Archive for September, 2008

Rock Band 2: It’s A Lot Like Rock Band

Sep 26th

Picked up Rock Band 2 last weekend with high expectations. The original Rock Band was my favorite rhythm game to date, and I couldn’t wait to see how they improved upon the original. It turns out that the biggest improvements are quite minimal on paper. The single player campaigns have been axed in favor of using Tour mode for everything and a few “challenges” that consist of playing various sets of songs with certain instruments. The online modes have been left mostly the same, but tour mode is now online as “Battle of the Bands,” so the old modes are somewhat irrelevant to me. Combining the songs I’ve downloaded with the songs imported from the original Rock Band, I have over two hundred songs available to play in Rock Band 2. Choosing a song to play is like looking at someone’s iTunes library. It’s better than the original in every facet of gameplay and presentation, but of course, the game’s own song selection is what really matters, and it somehow manages to best its predecessor. It’s got Bon Jovi, Journey, Modest Mouse, Blondie, Beck, and more. Many of the songs aren’t obvious, and that’s what makes it so great.

So basically, it’s still Rock Band. And I couldn’t recommend it more for rhythm game fans.

Rock Band

T-Shirt Designs: Woot Shirt Derby

Sep 18th

Posted by Holden in Artwork

1 comment

During my first semester at Georgia Tech, I discovered Shirt.Woot and their awesome design derbies. Every week they come up with a theme and ask for submissions. The submissions get voted on by Woot users, and the top three shirts are made and sold at the end of the week. I entered the contest a number of times, placing in the top 20 more than once. Here are some of my favorite ones:

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derby, design, shirt, woot

Spore – Exactly as Advertised

Sep 7th

Posted by Holden in Blog

5 comments

Remember Will Wright’s awesome live demo of Spore way back at GDC 2006? Well, the final product shipped last week and all the promises have been kept – but at the same time, it isn’t quite what I expected. Often I feel more like I’m playing a comibnation of KidPix and KOTOR than The Sims Space Animal Edition. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I guess I’m trying to say that Spore’s audience won’t be quite as large as The Sims 3. I’ll certainly get plenty of playtime out of it though, especially with the new PC:

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Reality Edges Out Review

Sep 5th

Posted by Holden in Blog

No comments

Castle Crashers is a reasonably fun game, certainly worth the $15 asking point on Xbox Live Arcade. IGN gave the game a 9.0 / 10. But unfortunately they discredited their entire review with one sentence on the first page:

“Killing enemies earns you experience points, just as in real life. ”
http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/903/903047p1.html

Facepalm – apply directly to the face.

About the Indiecisive Project

Sep 2nd

Posted by Holden in Blog

No comments

Expect an announcement by the end of next month. The game is coming along nicely – a bit ahead of schedule, actually, and if everything goes well, you should be able to play it on your Xbox 360 this year.