I think I’m pretty much done with Band Hero on the 360, so I’m ready to share my review. For those that don’t know, Band Hero was released by Activision last November and is basically Guitar Hero but with a more family friendly and female friendly tracklist. The game is headlined by Taylor Swift as a playable character, and is pretty much a carbon copy of Guitar Hero 5’s engine and features except for its Achievement design and tracklist. I never got around to reviewing Guitar Hero 5, so please consider this review as one that is most likely applicable to both games – they really just come down to whether you like the tracklist of either game.

The Soundtrack
In past Guitar Hero/Rock Band games I would enjoy a few songs and then not be so into the others. With Band Hero, I was a bit more excited to play it since it contained more “pop hits”. I think overall, there were more songs I enjoyed listening to (but not necessarily playing) in this game than any other Guitar Hero/Rock Band game, but the number was still probably less than a quarter of the tracks. While the game’s focus is on pop songs, the songs range from 1964 until the present, so there’s a lot of stuff in there that just wasn’t that enjoyable/recognizable for me. I think in the end, maybe I’m just looking for a soundtrack that contains various pop/rock songs from today’s “Now That’s What I Call Music” albums, but this is the closest I can get to enjoying it for now. There are definitely more girl friendly songs in this game, and my wife loved singing the Taylor Swift songs. As for me, it feels a little odd playing it solo, especially to fail to some Hillary Duff or Spice Girls song, but that’s something I’ll just keep to myself.

Party Play
I never got a chance to try out Party Play with Guitar Hero 5, but I was able to get it going this time around and felt it was very well done. The concept behind the mode allows you to just focus on playing, without worrying about setting up instruments, picking songs, going through some menu modes, etc. Before you even get to the main game menu, the intro will have random characters playing a random song, and if you want to play, you just hit the green button on your instrument. You choose your difficulty right there, and then jump right in. There’s no failing in this mode, and players can jump in and jump out at any time without stopping the progress of anyone else. If they pause the game to leave, it doesn’t pause for anyone else so they can just drop out and even pop back in without anyone else missing a beat. It’s really the perfect mode to play a music game at a party. As a hardcore gamer, in the past when I would have friend over to play other music games, I would have to set everyone up and sort of just hover nearby to make sure that everyone was ok figuring out menus and stuff. But with Band Hero (and Guitar Hero 5)’s Party Play mode, I can honestly just let it go and not worry about it. The Party Play mode will cycle through every song in the game randomly, so it’s almost like an interactive jukebox that your guests can just pick up and start jamming to.

Other Little Things I Noticed
One of my biggest pet peeves in previous music games is when you pick a male or female lead singer for your band and then you choose a song sung by the other gender, previous music games would always still have that male singing the female song. I always wondered, why the heck did anyone not think to just put in a random female singer instead? Finally with Band Hero (and maybe even Guitar Hero 5), it has been taken care of. Now the singer actually changes if the song is sung by a female!

I can’t help but feel like the Guitar Hero cast sold out when they showed up in this game though. Now they’re all sporting teenybopper-like outfits, and I think characters like Axel Steel and Clive Winston deserve more. But maybe it’s just a reflection of Activion also selling out with this game as it was one of the last Guitar Hero games to be released in 2009 – and there were 5 titles released!

I used the Rock Band 2 drumset to play this game, and didn’t enjoy playing drums in this game as much as I do for the Rock Band games. The most jarring aspect of using the drums is that you have to hit both the yellow and the blue (the middle two) drumpads to activate star power on the drums. For more difficult songs, you may have to constantly be hitting the red and yellow, so to figure out a good time to hit both the yellow and blue and then go back to the red and yellow is not easy. I found myself preferring to play with the guitar for this game while the opposite was true with the Rock Band games. Drumming is just more enjoyable in Rock Band but guitar play is tops for Guitar Hero.

Final Thoughts
While this game doesn’t have awesome guitar songs or even a ton of great rock ones, it does have a soundtrack that is quite family friendly and is probably the current best music game to own for guests of all types – especially girls. If you have female friends coming over, Band Hero is the game to fire up, as there are going to be more songs in Band Hero than any other Hero game that your female friends will recognize and be willing to sing. Of course, that doesn’t translate quite so well for a hardcore male gamer playing the game solo, but hey, I knew what I was getting into when I got this game. Guitar Hero 5 would probably be more appropriate for solo play. In any case, both Band Hero and Guitar Hero 5 are good music games, if you’re not sick of music games just yet.

Final Score: B [for both games]

This one’s gonna be a tough one. On the one hand, DJ Hero has innovative gameplay, a great tracklist, a well built peripheral, and a lot of small, but cool features, that really help make it a solid package. On the other hand, it’s done horribly in sales, is hampered by an insane difficulty curve, and is published by Activision, the evil empire of gaming right now. So do I review the game based on my personal experience, or do I need to take into account all the other factors? I’m not totally sure, but we’ll find out together after the jump…

Why it matters that “evil” Activision published this game
DJ Hero is the latest in Activision’s “Hero” games, which for all intents and purposes are completely oversaturating the music game scene (along with Rock Band). The problem with DJ Hero being an Activision game is that everyone hates Activision right now. Deservedly, Activision has gotten a reputation of just stealing consumers’ money and only caring about the bottom line (which is more or less true). So there’s been a lot of backlash about the DJ Hero game, even from consumers, and it has hurt sales. It’s not the ONLY thing that hurts sales, which I will get into later, but DJ Hero definitely has hurt sales. “Another Hero game? Forget it.” But I have a fundamental problem with all this hate for the DJ Hero series because it’s from Activision. Why? Because two years ago, when EA was the evil empire, they released Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space, two new, risky IPs, and gamers praised them for it. Activision has taken the same sort of risk with DJ Hero, albeit in an attempt to make money, but they are getting panned. It doesn’t make sense! We should support publishers, especially big publishers, taking risks with games and innovating, or in this case, bringing back old school innovations (Konami’s Beatmania).

