BandFuse: Rock Legends Updates: The Clips Just Keep On Comin’…

 
Just a few more days before it drops into retail and it looks as if BandFuse: Rock Legends has a few more surprises up its sleeves. Check out the third “Fused Thoughts” above and that cool upright bass clip below for some quick fun you can have with the game when it lands on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 November 19, 2013.

 
YES, I said PS3 and Xbox 360 – it may be “next-gen” time in some circles, but there are MORE of those older consoles STILL in use than both of the new ones (yeah, yeah, that Xbox One isn’t out ’til the 22nd, but it’s still going to be outnumbered by Xbox 360’s for a while yet). And yes indeed, that launch Party at the House of Blues was (wait for it)… rockin’ pretty hard with Slash and Bootsy playing like there’s no tomorrow.

 
Thankfully, there WILL be a tomorrow (and a few more after that!) or else this game wouldn’t even come out, right? Yeah, I knew you’d agree…

Need For Speed Rivals Launch Trailer: Fasten Your Seatbelts (And Wear Well-Padded Pants)…

 
If any studio is going to master this new hardware first, my money is on Criterion and Ghost Games and their Need For Speed games. Granted, Need For Speed Rivals is a purely arcade-like game experience and racing fans who want more in the way of total car customization and more racing viewpoints will gripe a bit about the game as they usually do with other racers. Me, I’ll just be jamming on the gas, sliding through turns and causing all sorts of mayhem while enjoying the scenery and trying to wreck as little as possible. This one’s on current and next-gen consoles (not the Wii U, though – sorry!), so pick one and GO, I say. Online or off, it’s bound to be a blast.

BandFuse Rock Legends Update: Here’s Twofer For Your Thursday (Plus One)…

 
Four days to go and the video fun is rolling out of Realta. Here are two quick and funny “Fused Thoughts” clips plus as a bonus track, it’s none other than Slash talking about his start playing guitar. All this leads up to what could be the most innovative real guitar learning experience on a console when BandFuse: Rock Legends hits PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 19. I’ve been working on my finger exercises, but just the lifting food to face part – I think the game will be teaching me much more useful skills, that’s for sure.

Next Car Game Update: Some Truly Smashing Alpha Gameplay…

 
Of course, I knew the team at Bugbear was going to be going all out with this new demolition racer and for pre-alpha footage, this is really impressive. Yes, that car is purposely indestructible and YES, it’s that way to show off the game’s physics and all those lovely bits flying around when stuff is struck. Anyway, the game’s Kickstarter has 16 days to go and still needs a lot of pledges to make that $350,000 target, so if you’ve got a few spare bucks you need to unload and want to support a fine developer who loves making crazy racing experiences, give a little and get a lot back, I say. Hell, I want this to succeed only so the team can maybe make another Glimmerati game for a few platforms…

Jimmy and Ice-T Put The PS4 On The Hot Spot…

Alright, it’s a given: CUTE ROBOTS SELL CONSOLES. And SUPER-cute virtual robots you can play with and/or kick around the room? When the audience goes “D’aaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!” more than five times a minute? Yeah, there’s Christmas in a box for Sony right there.

Okay, despite my occasional cranky side acting up from time to time, I’ll have to admit that Jimmy Fallon always gets me excited about gaming despite me having a longer history with them than he has. Granted, it’s his great enthusiasm for the medium and NOT his play style (that tends to lean towards the “Boy, do I suck at these games but I’m having FUN!” although he did beat Ice-T at that Pong variant) that’s hard to fake. And yep, game companies love him, Conan and anyone else they can get a console and controller to. Of course, none of them love ME, but that’s more my fault than theirs at the end of the day. Oh well, we’re workin’ on it… we’re workin’ on it. I’m thinking of writing a fake e-book (not really) called “How To Get The Respect You Deserve Without Being A Total Ass or Total Suck-Up” but we’ll say no more about that unless we want to be called a total ass. Or a total suck-up. Not too good at either of those, but I can swing both ways once I take some lessons. Is the Learning Annex still open here in NYC?

Killzone: Shadow Fall Launch Trailer: Sony’s 800 Pound Guerrilla Wants In Your House…

 
Killzone 3 DAFI’m quite proud to say I know at least one person who’s worked on this game a little from another game he worked on at another developer, so it’s good to hear this latest installment makes for a fine launch title. That said, I won’t get to play it for a while unless I get socked on the skull with a sack of money. THAT said, I’m actually not ticked off at not having a PS4 on launch day as I still have way too many titles from THIS generation to cover here. I prefer to do things at a more appreciative pace (as in NOT rushing through games to be the first to have a review posted) and enjoy the ride, as it were… Continue reading

BandFuse: Rock Legends Update: Say Hi-yo To Laiho!

