A music book I won't be buying

Looking in the window of Banks's Music Shop today I spotted a book of guitar tab. It wasn't Travis or the Foo Fighters. It was something else, something wronger. It was a book of music from Guitar Hero. It lets you play all the songs you've learnt to play on your fake plastic guitar on a real guitar instead of a fake plastic guitar.

Now, maybe I'm missing the point, but isn't the whole f***ing point of guitar hero that you do it on a fake plastic guitar rather than a real guitar? It helps you avoid the world of broken strings and lost plectri. Computer games are not an introduction to the real world. When I was a kid I spent hours (minutes) playing Advanced Lawnmower Simulator on my Spectrum. It was great because it let me have all the excitement of mowing an actual lawn with an actual petrol lawnmower but without having to leave my bedroom. It didn't in any way inspire me to go out and get my own petrol lawnmower. And I never saw garden centers selling ALS branded lawnmower instruction books in them. And believe me, I visited a lot of garden centers when I was a kid. Apologies if it's garden centre by the way.

So my point broadly is that the Guitar Hero tab book is daft and stupid and you should boycott it lest this stupidity escalate.

And I'm not planning to buy "The Yie Ar Kung Fu Guide to Martial Arts" or "Leisure Suit Larry Teaches Humping" either.

Portal Music

I'm as normal playing catch-up in the world of computer games, still pretty much being caused by my semi-obsession with finishing all the Final Fantasy games. But at the weekend I found the time to play through the wonderful Portal. Everything I'd read about it was true - it was funny, clever, fun and completely innovative. It was also refreshingly short. Hard to say much about the best bits of it without spoiling the game for those who haven't played it. But I will say that the end-credits have provided me with an amazing ringtone.

Possibly even a geekier ringtone than the Blakes 7 theme I was using before.

The Pop-Singer Fear of FFX2

I finished Final Fantasy X. Good story as always, buy not one of my favourite games in the series. Both levelling up and progressing in general seemed extremely linear, and there often seemed to be far too many uniteruptable cut-scenes.

None of this has stopped me going straight into it's sequel, Final Fantasy X2 though. Not even simple things like how the sun is out, orPortal is unopened on my shelf. First impressions are... er?? Yuna's now not a summoner but a... pop-singer? That's odd. I'm going to need a little more time here.

IT Crowd Menus

I've been watching the excellent The IT Crowd (season 1) on DVD and I think it might be a contender for best DVD menus ever. Not because they do anything particularly new but because of the animation on them.

Anyone who grew up in a world of 8-bit home computers will feel instantly at home, from the "loading screen" onwards. There are loveingly crafted pastiches of Head Over Heels and Jet Set Willy that last for ages. You can just sit there watching for ages. I could anyway. And did.

They're probably worth buying the DVD for alone. Think of it as some great animation with six bonus episodes of a geek sitcom thrown in.

Rock Band - The Verdict

I've had quite a lot of play on Rock Band now. It's great. But first the downsides. I'm playing an import PS3 version so I'm not sure what the situation is with downloadable content. At the moment I can connect to the internet and see songs to buy but I can't actually download them. I don't know whether this is because I'm connecting to the American store or because I'm connecting to the UK store but it's not properly enabled yet, due to the game not being out until the Autumn. Either way, it's not the end of the world.

More annoyingly there is the known problem about the incompatibility of the PS3 GH3 controller with Rock Band. Maybe there'll be a patch at some point or maybe there won't. In the meantime I've ordered an adaptor which should make the old PS2 guitars work. Better than nothing if it works.

So onto the game. The guitar element is pretty much the same as Guitar Hero. So it's all about the drums and the singing. Singing is fun enough but nothing new for Singstar Veterans like myself. Something is gained by having it at the same time as someone playing an instrument but it feels more like an add-on than a vital component of the game.

Drums are a different kettle of fish. The drum-kit is well made and has actual real wooden drumsticks. Playing it feels like playing real drums, because you essentially are playing real drums. The difficulty level on it seems a lot higher than the other instruments but this is likely just because it's new. It might look on screen like it works the same way as the guitar but playing it is much more about rhythm patterns. At times it's like trying to pat your head whilst rubbing your tummy. But when it clicks it's good fun.

Where the game really seems like it will excel is multi-player. So far I've not been able to play with more than two people but I think with four it will be fantastic. As long as we can all fit in the room!

Final great thing to mention is the character building. We've made a couple of little people who look just like us... here's a pic:

Game Excitement!

I'm quite excited today. Rock Band should be delivered in the next hour or so and I have the morning off work.

Also, Wii Ware has launched. Haven't tried any of the games yet but there is a Final Fantasy, albeit an odd one. Also a quiz game which looks like it could be (limited) fun with others around...

Oooooooohhhh!

Rock Band (post 1 of x)

I clearly can't wait until Autumn for PS3 Rock Band so I've bought an import one. I'm excited. It will be great. When it arrives.

