miffy495

I was pretty sure you could, but it's been a while, so I may be wrong. As for the gem layouts, they've learned nothing. When playing Complete Control, Hard To Handle, Train Kept A Rollin', or any other song that was already in Rock Band that I've forgotten, I was astounded by just how much less fun I was having compared to the same song (in every case except Hard To Handle, the exact same) in Rock Band. It's less fun, it's sloppy and imprecise. There were times when I was sure that GHII or RB would have said I'd missed, but GH:A gave me the note. Other times, I was sure I had it, but it counted it as a miss. The whole thing just feels off. Don't like. May play through the 9 bonus songs I have left solely for achievement points, but I'm not thrilled by the prospect, so I may just be done with it altogether.

Exactly the same experience for me. And I played and loved all 3 previous Splinter Cells, so I don't know what it was that made me stop.

I know a guy with a pet peeve that I don't understand. He hates any game that makes him unlock things. I don't quite get this, especially if the content is not necessary for a fun multiplayer experience. As long as all the game modes are there and there's enough to have fun with, I don't have a major problem with having some extras tantalizingly out of reach. Why mention this? Because I just beat GH: Aerosmith. We're talking 199 our of a possible 200 stars for the set list on expert. I'd say that's pretty beaten. So I think "alright, let's see what bonuses I can unlock with these mounds of in-game cash I've accumulated." I go and start unlocking characters. I unlock all but one before I'm informed I'm out of cash. "This can't be right?" I think to myself. "Perhaps I can accumulate more stacks of cash by playing the 11 bonus songs." I go and buy all of the bonus songs. Lo, I get precisely $0 for beating them, so I stop playing. Honestly, now that I've beaten every song in the game on expert, it really expects me to go back and play through the lower difficulty levels if I want to be able to unlock the secrets? I don't mind having to unlock things, really I don't. But I figure that when you can demonstrate that you can thoroughly stomp the hardest the game has to offer you, you should be able to unlock all the secrets. What the bloody fuck? Oh, and there was a Guitar Battle. Joe Perry tasted bitter defeat to me in about 45 seconds. Not a particularly troublesome nuisance, but the game gets docked major points for including it.

You'll find out in 4...

It's just a skin change. The mechanics are all the same. And for the record, I really liked Rocks The 80s. It was like getting GHII DLC before they had such a thing. Aerosmith could have easily been done in a forgettable $20 download. EDIT: except for the unimpressive new venues, I guess...

Yeah, pretty much. Well done paying attention. Glad you weren't as put off by it as many people are. The story in MGS3 is much more straightforward. Just a warning if you want to finish the plot you just saw, you'll need to get MGS4 sometime if you want to resolve the whole thing.

Ok, I've played the first three sets. Here are my impressions: First off: Why the hell is there an encore every two songs? What the hell? Also, of the 15 songs that I've played, I enjoyed 5. I can't ever remember thinking "Is this damn thing over yet?" in any other Guitar Hero game. And I don't hate Aerosmith. I'm decidedly neutral towards them. I even really like a couple of their songs. Even those ones seem boring. Rag Doll, for example, is just fucking boring to play but still one of my favorites from this band. For the record, the 5 songs that I enjoyed were All the Young Dudes (Mott the Hoople), All Day and All the Night (The Kinks), Complete Control (The Clash), Personality Crisis (The New York Dolls), and Moving Out (Aerosmith). So in Aerosmith's game 4 of the best 5 songs for me are not by Aerosmith. On the positive side, credit to them for including the New York Dolls at all. That's not a band I expected to see in Guitar Hero. Of course, from the looks of it, Rock Band 2 will have Dinosaur Jr, so maybe lesser-known-but-still-very-accomplished bands are simply starting to get a bit more of their due. I know that among most people I know, the mention of either band typically draws blank stares. The biggest positive I have for the game so far is that I haven't yet had to play a fucking battle and I'm halfway through the career. If I can make it through this game without some ridiculously bad forced battle, I'll come away actually liking it more than GHIII. Still not enough to make me not give up on Guitar Hero, but I'll at least be a little more forgiving. And before I forget, there is one more positive to this. I didn't actually give them money for it. I don't think I ever would, and I don't recommend any of you do either.

Before any of you see my "recently played" on Xbox live and make fun of me for it, I did not pay money for Aerosmith. My mother's boyfriend bought it, and in less than a week decided he hated it. I went home for dinner last weekend and he gave it to me saying "Just in case you like it any better than I did." As such, I now have a free copy of GH: Aerosmith. I don't really give a shit about Aerosmith, but at least I can play the Kinks now. And hell, easy achievements...

Almost at the end there. Prepare for not getting a whole lot more. It took me three watches of the final section to even sort of understand it,.

Hmmm... Got a really solid review from Gametrailers that I just noticed. I may actually grab this on Thursday when I get paid. If I do, I'll report back with impressions.

Dude, no one likes a pedant. We all knew what he meant...

I'm glad someone's calling out the recent Ctrl-Alt-Del weirdness, anyway. Took me a good 4 reads to figure out whether or not Lilah's baby survived, and then another bunch of time sitting there wondering what the hell the writer was thinking.