Why am I writing about the Activision thing in this review? Because it influenced my initial impressions of the game. I too bought into the whole, “this is just an extra peripheral that’s going to take up space and the game is gonna suck” thing and didn’t want to buy the game. But reviews were positive enough to get me interested, and then my sister bought DJ Hero for me for Christmas, and I’m glad she did. So enough boring stuff, time for me to talk about the actual game.

Is DJ Hero’s gameplay any good?
DJ Hero pits you as an actual DJ, and you play along to various mashups and mixes that have been created specifically for the game. As espion4ge stated in his impressions, there are 90+ “mixes” which are composed of two or more tracks, which do tend to repeat quite a bit. Tempering the annoyance of repeating tracks is the fact that different samples are used from each track, so when they’re dropping the No Doubt beat, in one mix you’ll hear “b-a-n-a-n-a-s” but in another mix you’ll just hear Gwen singing the “holla back girl” section.

Some people dislike it, but I have no real problem with the peripheral, though I will agree that it takes some getting used to. Even though it makes no sense that the buttons are on the turntable part of the peripheral, I think it works. You need something to do, and I like tapping along with the beat, and I definitely like the feature of pushing the button while you are scratching, unlike espion4ge. It takes awhile getting used to, but eventually I was able to scratch just using my finger muscles, and not my wrists, which made me much less tired. Another neat feature is the “rewind” feature, if you hit enough notes in a row, you will see a rewind symbol light up, and you can spin the record backwards to reeeeeeeewind, and play a section over for more points. It feels pretty sweet.

The gameplay looks pretty complicated, but practice makes perfect

While you are pushing buttons and scratching with your dominant hand, your off hand has some other crazy stuff to do. Your left hand rests on the cross-fader, which allows you to switch between tracks. So you will be playing Queen’s “We Will Rock You”, then fade to the left and it’ll be Daft Punk’s “Robot Rock”, and back and forth, to great effect. On top of that, there’s an effects knob that you can turn for multiplier bonuses, and cross fading gets pretty intense at the harder difficulties. There is a lot going on, and it’s not “synced” like it is in Guitar Hero – you can be scratching with your right hand and cross fading with your left, both at different rhythms. The game is no joke. But surprisingly, that’s what appeals to me the most. The difficulty makes me feel like I’m actually a DJ, since DJ’s have to multitask so much. Aside from the button pressing, it feels pretty realistic. Scratch, scratch, fade, scratch, fade, REWIND, scratch, scratch, fade, scratch fade. When you get it right, it looks, feels and sounds pretty awesome.

Thus, I absolutely love what DJ Hero does for music games. It introduces a unique and challenging gameplay style. As a hardcore music gamer, I appreciate the challenge of learning a new “skill”. I’m tired of blowing through expert in the Rock Band games (though I still can’t handle everything in Guitar Hero), and it’s fun to actually “work” to get good at a game. Yes, the learning curve is high. But isn’t that a good thing sometimes? Just like a gamer like espion4ge is willing to go through Ninja Gaiden 2 on it’s hardest difficulty, I think music gamers should appreciate DJ Hero. But…

Why the game isn’t selling
They don’t. Or at least, nobody is buying the game. It’s sold about 700K copies, which is pretty good until you factor in how much the peripheral probably cost Activision. There are a couple of reasons why the game isn’t selling. Firstly, it’s difficult, as I said, and thus it doesn’t appeal to as wide a spectrum of consumers. Secondly, DJing seems much more abstract compared to picking up a plastic guitar at this point, and I think that is dissuading consumers as well. Third, gamers who might ordinarily buy the game are sick of making living room space for plastic instruments.

The fourth, and probably most damning reason, is the fact that DJ Hero isn’t a party game. With Guitar Hero/Rock Band, you can pass the guitar around, and you can play in a party and have a good time. But since DJ Hero is much more difficult to learn, you really can’t do that. If my friends come over and I am playing the game, it will be more fun for them to just watch me play and listen to the music than deal with the frustration of learning all the intricacies. That’s a real problem if you are trying to sell games. And that’s unfortunate. But I’m not here to figure out whether DJ Hero should be a bestseller, my job is to determine whether it’s fun to play on its own. So it’s time to wrap this up.

Final thoughts
In coming up with a final grade for this game, I’ve decided to weight the gameplay and tracklist over all those other outside factors. Yes, the game is difficult. Yes, it’s no fun to play with friends. Yes, pushing buttons on a turntable is ludicrous. And yes, you sometimes hear the same songs over and over. BUT:

1. The music in this game is AWESOME. Some favorites: Jay Z’s “H to the Izzo” + Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”, Aranbee Pop Symphony Orchestra’s “Bittersweet Symphony” + LL Cool J’s “Rock the Bells”, all the Beck remixes, and Benny Bayassi’s “Satisfaction + Tiesto’s “Elements of Life”.

