2008 Pulitzer Prize winning author of the novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz, is a Grand Theft Auto fan. He’s played all of them since the first 2d entry into the series and has liked them. But does he think the game is art on the level of The Godfather, as many critics have said?
According to his missive on the WSJ, the answer is “No.”
GTA IV for all its awesomeness doesn’t have the sordid bipolar humanity of “The Sopranos,” and it certainly lacks the epic flawed protagonists that define “The Godfather” and its bloodier lesser brother “Scarface.” Successful art tears away the veil and allows you to see the world with lapidary clarity; successful art pulls you apart and puts you back together again, often against your will, and in the process reminds you in a visceral way of your limitations, your vulnerabilities, makes you in effect more human. Does GTA IV do that? Not for me it doesn’t, and heck, I love this damn game.
Take that GTA fanboys! How do you like dem Pulitzer-winning apples now!
IGN has an interview with Harmonix’s Lead Designer, Dan Teasdale, on the newly announced Rock Band 2 that will ship in September for the Xbox 360 and later in that year for other platforms.
Mr. Teasdale does an admirable job of answering interview questions without really saying anything of substance. He says that they have been reading internet forums rabidly and have made improvements to the game based on said feedback. Basically, it seems like there will be modest improvements across the board in game interface and instrument build.
The biggest tidbit of news is that all of your existing Rock Band DLC that you’ve purchased will work with Rock Band 2 and vice versa.
As far as Harmonix is concerned, there’s no difference between “Rock
Band 1 DLC” and “Rock Band 2 DLC” – we’re just releasing awesome songs
every week onto the Rock Band platform, all of which are playable by
the Rock Band titles that support DLC.
This is awesome news in the nascent rhythm game wars as a lot of people have sunk a significant amount of coin into downloading new songs. Making their investments obsolete *cough* Guitar Hero 3 *cough*, just leaves people with a bad taste in their mouths.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d actually feel better buying a $60 game with modest improvements, than sinking $200 on all new hardware. Especially if said $60 game contained a bunch of awesome songs as well. Granted, Guitar Hero has to catch up to the whole “full band” experience, but a lot of people have bought three generations of Guitar Hero hardware already.
For Pete’s sake, give us some time to enjoy the Chinese Plastic we already have!
Millions of Playstation 3 owners can rejoice finally as the Holy Grail of firmware updates hits this Wednesday, July 2nd. Firmware 2.40 brings in-game XrossMediaBar (XMB) access along with infrastructure for the achievement trophy system. If you have eight minutes to kill, watch the video above for a walkthrough of the XMB features, otherwise here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of what you can actually do with the new XMB access in game:
View your friends list and send/receive text messages
Play your own music stored on the hard drive while playing a game that supports it (The list of games supported is unconfirmed right now)
Connect/fiddle with your bluetooth device settings - this is most likely going to mean hooking up your bluetooth headset for voice communication in game
Check the progress of your queued downloads from the Playstation Store
While this goes a long way in bringing the online feature set of the PS3 to parity with the Xbox 360, it’s still missing a few key features. Namely:
Private voice chat
Voice message capability
Invite friends to a game
Arguably, these features are the most important for an easy online gaming experience. I always use private voice chat whenever I’m playing with a buddy because you can talk with them through game loading screens and such - something that you can’t do if you simply use the in game voice communications. Text messaging on a console is just a pain and being able to send invites directly from a friends list is a no-brainer. Still, one shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I guess, as being able to see and communicate with your online friends in any form is better than the status quo. Continue reading ‘Playstation 3 Firmware 2.40 Impressions/Reactions’
Girl Talk’s new album, Feed The Animals, is out today and much like Radiohead and Trent Reznor’s latest releases, it’s a “pay what you want” situation where you name your price to download the music.
If you’ve never heard of Girl Talk before, go ahead and pay the $0.00 to download Feed The Animals because it’s going to be the soundtrack to your next party. It’s the art of mashups taken to a new apogee. There’s over a hundred sampled artists/songs throughout the 14 song album. Along with being an achievement in music composition, it’s also kinda fun just trying to name all the songs you know. Trust me, hearing Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone matched with Nine Inch Nails’ Wish going into Radiohead’s 15 Step vs. Blackstreet’s No Diggity is something that is mindblowing.
