Metal Gear Solid 2 (Ps2) Penny Arcade Episode 1 (360) Ikaruga (360) Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (DS) The Red Star (Ps2) Persona 3 (Ps2) Secret of Mana (SNES) Street Fighter Alpha 2 (Arcade) Lost Odyssey (360) Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) Radiant Silvergun (Saturn) Dodonpachi (Saturn) Guardian Heroes (Saturn) Burning Rangers (Saturn) Silhouette Mirage (Saturn) Contra 4 (DS) Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS) Sonic 2 (Genesis)
Left 4 Dead (360)
Chrono Trigger (DS)
World of Goo (PC)
Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
World of Warcraft (PC/Mac) Too Human (360) Rock Band 2 (360) Soul Calibur 4 (360) Castle Crashers (XBLA) D&D 4th Edition - DMing FR
Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix (PS3)
When I first played The Beatles: Rock Band, I gave it an “A”. Why? Because I’m a lifelong Beatles junkie. I’d been hyperactively waiting for the game’s release for months. I thought about asking for the game for Christmas, but decided I simply could not wait- the time between 9/9/09 and 12/25/09 was too long to bear. I pre-ordered the game on Amazon and had it shipped to my door- there was no way I was going to go to Best Buy on its release date, only to find it sold out. Truth be told, I also wanted to avoid the expected crowd of Beatles freaks dressed up as cut-rate Sergeant Peppers lined up outside, next to their tents.
When I got the game, I immediately plowed right through it. The Beatles, shit- in a video game! And from a band whose music had never even appeared on iTunes! I was happy as a clam.
…But then what happened?
Am I still playing it anymore? No. Surprised? I am.
I don’t want to slam the game, but give it its due. The problem is that The Beatles: Rock Band doesn’t feel like a fully fleshed out Rock Band video game, or even a real video game at all. It feels like an interactive Beatles exhibit, sponsored by Rock Band, at a museum. It’s fun for about 20 minutes- max- and then you want to move on. At the end of the day it’s little more than a glorified stand-alone track pack. Very little about the game makes you want to invest yourself in it as a person and play it again.
Let’s start with customization. The game, in many ways, is reverent to a fault. I know that some throwbacks are shocked by the fact that these beloved superstars from a different era- two of whom are very much deceased, one murdered- have been recreated in digital, video game form. What a travesty! Who cares.
One huge flaw of this game is that the characters do not function in the same way they do in the other Rock Band editions. Although the Beatles do certainly appear onstage, you cannot play AS the Beatles. You cannot pick one of Beatles and customize their clothes or their body. I was excited to make a Fat John Lennon (a la Fat Elvis), but alas this is impossible. It would have also been cool to create your own character, and see yourself play along with the Beatles onstage. Maybe Rock Band 2 has spoiled me with all these options, but goddammit I wanted to see them in The Beatles: Rock Band.
Another drawback is with incentives to keep playing. Relatively speaking, gameplay in Rock Band 2 ran pretty deep. When you played with your band, you got the feeling that you were part of a real story, whose twists and turns you could at least in part control. It was a happy moment when I had enough points to be able to hire the spiritual guru for my band. It was a satisfying moment, if a silly one. You do advance through a story in the Beatles, of course- “the” story of Beatles, and their rise to fame from humble Liverpudlian roots. However, there’s so much more to the Beatles story that is never touched upon in the game. Again, the game in this sense is far too respectful for its own good. Wouldn’t it be fun to, after earning enough points, buy a trip to visit India and visit the Maharishi? The other Rock Band editions are full of unlockables. The Beatles: Rock Band has a distinct lack of fun unlockables. After you’ve played through the game once, there’s little extra motivation to pick up and play the game again…except to play those marvelous classic Beatles tunes.
Which brings me to my greatest gripe about the game. The songs. And the lack of them. And, more specifically, the lack of good ones.
What… the… fuck?
45 songs? That’s it?