2. DJ Hero has a “party mode”. If you hold the euphoria (star power) button, the game will just play any setlists you create automatically, and you can just let the music play in the background while you…dance…or do whatever you want to do at a party. The music is worth it.

3. It’s a good challenge for those who want to take it on. This may not be everybody, but this = me.

4. When you get the hang of it, it’s a lot of fun, and you will find that you will notice others in the room bouncing up and down to the beat.

5. If Activision sticks with it, there is potential for the franchise. It probably won’t make as much money as they’d like, but I’m sure they can find some dedicated fans. It could be a niche game, but a game that fills a bigger niche.

Anyway, $120 might be too steep a price to pay, but prices are slashed all over the place now. I spent $100 on Guitar Hero 2, an investment that was well worth it. If you don’t want to spend that much, find DJ Hero for cheap and check it out, or find a friend. Give the game an hour, it’s at least worth the time investment. Just don’t blame me when you have random mash-ups stuck in your head all day.

Final Grade: A-

DJ Hero was a game that was released this past holiday season and apparently it “bombed” in sales (based on initial sales estimates that Activision had). At first I didn’t quite understand why, since the reviews had been pretty good for it. Once Amazon put it on sale for $70, I figured I would take the plunge in the name of the blog and let you guys know how it played. Unfortunately, cmfl3x also got it as a present, so I guess I didn’t need to take the plunge after all. He’s played a lot more into it than me, but we’ve agreed that I will give my initial impressions of the game as I am not enjoying it as much as I had hoped. He, being the more music game-inclined player between the two of us, will give a full review sometime afterwards.

One of the biggest problems I had with the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games was the lack of recognizable pop songs that I would enjoy playing to. Sure there were always a handful of songs in each game that I would like, but when about 5 out of 60+ songs are the songs you like to play in a game you buy, it’s not exactly the best deal. DJ Hero had me most interested becaues they had several songs from artists I recognize such as The Jackson 5, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna, Jay-Z, etc. The tracklist was a strong selling point for me since I thought that maybe now I’d get a music video game that I would actually enjoy playing an “instrument” to.

While there are plenty of songs that I do recognize and enjoy, it wasn’t after I played through several of them that I felt somewhat ripped off. The game advertises something like 96 different mixes, which had me thinking, “Wow, that’s quite a large number of tracks. More than any Guitar Hero or Rock Band game. What a deal!” Unfortunately what I didn’t know is that while the mixes are “original”, the actual songs being used are repeated. Every mix is basically two different songs mixed together, but several of the more popular songs are mixed into 2-3 different mixes. With many song averaging being in 2 mixes, that really means something like 50 distinct tracks as opposed to 192 (96×2) distinct tracks. Several times I would play a new mix and think, “Didn’t I just hear this song already?” And sure enough, I did – it was just mixed in another song I played earlier. This is not that big of a deal, as I think there’s still plenty of songs to go around, but it’s worth keeping in mind so you don’t get fooled by the advertising of 96 different mixes. Different mixes don’t necessarily mean different songs.

I’ll forgive the lack of tracks that I expected, as the music that is there is still pretty good. Many of the mixes are pretty “bumpin”, since I do find my wife from time to time dancing around as she hears me playing the game so it gets points there. I would conclude from my initial impressions that the music is good, but I wish there was more variety. Still, I’ve enjoyed more tracks in this game than any Guitar Hero or Rock Band game I’ve played so far.

I think the music is the strongest aspect of the game, as the gameplay itself is not quite enjoyable for me. When I first played Guitar Hero, I remembered how awesome it was to play, even if I didn’t enjoy all of the heavy metal and rock tracks. But with DJ Hero, it’s the opposite. I enjoy listening to several of the songs, but I’m finding the actual gameplay to not really be up to par. I’ve been analyzing why this is, and have come up with several issues I have with not only the turntable peripheral, but the amount of stuff you’re expected to do with both of your hands and the tiny window of accuracy you must adhere to in order to score highly.

It’s hard to explain how DJ Hero plays, but I’ll try to summarize it as easily as possible. There’s a turntable with three buttons on it, and there are three colored tracks that come down on the screen. If a circle is on that track, you just have to hit the corresponding button. If there are “scratch” sections on that track, you have to hold the circle down and scratch the turntable by turning it back and forth. This is the primary aspect of the game. It’s somewhat simple, but I had some problems with it from the getgo. First of all, hitting buttons on the turntable that correspond to mixing makes maybe as much sense as playing a plastic guitar for piano parts of a song (which is a disturbing new trend). But what’s more annoying is that holding a button down and scratching throughout the song actually is not so fun (and can be downright painful). After a few songs, I found my arm actually sore and I didn’t really want to continue. I don’t know if it’s because the peripheral is too small for me to rest my hand on it when scratching or simply the combination of holding a button down while trying to get it to scratch is just not fun, but something was not working for me. With this being the heart of the gameplay, I knew that that could be a problem in enjoying the game.