 
With only a week left before the game hits retail, I’ve been seeing some music game fans suddenly perk up the discussion about BandFuse: Rock Legends in a few spots. Realta Entertainment’s innovative guitar school on a disc is an open book of a music “game” experience that lets you hop in anywhere you choose and learn like a beginner or jam like a pro, something a certain other guitar game doesn’t. Between that, the legends on board to show you the ropes, the no-lag gameplay which should please every player and more, this one could be the music game of the year when all is said and done. Granted, some still want millions of TV ads to drop left and right just so they have an idea of how popular the game is or something. But expensive TV spots and building-sized billboards don’t mean anything other than a game’s PR department has a lot of money to work with and the game being advertised so heavily might or might not be any good at all. BandFuse doesn’t need some multimillion dollar ads running endlessly to sell it at all – it needs YOU to pick it up and learn you some killer guitar. THAT will help sell copies more than anything, I say…

A Doctor A Day Keeps You Guessing (In A Good Way)…

So, not only are we getting what looks like the ultimate Doctor Who episode on November 23 in a very special simultaneous broadcast, but an actual TV movie (and DVD, at least in the UK) about the show’s beginnings. Okay, so I’m a bit behind on this news, but hey – I’m a busy man more than an obsessed fan so I need to time my excitement properly or else it’s a permanent state of bug-eyed wild postings and potentially doing what every other overexcited fan does (posting crazy YouTube videos that make me look like a total nut). Anyway, An Adventure in Space and Time looks like it’ll be a nice history lesson for Who fans and hopefully it’s more fact-based than the crap Hollywood biopics that always follow the same predictable plot patterns and lose any sense of veracity in favor of hitting the audience over the noggin with the requisite schmaltzy elements that focus test better than the actual truth.

An Adventure In Space and Time DVD UK

Eh, we’ll see soon enough, right?

Need For Speed Rivals Gameplay: PS4 Versus Xbox One, Round 1…

SO, it seems that resolution is the BIG thing for many gamers and journalists out there rolling around on the ground fighting with each other and it seems that the PS4 has an advantage on SOME titles over the Xbox One, which is the reverse of how it was on many third party titles throughout this past generation. While those folks fight it out in clouds of dust and misspelled diatribes, I’ll just post these two trailers from Criterion’s upcoming racer and let you decide which looks best. The BEST way to see these videos is at their highest resolution (1080p), so hopefully you know how to do that with YouTube videos.

Anyway, Here’s the PlayStation 4 version below:

Annnnd below, here’s Rivals on the Xbox One. Oh wait, look at your HAIR! Ha! Next time close the window and fasten that seat belt. Sorry, I forgot to warn you we were going to go FAST. Anyway, ready? Good:

Did you notice anything different? Do you even care? Are you wearing socks right nor or are they stuck to the wall on the other side of the room after being blown clean off (and if so, I’m SO sorry if you were wearing expensive panty hose!)? I guess the sales figures will tell at the end of the day, but system bias will rear its head even more as both consoles roll onto shelves and the knives come out once again. Hell, they’re ALREADY out and have been since before each new system was announced. No one wins in that war, by the way… but sitting on the sidelines with a load of popcorn makes for some fine entertainment for me before I get bored and go back to playing some of those games everyone else is nitpicking over because of a few flaws or whatever that some won’t even notice because they only have one console at home and just don’t care what the competition is up to…

Well, At Least My Vita Is Ready For The PlayStation 4…

Almost Ready...

So, Sony’s most recent system update for the PlayStation Vita has a few nifty new additions to that XMB for owners including a PS4 Link feature that seems to allow PlayStation 4 games to be streamed onto the handheld most likely via a cloud service of some sort. HOPEFULLY, it will allow for system updates for that console to be downloaded and transferred TO the PS4, as I know for a fact that not everyone who wants or has pre-ordered that console has a broadband connection or decent internet access at home. That’s going to be a HUGE deciding factor for some in this upcoming console battle as we know that out of the box, the Xbox One won’t even play a game until a mandatory update patch is downloaded from Xbox Live (and nope, you can’t use a dial-up connection!).

I’m not lucky enough to have an early console like some sites out there (*grumble*), but I’m playing on picking one up and NO, not by trying my luck eating crappy “ethnic” fast food from a flimsy cardboard box (yuck!) packed and sold by people working for soul suckin’ jerks. I’d prefer a debug unit, personally, but it would seem no one at Sony even knows I exist these days so I’m a Joe Gamer type like the rest of you at the moment. Oh well, all that does is make for better reviews at the end of the day anyway. Although I’ll tell you now that I’m the hardest person to market stuff to because I buy and play what I like, I like very odd things sometimes and that’s not “mainstream” enough for some out there, I’d gather…