For the legions of Girl Talk fans already out there, there’s some goodies for you if you hit some donation goals. According to the Stereogum comments:
any price grants the download of the entire album as high-quality 320kbps mp3s
$5 or more adds the options of FLAC files, plus a one-file seamless mix of the album
$10 or more includes all of the above + a packaged CD (when it becomes available)
As a blog dedicated to the betterment of humanity, I feel it is my duty to inform you, the grand hope for mankind, that the latest version of Firefox is now available for download.
If you want to know more about the release, Lifehacker has a great write up here. All I know is that one of the new features added is called the “AwesomeBar.” I didn’t really need any other reason to upgrade.
Oh, and I guess there’s some sort of push to break the Guinness Record for most downloads in a day on this or something.
Looks like Alex Rodriguez should have been in those Cingular texting commercials where the little girl talks about texting her BFF Jill all the time. Except he would be texting his BFF Pete Rose.
According to a recent ESPN The Magazine article, A-Rod and baseball’s all-time hits leader developed a relationship in 2006 based almost entirely on text messaging:
By spring training in 2006, their text messages began in earnest. And A-Rod is a text-messaging fool. He’ll text Yankees players, coaches and staffers … even when they’re sitting 15 feet away in the same clubhouse. He’ll text “LOL” when something amuses him, and he’ll text when he’s bummed.
No wonder Jeter and A-Rod don’t get along. Jetes probably didn’t return a text message one day and A-Rod acted passive-aggressive the next time they saw each other and the whole thing just snowballed into a full blown “I hate you” deal.
(This review is written to avoid any sort of spoiler reveals)
Metal Gear Solid 4 presents an inner dilemma for me. Part of me wants to tell each and every person in the world who has a modicum of interest in video games that they need to go out and buy it immediately. The other, more reasonable part of me says to be more reserved in my recommendation.
I’ll do both.
Let me start by saying that MGS4 is without a doubt one of the best experiences I have had with a single player video game. If I had to rank it, it would probably be in my top 5 single player games of all time. Like many other people, I bought a $599 USD Playstation 3 for this game (and Final Fantasy XIII). If this was all the PS3 was good for, I’d say it was worth it. You heard me, MGS4 was worth $685 to me.
The problem is that it’s not going to have as a great of an impact on you if you’re new to the series. An analogous comparison might be that of Lost. The season 4 finale of lost was amazing and even if you don’t follow the show, you could see why. But you won’t get some of the references, and you won’t fully appreciate the events that take place simply because you don’t have the historical reference points that you would have if you followed the show from the beginning.
If you’ve played through any of the previous games in the series and enjoyed them, what are you waiting for? Go finish off the previous 3 games in the series and buy this one - you’ll have an unforgettable experience.
InstantAction, an action web-gaming destination powered by Garage Games, is running a competition for aspiring music artists to get their music featured on a game soundtrack. The competition is called “Attack The Soundtrack,” with finalists determined by a fan vote and the winner by a panel of “industry vets” including rapper, Fat Joe.
I’m curious as to which industry they’re talking about, music or gaming. As a connoisseur of both mediums, I’d actually feel better if the judges had backgrounds in game music supervising or design, rather than large rappers who “get it poppin’.” It’d also be cool if we knew more context of game the competition was for, so musicians could get a better feel for what types of songs would work the best.
Nevertheless, I like the idea of emerging game companies and musicians forming a symbiotic relationship. It’s a natural evolution in the age old “battle of the bands” competition. Hopefully in the future we can see game scoring competitions and the like. Who knows, maybe the next John Williams will get his or her start with video games.
EA’s looking to get into the fantasy sports market with the upcoming NFL season. The company’s advantage in the crowded fantasy sports marketplace is their ability to integrate functionality with game consoles.
And integrate they shall!
Although pricing has been unannounced, EA will be selling software on Xbox Live and the Playstation Network for users to follow their fantasy football teams. (the web-based game will be free)
The main three advantages for the game console applications are:
Life drafting on the big screen if you have a local draft party - the game will upload the results to the web
Easy import of your fantasy team into Madden 09
Live scoring/team tracking
None of these features are revolutionary, but if the price is right it could be worth it if you have everyone over for a draft party. Importing your team into Madden should be possible to do manually and the live scoring is nice, but having to constantly flip from your console input to the TV input is going to be slightly annoying - I’d rather just have a laptop or iPhone nearby.
EA’s biggest hurdle is going to be convincing existing players/leagues to relocate from ESPN/Yahoo/Sportsline/etc. to the EA servers. With the main draw of the product essentially being a TV-output of the draft, I’m not so sure people make the leap.
when he’s bummed.