With the core gameplay not being so hot, all of the other stuff just builds on that to make it even less enjoyable. There’s a left-right fader slide that you have to move with your left hand as the tracks sometimes shift left or right quickly. It’s an interesting concept, and the effect is pretty cool but  most of the time the fader rests in the middle. Unfortunately, the nudge that indicates that your fader is in the middle is not so prominent, so you have a hard to figuring out if you’re in the middle or not. I HATED the sequences where you had to keep alternating to the left and right and middle, just because I couldn’t always figure out where I was.

The final two aspects of the game that are making me question my enjoyment of the game are that there’s too much going on on the screen (especially at higher level difficulties) and the room for error is practically none. At least when Guitar Hero got more difficult, it was all about speed – there were still 5 buttons to hit, but everything just came faster. It’s was manageable, and you could go from Easy to Expert with enough practice. In DJ Hero, you have to worry about spinning and hitting buttons with your right hand while moving the slider and adjusting a knob with your left hand. Compared to simply using your right hand to strum for a guitar, and you can see that the learning curve for playing DJ Hero is really steep. On top of that, while you can’t “lose a mix”, the room for error is ridiculous. If you’re scratching a song and you stop scratching a little early, you lose the multiplier. If you are moving the fader and you don’t get it exactly where it needs to be in time, you lose the multiplier. Even on Medium difficulty, I’m getting frustrated where I’m getting sequences where I need to move the fader while still scratching or complete my scratching at the exact same time. What is up with that? Maybe one day I’ll be able to play on Hard, but I’m also feeling like the game’s difficulty just doesn’t make it casual friendly.

In a way, perhaps DJ Hero is a music game for “pro music gamers”, and I’m definitely more of a casual music gamer. It’s not as accessible, and because it’s primarily single player (however, there are a few tracks to play co-op with a guitar), it’s not something you’d want to break out at parties. But the problem with this game for me is that I’m not even that interested in breaking it out by myself either. I think the game’s tracks are pretty good, and I like the innovation that the game adds, but the gameplay itself just isn’t too solid or enjoyable. Maybe it’s time for me to go play Band Hero.

I now understand now why the game bombed. It wasn’t that fun, and it was primarily a single player experience, which meant word of mouth was practically none. With Guitar Hero, someone would play it, love it, invite their friends over, let them play it, they would love it, they would go buy it, and so on. It would just keep spreading like wildfire. Whereas with DJ Hero, I’ve played it, didn’t really enjoy it that much, and now am telling all of you not to buy it. I am probably one of many people that did this, and have contributed to the lack of sales for the game. Needless to say, I will most likely not buy the sequel. In any case, we’ll see what cmfl3x says in his upcoming review of DJ Hero and if his thoughts differ.

Although it is likely this information is only interesting to me, I’m so excited about all the video game related stuff I’ve gotten that I just have to write about it. As you can see, I got a lot of stuff, some as gifts, some borrowed, and some as gifts from me…to me. Here’s the rundown of what I got and my expectations for each, in order of my current level of excitement.

120 GB Hard Drive – I’ve been toying with upgrading my storage for months now. It’s a luxury, and not a necessity, but I’ve becoming increasingly frustrated juggling my limited hard drive space, especially since I like loading games to my hard drive. I kept bugging my wife to buy it for me for Christmas/my birthday, but to no avail. Finally, I managed to “negotiate” a purchase at cost: both financially and chores-wise. Transferring my data over was relatively painless, and now I’m enjoying quieter, fan-free gaming. Worth it! Hopefully.

DJ Hero – My sister bought this for my birthday, and I broke it out over the weekend and put in a few hours. I’m pretty excited about this game, if only for the music. It seems like it could be a cheesy idea, but from what I’ve read, it really seems like a solid first entry in the series and a refreshing change of pace for music games. Too bad nobody bought it, except for my sis! Expect espion4ge’s impressions soon, and my review after that.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii – Another system, another gift. I absolutely loved Super Mario Bros. 3, and NSMBWii, besides having a horrible name, is a spiritual successor to that game. I missed out on New Super Mario Bros. on DS, but I blew through this game on the 3 days during the break that I had access to a Wii. I’m not done with it yet, but a review will be coming soon. The short version: great game, but don’t play with friends if you don’t want to throw your controller out the window.

Resident Evil 5 – I picked this up for $13 in the Gamefly End of the Year Sale, and I’m actually looking forward to it. Going to try to convince a friend to pick it up so I can play it through on co-op, but after reading a bunch of game of the year stuff, the game looks really good and hopefully it won’t remain on my backlog for too long. One thing in the way though, is…

Mass Effect DLC (Bring Down the Sky and Pinnacle Station) – EA had a “buy 3 Xbox Live products get 800 points” promotion over the holidays so I picked up the two DLC packs for Mass Effect and Boom Boom Rocket. I’m planning on replaying Mass Effect before the sequel comes out at the end of the month. I’m thinking about putting something up in the forums akin to a “Game Club”, so if anyone is interested in playing through at the same time keep an eye out in the forums.

LEGO Rock Band – I met up with LargeLobster and he gave me his copy of LEGO Rock Band after he downloaded the music to his console. We played a bit…it’s okay, but I’m probably just going to use this game for some music-related achievements.

Boom Boom Rocket – I downloaded this Xbox Live Arcade game because I heard it was pretty fun. I needed something else to get the 800 points from EA! They better credit my account.

