So was the 360 load time for RB2 slightly longer than on the PS3, and this install for the 360 even them out, or does the 360 version have the shorter load times now as a result?
Not that I would repurchase the game, equipment, and content for 360. I'm mainly just curious.
Is there a mandatory install for the PS3? I would think before the NXE loads were the same for both consoles.
There wasn't any type of install on my end. It just reads from the disc and loads pretty well.
From what I've gathered about other installs, it seems to work best on older Xbox 360 games, Rock Band 2 is pretty new, so there may not be too much benefit to installing it.
What are the odds of GameStop actually shipping the PS3 Ion Drum Kit tomorrow?
I tried pre-ordering from their website and, as near as I can tell, they seem to have a pack of idiot baboons running their on-line service. That is: I ordered, they charged shipping when they said it would be free, they confused an in store pickup with a residential address, then basically said "you can't get that from us."
So I'm going to make the half hour drive to the brick and mortar store to preorder tonight, if:
a) there's any chance I can get it before Thanksgiving
and
b) there's any guarantee of competence
any opinions? I've got a busload of family coming into town and I've been slowly addicting them all to Rock Band. This badass drumset would be the icing on the cake.
From what I've gathered about other installs, it seems to work best on older Xbox 360 games, Rock Band 2 is pretty new, so there may not be too much benefit to installing it.
It varies between games. Fable 2 benefits quite a bit from it. Halo 3, you're better off not bothering.
any opinions? I've got a busload of family coming into town and I've been slowly addicting them all to Rock Band. This badass drumset would be the icing on the cake.
Thanx
For the most part, I've heard a lot of shipping issues with Ion. However, with Amazon and other sites, I haven't heard more than a day delayed delivery from the folks here.
What are the odds of GameStop actually shipping the PS3 Ion Drum Kit tomorrow?
I tried pre-ordering from their website and, as near as I can tell, they seem to have a pack of idiot baboons running their on-line service. That is: I ordered, they charged shipping when they said it would be free, they confused an in store pickup with a residential address, then basically said "you can't get that from us."
So I'm going to make the half hour drive to the brick and mortar store to preorder tonight, if:
a) there's any chance I can get it before Thanksgiving
and
b) there's any guarantee of competence
any opinions? I've got a busload of family coming into town and I've been slowly addicting them all to Rock Band. This badass drumset would be the icing on the cake.
Thanx
I'd probably call up the GS and ask if it's possible to do so. I'm not saying they won't take your money (they always do), but you probably want to have some idea of whether they'll actually be getting any at all. Considering how close to release you're making it, I doubt they'll have any in stock unless they placed an order for any.
What are the odds of GameStop actually shipping the PS3 Ion Drum Kit tomorrow?
I tried pre-ordering from their website and, as near as I can tell, they seem to have a pack of idiot baboons running their on-line service. That is: I ordered, they charged shipping when they said it would be free, they confused an in store pickup with a residential address, then basically said "you can't get that from us."
So I'm going to make the half hour drive to the brick and mortar store to preorder tonight, if:
a) there's any chance I can get it before Thanksgiving
and
b) there's any guarantee of competence
any opinions? I've got a busload of family coming into town and I've been slowly addicting them all to Rock Band. This badass drumset would be the icing on the cake.
Thanx
I'd probably call up the GS and ask if it's possible to do so. I'm not saying they won't take your money (they always do), but you probably want to have some idea of whether they'll actually be getting any at all. Considering how close to release you're making it, I doubt they'll have any in stock unless they placed an order for any.
Yeah, I talked to an employee on the phone and he said the situation is that they're special ordering these for preorders only -- makes sense, given the price -- and won't be keeping any in stock for "a while, maybe December". They said that preordering today should be no problem, but I usually don't preorder, so what I'm worried about is them taking my money now and not coming up with the goods until 2009 or so.
Yeah, I talked to an employee on the phone and he said the situation is that they're special ordering these for preorders only -- makes sense, given the price -- and won't be keeping any in stock for "a while, maybe December". They said that preordering today should be no problem, but I usually don't preorder, so what I'm worried about is them taking my money now and not coming up with the goods until 2009 or so.
This is a real concern - pre-ordering guarantees you will get a copy, but it doesn't guarantee you'll get it on time. I pre-ordered both RB1 and RB2 from EBGames and didn't buy either one from them because they were the last place to actually sell the game. It's pretty weak when it's easier to get a game at Best Buy and Walmart than a video game store, heh.
