Well this blog has been rather sparse for the past month thanks to the Christmas rush catching up with me, so this post will be extra long to help make up for some of the lost posts.
Wii
Following on from where I left with the last post, I must admit I’ve been rather under whelmed with the Wii. I burned through Zelda in a week or so (40 hours on the game clock), but it really felt like a chore, more than something I could sit down and enjoy. That could have partly been because it was taking up a lot of valuable time I should have been using for something more productive, but despite that the game still felt like there was something missing for me. OoT remains at the top of my all time favourites list.
I bought Red Steel and Raving Rabbids for a mate’s birthday, so eventually I’ll borrow them both back off him (not at all planned) to see if that can do anything to reinvigour my interest in the console, particularly after PALGN’s controversial 8.0 Red Steel review. I have played about ¼ of the way through Red Steel and I was really enjoying it, so I will be interested to see if this carries through to the end.
Guitar Hero II
When I was down in Melbourne for eGames I spent many hours at Luke’s house rocking through GHII. I thought I’d got over my addiction, but I picked up the controller in Harvey Norman, while Xmas shopping and the love came flooding back. Now that I don’t have anything interesting to play on the Wii, I thought I’d take advantage of the Christmas break and buy a slimline PS2 along with GHII. I managed to complete a song on the hard difficult for the first time yesterday – I’ll try to hone my skills to be able to make it through Expert eventually.
When I was a child, my parents attempted to encourage me develop some kind of musical skill. From the choir to piano and trumpet, I’ve tried quite a few different forms of musical expression over the years, but I’ve never really particularly enjoyed any of it. I always ended up at a mediocre level, since I’ve never had the desire to take it further. Guitar Hero II gives you get the same feeling of success without having to invest as many hours as a real instrument – I think that’s what I really like about it. A few people will probably come over to my place for new year’s so well be sure to have a few jam sessions then.
Gitaroo Man Lives!
Continuing the guitar motif, Luke recently sent me Gitaroo Man Lives! for PSP. Presumably a review copy that we didn’t need since the game had been reviewed already. I’m really enjoying it too. While a little short (been playing for about 4 hours and already up to the last stage), it’s a fantastic game for the PSP – really suited to short pick up and play bursts. It goes really nicely with my new Logitech active noise cancelling headphones that I was given for Christmas by my parents – the tunes really do rock, with a nice mix of J-Pop, acoustic guitar and some more hardcore beats. Once I’ve completed the normal mode, I’m going to make sure I made it through on the unlockable hard difficulty.
BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad
Finalising the guitar thread, I’ve also been digging into an Anime show called BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad. I first saw it while waiting for some mates in a net café and I’ve since been working my way through the 26 episodes that make up the series. If nothing else, the show proves that if you have an awesome opening sequence, it can make a huge difference to the success of the show. Each episode opens with the awesome Hit In The USA (by the Beat Crusaders) played against some fantastic anime versions of famous US locals. While the show itself is certainly watchable, I must admit that I think that wanting to watch the opening sequence is what keeps drawing me back.
Too many games…
Once I get out of my guitar addiction, I’ve got tones of other games to make it through. I’ve snapped up several cube games - Zelda: Wind Waker and Resident Evil 4 - to play on my Wii. I’ve also got Shadow of the Colossus for PS2 (and will probably pick up Black at some stage, and ask Luke to send back Rez that I took down for eGames). Shadow of the Colossus is at the top of the list for games I want to finish, and while I’ll probably make it through that, once I go back to work on the 2nd, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to fit in much play time since there’s lots of important projects that I need to be working on.
Anyway, I think it’s time to get back to Guitar Hero II to try to make it through Free Bird with 5 stars on medium.