I also received a couple scarves and sweaters, but I’m certain nobody cares about that. Instead, I leave you with a few awesome Christmas present vids. Anybody else get any new games to play?

In Part 4 of the Awards/Shopping Guide, Leveling Down will be tackling some of the more controversial categories: Best Story, Best Value, and Most Overrated. Admittedly, these categories are VERY subjective and are only our opinions, and on some counts even espion4ge and I don’t see *exactly* eye to eye. Nonetheless, controversy is a lot of fun, so might as well give it a shot!

Best Xbox 360 Storyline of 2009

Batman: Arkham Asylum [winner]
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
Halo 3: ODST
Brutal Legend
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Assassin’s Creed II

As I’ve stated before, I love a good yarn, so if a game’s got a great story, I’ll forgive a lot of its flaws. I originally got into video games because of story, which is why I was so into role playing games when I was a kid. There were some games with great stories this year, so if you are interested in a game with a good story, this category is your best bet.

All six of the games above have great stories, but I loved Batman: Arkham Asylum the most. It’s challenging to take a character who has been used in so many other mediums and create a new, unique, and gripping story, but the writers in Batman: Arkham Asylum did a marvelous job of pulling it off. The premise of the story is awesome: the Joker gets himself arrested so that he gets locked up in Arkham in order to hatch his diabolical plan. It’s a classic comic book story, but the story is paced extremely well and features a lot of guest cameos from classic villains. The island of Arkham comes alive as you make your way through it, and I wanted to keep playing to see what happened in the end. Sure, you know you’re going to defeat the Joker, but the ride was one well worth taking.

The Secret of Monkey Island is an old classic that was re-released with redone graphics and voices for XBLA this summer. Its story is great because it’s so unique: you are a wanna-be pirate who gets caught up in a zany adventure that pits you against a zombie pirate.

Halo 3: ODST is on this list because it had such a unique take on storytelling. The game is set in an open hub world and you find yourself separated from your squad-mates. You gradually discover what happened to them by reliving (playing) through their memories. It’s a great way to tell a story, and probably would have won the category if it were not for weak characterization. I couldn’t really tell the difference between the ODSTs…not a good thing.

Brutal Legend is my runner-up in this category, and as I’ve stated elsewhere, it is a well-written heavy metal epic. The story is much deeper than it has any right to be, and there are some instances where I was genuinely shocked by what happened. It’s a bit weird that you can’t have more than one save game, which is really unfortunate, since I would love to replay the game and story again without resetting my stats.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has been praised enough on this site and elsewhere, but its story is to be noted for its absolute insanity. It is a roller coaster of a thrill ride that is not to be missed.

Last, but not least, Assassin’s Creed II tells a great story about revenge. The main character, Ezio, is much more likable than Altair was, and he actually shows growth throughout the course of the game…albeit not much. The intertwining of Ezio’s storyline with what’s going on in the contemporary world with Desmond Miles is pretty cool too. The biggest drawback of this game is they somehow completely messed up Kristen Bell’s character model…unacceptable.

Honorable mention goes to Dragon Age: Origins and Ghostbusters: The Video Game, two games that we haven’t had the chance to play through yet, but that we’ve heard great things about. Dragon Age: Origins is supposed to have a great storyline affected by your choices, though I’d expect nothing less from Bioware. Many also claim that Ghostbusters is practically a sequel to the movies. Expect our impressions on both games in the coming months when we get through our backlogs.

Best Xbox 360 Value of 2009

Battlefield: 1943
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Borderlands
Dragon Age: Origins
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 [winner]
Left 4 Dead 2

When thinking about best value, I always think about how much gaming and enjoyment I can receive for a title relative to the amount of money I spent on it. Since multiplayer-focused games have the most legs, usually they end up being the best value (since you never “beat” the game, there’s rarely a reason to stop until you get bored). But to be a good value, a game also has to be worth all the hours you pour into it. All of the games in this category will give you plenty of gaming for one fixed price.

Unsurprisingly, the one XBLA title in this list is a multiplayer game. You can pick up Battlefield: 1943 for the low price of $15 and get a nice pick up and play multiplayer first person shooter. The three maps are pretty well balanced, and the vehicles are very fun to use. DICE’s Frostbite engine is holding up nicely: huge explosions and breakable cover prevent people from camping too much, speeding up the action. Unfortunately, most people have moved on to Modern Warfare 2, so this train has more or less left the station.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a single player title with a good amount of re-playability. The story mode is lengthy, but where you will really find a lot of value is in the combat and predator challenges. If you want to get 3 bats (stars) on each challenge, it will take you much longer than the story mode. You also need to be a bit of a glutton of pain, so it’s not going to be for everyone. But if you love a hefty challenge, there is a lot of value to be found in Arkham Asylum.

The first person shooter WoW-type game Borderlands needs to be mentioned in this category because if questing and looting is your type of thing, there are 50+ hours of gameplay for you in this game. Grab three friends and run around Pandora killing everything that moves and looting every chest you find. Then, after you finish the game, do it again until you hit the level cap! Borderlands features addicting gameplay that is slightly marred by some curious design decisions, but is a good value for your money nonetheless.

