Rock Band, or… Everything But the Dancing

Title: Rock Band

Platform: Xbox 360

Developer: Harmonix

Publisher: MTV Games

Genre: Rhythm

It was only a matter of time. Guitar Hero made everyone a rock star. Karaoke games are all the rage for some people. DDR forced players to get up and “dance.” Two of these three ideas had to be combined at come point.

Sorry DDR.

Rock Band brings together guitar playing, karaoke, and drum-based rhythm games into one package. The guitar part plays like guitar hero. The karaoke is… well, you already know why most of us sing in the privacy of our own vehicles and/or showers. The drums…

Let me just say this: plastic drums and wooden sticks are very, very noisy. I dare not touch them anytime past sundown for fear of waking up the neighbors. My fiance was playing this game and I tell you: do NOT try to sleep anywhere within 100 yards. You WILL hear the drums in this game, and it’s really what detracts from the experience for me.

Other than that, buy this game. Play it alone. Play it with friends. Whatever floats your boat. It truly is a unique experience and the evolution of Guitar Hero.

Castro Reviews CoD4

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Ratcher & Clank Future: ToD, or… Dancing Robots are Fun!

Title: Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

Platform: Playstation 3

Developer: Insomniac Games

Publisher: SCEA

Genre: 3D Platformer

Setting: Futuristic Animated Fantasy. Everything in this game is highly stylized and cartoonish. I’ve only lightly played the previous games in the series, but it seems to be more of the same. Much prettier this time, though.

Mood: Comical. The entire game is very light-hearted, but it does tell a good, simple story without ever being overly serious.
The Challenge: Shoot / smash anything in sight. Collect what it drops. Buy new weapons. Upgrade your old weapons. Get to the next level. Repeat.

Memorable Moment: Clank getting knocked out by a spring-loaded boxing glove. A pure comic classic.

The Verdict: This game never gets too difficult, so it may not take a serious gamer very long to finish. Graphically, some are comparing this game to the Shrek movies, which I don’t think is entirely accurate but isn’t far off. Rent it if you just want a quick play-through, or buy it if you enjoy playing these kinds of games more than once. If you’re not into platformers or are =overloaded with the FPS games that are coming out right now, save this one for next year.

New Releases – November 5-11, 2007

It’s officially November. That means that we’re ready to kick off the month that historically holds the most AAA game releases each year. For 2007, some people are calling November the best month for game releases EVER. What do you think?

Here’s my annotated release list for the first full week in this great month for gaming. These are the games that I’m looking forward to playing either soon or after the flood of AAA titles subsides sometime in the coming months.

Completing The Collection… for now

So, we finally caved and purchased the final piece in our console collection. Our new 80GB Playstation 3 now sits next to the Xbox360 and Wii, displacing the Slimline PS2.

My initial impressions after a few days of playing the PS3 is… wow. There’s a lot of potential in there, but obviously it hasn’t been tapped yet. The game selection is limited, but there are a few gems worthy of playing though.

I’m looking forward to playing through Resistance, Ratchet & Clank Future, Uncharted, Folklore, and some other games. The VG5 reviews of these will be up once I manage to get some time in with them.