Rock Band 2 and GHWT Set Lists

Full on confession: I’m as stoked for the release of Rock Band 2 for the 360 this Sunday as I have been for just about any game, including Halo 3. If you would have asked me a year ago if there would be any game that would displace Halo (or a FPS at all) as my preferred multiplayer game, I probably would have laughed my head off. That will likely all change with Rock Band 2. The original has kept my attention since purchase in April even without a very robust multiplayer. Jamming with my clan mate Big0ne actually got me back on his friends list (LOL). I’ve even had the pleasure of rocking with other clan mates as well as members of 2o2p I had never really played a game with before (Sharpshooter is an awesome jam mate). So I think my love for Rock Band and Rock Band 2 pre-release is well stated. However, I’m about to throw a curveball in this blog as the folks over at Activision and Neversoft have done their impression of a candy thrower at the end of a parade route and just dumped what was left of the Guitar Hero World Tour set list onto the ground. It is time to take a look at the two set lists.

The first thing to note is that Rock Band 2 has 84 songs on disc but will come with a code that will allow you to download 20 to be named songs in the future. Guitar Hero World Tour (GHWT) features 86 on disc songs. 13 of the on-disc songs are on both discs and most of those 13 songs are fairly well known. The highlights include Go Your Own Way (Fleetwood Mac), Eye of the Tiger (Survivor), Livin on a Prayer (Bon Jovi), and American Woman (The Guess Who). An additional 13 artists are featured on both discs but have different songs. The big names with different songs include Metallica, Nirvana, Billy Idol, and the Steve Miller Band. Looking at a comparison of the 13 songs (and some of the bands I’m not very clear on), I think as a whole I would rather have the 13 RB2 songs as opposed to the 13 GHWT songs. I’ll use two bands as an example: 1) Rock’n Me is on RB2 while The Joker is on GHWT (Give me Rock’n Me (Steve Miller Band) 2) One Step Closer (RB2) vs. What I’ve Done (GHWT) (Linkin Park’s older song is a tad better, even if a lot of Linkin Park’s songs sound the same to me). I really don’t need to go into the issue of artists on GHWT that already have DLC for RB1 or featured on disc for RB1 but if you care for my opinion on that matter, the Rock Band model for RB1 disc songs and DLC means you can have something to fill those urges.

Now on to the big debate, the artists that, at this time, only appear in one game or the other. On Rock Band’s side, you have AC/DC, Bob Dylan, The Who, Jethro Tull, Megadeth, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Rush, The Grateful Dead, and The Offspring (among others). On Guitar Hero World Tour’s side, you have Bob Seger, Coldplay, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Michael Jackson, Ozzy Osbourne (you lose the use of Paranoid in RB2), The Eagles, Van Halen, Tool, and Wings, (among others). This is of course a list that could diminish for either side based on DLC in the future but this is the information I’m working off of. Who wins the big names battle? I would probably give the nod to Rock Band if I were entering the market for the first time although this is a real dicey battle since the list could have been rearranged by your definition of who is a big artist. The final war is in the trenches; those artists and songs that aren’t going to be in the forefront of the discussion but can ultimately make the game. As I delved deeper into both lists, I find that RB2 has more artists and songs that I would be interested in playing. It also appears that the RB2 list is going to be a bit more female friendly than GHWT (not that I can sing one way or another hehe). One final thing that puts a damper on GHWT’s set list is the fact that 3 of the songs on disc are by Tool, 2 by Jimi Hendrix, 2 by Ted Nugent, and 2 by Ozzy Osbourne so instead of 86 individual artists and songs, you are only getting 86 songs by 81 artists. It may not seem like much to fans of those artists but it is something to note. At the end of the day, the Rock Band 2 set list just has that extra punch to it to appeal to a wide audience while Guitar Hero World Tour’s set list seems to be all about the big names with the back end stuff getting short shift or appealing to a much narrower audience. GHWT will probably sell better on a name recognition basis but I think you would find more fun to be had in Rock Band 2’s songs.

Perhaps some other time I will discuss the concept of DLC as that is what may really set the two games apart and in that department, the head start of Rock Band is something that they need to make more clear.

 

I'll leave you with a classic set of song lyrics to remember the next time you are discussing music with someone....unless that someone is my wife in which case she can and will be wrong about some things musically. ;)

"There ain't no good guy, There ain't no bad guy, there's only you and me and we just disagree."