You can get that $5 transferred to another pre-order though.
EBStop is a pretty shitty store really, in almost all respects.
I've realized that the only reason I even go there is because it's closer to the bus stop than Futureshop is.
But Futureshop
(i) has better stock
(ii) has never given me any grief for returns, even after they were officially expired (I am particularly sore about this one after EB giving me all kinds of hell for trying to return a defective GHWT Guitar bundle within 2 weeks of purchase.)
(iii) don't try to push pre-orders, used games and "gaming guarantees" (which you have to renew if you use) down my throat
So, generally liking the Foo Fighters, but only recently getting into them (got their newest album), what songs are worth getting off the Color and the Shape? I know I want to get Monkey Wrench and My Hero, but I'm not certain of others.
So, generally liking the Foo Fighters, but only recently getting into them (got their newest album), what songs are worth getting off the Color and the Shape? I know I want to get Monkey Wrench and My Hero, but I'm not certain of others.
For Rock Band, if you don't get the whole album (which is worth it IMO), I'd highly recommend 'Hey, Johnny Park', 'Wind Up', and 'Enough Space', though you really can't go wrong.
On the inverse, 'Doll' is one you won't really miss if you're just getting a few, 'See You' is a good song, but not great for Rock Band, and 'Walking After You' falls into that column as well.
(On another note, The Color and the Shape and One By One are probably their best albums, and I strongly recommend picking them up).
So is there a shortage of the standalone 360 RB2 drum sets or something? Pricegrabber doesn't have a single store with 'em, I haven't seen them in stores locally, and deepdiscount.com (at only $68!) has had them on backorder for the last two weeks with no signs of delivery soon.
So, generally liking the Foo Fighters, but only recently getting into them (got their newest album), what songs are worth getting off the Color and the Shape? I know I want to get Monkey Wrench and My Hero, but I'm not certain of others.
I would highly recomend all of it. The only song I would say you could skip on is Doll. For singers, like myself, Walking After You and February Stars are so much fun to sing (I'd advocate more ballads for RB >.>;;). New Way Home is awesome for its build up-ness, Wind Up is just plain fun, Enough Space is great for those needing to shout....damnit just buy the whole thing.
So is there a shortage of the standalone 360 RB2 drum sets or something? Pricegrabber doesn't have a single store with 'em, I haven't seen them in stores locally, and deepdiscount.com (at only $68!) has had them on backorder for the last two weeks with no signs of delivery soon.
A quick look at gamestop.com tells me that dozens of gamestops around me have stock.
Since some folks expect Chinese Democracy to be announced as next week's DLC, I saw this at the Onion's A.V. Club and thought it might be interesting to some here. (If it matters, it's a guest review.)
Guest reviewer Chuck Klosterman is the author of five books, including Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey In Rural North Dakota and the new novel Downtown Owl. There is no one in the world more qualified to review the exhaustingly anticipated new Guns N' Roses album than he is.
Reviewing Chinese Democracy is not like reviewing music. It's more like reviewing a unicorn. Should I primarily be blown away that it exists at all? Am I supposed to compare it to conventional horses? To a rhinoceros? Does its pre-existing mythology impact its actual value, or must it be examined inside a cultural vacuum, as if this creature is no more (or less) special than the remainder of the animal kingdom? I've been thinking about this record for 15 years; during that span, I've thought about this record more than I've thought about China, and maybe as much as I've thought about the principles of democracy. This is a little like when that grizzly bear finally ate Timothy Treadwell: Intellectually, he always knew it was coming. He had to. His very existence was built around that conclusion. But you still can't psychologically prepare for the bear who eats you alive, particularly if the bear wears cornrows.
Here are the simple things about Chinese Democracy: Three of the songs are astonishing. Four or five others are very good. The vocals are brilliantly recorded, and the guitar playing is (generally) more interesting than the guitar playing on the Use Your Illusion albums. Axl Rose made some curious (and absolutely unnecessary) decisions throughout the assembly of this project, but that works to his advantage as often as it detracts from the larger experience. So: Chinese Democracy is good. Under any halfway normal circumstance, I would give it an A.
But nothing about these circumstances is normal.
