Salute Your Solution
5th
March 2010
Every month or so a release for Rock Band sparks up my interested. Be it a band I like or one that other people might like, I always debate whether I should pony up and buy a few more tracks. The truth is that I always decide against it because this whole weekly download business isn’t working.
I’d be one of the first ones to bemoan the annual releases after EA promising that Rock Band was a platform not a franchise, but I’d also never buy those extra tracks. Obviously during the beginning I downloaded anything I was vaguely aware of but something has happened, either my interest has waned or buzz surrounding the game has waned.
This week The Futureheads – one of the few I’ve seen live – are putting out two tracks. I still know I won’t buy them because Rock Band has lost its appeal. We all knew it wasn’t going to last for ever but it’s definitely petered out quicker than I thought.
I guess the real question is, does anyone care about Rock Band in 2010?
From Scratch
3rd
March 2010

You might have noticed that the last few posts have been about a PC I’ve speced out and bought. Well today, within 3 minutes of each other, my two orders arrived from different couriers and soon I was knee deep in screwdrivers and computer components.
The build didn’t go without a hitch but it never does. Although for what was my first PC build from scratch, I thought I did alright. It would have been flawless if it wasn’t for the flimsiest CPU cooler that snapped and probably won’t support itself if I put the PC up on the side. Otherwise the build went smoothly.
I guess I had some problems while installing Windows 7 because of the default BIOS settings. Windows 7 was looking for a floppy disk drive and instead of telling me it was having problems, it just kept looking for it while showing me nothing. Not a please wait message, not a loading bar, nothing. Google fixes all though.
The entire thing was worth it when I started to play Colin McRae Rally 2.0 on the highest settings. Yes, I know but the only PC games I actually own now are from my retro PC gaming fad of 2007 because at the time that’s all my PC could handle.
Naturally I downloaded Trackmania soon after along with my Steam version of Audiosurf – the only game I own on Steam, something that I look to remedy pretty soon – and ran them at the highest settings. Surprisingly I haven’t done much tweaking and they run at a smooth 30 and 40 frames per second, respectively.
I’m waiting until I can get some serious gaming on though, I’ll get downloading some demos tomorrow. For now, sleep.
Waterlogged
1st
March 2010
For all the six cores, or whatever it has, and for all the powerful graphics chips the Playstation 3 still couldn’t figure out that this year isn’t a leap year. It just makes me laugh that something ridiculously complex, fails worldwide because of something so basic.
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, today nearly every Playstation 3 woke up and presumed that today would be the 29th of February (In case you were wondering, it isn’t). The firmware knew better but got confused when the internal clock said it was the 29th and rather than just resetting the clock, the system failed meaning people can’t connect to Playstation Network, access downloaded content or even play games.
It’s happening to every Playstation 3, at least the original ones anyway, and nobody knows what will happen tomorrow when the system clock will be showing a legitimate time. We’ve got 30 minutes before we find out…
Obese Rain
28th
February 2010

I normally don’t plug the hell out of articles I’ve wrote but I’m quite pleased with my Heavy Rain review and I’m pretty tired. It was a tough one to review because I’ve been such an avid follower of QuanticDream and their releases, but Heavy Rain has been the closest they’ve come.
You should probably click the link for more coherent thoughts that weren’t typed at 2 in the morning. Go on… click it.
Slow Afterburn #3
22nd
February 2010

I’ve kind of fallen off the radar as of late. Bioshock 2 saw to it that my obsession with Mass Effect 2 would wane, and it’s a shame because I didn’t really enjoy the return to Rapture as much as I anticipated.
Then with the impending release of Heavy Rain, I know my time with Mass Effect 2 will soon come to an end. I’m currently seventeen hours and, apparently, on the penultimate mission. If I wanted I could just blow through those final few missions but I know if I do, I’ll never do those extra assignments.
For some reason I want to do absolutely everything in this universe. There’s something really compelling about this game that I can’t figure out, it has to be more than visuals. I guess I’m lucky I’m not actually reviewing this one, mainly because I can take my sweet time with it.