Well, blight upon the Earth though it is, Facebook informs me that it's toblix's birthday today. As such, happy birthday, man! Any plans?

Oh, I still did it in one try, but there was simply too much "Lost him. Got him! Lost him. Got him!" etc during the chase for my liking. It felt like I was always trying to catch up to him after I'd collided with something rather than actually chasing.

What? I never caught that? Now I need to go back and play more Starcraft as well... I gotta say, I'm really happy with what Blizzard is doing right now. The only way that they could make me any more satisfied with their current efforts is to announce that they have a separate team working on an RTS Warcraft IV. No matter how much I love the story of Warcraft, I just don't give half a damn about MMOs. More Warcraft story in a game I'll actually play, and every box on my Blizzard wishlist will be checked off.

That Bernie mission, while undoubtedly awesome in concept, proved really irritating with me. Again, avoiding spoilers, goddamn it was hard to steer. The best driving mission for me was when dealing with a rather spirited passenger in a certain convertible. Those who played it will know. That one only became a chase if you were unlucky, and was great fun any way it played out.

Well, the guy I was guessing at the identity of was the one who was interviewed in the journal, who is described as having ventured into the Tristram Cathedral with a party and losing an arm in the process. Cain has never lost a limb, near as I can tell, and would have been too old when Diablo began to emerge anyway. The first place my mind goes then, is to Farnham the drunk from the first Diablo. Problem is that I can't remember if Farnham is an amputee or not. He definitely babbles about the Butcher and running from his party though. I'm pretty sure Farnham was killed after the Wanderer left Tristram, but I also don't really see anything aside from "after Diablo began to emerge" to place a time when that was supposed to be written, so it could still be him. As for all the evidence towards Cain being Cain, yeah I agree. I was just trying to say it as politely as I could.

I thought the guy in the header was an even older Cain... It sounds almost like the interviewee is Farnham from D1. Memory may be failing, but wasn't he short an arm?

Of course, and since it'll be on Battle.net it'll be FREE WOW GOLD.

Just installed D1 and DII on this computer for the first time. Felt like one of those important moments in a PC's lifespan. The first Diablo install. Of course, I then had to go to Blizzard's website to get Vista compatibility patches... Hell, at least Blizzard is making the effort to get the patches out. Good on them for that. I'd forgotten how hard the Butcher was if you weren't using that "close the door and shoot him through a gate" technique. Just got my ass handed to me before I'd even done my first save. Ah, memories.

YES! After all the cash I've sunk into RB's DLC, I'm flat-out overjoyed that I'll be able to use it in RB2. And if they do have Modest Mouse and the Buzzcocks, I'll be a very happy little gamer...

YES! I'd convinced myself that there's no way the splash page was for D3. Come back from a day of music festival and there it is, with many a screenshot greeting me and confirming what I dared not hope. It looks a bit more cartoony, yeah, but I couldn't mistake it for any other game. Totally made my day. Thanks, all.

I'm super excited for this one right now. Hopefully the long hiatus from real Mega Man games has recharged their spirits a little. As for finding space for it, I've got a lot of free space since finishing (and subsequently deleting) Lostwinds, so bring it on.

The 80 Gig PS3 still has software BC in North America. And it's region free too, so you should be ok if you imported one. But yeah, for the most part you're screwed now if you want a PS3 with BC capability.

Continuing my recent trend of resurrecting threads, why not this one? I just picked it up today (very behind the curve here, but I spent a few months jobless and a couple more penniless, so I'm just getting a taste of having pocket money again and had to wait to buy it) and have a few impressions. As this thread mostly died with the caveman joke (damn funny though it was) I may as well bring it back and try to get it on track. So, first impressions from a long-time Mario Kart vet: First off, as many of you said, the wheel is amazing. So smooth, so fluid, so intuitive. The controls are, overall, perfect. The only problem I've had at all is using the d-pad to fire items. I too often reach for the nearest direction, which happens to be down. This will lead to me firing a potentially race-saving red shell behind me rather than into an enemy. Crud. While we're on the subject of items, one thought kept springing to mind as I played the game. This thought was: Why did I ever bother getting good at Mario Kart? In a 50cc race, I was in first by half a lap and about 10 feet from the finish when I was suddenly slammed by a blue shell, POW block, two red shells, and a lightning bolt. Oh, and this last one sent me falling off the track. Finished the race in 12th. I repeat, this was in 50cc. EASY MODE. What the fuck? On the other hand, I can easily see how this would be utterly fantastic in multiplayer, provided you can get 4 or more people in a game. The new track design is brilliant too. The mall is a standout for me, as is the one with giant Wigglers roaming the track. I'm very torn about this game. A large part of me wants to love it, but the AI is just so fucking cheap. The controls are fantastic. The graphics, while dated, are still quite pretty. The tracks are great. It's got online, and tons of vehicles. The items are just so amazingly frustrating though. If anyone has the game and wants to have a spin online, PM me with your friend code and I'll hit you back. I'd really like to see how this one performs online with friends.