For one thing, Chinese Democracy is (pretty much) the last Old Media album we'll ever contemplate in this context—it's the last album that will be marketed as a collection of autonomous-but-connected songs, the last album that will be absorbed as a static manifestation of who the band supposedly is, and the last album that will matter more as a physical object than as an Internet sound file. This is the end of that. But the more meaningful reason Chinese Democracy is abnormal is because of a) the motives of its maker, and b) how those motives embargoed what the definitive product eventually became. The explanation as to why Chinese Democracy took so long to complete is not simply because Axl Rose is an insecure perfectionist; it's because Axl Rose self-identifies as a serious, unnatural artist. He can't stop himself from anticipating every possible reaction and interpretation of his work. I suspect he cares less about the degree to which people like his music, and more about how it is taken, regardless of the listener's ultimate judgment. This is why he was so paralyzed by the construction of Chinese Democracy—he can't write or record anything without obsessing over how it will be received, both by a) the people who think he's an unadulterated genius, and b) the people who think he's little more than a richer, red-haired Stephen Pearcy. All of those disparate opinions have identical value to him. So I will take Chinese Democracy as seriously as Axl Rose would hope, and that makes it significantly less simple. At this juncture in history, rocking is not enough.
The weirdest (yet more predictable) aspect of Chinese Democracy is the way 60 percent of the lyrics seem to actively comment on the process of making the album itself. The rest of the vocal material tends to suggest some kind of abstract regret over an undefined romantic relationship punctuated by betrayal, but that might just be the way all hard-rock songs seem when the singer plays a lot of piano and only uses pronouns. The craziest track, "Sorry," resembles spooky Pink Floyd and is probably directed toward former GNR drummer Steven Adler, although I suppose it might be about Slash or Stephanie Seymour or David Geffen. It could even be about Jon Pareles, for all I fucking know—Axl's enemy list is pretty Nixonian at this point. The most uplifting songs are "Street Of Dreams" (a leaked song previously titled "The Blues") and the exceptionally satisfying "Catcher In The Rye" (a softer, more sophisticated re-working of "Yesterdays" that occupies a conceptual self-awareness in the vein of Elton John or mid-period Queen). The fragile ballad "This I Love" is sad, melodramatic, and pleasurably traditional. There are many moments where it's impossible to tell who Axl is talking to, so it feels like he's talking to himself (and inevitably about himself). There's not much cogent storytelling, but it's linear and compelling. The best description of the overall literary quality of the lyrics would probably be "effectively narcissistic."
As for the music—well, that's actually much better than anticipated. It doesn't sound dated or faux-industrial, and the guitar shredding that made the final version (which I'm assuming is still predominantly Buckethead) is alien and perverse. A song like "Shackler's Revenge" is initially average, until you get to the solo—then it becomes the sonic equivalent of a Russian robot wrestling a reticulating python. Whenever people lament the dissolution of the original Guns N' Roses, the person they always focus on is Slash, and that makes sense. (His unrushed blues metal was the group's musical vortex.) But it's actually better that Slash is not on this album. What's cool about Chinese Democracy is that it truly does sound like a new enterprise, and I can't imagine that being the case if Slash were dictating the sonic feel of every riff. The GNR members Rose misses more are Izzy Stradlin (who effortlessly wrote or co-wrote many of the band's most memorable tunes) and Duff McKagan, the underappreciated bassist who made Appetite For Destruction so devastating. Because McKagan worked in numerous Seattle-based bands before joining Guns N' Roses, he became the de facto arranger for many of those pre-Appetite tracks, and his philosophy was always to take the path of least resistance. He pushed the songs in whatever direction felt most organic. But Rose is the complete opposite. He takes the path of most resistance. Sometimes it seems like Axl believes every single Guns N' Roses song needs to employ every single thing that Guns N' Roses has the capacity to do—there needs to be a soft part, a hard part, a falsetto stretch, some piano plinking, some R&B bullshit, a little Judas Priest, subhuman sound effects, a few Robert Plant yowls, dolphin squeaks, wind, overt sentimentality, and a caustic modernization of the blues. When he's able to temporarily balance those qualities (which happens on the title track and on "I.R.S.," the album's two strongest rock cuts), it's sprawling and entertaining and profoundly impressive. The soaring vocals crush everything. But sometimes Chinese Democracy suffers from the same inescapable problem that paralyzed proto-epics like "Estranged" and "November Rain": It's as if Axl is desperately trying to get some unmakeable dream song from inside his skull onto the CD, and the result is an overstuffed maelstrom that makes all the punk dolts scoff. His ambition is noble, yet wildly unrealistic. It's like if Jeff Lynne tried to make Out Of The Blue sound more like Fun House, except with jazz drumming and a girl singer from Motown.
Throughout Chinese Democracy, the most compelling question is never, "What was Axl doing here?" but "What did Axl think he was doing here?" The tune "If The World" sounds like it should be the theme to a Roger Moore-era James Bond movie, all the way down to the title. On "Scraped," there's a vocal bridge that sounds strikingly similar to a vocal bridge from the 1990 Extreme song "Get The Funk Out." On the aforementioned "Sorry," Rose suddenly sings an otherwise innocuous line ("But I don't want to do it") in some bizarre, quasi-Transylvanian accent, and I cannot begin to speculate as to why. I mean, one has to assume Axl thought about all of these individual choices a minimum of a thousand times over the past 15 years. Somewhere in Los Angles, there's gotta be 400 hours of DAT tape with nothing on it except multiple versions of the "Sorry" vocal. So why is this the one we finally hear? What finally made him decide, "You know, I've weighed all my options and all their potential consequences, and I'm going with the Mexican vampire accent. This is the vision I will embrace. But only on that one line! The rest of it will just be sung like a non-dead human." Often, I don't even care if his choices work or if they fail. I just want to know what Rose hoped they would do.
On "Madagascar," he samples MLK (possible restitution for "One In A Million"?) and (for the second time in his career) the movie Cool Hand Luke. Considering that the only people who will care about Rose's preoccupation with Cool Hand Luke are those already obsessed with his iconography, the doomed messianic message of that film must deeply (and predictably) resonate with his very being. But how does that contribute to "Madagascar," a meteorological metaphor about all those unnamed people who wanted to stop him from making Chinese Democracy in the insane manner he saw fit? Sometimes listening to this album feels like watching the final five minutes of the Sopranos finale. There's no acceptable answer to these types of hypotheticals.
Still, I find myself impressed by how close Chinese Democracy comes to fulfilling the absurdly impossible expectation it self-generated, and I not-so-secretly wish this had actually been a triple album. I've maintained a decent living by making easy jokes about Axl Rose for the past 10 years, but what's the final truth? The final truth is this: He makes the best songs. They sound the way I want songs to sound. A few of them seem idiotic at the beginning, but I love the way they end. Axl Rose put so much time and effort into proving that he was super-talented that the rest of humanity forgot he always had been. And that will hurt him. This record may tank commercially. Some people will slaughter Chinese Democracy, and for all the reasons you expect. But he did a good thing here.
Grade: A-
Summary: Lots of text. Writer seems to like the album whilst suggesting that the 'band' has seen better days... I think.
I though this bit from the review, as it's more directly related to RB2, was...ambiguous:
A song like "Shackler's Revenge" is initially average, until you get to the solo—then it becomes the sonic equivalent of a Russian robot wrestling a reticulating python.
I guess that's positive. Though I wonder how he'd feel if he had to play it.
I love Chuck Klosterman. (Which is funny, because I hate Tim Rogers.) He used to write for Spin for a long while and now has a column in Esquire, along with a few books. Klosterman's writing infuriated me at first because it's so obtuse, but once I learned to know that his entire angle is dancing around an issue while poking fun at it, I grew to really like his writing, which isn't very informative at all but is always immensely entertaining. He's the prototypical hipster music nerd, and he's quite proud of it.
That said, I've only played the front half of Shackler's Revenge once, and I'm not really keen on ever trying it again.
I was just messing around on my reeltar and figured out how to do Misirlou-style strumming. Just a brush of the pick against the string. I'm on-or-off (being off slightly I either miss the string on the upstroke or my pick hits the string and gets caught on the downstroke), but with a bit of practice I think I can be consistent at it.
I never even realized that it was so easy. When I get it going it feels really natural. (Although when I can't get it going it seems hard again. :P )
Now go look at a Miserlou tab and start playing!
Also in real guitar news, I've lately been trying to get the chords to Melissa down. I'm really bad at switching chords but I think I'm improving.
I was just messing around on my reeltar and figured out how to do Misirlou-style strumming. Just a brush of the pick against the string. I'm on-or-off (being off slightly I either miss the string on the upstroke or my pick hits the string and gets caught on the downstroke), but with a bit of practice I think I can be consistent at it.
I never even realized that it was so easy. When I get it going it feels really natural. (Although when I can't get it going it seems hard again. :P )
Now go look at a Miserlou tab and start playing!
Also in real guitar news, I've lately been trying to get the chords to Melissa down. I'm really bad at switching chords but I think I'm improving.
