Somewhat Manly Nerd

This Sunday (or Saturday night, if you’re hitting up a Best Buy midnight launch) Guitar Hero III will officially be hitting store shelves. In less than a month, the makers of the first two Guitar Hero games will be releasing their new massive game pictured above – Rock Band. The former is the standard 5-button plastic guitar affair that gamers have come to know and love — or possibly get sick of — while the latter comes in a $160 or $170 (depending on whether the graphics are next-gen or not) package complete with game, guitar, drums, and microphone. But you already knew this.

What you might not have known is how Red Octane made the guitar peripherals for the first two Guitar Hero games, but is part of Activision now, so while Harmonix moved on to make Rock Band under EA, Red Octane is still with the Guitar Hero series. Together with Neversoft (famous for creating the Tony Hawk series) they have created the third installment. For some reason, they’re deciding to be fucking douchebags and are locking out the Rock Band guitar somehow, which means it will NOT be compatible with Guitar Hero III. Complete and total bullshit. At least the 360 GH2 guitar works with 3, though. Over on the PS3 side, it seems that the GH3 guitar will not be backwards-compatible with the old games. On top of that, the adapter that was created to allow gamers to use their old PS2 guitar controllers doesn’t work well at all. What a mess.

Naturally, Harmonix is being awesome and all the previous Guitar Hero controllers (including GH3!) will be compatible with Rock Band. On the bad side, their will be only two packages available this year. Game-only and the massive package mentioned earlier. These will be released for the 360 and PS3 first, while a PS2 version will follow a few weeks later (Wii LOL). I NEED the drums and I NEED the game immediately, so they’ve got me hooked. I’ll never sing and I could conceivably buy GH3 for my 360 and use that guitar, but the Rock Band guitar looks about as cool as a fake guitar possibly can (just look below) and has more functionality. So massive Rock Band package it is. God, I never thought I’d write so much about peripheral compatibility.

So I guess the real question is: Rock Band or Guitar Hero III?

I’m going to have to say that Rock Band is required. If the price seems a bit too steep, think about it: Two friends could share the price of a massive package, buy an additional game-only, and then share the peripherals for $115 each. That’s only $15 more than the game+guitar package for a next-gen version of Guitar Hero III. Of course, maniacs like me will buy both. GH3 does look to raise the difficulty to even a higher level, which is what is pulling me towards it. Plus, I can’t wait a month to get my fake musician fix. But really, looking at these songs, which are supposedly on Expert, Rock Band looks to be pulling a Nintendo in regards to the guitar. (Rock Band is really about the DRUMS to me, and I know that’s going to be hard as hell, so I’ll be more than happy.)

To be fair, most of those parts aren’t solos anyway. And “Epic” does look like it’s difficult enough to make me miss some notes. And Rock Band definitely looks a shitload better than Guitar Hero III. As much as I can gather from a shitty YouTube video, anyhow.

So there we go. I’m spent. Buy Rock Band. Buy Guitar Hero III if you’re really good at the past two games and aren’t sick of the formula yet. The setlists are both awesome, but the DLC (downloadable content) puts Rock Band over the top. Who’s Next and Nevermind (entire albums!) right off the bat. Unbelievable.

Yea, it’s a long name. But holy shit is it going to rock.

This is how it’ll look on your TV most likely. I always find the off-screen TV shots make games look better.

Here are a couple of other shots from Capcom’s blog…finally.

Ken’s Flaming Dragon Punch and Ryu on fire in HD…so awesome.

Even the player select screen kicks ass, although the player portraits could be better. Ryu and Ken both look a bit Mayan…

You can see them in high-res on the site here.

And in case anyone doesn’t remember what the original looked like:

Even if Capcom releases this at $15, it’ll be a bargain. XBLA is fucking incredible.

The Red Sox just won the American League pennant. The Patriots are 7-0 and Tom Brady looks like he’s going to demolish the season touchdown record. The Celtics now have Kevin Garnett and look to be one of the best teams in the East. The Bruins…well, who cares about hockey.

A decade ago, the entire country could rest easy knowing that while the Bruins and Celtics were respectable franchises, the Patriots and Red Sox would always ultimately end up losers. And football and baseball are the two big sports anyway, with the Red Sox being THE team of Boston. Since the dawn of the 21st century, both the Red Sox and Patriots have been dominant teams, with the latter being a historic juggernaut. The Red Sox winning their first World Series in 82 years was enough to make people start going to church in preparation for the Apocalypse.

Boston fans no longer wait the wheels to fall off. It looked like they were about to in the 7th inning tonight, but a bonehead move by the Indians’ third base coach cost the Indians the tying run, and then the Indians’ bus subsequently had its wheels fall off, tumbled down a cliff, and burned in a massive inferno. A Game 7 that was on its way to being an all-time classic ended up being an embarrassing 11-2 win for the Red Sox. They won the last two games of the series at Fenway Park by a combined score of 23-4. The Indians shit the bed and then proceeded to roll in the sheets.

Now only God’s Wrath in the form of the Colorado Rockies can stop the Red Sox. Ultimately, I think the massive layoff will hurt them. Plus, I just can’t imagine them keeping this insanity any longer, especially against this Red Sox team. They are just incredible. Josh Beckett is like Roger Clemens in his prime — a nasty, hard-throwing Texan — only he’s actually good in the postseason. He’s just amazing to watch, even in postgame conferences.

He fits right in with the rest of team. Manny tells it like it is, saying that it wouldn’t be the “end of the world” if the Sox lost — something Red Sox fans definitely don’t want to hear. Dustin Pedroia was caught partying it up after the Red Sox clinched the AL East title. The entire bullpen plays fucking songs out in the outfield throughout the game with whatever objects they can find. And Papelbon has his tough guy face, and goggles:

I’m absolutely disgusted right now. In addition to the Red Sox completing their ALCS comeback, the Jets blew their game today against the fucking BENGALS in the second half while the Patriots continued their march to an inevitable Super Bowl win and possible undefeated season (it’s all riding on that Colts game coming up). How did this happen?

A comment from GAF:

Massachusetts is like Israel and Brady is our lord returning from Heaven, the Red Sox are Brady’s Angels obviously. It all makes sense. Such a beautiful moment.

To which I replied:

If that’s truly the case, this will all be worth it to see Brady die on a crucifix.

It would truly be glorious. Here’s to hoping this is God’s master plan.

I have a DVD backlog. If that isn’t embarrassing enough, it is now in the double-digits. I don’t know how it happened so quickly. Granted, I received a few as gifts, but there’s still a handful that I couldn’t stop myself from buying. The prices were just too good! A while back, I bought Pi and Empire of the Sun for basically the same price it would’ve cost to rent them from Blockbuster. So can you really blame me? (Today I bought Leon The Professional and Layer Cake for $10 each, though)

Maybe I should just get a Netflix account. It would be cheaper and I wouldn’t be adding to the massive DVD collection that is rapidly devouring all the shelf space in my room. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be able to pull out such a large assortment of movies whenever a friend says he hasn’t seen a certain one.

Anyhow, for your amusement and mockery, here is my DVD backlog:

- Empire of the Sun
- Layer Cake
- Easy Rider
- Leon The Professional
- The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear
- The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult
- Pi
- The Fountain
- The Young Ones (British TV series)
- Gjidorah
- Judge Dredd

The last four I got in a gift box. I’m not even counting the handful of anime DVDs I got in said gift package. The only way I’ll touch those is out of respect to the person who gave them to me. Anth, if you’re reading this, it’s called Hellsing. This list doesn’t even include DVDs of movies/TV shows that I had already seen prior to buying and subsequently haven’t watched on DVD yet. Having a gaming backlog is understandable since games actually take some effort, time, and sometimes skill, but watching a movie only takes sitting on your ass for an average of 2 hours. I need to learn how to save.

Radiohead – Reckoner

Unfortunately, not only is the video quality awful on YouTube — so is the audio quality. I wish I knew a place to host MP3s. Too bad that WordPress doesn’t have imeem.com support. Even with this shit quality, the song is still amazing. Yorke’s voice hasn’t had the chance to shine much over the course of the past few Radiohead albums, but it is truly showcased in this track. The percussion is really catchy as well. And of course, each guitar string sounds perfectly plucked. The song is probably my favorite from Radiohead since “The National Anthem” and one of the best songs of the year.

The following is from the latest episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It is one of the greatest things to ever air on television.

The Ballad of Night Man and Day Man

http://www.hulu.com/watch/17681/its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-night-man

NIGHT MAN

Night man,
Sneaky and mean
Spider inside my dreams
I think I love you
You make me wanna cry, you make me wanna die
I love you, I love you , I love you , I love you, I love you.
Night Man
Every night you come into my room and pin me down with your strong arms
You pin me down down and I try to fight you
you come inside me and fill me up…

Just two men sharing the night
It might seem wrong but it’s just right
It’s just two men sharing each other
It’s just two men like loving brothers
One on top, and one on bottom
One inside, and one is out
One is screaming he’s so happy
The other’s screaming a passionate shout
It’s the Night Man
The feeling so wrong it’s right man
the feeling so wrong…
I can’t fight you man when you come inside me and pin me down your strong hands and I’ll become the Night….the passionate, passionate Night Man.

They took you Night Man
and you don’t belong to them
They left me in a world of darkness
without your sexy hands
and I miss you Night Man
so bad.

DAY MAN
Day Man
Fighter of the Night Man
Champion of the Sun
Master of Karate
and friendship for everyone.

Hopefully that’s as corny a title you will ever see on this blog.

Between Radiohead’s new album being a pleasant surprise, Portal being totally fuck awesome, and acing a pathetically easy math exam, I had a pretty damn good day today.

I’d love to write more, but I need to pass out.

Download In Rainbows.

Buy The Orange Box.

- If it weren’t for my late friend Keith loving them, I would think that admitting to liking Kid A and Amnesiac was a big internet joke that I missed.

- Marion Jones admitted to using steroids. This was a big deal? I could’ve sworn she failed a drug test a while ago. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. These Olympian women are so filled with testosterone that I doubt any of them are capable of ever having kids.

- Call of Duty 4 will be a better multiplayer FPS than Halo 3.

- Blu-ray and HD-DVD are selling so poorly that by the time the DVD format is actually ready to die, there will be a third-disc format that will come out and destroy them both. At least that’s what I’m hoping. Or every single studio agrees to go exclusive to one format… like tomorrow.

- Soccer will become popular here in the States when both the NFL and MLB are liquidated. In other words, never.

- Taking screenshots in Halo 3 Theater is way more fun than it should be.

- When a student can take a 300-level economics course without taking the prerequisite class, skip two-and-a-half weeks of class, and do the homework solely with the help of Wikipedia, something is wrong.

- I want to go see Blade Runner: The Final Cut in theaters. This unfortunately requires a trek into NYC, so going alone wouldn’t be all that enjoyable. Anyone want to accompany me? No homo.

- Rock Band is going to be too expensive to compete with Guitar Hero III this holiday season. Especially now that the only way to get the drums this year will be to buy the $169.99 package.

- I got my dad to buy a DirecTV HDTV receiver about a year and a half ago. Now we apparently need a new one to get the expanded HD lineup DirecTV is in the middle of adding. This is total bullshit and is a microcosm of the clusterfuck that is the entire hi-def market. Combined with the travesty that is the Blu-ray and HD-DVD battle, no wonder people don’t know what the hell to do when it comes to entertainment anymore.

-Experiencing Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the first time after playing the numerous GBA/DS incarnations is massively underwhelming.

- Chad Pennington needs to be relieved of his duties as New York Jets QB.

- Amazon.com kicks an incredible amount of ass. I ordered four books, got free shipping, and they all arrived in the mail in two days. So awesome. Fuck Borders forever.

- No one I speak to in real life classifies Children of Men as a “great” movie. I, on the other hand, think it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in recent years. Maybe I’m part of an internet joke after all.

- Roger Clemens should never step foot on a Major League mound ever again. Even if the Yankees somehow come back and win this series, he shouldn’t even be on the ALCS roster. I don’t care how much the Yankees wasted on him.

- A-Rod is hitting for a higher average than Derek Jeter so far this postseason. The over/under for newspaper articles talking about that is 0.

- The Mets can take solace in one fact after their massive collapse at the hands of the Phillies. They won as the same amount of postseason games.

- George Steinbrenner needs to be fired. From life.

- Turns out Lou Pinella did save Carlos Zambrano until next season.

- Bob Sheppard wasn’t at Yankee Stadium tonight. That has to be the first time he missed a Yankee playoff game in 50 games. He won’t be the PA announcer tomorrow either. I think Tony Gwynn ate him.

- Whichever team faces the Red Sox in the ALCS has to deal with Ortiz and Manny both hitting very, very well. I think Manny’s last two home runs have traveled a combined quarter-mile.

- The Colorado Rockies. Are in. The NLCS. God is clearly on their side.

- The Cubs will be able to celebrate the 100th anniversary of their last World Series win next season.

- Three sweeps. And the Rockies and D-Backs in the NLCS. TBS must be PISSED.

Two walk-off wins — one on a home run that went about 550 feet, and one a bases-loaded line-drive single. One game was affected by a Canadian Soldier (bugs!) invasion, the other by a fan taking a pop-up out of a player’s glove. Only in baseball.

The Yankees-Indians Game 2 showdown featured a classic pitcher’s duel. Up the 8th inning, the only mistake that had been made was Fausto Carmona throwing a slider to Melky Cabrera. Andy Pettitte showed why the Yankees brought him back. Honestly, he never should’ve been allowed to leave. He pitched out of a leadoff runner reaching base almost every inning until Joba Chamberlain came in with an out in the 7th, who subsequently finished up the inning easily. It looked like Cabrera’s solo HR might hold up. Then the bugs came.

They first showed up during Carmona’s 8th inning work, but he didn’t seem all that phased by them. By the bottom of the inning, however, the bugs were in full-out assault mode. It was like God sent down a plague to sabotage Joba. I would figure a Native American would be in tune with nature or some crap like that, but the bugs turned out to be the toughest opponent Joba had faced all year. At one point, it looked like he had 30 bugs making a home on his neck, with another 50 on his hat. It was disgusting. I can only imagine what it looked like HD. He was waving his hand, stepping off the mound…and throwing wild pitches. On his second wild pitch of the inning, the Indians tied up the score 1-1.

Seeing that insane turn of events, I have to agree with this Busted Tees shirt.

Carmona continued not to be phased by the bugs and finished up 9 innings of 3-hit ball. An incredible performance. Rivera came in and tossed a couple of tense innings, but as one could have predicted, he was as calm as always, acting as if the bugs weren’t there. The problem for the Yankees was after Rivera. Luis Vizcaino came in blew the game pretty handily in the 11th inning. The Yankees are in trouble.

Obligatory side note: A-Rod was 0-4.

The sequel was a Red Sox-Angels Game 2 that also turned out to be a low-scoring, close game. Not quite as masterfully pitched, but Fenway isn’t exactly a pitcher’s park. I missed the beginning of the game where most of the scoring occurred due to the length of the Yankees-Indians game, but I was there for the rest. The Indians may have benefited from some divine intervention, but the Red Sox got some help from a real fan. In the fifth, Angels catcher Jeff Mathis reached into the stands for a fly ball only to have it snatched basically right out of his glove by a young Red Sox fan. It would’ve been the second out, so the Red Sox were able to score from a sacrifice fly later in the inning and tie the game at 3-3. The kid got high-fives as he walked up the stairs, one of the people being Stephen King. He will no doubt be the most popular kid in school. I wonder if his teachers will ask for his autograph.

The score remained 3-3 until the bottom of the 9th. Julio Lugo led off with a single. On a hit-and-run, Lugo was able to get to second on a grounder to shortstop by Dustin Pedroia. It was time for K-Rod. He quickly got the second out by striking out Kevin Youkilis. With 2 outs and the winning run on second, Mike Scoscia decided to walk David Ortiz for the fourth time in the game. It was left to a battle between Rodriquez and Manny. After a first-pitch curve for a ball, K-Rod reached back and chucked a fastball…right down the middle. Manny hit it out of the stadium and onto the Massachusetts Turnpike. He Lidge’d K-Rod.

So every series is now 2-0. I only hope at least one of them reaches a Game 5.

Now for more A-Rod material.