Posted by RagingBull888 @ 3:59 pm EDT | Permalink | 9 Comments

James Bond Movies

Rebooting a character seems to be a big thing in the movie world these days so it should come as no surprise that James Bond was due for this sort of treatment. The first James Bond novel by Ian Fleming gets its first non-spoof big screen adaptation with the release of Casino Royale. Daniel Craig will try to etch a name for himself against such former Bonds as Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Pierce Brosnan. Will he do it? I am eager to see but I thought that in the meantime I would share some of my favorite past big screen adventures of 007.

10. The World is Not Enough – I do not know why I like this one better than Tomorrow Never Dies. I think it might be because Tomorrow Never Dies hits a bit of a snag in the Germany section. This one has some really strong points (villains and opening sequence) and some really weak points (Christmas Jones and final sequence on the sub). I could go either way on this picture.

9. Thunderball – A classic plot that rides right off the back of Goldfinger’s success. The story was reused for the movie Never Say Never Again. This one plays slightly better although there are parts of NSNA that are improvements on the original. Like Survivor, you rarely go wrong with sunny beach locales.

8. You Only Live Twice – There is just enough over the top stuff in this one to make it my #8 favorite. The assault on the volcano lair set the stage for later big set pieces. James Bond in Japan is something we should see a lot more of.

7. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – If you can get the thought of Sean Connery out of your mind and watch this with an open mind, you will likely enjoy this. You will wish Diana Rigg could have been in every James Bond movie. The music will be familiar to you though and it is very good stuff.

6. Live and Let Die – This one set up the glib tone that the Roger Moore pictures would take. A low key finale, in comparison to Diamonds are Forever, helps things out immensely. I could throw this off the list and probably not be too disappointed but it is fun to see the 70’s finally take over the Bond series.

5. For Your Eyes Only – This movie is actually Roger Moore’s best but one of his other movies will show up higher because of the fun factor. FYEO is a melancholy film that has very little of the sardonic humor that peppers Moore’s other movies. It holds up well because the villain is not a megalomaniac and the Bond girl is believable as well.

4. Goldeneye – The first effort by Brosnan is his best in my eyes. Sure, there are flaws (the music score is way wrong) but the movie is aided by the best Bond girl duo of any of the movies. It also explores some of Bond’s character a little bit better by having a villain that is his equal. The name of course will be recognizable to any serious gaming fan.

3. The Living Daylights – If only Timothy Dalton’s second Bond picture was more like this one, he probably would have gotten a third picture. He plays the role very well and the plotline of the picture worked well, at the time (Soviet defections etc.). A realistic henchman who does not come off as a caricature serves as a serious threat. Pleasant surprises abound in this one.

2. The Spy Who Loved Me – The girl, the car, the villain’s henchman, it all falls into place for Roger Moore in this one. You basically have Roger Moore’s Goldfinger and that certainly cannot be all bad. Too bad the main villain in the picture is a zero in the charisma department. TSWLM even has a score that works well despite being a product of the times. Now that is an impressive feat.

1. Goldfinger – “Do you expect me to talk? No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.” With that little line, the movie solidifies its place at the top of my list. The rest of the movie is awesome and is filled with moments that will live in your memory. It really set the standard for later films in terms of gadgets, girls, and villains. If I could only have one Bond movie on a desert island, this would be it.

Well, there you have it my 10 favorite Bond movies. You might be asking, “Where is From Russia with Love?” To be honest, I have never actually watched From Russia with Love all the way through. The parts I have seen are great and I bet it would likely move into the top 5 but I figured I would be honest with you. As for the ones I would tell you to avoid, the three I would say that you should most avoid are Die Another Day, A View to A Kill, and Moonraker. Those three have the worst villain (DAD), worst Bond girl (AVTAK), and worst plot (Moon). You’ll thank me later.

Posted by RagingBull888 @ 10:57 am EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments

The Bull Pen 27

It is your old pal Raging Bull back with another edition of The Bull Pen! I can just see all your faces light up with joy at the possibility of reading this blog. In fact, if you have made it to this sentence, you may qualify for a special discount on the next blog.

The NHL season has kicked back into high gear and while hockey is still not on as much as it used to be, I can at least watch national games on Versus. Even better still is the fact that the Columbus Blue Jackets, the team I support, have somehow managed to get all but one game televised on Fox Sports Ohio. This leaves me to wonder, what exactly is wrong with the one game they left out? This lone offending game is a home game on March 9th against the Dallas Stars. The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is some sort of March Madness tournament that has to be shown on Fox Sports Ohio. It would probably be the MAC tournament and I can honestly say that I would much rather be watching the Blue Jackets than the MAC. Anyhow, the Blue Jackets are off to a fast start, at least by their standards, and could actually contend in the West for a playoff spot, albeit the 8th one. The season squarely rests on the shoulders of one Rick Nash though. His time away from the ice last year pretty much doomed the Blue Jackets to another losing season. Mark it down gang, Rick Nash will be voted MVP of the NHL within the next 5 seasons.