I'm a little late to the DLC party this week. Are we all pissed about the versions of Holiday in Cambodia and California Uber Alles they picked for the Dead Kennedys pack this week? I am.
Posts
I've got the day off tomorrow. All I have to do now is to remember to feed myself at about lunchtime.
There wasn't any type of install on my end. It just reads from the disc and loads pretty well.
PS3 Trophies
I mean, I'm not exactly using a stopwatch here, but still. I can't tell the difference.
What are the odds of GameStop actually shipping the PS3 Ion Drum Kit tomorrow?
I tried pre-ordering from their website and, as near as I can tell, they seem to have a pack of idiot baboons running their on-line service. That is: I ordered, they charged shipping when they said it would be free, they confused an in store pickup with a residential address, then basically said "you can't get that from us."
So I'm going to make the half hour drive to the brick and mortar store to preorder tonight, if:
a) there's any chance I can get it before Thanksgiving
and
b) there's any guarantee of competence
any opinions? I've got a busload of family coming into town and I've been slowly addicting them all to Rock Band. This badass drumset would be the icing on the cake.
Thanx
It varies between games. Fable 2 benefits quite a bit from it. Halo 3, you're better off not bothering.
For the most part, I've heard a lot of shipping issues with Ion. However, with Amazon and other sites, I haven't heard more than a day delayed delivery from the folks here.
I'd probably call up the GS and ask if it's possible to do so. I'm not saying they won't take your money (they always do), but you probably want to have some idea of whether they'll actually be getting any at all. Considering how close to release you're making it, I doubt they'll have any in stock unless they placed an order for any.
Yeah, I talked to an employee on the phone and he said the situation is that they're special ordering these for preorders only -- makes sense, given the price -- and won't be keeping any in stock for "a while, maybe December". They said that preordering today should be no problem, but I usually don't preorder, so what I'm worried about is them taking my money now and not coming up with the goods until 2009 or so.
This is a real concern - pre-ordering guarantees you will get a copy, but it doesn't guarantee you'll get it on time. I pre-ordered both RB1 and RB2 from EBGames and didn't buy either one from them because they were the last place to actually sell the game. It's pretty weak when it's easier to get a game at Best Buy and Walmart than a video game store, heh.
You can get that $5 transferred to another pre-order though.
I've realized that the only reason I even go there is because it's closer to the bus stop than Futureshop is.
But Futureshop
(i) has better stock
(ii) has never given me any grief for returns, even after they were officially expired (I am particularly sore about this one after EB giving me all kinds of hell for trying to return a defective GHWT Guitar bundle within 2 weeks of purchase.)
(iii) don't try to push pre-orders, used games and "gaming guarantees" (which you have to renew if you use) down my throat
Waiting is good for you. Patience is a virtue.
For Rock Band, if you don't get the whole album (which is worth it IMO), I'd highly recommend 'Hey, Johnny Park', 'Wind Up', and 'Enough Space', though you really can't go wrong.
On the inverse, 'Doll' is one you won't really miss if you're just getting a few, 'See You' is a good song, but not great for Rock Band, and 'Walking After You' falls into that column as well.
(On another note, The Color and the Shape and One By One are probably their best albums, and I strongly recommend picking them up).
I would highly recomend all of it. The only song I would say you could skip on is Doll. For singers, like myself, Walking After You and February Stars are so much fun to sing (I'd advocate more ballads for RB >.>;;). New Way Home is awesome for its build up-ness, Wind Up is just plain fun, Enough Space is great for those needing to shout....damnit just buy the whole thing.
PS3 Trophies
A quick look at gamestop.com tells me that dozens of gamestops around me have stock.
I though this bit from the review, as it's more directly related to RB2, was...ambiguous:
I guess that's positive. Though I wonder how he'd feel if he had to play it.
That said, I've only played the front half of Shackler's Revenge once, and I'm not really keen on ever trying it again.
Is there a name for that picking technique?
Tremelo I think
Not the GH2 song I would have preferred, but interesting nonetheless
I have 549 Rock Band Drum and 305 Pro Drum FC's
REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww
I don't want to list those just yet thanks to the previous Microsoft flop with the Offspring pack.
Uh oh.
"Now you've unleashed the fucking fury."
Ha!
"She wants a war? We'll give her a fucking war!"
Klosterman seems to think he hears Buckethead on other tracks.
He plays shit like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS_IYe5JTZ4