I understand that these are not ordinary songs. These are Beatles songs (read: $$$). Rock Band 2 was full of filler crap like Lacuna Coil and Bang Camaro and, worst yet, Z-grade cuts from big names (“Shackler’s Revenge” by Guns ‘n Roses? How insulting!). But at the end of the day the game had 80 songs, plus free downloadable extras. At least 50 of the songs were consistently fun the play (and, let’s face it, every once in a blue moon you do get a hankering for Bang Camaro…). It took a long time, in the months, for me to get truly bored with Rock Band 2’s song selection. (I ended up paying $9.99 for the 6 song Toby Keith track pack, just to annoy my roommate- worth every penny!)
By contrast, I ended up getting bored really quickly by the 45 songs in The Beatles: Rock Band. Why?
Because so many of them are crappy. It would be one thing if the 45 songs in the game were the cream of the Beatles. If the game had only 45 songs but they were my 45 favorite Beatles songs, I’d be in hog heaven. Not the case. The game has 20 marquee Beatles tracks at, best. Where was “Norwegian Wood” or “A Day in the Life”? While it was cool to see some obscure Beatles favorites too (like personal favorite “Hey Bulldog”), I was pretty sure their inclusion was motivated by the fact that they were cheaper to put in than the more well-known songs. When it comes to music, the game simply does not give Beatles fans what they want. The whole thing feels like a play for fans to throw down even more cash to get all the Beatles songs they actually want. Which pissed me off. For $59.99, I expected a Beatles game that, musicwise, didn’t feel incredibly thin on classic Beatles tunes.
One aspect of the game that was stunning was the background animations for some of the songs. Two standouts were the incredibly trippy “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “Octopus’s Garden”. The problem is that these songs’ animations set such a high standard that most of the rest of the game felt like a huge drop-off by comparison. It really feels like the programmers blew their wad on 5 or so “standout” song animations, leaving the rest as filler.
What else? The three-part harmonies were cool in theory, but who has three microphones? I don’t. The new peripherals are pretty cool, but I don’t have $200 to blow on a new fake Ringo Starr drum kit.
Why am I being such a grouch? Because I love the Beatles and expect so much out of a Rock Band game about them. Don’t get me wrong- I was and still am incredibly stoked to see the Beatles and their music in a video game, especially since the Fab Four had shied away from the digital world for so long.
I like this game. I do. But it lacks too much in too many ways for me to love it, both as a gamer and a Beatles fan. After my brief honeymoon with the game has long since passed, I give The Beatles: Rock Band a disappointing b-.
I ‘ve had this conversation an innumerable amount of times. Sega Channel was great. It was awesome. But barely anyone seems to have ever heard of it. For those who were fortunate enough to have it as a kid, Sega Channel is fondly remembered as a magical gaming marvel. And since then, there hasn’t been anything like it.
Introduced in 1994, the premise was simple: Call your cable company, have them mail you a giant cartridge, plug a cable into the cartridge (the same cable that goes in your TV), put the cartridge in your Genesis and BAM: 50 new games to play a month. I would say the best channel on TV, wouldn’t you?
Talk about ahead of its time.
1994 was the same year that AOL released their version 1.5. Remember those days? You had to wait 20 minutes for a single page to load. The modem would dial in and if you listened closely to all those beeps and whistles, you could swear the James Bond theme was playing. (Okay maybe you never heard it, but I swear it’s in there!) If someone in the house picked up the phone, you were disconnected. And of course you couldn’t even be on the internet long or calls wouldn’t be able to get through. There were no cell phones. Only car phones. Oh boy. But I digress.
Sega Channel beamed 50 games through a television cable into your Sega Genesis. How about that?
Upon turning on the Genesis, or ‘Sega’, as I affectionately called it, a menu would load, allowing you to pick from a huge list of different games. The menu looked a lot like menus that are on satellite dishes now. The games were arranged by category. There was racing, action, fighting, sports, among others. The best part though, were the games that weren’t in stores. Golden Axe 4, Rolo To The Rescue (a game where you’re an elephant who saves his friends), and Marko’s Magic Football were just some of the classics I was able to enjoy. There are still some games to this day that I have attempted to re-locate but can’t find.
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!