A Load of Plastic Tat

I'm rapidly acquiring too much plastic stuff under the telly. It's not been this bad since the old Dreamcast days (I don't think I'll ever need to get another fishing rod though). A quick audit finds the following controllers:

2 x Wii Remotes
2 x Wii Nunchucks
1 x Wii Classic Controller
1 x Mario Kart Wheel
1 x Wii Zapper
1 x Fake Wii Zapper
1 x Xbox 360 controller
2 x PS3 controller
2 x Guitar Hero wired guitars
1 x Guitar Hero wireless guitar
2 x Singstar Microphones
1 x Gcon3
1 x silly headphones thing for Xbox Live

And then there's Wii Fit out later in the week, so that will add a Balance Board. And then... soon... Rock Band!

I think I need help.

Farewell to the Galaxy

Finally... I've got all 120 stars and then all 120 again... and then the last one! 121! It's over!



Seriously, I can't think of many games where I've been happy to play through the whole bloody thing straight after finishing it the first time.

If you need more detail, after getting all 120 stars, you have to play through the whole thing again but as Luigi. Even the hard annoying levels. And all you really get at the end is... **Spoiler Deleted** and the letter above. But I feel it was worthwhile and that I'm a better person for it.

And I'm looking forward to moving onto something else. I'll miss it though.

Metroid Prime Completion (1 of 3).

I'm quite happy this evening as I finally finished a Metroid Prime game - #3: Corruption on the Wii. I never finished 1 or 2 (and I had two attempts at the first one) as I would always get stuck on some well hard baddy near the end. This time, I've had barely any problems at all. This could be because:

a) I am older, better and more experienced
b) The Wii controls make things easier
c) It's an easier game.

I'm going to go with a).

I'm really tempted to go and have a final stab now at the first two...

Sports on the Wii... and a Dalek Incident

After a drought for the best part of a year in terms of Wii games, there are finally some good ones around. Super Mario Galaxy looks like it'll be amazing (once I get chance to play it) Metroid Prime 3 is fantastic (though I suspect, just like 1 and 2 I'll get near the end and be unable to defeat the final boss) and my new favourite party game is Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.

It's very much a Ronseal game. It features Mario and Sonic, and they have indeed gone to the Olympics. You can't complain under the trade descriptions act. It also sounds like it should be shit - it has cheap tie-in written all over it. Not literally, that would dint sales (or maybe not).

But in fact it's great. I've purchased an extra Nunchuck to have proper two player on it. There are loads of events, in a variety of styles. It's structured in a Mario Kart style and you can play sets of three mixed events in a tournament style. Or play single events. Or play the (slightly random) Olympics quiz. I haven't played (or unlocked) them all yet but they seem easy to pick up and no doubt hard to master.

100m is straightforward and mainly involves waggling both your arms upside down as fast as possible. Quite tiring if you play it a few times in a row. Tabletennis plays like a slightly more advanced version of Wii Tennis. I haven't got the hang of swimming yet. Fencing seemed bizarrely easy against the computer. And etc. Most importantly, the events all seem to have more to them than just pressing a couple of buttons over and over again, Speccy sports style. Time will tell how these all go after a few weeks, but I suspect my arms will hurt.

The most amusing thing is the way it lets you use your Miis in events if you don't fancy a character from Mario or Sonic. It dresses them up in athletic gear and finally lets you prove that you (yes, you!) are faster than that darned hedgehog. Which I always knew I was.

So in short, get it.

In other unrelated news, I was in Tesco earlier and pointed over to a shelf containing a load of Dalek bubble baths. I said out loud to K, "look, Dalek!". Unfortunately I hadn't spotted there was a lady in one of those electric shopping cart things right in my line of pointing. I think I got away with it.

Putting Zelda To Bed

Just over two weeks ago I decided to replay Zelda: The Wind Waker and try and finish it (four years after originally trying to do this). Tonight, I did this!



Whilst not perfect, it is a lot of fun. The sailing didn't seem so bad this time, and remembering some of it from before probably helped me go through a bit quicker than I would have done otherwise. And I also didn't bother with some of the sidequests that I did last time.

It feels like I've achieved minor closure with a part of my life I'd thought I'd never return to. I will sleep contentedly tonight.

Later in the year... Ocarina of Time: Master Quest?

A good Friday afternoon game...

I invented a new game this afternoon at work. We use Lotus Notes for email, and it always tells you exactly how many bytes each email message is. My game involves two people both racing to send an email to the other person that is exactly 1,000,000 bytes. This includes attachments. First person to send an email that shows as this size wins the game.

This isn't as easy as it sounds and an element of trial and error is needed to get to the magic total.

Unfortunately, my friend wouldn't play with me because he thought it was a stupid game. I had to resort to sending emails to myself instead.

It took a while but eventually I achieved the million byte goal. I was very proud of myself at this point and gloated a little bit. Then I went back to doing some work.

It was a very enjoyable game and quite addictive. I'd recommend it to you if you also are on Lotus Notes or a similar system.