Dragon Age: Origins is this year’s Fallout 3 and this category’s runner up. You’ll pour 60+ hours into the game’s main quest and then you will be tempted to play it again to see what happens as a different character! Though the game is better on the PC, Bioware did a good job with the 360 port (with Achievement support!). If you are a solo gamer who nonetheless wants to get a lot of playtime into one game and one game only, you could probably survive all of 2010 with Dragon Age. Unfortunately, Dragon Age isn’t for everyone, which is why it came in second to…

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Would you expect anything else? You’ll spend 6 hours on the campaign. Then you’ll spend another 10 doing it on Veteran. Then you’ll spend another 10-15 hours trying to get 3 stars on every Special Ops mission. Then, if you feel like it, you can dip your toes into multiplayer. Oh, and if some of those things don’t sound appealing to you, you’ll STILL get your money’s worth from the aspects that are appealing to you. I’ve poured over 36 hours into this game, and I’m not even halfway to my first Prestige in multiplayer. Modern Warfare 2 is the perfect game to bring with you to a deserted island…provided that deserted island has a high speed internet connection. (Note: I wrote this BEFORE I saw espion4ge used the same analogy yesterday – great minds think alike I guess.)

In case you don’t feel like fighting humans, you could always pick up Left 4 Dead 2. It features the same addictive gameplay of the original, but with more game modes and more maps. You can pick up the game for $40 in most places now – an amazing value. The only thing is, you really want to be playing this game with friends, so make sure you party up!

Xbox 360 Most Overrated Game of 2009

Street Fighter IV (Metacritic: 94)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Metacritic: 92) ["winner"]
The Beatles: Rock Band (Metacritic: 89)
Left 4 Dead 2 (Metacritic: 89)

This is a tough category to call, and definitely controversial. To me, an overrated game is hyped more than it deserves or scored higher than it deserves. Obviously, it’s a very subjective category, but it’s also a lot of fun to think about. So every game on this list is a game that I, cmfl3x, believe isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. For the record, I love all four of these games, so before you flame me, consider that!

Don’t get me wrong: I think Street Fighter IV is a great game. I also think it benefited from being the most mainstream Street Fighter game since Street Fighter 2. The game is very well done and well balanced, but are the new characters that great? Do I really care about Rufus and EL FUERTE!? The online multiplayer’s lack of quarter matches is also inexcusable and just detracts from the fun. So despite all its great qualities, I think Street Fighter IV was definitely overrated.

Street Fighter benefited from nostalgia, while the “winner” in this category, Batman: Arkham Asylum, managed to become overrated due to the relative mediocrity of its competition. Outside of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and a few other exceptions, there haven’t been many good superhero games, so when Batman came out, it blew people away, and rightfully so. Yet the game does have flaws which all the positive press managed to ignore. There really isn’t a lot of exploration to be done, and some gameplay sections are a bit repetitive and oversimplified. For example, the Scarecrow portions of the game are awesome story and setting wise, but incredibly lame gameplay wise.

The Beatles: Rock Band is a pretty amazing experience, but the fact of the matter is, it’s just too short. There are 45 songs, but remember, many Beatles’ songs are under 4 minutes long. Compared to other music games, there is much less re-playability. And of course, if you don’t like The Beatles, you are out of luck. The game is great, especially for fans of the Beatles, and its presentation is top notch, but you’re still paying top dollar for a much shorter experience.

Finally, after all the hype, controversy, and anticipation, Left 4 Dead 2 unfortunately feels like an expansion. An excellent expansion, no doubt, but the game still is a bit overrated. There are some new modes, maps, and weapons, but does that justify a full-on sequel? I guess I’m kinda of biased, because I still wish Valve had taken more time with this game (and not released it after Modern Warfare 2). Regardless, the game is definitely worth playing, just be aware that it’s basically a refined version of the first…without Louis.

Our 2009 Xbox 360 Awards/Holiday Shopping Guide will wrap up tomorrow with both espion4ge and me sharing our own nominees and winner for best game of the year. Stay tuned!

With Band Hero and LEGO Rock Band recently released, I picked up Band Hero to play with my family this holiday season and am even looking at LEGO Rock Band since both have several “family friendly” recognizable songs. But then I was trying to understand how the importing works for all these music games and it was somewhat of a headache since there’s over a dozen of them out now. Well, as I went through figuring them out, I decided to write up a guide at the same time, so those of you that are curious about how exporting works for all the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games can now learn from what I just learned. However, please keep in mind that I’m talking about these games specifically from a 360/PS3 perspective – Wii owners may find even more limitations in place since I don’t know much about the Wii versions. I believe the Wii Rock Band universe does not support any sort of exporting but the Wii Guitar Hero universe follows the same limitations as the 360 & PS3 versions.

First off, it’s a given that the Rock Band and Guitar Hero universes do not play together so you cannot export music from one universe to another. Second of all, it’s good to think of all this exporting business centralized around your hard drive like DLC music tracks. Each particular game has potential to “export”, and if it does, any other game that supports it will be able to play it just like DLC. For all intents and purposes, consider exported tracks the same as DLC. The one time cost comes from exporting the track to your hard drive so other games can play it, not for the ability for a particular game to play tracks on your hard drive. If the songs are already on your hard drive, it’s free to play by any games that support the songs.