This next section is going to feature a dose of brutal honesty from me. I am not ashamed to admit this but I must answer for my actions. What am I admitting you ask? I admit that I like to kill people…in Halo 2. I like to think of myself as a team player and someone who wants the team to do well but let us not beat around the bush. I am happiest when I am killing folks in mass quantities. Actually, amend that to say, ‘…in mass quantities and WINNING THE GAME.’ I certainly killed a lot of folks (61 to be exact) in a game of SWAT KotH the other night but left the game with a loss. While the kill totals were jaw dropping, the loss still stung. There have been other times when the team has succeeded and I end the game with the win but I have left feeling like I have not accomplished anything except see a reload screen a lot. This can lead to frustration and cursing on my part. I would like to give a blanket apology to everyone who may have ever been offended by anything I have ever said over XBOX Live (see, that was nice and easy) except for WallyBR. Good ole Wally knows I’m gunning for him every time and he rarely gets the better of me.

My parents recently returned from a sojourn to Philadelphia, with a half day jaunt to Atlantic City. They were kind enough to bring back some Hard Café Pins for me. My favorites of the 6 they brought back (4 from Philly and 2 from AC) were a bald eagle playing a black guitar with 2006 on the HRC logo and a guitar with a roulette wheel on it from Atlantic City. Pin trading has become something of a craze over the last 5 years and I have kind of caught on with the craze. However, for some strange reason, I just enjoy collecting them instead of trading. If any of you readers out there have collected Hard Café Pins, just share some thoughts about your collection and what you like the most.

I read today that an elementary school in Massachusetts has banned kids from playing tag and other chase style games. The reason that the principal gives is that “Recess is a time when accidents can happen”. Has it really come to this in society? Maybe I come from a different day and age (the 80’s) when schools were supposed to prepare children for the realities of the real world. Instead, it would appear that the fear of the almighty lawyer has turned schools into impotent messes. Is the teacher so pre-occupied that he/she is unable to police the children and inform them when something they are doing is out of line, such as using excess force in a tag? This seems to be a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The school is creating a system that does not teach what is right or wrong about certain actions within the parameter of the game but instead says the game is flawed and should not be played. It is the same principle that ran through the case of the woman who spilled hot coffee on her while driving. Those folks who are able to act with normal human behavior are forced to subjugate themselves to that minority who do not act within reason or who do not wish to take responsibility for their own actions. Caution: Living is dangerous to your health.

Hey, you made it this far, why not read the final paragraph and go out with style.

Custom Game of the Week: Sure, Halo 2 is on the downward spiral and it is hard to get enough for custom games, even on custom game night (THAT’S FRIDAYS FOR YOU OMM’ERS WHO CAN DRAG YOURSELF AWAY FROM CHROMEHOUNDS FOR EVEN AN HOUR) but I am still here for you fine folks who need to add a little spice to your game selections. This week’s featured game is a little game I just invented this past Friday and it was a hit, at least I think it was. Surrender is the name of the game and it is a capture the flag game. What gives the game its name is the fact that the flag holder moves slow with the flag and the flag indicator is ON when the other team has it. That is a little twist from normal CTF flag games where you do not know where the flag holder is. Add in the double random weapons, damage resistance, and extra damage for non-flag holders and you folks have yourself quite a little game. This is a 1 flag per team game and works best on symmetrical maps. The time limit for the game is 10 minutes, score to win is 3, player respawn time is 5 seconds, and flag respawn time is 10 seconds (bump to 30 on bigger maps). You will definitely be saying ‘I Surrender’ when you grab the flag in this game.

Posted by RagingBull888 @ 3:11 pm EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

The Bull Pen #26

Well, it has been a while since I posted one of these so I figured I might as well come back with a whole bunch of random stuff that is only connected in the fact that it all is important to me. Or is it?

