The RPM Challenge

I'm crossposting this from my LJ, if only because (1) while videogames are a big part of my life and interest, music is really where it's at, and as such (2) if I end up doing this, I might not be posting here that much next month.

I've gotta say, I'm very seriously considering doing the RPM Challenge this year (which is like NaNoWriMo, except for music). 

And I have to say that instead of being frustrated, I'm instead rather amused at how much of a fuss my brain is putting up, as I sit here and dally and dither about.  If I'm going to do it, I should just fucking DO it; I haven't even really come up with a good reason NOT to. 

The only thing that comes up is that I literally just found out about this a day or two ago, after coming across it in a friend's blog. Everybody knows that November is NNWM... I didn't know that February was "Write And Record An Album Month".  So part of my brain is going "I'm not ready yet, I'm not prepared to do this yet, I don't want to just jump in blindly."  And the other part of my brain is saying, "You'll never be ready, you'll never be 100% prepared, so why the hell NOT just go for it?"

I'm sure I'll end up doing it.  I just need to get used to the idea for another 24 hours, and then I'll go for it.

And then I'll bore you all to death.

The Want List for 2008

Taking a break from Burnout Paradise. I'm 9 wins away from my Class A license, but mostly right now I'm concentrating on "discovering" everything:

• I need to find one more gas station
• I need to find one last race event - not quite sure how I missed it
• I've got 360 of 400 smash-thru things
• at least half of the super-jumps
• I've found at least 2/3 of the billboards
• etc.

This is as good a time as any, then, to contemplate what's on the agenda for 2008. I've been listening to all manner of game-related podcasts lately, and they all seem to be asking the same question.

Off the top of my head, my main must-have titles for 2008 are, in the order that they occur to me:

• Burnout Paradise
• GTA 4
• Mercenaries 2
• Fallout 3 (and if this actually comes out in 2008, I'll be stunned)
• Star Wars: Force Unleashed (which I didn't start to get frighteningly excited for until I saw the latest tech video)

And then there's also a bunch of stuff I've got lined up for my Gamefly Queue:

• Lost Odyssey
  
• The Club
• Bully: Scholarship Edition
• Condemned 2
• Lego Indiana Jones
• Splinter Cell: Conviction (I'm a big fan of the SC series, but I'm a little nervous about this one)
• Too Human
• Midnight Club: Los Angeles
• Ghostbusters (keeping fingers crossed that this doesn't completely suck)
• MLB2K8 (the last 2 editions have been dreadfully disappointing, and yet I keep coming back; I am so very weak.)

And there's also titles that I would dearly love to play this year, but am doubtful that they'll see release before 2009:

• Brutal Legend (remember, Psychonauts was delayed for about 2-3 years)
  
• Fable 2
  
• Ninja Gaiden 2 (well, maybe this will see release in 2008; I guess we'll know more at E3)
  

Now, these are all 360 titles. I will eventually be getting a PS3, if only for the BluRay; I'd certainly like to buy a Wii, but as I've said before, right now it's easier for me to procure illegal drugs than it is for me to buy a Wii at retail price. (To wit: besides eBay and Craigslist, there is a shady electronics store near my apartment that does have Wiis in stock; they're asking $500. In cash.)

But since I don't actually own those consoles yet, I've not really been following their release calendars with any genuine interest. To be fair, though: any PS3 game I buy would strictly be a PS3 exclusive, and to be perfectly honest, I really don't give a shit about Final Fantasy 13 (13!!!) or Metal Gear Solid 4. I guess I do care about LittleBigPlanet, but not to the tune of $500+, and my curiousity about Home is more of the morbid variety than anything else.

DMC4 demo

Demos are a tricky business. They're arguably the most effective way of selling a game to a prospective buyer, but you have to very careful about what you actually show off. The Crackdown demo was utterly fantastic, as you were able to quickly level up and see what your character could eventually do; the Burnout Paradise demo was terrible, because it was incredibly restrictive and failed to show off the game's strengths. (See this fantastic article about that very topic.)

That said, I went into the Devil May Cry 4 demo with an open mind. Let me just say, right off the bat - I've never played any of the games in the Devil May Cry franchise. I've been repeatedly told in the gaming press that I should be super-excited about DMC4, though; it's using the Unreal 3 engine, it's finally on the Xbox360, etc. I downloaded yesterday's demo like everybody else, because, well, why not? I was home sick and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Now that I've played both of the demo's segments, I am totally underwhelmed. But this is a much more damaging situation than the Burnout Paradise demo. The BP demo was showing off a tiny, tiny piece of a much larger puzzle, and taken out of context it didn't make a whole lot of sense. The DMC4 demo, however, looked to be what the game will ultimately be like, and frankly it looked stupid.

Well, maybe that's not the right word. The game looks tremendous, after all - the environments are absolutely beautiful and the character designs look incredible. It's just that the game itself is stupid.

To wit:

• the main player character is a whiny, petulant douchebag
• the game's geography makes absolutely no sense; you are in a sunny seaside town, you open a door and suddenly you're on a snowy, frozen mountainside; then you open another door and you're in a burning village, in the countryside (which looks right out of an early level in Ninja Gaiden, actually)
• for all its technological prowess, it still adheres to well-worn cliches every chance it gets, none more annoying and nonsensical than the arbitrary sealing-off of rooms while you fight bad guys
  
• the boss you fight in the burning village is a fucking Balrog, for all intents and purposes
• right before you get to the boss fight, your character actually whines: "Oh great. More demons." If your douchebag protagonist is whining about the stuff he has to do - i.e., combat, the stuff that supposedly makes your game awesome - then maybe your game sucks.

It's staying on my Gamefly queue, because, well, why not. But goddamn, this demo did absolutely nothing to whet my appetite.

Intro

So, here I am.

I'd get into the whys and wherefores, but I've had a horrendous headcold for the last 3 days and I'm not really all that coherent. For now, I'll just say - here I am.

For what it's worth - this blog is a continuation of my old GS blog, except now I get to say "fuck".

In the meantime:

I broke 30,000 Points the other day. I'll admit that I did a little bit of padding to try to get to that point, including purchasing Boogie Bunnies or whatever the hell it's called on XBL, but I do want to say that I broke 30,000 proper on Call of Duty 4, on Veteran. Currently I am pinned down in the television studio, and I suspect that's where I'll stay until I get tired of Burnout Paradise.

And as for Burnout - goddamn. As with everyone else, the demo left a lot to be desired, but now I "get" it. I wrote a longer thing about this already, except I hadn't done any of the multiplayer; last night I hooked up with a friend and we did some of the challenges together, which was actually kinda fun - it actually reminded both of us of the original Xbox's "Midtown Madness 3", because that game had an online mode which was utterly free-form and very cool, if somewhat aimless. Anyway, the first 10-15 challenges (which is all we got through) are pretty easy and/or not tremendously exciting, but you can see where it might eventually lead and would certainly be a lot of fun with more people. I'm not yet sure how online racing and road rages take place, though, but I'm sure it can be done. (Right?)

Currently trying to download the Devil May Cry demo, like every other 360 user on the planet; I've had it running for 90 minutes and I'm only 8% into it. Ugh.