousand times before. His co-worker smiled as he typed inventory into the computer next to us.

srsly...i just bought Lips. played for about an hour. what a piece of shit. Singstar was awesome on ps2 but after playing Rock Band i think i just can't play those games with just one 'instrument'. besides that...you can't even lose here. it's like having NO FAIL MODE on all the time. terrible game. top 5 worst 180pln (~60$) i ever spent.
bust a move is awesome as always though.


my gf is coming over tonight so i guess we'll check out co-op and vs.

sry for my grammar and stuff.