Leveling Down

After 3 days of voting, the first round of Leveling Down’s Video Game March Madness 2010 is over! There were some close matchups, some blowouts, and of course, some surprises. As a reminder for those of you who may feel that some of these games were unfairly seeded, we seeded all the games based on Metacritic scores. It’s all their fault!

Anyway, thanks to everyone for voting! The first 32 have now been cut down to the Sweet 16. After the jump, check out who I voted for, my thoughts on the results, and a preliminary look at the Sweet 16 matchups.

Tiebreaker note: I decided that casting a tiebreaking vote was too arbitrary and I felt uncomfortable with the power! So for tie polls, I tallied up the registered commenters who voted as the tiebreaker. It seemed like the fairest thing to do, so make sure you’re logged in to make your vote count the most!

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Leveling Down’s 2010 Videogame Tourney Has Officially Started! The rounds will take place over the next couple of weeks, and will be heavily decided by you, our Leveling Down readers.

Voting for Round 1, which consists of all 32 games in the tourney, will close on Wednesday March 24, 2010 at 6PM EST. On Thursday, cmfl3x will announce the 16 games that will move onto Round 2 and we will open Round 2 voting Friday morning and end it Monday at 6PM EST.  Hit the jump to read more about our first tourney and to cast your votes!

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Band Hero still has the elements that made Guitar Hero 5 enjoyable, but with a more female friendly soundtrack.

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.
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Interested in DJ Hero? cmfl3x thinks it’s an itch worth scratching

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…

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DJ Hero brings new innovations in musical gameplay, but are they any good?

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.
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This sure beats the Etch-a-Sketch I got when I was six…but not by much

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.

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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!

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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.

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Will this three pieced singer be gracing my TV screen next month?

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 Beatles’ dreamscapes are a real visual treat

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.