Quick Catch Up

To: Adonis, Lance, Ray
From: Nazer

So I just got my absentee ballot in the mail. It came in a big ass envelope full of reading material as well as the actual ballot. I wish I knew more about the city council candidates and such (I don't get to see all the commercials for these guys, but I do get to see all the negative ads about New England council officials), but I guess it's time to do some homework. It's pretty unreal looking at this stuff, finally voting in a presidential election, just another sign that we've come a long way from sitting inside with nothing to worry about except who we want to main in Smash (oh wait we still do that).

In other news school keeps me pretty busy. Midterm week isn't as heavy as one might think, but writing four parallel lines with proper counterpoint in the form of a fugue isn't exactly everyday material. I love my film classes. We're finally getting to write music to picture, and we do a lot of analysis on film music, really informative. A couple weeks ago Joey Newman, a Berklee grad, came to talk about his experiences so far in LA. He was nominated for an Emmy for his music on "Little People, Big World" and he talked about TV a lot, which was a nice change from looking at film all the time. I've also been dealing a bit with the integration of music into video games, and Berklee actually hired a guy and created classes just this semester for this industry, I can't wait to take some of them.

I spend my free time playing video games and watching television and movies. The Mad Men season finale was a couple of days ago which was really good, and if anyone has been keeping up with Dexter this past weeks episode was seriously insane. My favorite shows of the moment are Pushing Daisies (which is on the verge of cancellation, WATCH THIS SHOW TELL YOUR FRIENDS), Chuck, and Fringe, but I've been watching literally everything else (except the CBS shows), and lots of shows are getting really good as well. 30 Rock premieres this Thursday, can't wait for that, and Top Chef comes in a couple of weeks, so that's just another hour and a half to add to my dedicated TV watching time.

I got Guitar Hero World Tour over the weekend. It's a fun game, and I've only played the guitar stuff, but it EPIC FAILS in comparison to Rock Band. The band interface is terrible, and the worst part is that if one person fails, everyone else fails, so you can't like save your band members or anything, but I'll put up a more in depth look at that later. Fable II was cool, and Gears of War 2 comes out next week, and I want to get a Gamefly account so I can play some of the games I don't want to spend $60 dollars for.

So that sort of sums it up. School, media, drinks, oh and I cook a lot now too, trying to learn and perfect my Moms recipes and stuff, so yeah I guess I'm keeping busy. Till next time.

(Oh and Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix is supposed to come out before the end of this year, and then Street Fighter IV this winter, hella excited)

Guitar Hero: World Tour looks....impressive

Okay, I'll be the first to tell you that in my opinion the Guitar Hero franchise has lost its uniqueness and flair since Harmonix sold it and started up Rock Band, but honestly this drum trailer looks pretty amazing. While I've never enjoyed the note patterns that Guitar Hero III placed on their games, they've always had awesome song choices, and if World Tour can continue their top notch song picks (blink182 dammit!) I might be driven enough to pick this up. Priced at nearly $200 retail, only time will tell if Guitar Hero can knock out the leader in four person fake musician madness.

Because I don't have enough fake drumsets at my apt

Taking a page out of the playbook of the rival Rock Band series (ok, more like blatantly copying), the next Guitar Hero game will add vocals and drums to the fray. As a die-hard Rock Band fan, this really irks me. Harmonix, the developer of Rock Band and the original Guitar Hero games, have always been in favor of an open hardware standard, supporting the notion that you could use your RB guitar for GH, and vice versa.

Activision on the otherhand has made it their goal in life to COCKBLOCK any such intentions, first by blocking PS3 Guitar Hero guitar compatibility, and now by changing their drum configuration so that it will in no way be compatible with Rock Band.

Look, adding cymbals is pretty cool (it would've been cooler if they added a dedicated hi-hat, meaning 7 "drums" total) but I seriously doubt the viability of a plan that will ask millions of people who already shelled out almost $200 for a fake instrument bundle to do the same when their new game comes out.

Another thing that has bothered me (and I think that both sides are guilty of this) has been the constant attempt by Activision (GH publisher), and Rock Band publisher EA/MTV Games to secure "exclusive" artists, ie: paying bands to only have songs on their respective game. So that means this week I don't get to play that dope Muse pack coming to Guitar Hero, nor will I get any play from that Aerosmoth GH disc coming later.

In the meantime, I will enjoy my exclusive Boston pack and continue to hope that one day we can all rock out united, in peace

Credit: Kotaku and Game Informer