This week’s podcast is kind of boring, since there’s little to talk about, but Jonah and Scott are game. Most of the entertainment comes from Scott talking about his Fallout 4 adventures.
This week’s news includes:
Let us know what you think.
The latest news on the Rock Band 2 front covers the instruments and a few confirmed song tracks. There have been rumors flying around the Internet about the “leaked song tracks” for the next release with absolutely no confirmation. Now, however, we have solid proof on some tracks and some equipment changes.
First, all instruments are backwards compatible. That’s key to the success of Rock Band because fans of the original ponied up a lot of bones to grab themselves the original Rock Band kit. However, there is an incentive to upgrade your equipment in some regards.
If you like the original Rock Band guitar you’re going to love the new one if only for the color updates, wood grain and actual look and feel of a real guitar not a “toy.” As you’d expect (or hope) the new guitar will be wireless, finally, and will have a sturdy strum bar with even quieter buttons. Wireless alone is a great selling point but quiet buttons is important for folks like me who play the guitar like it was a jackhammer and can easily interrupt the drummers concentration during a difficult set.
The drum kit has been improved as well, with a re-enforced foot pedal to avoid the ease of breaking the plastic “toy” version of Rock Band original. As a person who’s busted up their drum petal and forked out cash on eBay for a wood solution, this is more great news. The drum kit will also be wireless which is great for those of you, like myself, who have kids that run through your line of site or dance while you’re playing. Nobody likes their Xbox 360 being flung off the shelve due to tripped cords.
The drum kit will have quieter pads and a velocity sensor; again, your old kit is still usable without these enhancements but the desire to upgrade if you’re a dedicated fan will be high.
The song tracks currently confirmed:
This is a great indication to where Rock Band 2 is going, mixing up a great selection of artists with classic hits like Anyway You Want It and Pinball Wizard to newer late generation X music like Give it Away and Chop Suey. Talented artists like Dream Theater are sure to keep Rock Band 2 a challenge to all gamers.
Other great improvements being a World Tour mode now accessible online and the removal of the “Band Leader” concept which always locked you into an instrument once you created a band.
NOTE: Xbox 360 will have a timed exclusive on Rock Band 2, arriving later in the year for the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3.
Checkout the full feature set so far explained at Kotaku.
This week’s episode features the crew heavily reminiscing about videogames that first got them excited about the hobby, while Jordan Lund surprisingly takes a contrary opinion that shocks the other podcasters. In addition to videogame news, the Gaming History takes a look at the Nintendo 64DD.
This week’s news includes:
This week’s Question of the Week, “When was the first time that you really got into video games?”
As a huge fan of Showtime’s Dexter, we’re excited (afraid?) to hear they’re making a game in its image. We actually pay for an Amazon Unbox because we’re too cheap to buy Showtime for all their other shows. A Dexter game could be killer on the PC and iPhone.
Obviously the first problem to concern ourselves with is the franchise name, all too often we end up with ‘branded’ named games that produce awful results. It’s easy to get lost in the idea of making money on the name Dexter than putting in the time to a quality game release.
There is a high probability a Dexter game is going to suck, but we can hold up our hopes they do the franchise justice and create something scary but entertaining with a good storyline. How else can you represent a TV series in which the main character is a serial killer and he justifies his killings?
(Thanks, Joystiq)