 

I went to Indianapolis on Saturday on a spur of the minute decision as my wife Tracey got called off work. It was a rainy day and I am sure she was not to thrilled about the idea of spending an off day out of town until I used the 3 magic words: South Bend Chocolate. It was just that simple; I get to go to Indianapolis and see the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art as well as dine at the local Hard Rock while she gets to stock up on her favorite chocolate in the world. I know a few of my clanmates (namely BigOne and Stryker) may be curious why I did not pay them a visit while in town but it was a whirlwind schedule and I seriously doubt asking to pay a visit to gaming buddies would have gone over well with the queen of the house. Back to the chocolate, I highly recommend checking out their website and ordering something as they have some of the most delicious chocolate going. I purchased a milk chocolate bar and a milk chocolate coated rice krispie treat. The rice krispie treat was excellent while the milk chocolate bar is cooling in the fridge at home in order to be enjoyed at a later date, more than likely this evening. The final highlight of the trip was stopping at the Hard Rock Café and picking up two more pins to add to the collection while enjoying the Hickory BBQ burger. It was not the best I have ever had (Atlanta seemed to do a much better job) but it was satisfactory. If anyone cares, they should message me and I will point out where they can see the two pins I bought. A boring 1-3/4 hour trip back down I-74 and I-275 and we were back home.

 

The Cincinnati Bengals have gotten off to a 3-0 start for the second season in a row and that includes a victory over the hated Pittsburgh Steelers. It may not have been a pretty victory but there is something I have learned from years of watching sports. Championship caliber teams can win games that by all logical reason, they should have lost. They burn you for almost every little mistake and grab victory from the jaws of defeat. The Bengals played that sort of game yesterday as they took incredible advantage of two fourth quarter turnovers to send the Steelers and their fans into the bye week with a 1-2 record.

 

The DVD format can best be seen as a concept that brings out the best in studios and the worst in studios. It brings out the best as you have a format that allows full television series to be shown regardless of their cancellation. There are also the DVD extras that allow you to get a little more value rather than just paying to see the movie and maybe a preview or two that was on a standard VHS tape. However, the worst side of DVD’s also applies to extras; the case in point is the recent release of the Lord of the Rings movies on DVD with both versions attached. The concept of Double Dipping has become more and more prevalent with major releases and it irritates me to no end. You do not want to wait a year and a half to purchase a movie but if you buy early, you risk missing out on some stuff that was conveniently ‘left out’ of the early release. I guess as long as there are nimrods out there that need to own every single version of a certain movie and every known extra, this practice will continue.

 

I have not been playing a lot of Halo 2 lately and it seems as though I’ve been slacking on playing Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow as well. Part of it may be the lack of fellow OMM playing but I think another part of it is the fact that I have found other stuff to do that catches my fancy. It can be rather addictive going to zone.msn.com and playing some of the word or puzzle games. An hour can go pretty fast when you are trying to create 6 letter words in order to advance to the next round. I still enjoy playing Halo 2 and I still enjoy inflicting, er, sharing my custom games with fellow clan members. I just wish it would not have rained so hard Friday night because I was really ready to pull out a lineup of solid games.

 

Oh, I almost forgot one great advantage of DVD’s. That advantage is the fact that some things can be shown uncut and in their original versions. Something that takes full use of this principle is the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD’s. A funny joke at the end of a certain Bugs Bunny cartoon involves Bugs pointing a gun at his own head (in order to blow his brains out) and missing, while hitting Yosemite Sam. Heaven forbid if you watch the cartoon on regular TV these days as virtually any reference to a character blowing his/her brains out is taken out of the cartoon. I really am not keen on when cartoons that were meant for adults are sanitized and politically corrected so kids can watch them.

 

I think I am happy that I am not playing fantasy football this season as it has been a wild and crazy ride for some fantasy stalwarts during the first few weeks. I will just rest on the laurels of my two championships from a season ago (one against seriously weak competition) and return at a year of my choosing. Besides, I’m too busy trying to win at Hardball Dynasty at Whatifsports.com to be bothered with fantasy football.

 

Have you considered the fact that in the time it took for you to read this sentence, you could have been clicking over to deadspin.com and reading something that may or may not in fact be funnier?

 

I am now forced to ask the question that some people do not want to ask; exactly who does Stuart Scott have pictures of that allows him to remain in such a high position at ESPN?

 

To close out this ever diminishing blog entry, I leave you with one final key piece of information.

 

Professor Plum with the Revolver in the Conservatory.

Posted by RagingBull888 @ 3:15 pm EDT | Permalink | 6 Comments

Just a friendly reminder

You can still read past Bull Pen's for excellent custom game ideas.

I'm also here to provide the following Public Service Announcement: Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears Vol. 1 will be released on DVD in November. My wife is wigging out over this announcement. Now all Disney has to do is release the Wuzzles on DVD and the world will be whole again. The long wait for The Muppet Show, Season 2 will continue on though.

Posted by RagingBull888 @ 1:47 pm EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments