Harmonix + RedOctane = Happiness
Jun/096
Ok, so I am totally back into these band simulator games and it’s all thanks to Harmonix with a little help from RedOctane. I got bored very quickly of Guitar Hero World Tour, the game just wasn’t that fun to play. Sure you get to play some ‘great’ songs and use some really good peripherals but it still isn’t fun.
The other day I got a copy of Rock Band (I know Rock Band 2 is out but I see this more of an extension of my music library that I can play) and fell in love. The very basic list of music that you can play out of the box already had a good solid set of tracks that I really enjoyed playing! I decided to hit up the Xbox Live Marketplace to see what the state of play was on DLC…600 items!? Wow, I was sure I would find some songs that I would really enjoy. 2000 MS points later and I have a quality track list.
The experience is made better by the fact that I have the current crop of peripherals for Guitar Hero from RedOctane, who most defiantly create a better guitar and drum set than Harmonix do for Rock Band. Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II were developed by Harmoix and published by RedOctane, but since the split in 2006 the Guitar Hero gameplay has gone down hill and the Rock Band instruments have never been good. I feel that my mix of Harmonix gameplay and RedOctane hardware is a great mix and I am back enjoying this genre of games. I recommend it to all!
2010 F1 Entry List
Jun/091
Scuderia Ferrari – Marlboro Ferrari
Scuderia Toro Rosso – STR TBA
Red Bull Racing – Red Bull Racing TTBA
At&T Williams – Williams Toyota
Force India F1 Team – Force India Mercedes
Campos Grand Prix – Campos Cosworth
Manor Grand Prix – Manor Cosworth
Team US F1 – Team US F1 Cosworth
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes – McLaren Mercedes*
BMW Sauber F1 Team – BMW Sauber*
Renault F1 Team – Renault*
Panasonic Toyota Racing – Toyota*
Brawn GP Formula One Team – Brawn TBA*
Well, anyone else a little dissapointed? Where is Team Lotus, Aston Martin or Lola? I am not really interested in Campos or Manor, I was hoping that the Prodrive and Lola names would be there instead.
The final 5 cars on the list with the little * next to their names are teams that have entered a conditional entry based on a change to the FIA rules. The FIA have offered them the chance to remove those conditions by the 19th of June or face being removed from the list, they have enough entries to fill those places in, should the teams refuse to lift the conditions.
Game Review imminent
Jun/090
A miracle has happened. I have actually managed to find a game that my fiancée will play with me! She really enjoyed Scene it? Lights, Camera, Action so we are going to play Box Office smash together and I will try and get some of her opinions into the review.
In other news, I am back in my Koopa obsessed stage. My Dad wrote a ‘How well do you know Koopa’ quiz on facebook and I scored highly, which got me back into wanting to listen to their music. You’ll notice my Last.fm list on the right of the page, you can see just how much I am actually listening to them. I recommend you do too…
It’s Sunday!
Jun/092
Usually this would be one of the best days of the week, but since I don’t actually have anything to do it’s just another day to relax and let time pass me by.
It’s the Turkish F1 GP today, looking forward to that. I really enjoy motor sport so even when it’s rubbish it’s still good.
I also have Race Driver: GRID, Virtua Tennis 2009 and Scene it! Box Office Smash to review so expect to see those crop up next week. The Race Driver review will be full of praise, really enjoying it. Anyone have any requests for reviewing? I’ll see if I can get my hands on a copy and review it so you know whether to buy it or not…
Leave me a comment or email your requests to tom@snow-melt.co.uk.
Blogging from my HTC TyTn
Jun/092
For quite a while now I have been looking for a way to blog from a spare HTC TyTn that I have laying around. I used to use it as my regular phone but now I have a HTC Touch Diamond as my every day phone, which is great but awkward to blog on. Now I have discovered a worpress plugin that, when signing into the dashboard for my blog, takes me to a mobile version. It is really easy to navigate so now I should be able to update on the fly all the time! The only problem is that as my entry spills over below the screen I have to keep pressing down to follow it. Why it doesn’t do that automatically is beyond me, seems like a feature that is obvious to include. I do have another option that is a whole program installed on this device, I might try that later.
Race Pro…the review
Jun/095
So I have had a few days with this game now and I am very impressed. However it does fall short in some respects.