With that, here is the breakdown:

Rock Band Universe

Rock Band Track Pack 1
Rock Band Track Pack 2
Rock Band Unplugged
Rock Band AC/DC
Rock Band Classic Rock
Rock Band Country
Rock Band Metal
Export: All these discs are free to export one time with a unique code in the game box
Import: n/a

Rock Band
Export: All songs except for 3 are exportable an infinite number of times for $4.99
Import: All Rock Band track packs, LEGO Rock Band, and Rock Band 1-2 DLC (shared)

Rock Band 2
Export: none
Import: Rock Band 1 (except 3 of the songs), all Rock Band track packs, LEGO Rock Band, and Rock Band 1-2 DLC (shared)

The Beatles: Rock Band
Export: none
Import: none

LEGO Rock Band
Export: All songs exportable for $10 one time with a unique code in the game box
Import: All family friendly Rock Band track pack songs, family friendly Rock Band 1 songs, and family friendly Rock Band 1-2 DLC (shared) songs

Guitar Hero Universe

Guitar Hero II
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
Guitar Hero: Metallica
Guitar Hero: Van Halen
Export: none
Import: none

Guitar Hero World Tour
Export: 35/86 songs for $3.50 one time with a unique code in the game box
Import: none

Guitar Hero Smash Hits
Export: 21/48 songs for $2 one time with a unique code in the game box
Import: none

Guitar Hero 5
Export: 69/85 songs for $6 one time with a unique code in the game box
Import: Guitar Hero World Tour exported tracks, Guitar Hero Smash Hits exported tracks, Guitar Hero World Tour DLC (except 6 Jimi Hendrix songs), Band Hero exported tracks

Band Hero
Export: 61/65 songs for $5 one time with a unique code in the game box
Import: Guitar Hero World Tour exported tracks, Guitar Hero Smash Hits exported tracks, Guitar Hero World Tour DLC (except 6 Jimi Hendrix songs), Guitar Hero 5 exported tracks

Summary
It looks like the two universes are focusing in on a couple games as their primary mediums. The Rock Band Universe focuses around Rock Band 2 – practically every other Rock Band game can export out tracks and Rock Band 2 can import everything in. It’s possible to pick up all the other Rock Band related discs and pay and/or use the code to export the songs, and save for the 3 Rock Band 1 songs, you’ll have everything available to play when you boot up Rock Band 2. That means you can basically sell all the other discs and use Rock Band 2 to play everything.

The Guitar Hero universe is a lot more tricky it seems, because not only did Activision start late with the exporting business, the focus is split between two games now too. While there have been several Guitar Hero games released, it wasn’t until World Tour that the exporting/importing business was implemented. And even then, Activision did a pretty shoddy job since not even half of the tracks for either World Tour or Smash hits are currently exportable. This means even after you export them, you may still want to hold onto the discs in case you ever feel like playing songs that weren’t exported. What’s good with Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero now though is that they can both play the songs exported from World Tour or Smash Hits, and can even play songs exported from each others’ games if the player wants to pay for the associated exporting costs. A higher percentage of Band Hero’s songs are exportable than Guitar Hero 5’s songs, so perhaps Guitar Hero 5 is more fitting as the current primary Guitar Hero Universe hub.

One more thing to think about is to be very cautious about buying used games that have any of these one-time export codes. Many people may simply pick up Band Hero or LEGO Rock Band and pay the export cost and sell the game to Gamestop. If you pick up that same used game, you won’t be able to export it to your system and you’ll be stuck having to use the disc whenever you want to play it. In the case of games you might want to export, try to buy them new. Oh, and make sure you have a hard drive big enough to store all of these songs you plan on exporting. You can export the songs to your hard drive, delete specific songs, and still re-export them in the future should you ever desire to so it may be worth holding onto the discs if you have low hard drive space.

Every bone in my alternative, grunge-loving, rock and roll body (aka my childhood) finds the upcoming casual-friendly Lego Rock Band and Band Hero games kind of gross. Taylor Swift? Janet Jackson? BRYAN ADAMS? These are the artists being rolled out for Lego Rock Band (Harmonix) and Band Hero (Activision) in the two companies’ latest attempt to cash in on the music game craze. Yet, the older, more mature, and lamer side of me is intrigued by both these games.

Harmonix’s game I’m sure will be made with the high standards all the Rock Band games have had (although I’m not sure how Lego David Bowie and Lego Iggy Pop are going to look different), and there are a lot of catchy tunes on there, including the aforementioned Bryan Adams “Summer of 69′”, Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin”, and the one song I would like to play: Europe’s “The Final Countdown”. Band Hero counters with The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ “The Impression that I Get”, Carl Douglas’ “Kung Fu Fighting”, and the CTY classic “American Pie”, by Don McLean.

These games and their tracklists present me with two dilemmas:

1) I would feel like a corporate sellout playing these songs. At the same time, pop songs are so catchy and they seem like they would be genuinely fun to play, especially with friends or my wife.

2) I really shouldn’t be spending any more money on music games. There are tracks on both discs that I would love to try out, but I can’t shell out $120 on more music games, especially when I’m still planning on picking up Guitar Hero 5 eventually! This is getting out of hand.

In the end, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I don’t even need reviews, I’m pretty sure both games will be much of the same. If I had tweenage kids it probably would be a no-brainer, and I think a lot of families will have fun with these games, but as a solo act…I might have to pass………or not. Bah!