On the first day of every month, my brothers and I woke up like it was Christmas. It was then that the Sega Channel updated its game list. We darted out of our beds, giddy for what awaited us downstairs. We raced to the Sega to see how we would occupy the month. We switched on the Sega Channel, switched on the Sega, and awaited a new list of games.
Imagine: 50 new games a month. Sure, there were some, like Earthworm Jim, who tended to be on there every single month. But ultimately Sega Channel gave me an opportunity to play some games that I otherwise never would have. (Izzy's Olympic Quest, I'm looking at you)
You think I'm alone? Look how excited everyone was! They loved Sega Channel more than life!
Na na na na naaaa na! I have Sega Channel and you don't!
I didn’t know who this guy was. But boy was he cool. He loved his Sega Channel so much that he didn’t even bother playing it. He just paraded around town with his TV above his head. He wants you to know that he has it. And you don’t.
All good things must die, and with the death of the Sega Genesis came the inevitable death of Sega Channel. As much as I’d like to see a Wii Channel, PS3 Channel, or 360 Channel, it will simply never happen. Delivery services like GameFly or downloadable games are the closest thing we have today.
The trend of online gaming is still in its infancy stage. It is a relatively new concept (with Nintendo being dragged into it kicking and screaming).
But don’t forget: Sega did it in 1994. And it was magical.
It has been a few years and I never said anything, but I feel like every time I see you, it’s there. It’s in the back of my mind and it’s really bugging me. You know, I’ve gotten over it, so it’s not that big of deal anymore, but I think we need to talk about it. You really hurt me.
I’m talking about Super Mario Sunshine.
What the hell were you thinking?
When I was in grade school (a Catholic one, keep in mind), I once got in trouble and was sentenced to clean every pew in the church during recess for a month. It sucked. I hated it. But ya know what? I look at the time I spent cleaning pews more fondly than I do playing your stupid Sunshine game. Real-life cleaning with an actual rag was more fun that cleaning up colorful messes with your talking Super Soaker Back Pack.
Stop it, you're embarrasing yourself.
Playing your game was like work. Every time I beat a challenge… I mean got a Shine… I thought to myself, “Thank God I don’t have to do that again!” In fact, your Sunshine game was the last time I threw my controller in a fit of rage. Luckily for us both, it survived. But I remember it clearly. I was a freshman in college. My roommate was walking down the hall heading back to our dorm room when suddenly a controller flew out the door and pounded against the wall like a cannonball shooting a castle. Boy, was he confused. I assured him that I wasn’t crazy and that there wasn’t a controller-shooting cannon in the room.
Instead, there was a mustached-crazed jackass who had deceived me. You see Mario, in addition to your game sucking, I never expected such a high level of difficulty from a game starring you. Some of your challenges… I mean, Shine obtaining…. were so hard that I just felt you were being flat-out mean to me. I now hate rotating blocks thanks to you.
Do you see what I mean Mario? Why are there so many blocks!?
And another thing! The whole subplot where Bowser Jr. was convinced that Peach was his mother was beyond strange. I believed him for a while. Who was I to question the young dragon boy? I was disturbed. Greatly. Peach and Bowser? So you're telling me that Peach consented to sex with a dragon? She might be a slut, but I doubt she would bang a dragon. So what other option was there? Peach was raped. By Bowser. Mario, I know it was revealed that she wasn't the mother, but I was convinced for a good portion of Sunshine that your girlfriend had not only been kidnapped by Bowser for all those years, but he had been raping her too. How could she walk after that? (Then again, maybe that's why she started floating everywhere instead.. I think we're on to something here!) I think Sunshine went a little too far with that one.
"Oops, I had a dragon kid!"
Were there good things about Sunshine? Umm... Well Yoshi was in it. I guess that was pretty cool. And uhh.. the island locales were nice. Nice and sunny. I bet you had a mean tan at the end of the adventure. The music was... no actually I didn't like the music all that much.
But ya know what? We’re still friends, Mario. I think you really redeemed yourself in Galaxy. I sometimes make the argument that you even surpassed your effort of Mario 64 with Galaxy.