The game itself is very easy to get into which makes it less daunting for new players. I myself am a veteran of GTR and Race07 on the PC so went straight for the hardest difficulty. I was sat on the start line waiting for the lights to go green holding the throttle in like some sort of hooligan. I was hoping that I could spin the wheels up and have a bad start, but I was obviously expecting too much. My car shot off the line and within 100 meters i had gone from 4th to 1st, “Yeah, that’s realistic” I thought. So after that miracle start I expected the rest of the field to hunt me down, I was, after all, on the highest difficulty, and here lies the next problem. After a two lap race in a Caterham I was 8 seconds ahead of second place…I wasn’t that good. I missed the apex in places and came out of corners in the wrong gear (I couldn’t be bothered with manual) so I wasn’t “fast” by my standards. Continuing my search for realism I got the entry speed for a chicane completely wrong and went flying towards a menacing looking tyre…nothing. The bodywork bent a little bit but the car continued to reach its high speeds at the same pace and it tracked straight and true. I wasn’t expecting the unforgiving levels of damage offered by the brilliant Richard Burns Rally, but expected a little more punishment for having a high velocity confrontation with a solid wall.
However…
I have now started to progress a little more through the ranks in my virtual career and unlock the cars that have a grip to power ratio a little bit closer to silly. While I am still confusingly faster than the AI these cars are a little more prone to disagreeing with me on the matter of what direction we should be facing. This is the challenge that I wanted to get from this level of difficulty, it’s much more of a challenge to learn the track and the characteristics of the particular car. Although this hasn’t totally saved this game, it has given me a reason to continue playing.
To conclude, I still feel this is a good game but it wasn’t what I wanted from it. It feels much more like “The Early Learning Center’s My First Race Sim” rather than the realistic GT race Sim that I have grown to love from the PC. They have obviously bought the learning curve right down but when you play it on the high levels, it’s still far to easy even to me, and I know there are lots of people way better at these games than I am. If your looking for a racing sim game on the 360 that’s going to ease you into the genre then Race Pro gets a big thumbs up from me. Although if you actually want to properly get into the genre the answer still has to be buy a PC, G25 racing wheel and GTR2, Race 07 or LFS…
E3 is in the air!
Jun/091
So today is the first day of E3 and it will be opened with the Microsoft conference. I am really looking forward to this, it should throw up some nice items to think about.
The one thing I am looking forward to is this alleged motion camera. It’s (apparently) a camera that will capture full body movement to control the objects on the screen and will even be sensitive to small movements such as pinching. It’s a massive step up from the likes of the Wiimote and the Sixaxis controllers (since Microsoft already have done that for PC and it didn’t sell) and should make the console even more popular than it already is. Couple this with the Netflix streaming for the US and the Sky Player for the UK and you have a media and entertainment device that is aimed at everyone!
Another interesting bit of info hit the airwaves today. It was the arrival of another motion sensitive device for the 360. It’s a game called Squeeballs: Island Party and comes bundled with what they call their ‘Freedom’ controller. It looks basically like a Wiimote but with the buttons from a 360 on it. I hope this isn’t the big motion sensing news Microsoft had.
Race Pro
Jun/091
Ok, so anyone reading this that personally knows me will know of my love for anything car related. I have a Kit Car of my own, I helped my Dad build his, I have a Logitech G25 wheel on my PC and build exciting race cars in my spare time of Forza Motorsport 2.
Well today I have got Race Pro for the 360 and will be putting it through it’s paces. It’s from the people that gave us GTR on the PC, an extremely popular racing sim that has now turned into GTR 2 and Race 07. I am going to be trying it out with the expectation that it will be rubbish…
Why? Because you can’t build a SIM game like that unless you have the appropriate peripherals. My racing sim games on my PC are amazing because I have a brilliant wheel to play them with, but on my 360 I just have some controllers. Hopefully I am about to be proven wrong because I would really like this to be good!
An update!
May/090
Not really got anything to say, just thought I would update it so James had something new to read.
Hi James
Spread the word!
May/090
In my quest to become internet famous I am going to need to get myself out to a large audience. Think it shall involve asking some people with an already large following to read and possibly pass on my blog?
Lets do it…