The day The Beatles: Rock Band reached my door, I finished the first half of the game before my wife even got home, took her to dinner, and then finished the rest of the game (netting me the “Day Tripper” achievement in about 6 hours of real time, 3 hours of game time). That fact proves both that I am a dork and that for all intents and purposes Beatles is a pretty short game. But some of its features manage to make up a great deal of the slack left by its short playlist (44 songs in all).

First and foremost, I should state that I’m a huge Beatles fan. Even the game’s intro (which is a beautifully rendered CG imagining of the foursome) got me incredibly pumped to play the game - I wanted to jump straight into quickplay and jam to all those songs. Instead, I chose to do the responsible thing and get into story mode, which basically takes you chronologically through the Beatles history, regardless of difficulty. It’s not a big deal though, since Beatles songs are inherently pretty easy (though I have much more respect for Ringo Starr after playing his drum parts), and you can change difficulty at anytime without restarting. The story mode is kind of like a history lesson in the Beatles; for those who are more musically inclined, you can really see the evolution of the Beatles music without any direct comments on the matter. It’s as much an homage to the group as it is a game, and some of the graphical decisions Harmonix made for the backgrounds are amazing (especially after the Beatles get in the studio and get away from all the screaming girls). It’s actually pretty cool, but as I said before, it only takes about three hours.

Playing Beatles songs is actually a lot of fun, even if people don’t know the songs (which is common in this day and age, sadly), since the tunes are generally pretty simple and people can sing along. I had people over the other night and planned to only play one song to show my gamer friend, but then everyone else wanted to play so we ended up going through the “greatest hits” on the album. I even tried to explain the virtues of “I am the Walrus”, although I think it fell upon deaf ears. Since the difficulty level is generally easier people seem to enjoy themselves more since they can up the difficulty.

Really, The Beatles: Rock Band succeeds because it is so accessible. You can either get into the game because the difficulty is easier, or because you like the Beatles, or even just because you want to see all the crazy stuff that goes on in the background. Yes, there aren’t enough songs and some glaring omissions (Let it Be, Across the Universe, Help!, etc.) which will probably (hopefully) end up being DLC, and the gameplay isn’t that difficult (though the achievements are no sure bet). Harmonies are a lot of fun to sing, but only for people who are really into music. At the same time, I think Beatles Rock Band is kind of like the Wii Sports of music games, it appeals to a wide audience and is as fun to watch as it is to play. Well, maybe not AS fun, but it’s good enough. I personally really appreciate the game because it reminds me why I fell in love with the Beatles all those long years ago, and it’s given me a chance to walk around singing Beatles songs in my head eight days a week. I can’t see how any band specific games will ever hold up to the Beatles experience – just like the Beatles in the 60s, The Beatles: Rock Band ends up being larger than life in the world of music games. Good luck, Van Halen.

Yesterday (9/9/09) was not only the debut of Beatles: Rock Band, it was also the 10 year anniversary of the release of the Sega Dreamcast, which debuted back on 9/9/99. Many people wax nostalgic over the Dreamcast, and wish it hadn’t failed as it did, including some of my closest friends. Unfortunately, the Dreamcast’s hey-day was during a time that I took a break from gaming, namely, college. I really only spent time in college playing Frequency and Amplitude so unfortunately I can’t comment on how great the Dreamcast was.

All the buzz I’ve seen about the Dreamcast this past week made me think about which past console I miss the most. After some deliberation, I finally settled on the Super Nintendo. I think I’ve recounted elsewhere that I was so excited to get the console that I blew its power supply (American SNES used in HK), but after that the SNES brought me nothing but happiness. Final Fantasy IV, VI, Chrono Trigger, NHL 94, Super Mario World, Earthbound, Super Metroid, F-Zero, the original Super Mario Kart, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past….what a lineup.

The SNES was the console that took games to another level of depth, coinciding with my hitting adolescence and thus being able to appreciate that depth. At the same time, a lot of those games had that addictive gameplay that would keep my friends and me up until the sun rose racing in Kart, beating the crap out of each other in Street Fighter, and one-timing in NHL 94. One of my eternal regrets is getting rid of my Super Nintendo and not storing it in a box somewhere, which is why I gladly pay Nintendo money on the Virtual Console for the re-releases. Nothing will top all the memories I made with my friends way back when on that box.

So to end this post: Dreamcast lovers, my heart bleeds for you, but Super Nintendo, you’re my numba one!

All the reviews that are coming out for Guitar Hero 5 make me wish I had the game RIGHT NOW. It seems like the game is now much more user friendly, you can start playing songs from the main menu, drop in/drop out, change difficulty on the fly, and play with any combination of instruments that you want. Anyway, it sounds like a lot of innovation, and I’m a bit sad to be missing out on it. What’s really great is all the songs are unlocked out of the box: no codes or anything.

I guess I’ll have to wait another week for Beatles and hope it is just as good. What I prefer about Guitar Hero is the level of difficulty, which I doubt will be present in the Beatles, so I’ll just have to hope the song list and quality makes up for the difference. I guess this only a temporary lament, since I’ll probably pick up GH5 when there’s a price drop, but I’m big on instant gratification so I’ll have to learn to wait. BAH!