Rock Band, the critical and financially successful faux-band video game already has quite an amazing set list between the songs available with the game (including gems such as “Say It Ain’t So” by Weezer, “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi, and “Dani California” by REM), and even more new songs available for $2/each every Tuesday (including hits such as “More Than A Feeling” by Boston, “Roxanne” by The Police, and “Wonderwall” by Oasis).

For those of you who have never seen Rock Band, here’s a sample of people playing a little Rock Band:

Vocals on top, lead guitar on the left, drums in the middle, and bass on the right

Next week, the 80s band The Cars comes rocking their first album, headlined by 80s favorite “Just What I Needed.” I don’t have any real say in what comes out, but that can’t stop me from hoping for a few great hits to be added in the near future in this week’s 5 For Friday…

So I’m a pretty big classic rock and 80s pop music fan, so that accounts for a lot of these. Without further ado, here’s my top 5 most wanted Rock Band songs:

5) The Safaris – Wipeout – 1962

Admittedly, nearly absent of vocals, and including a fairly simplistic bass part, the ultimate “surfer” song from the early 1960s is an absolute ridiculous 2 1/2 minutes of flailing for fake drummers and a fairly difficult part for the lead guitarist to match up with the drummer. Wipeout would be great fun for these two parts, but not much fun for the other two in the band, and that’s likely why the song won’t been seen on Rock Band anytime soon, and why it came in at #5.

4) Eddie Money – Take Me Home Tonight – 1986

While “Just What I Needed” is a great 80s track, it pales in comparison to this amazing 80s pop song by Eddie Money. Featuring vocals that would challenge even the best singers out there, and some badass guitar parts, “Take Me Home Tonight” begs for keyboards (as well as a saxophone…) to be added to the Rock Band mix (along with every other 80s song). Now if we could just get that music video in-game…

3) Toto – Hold The Line – 1978

“Hold the Line” by Toto is just great classic rock. Featuring some amazing guitar work (listen to the solo at 1:45), and an amazing vocals performance (listen to about 1:05). A solid continual drum presence would keep the band’s drummer entertained, and the bassist has a pretty strong part himself. “Hold the Line” would be a great headliner on a 3-pack with the other classic Toto hits “Rosanna” and “Africa.”

2) Derek and the Dominos (aka Eric Clapton) – Layla – 1972

Guitar God Eric Clapton has yet to bless the guitar-based video games, but “Layla” is a no brainer for any of these games. From start to finish, the lead guitarist is in for easily one of the most difficult and entertaining 7 minutes of their lives. The bass and drums feature quite a number of challenging bits, and the vocalist would have to reach to do their best impersonation of the singing/screaming found throughout the song. Again, the piano would be a welcome addition, especially in the bridge, but the guitarists will have more than enough to keep themselves occupied with.

1) Journey – Don’t Stop Believing – 1981

No band needs to be in Rock Band as badly as Journey. No song needs to be in Rock Band as badly as “Don’t Stop Believing.” It’s a song that is universally known, and universally sung at karaoke nights and sporting events. Just find yourself a Steve Perry, and your band will be good to go. Obviously, this song would be a huge hit at parties with Rock Band involved, and it would easily be a purchase for me at $10, let alone the $2 Rock Band songs go for. This song should be packed in with other Journey greats like “Any Way You Want It,” “Seperate Ways,” “Open Arms,” “Who’s Crying Now,” and my favorite, “Faithfully.”

Well that’s it for this week. Hope you enjoyed, and feel free to leave a comment with a song or two you’d like to hear on Rock Band.

FOX announced on Friday that two of their new shows next season will not be as commercial-filled as most. FOX will cut the commercial time from the industry standard 18-minutes to a astounding 10-minutes for what will likely be their most successful new series: Dollhouse (by Joss Whedon of “Buffy” and “Firefly” fame) and Fringe (by JJ Abrams of “Lost” and “Alias” fame).

Not much to say about this one other than a great idea by FOX to keep viewers watching.

The Wii’s Virtual Console has quite an extensive list of available games, but there are numerous noteworthy games still missing. Here’s my 5 most wanted SNES titles that have not already been announced (such as Earthbound) or are unlikely given rights issues:

5) Aerobiz Supersonic – 1994

Aerobiz Supersonic is a pretty simple strategy game that’s got a ton of replayability and strategy. You’re put in charge of a brand new airline (in one of 4 given time frames from the 1960s to the 2000s (which was the future then)), and you have to deal with opening routes, securing terminal space, building hotels and other amenities in the nearby cities, and occurrences such as the Olympics and tourist booms to certain citiies as well as war and civil unrest which can cause problems for your airline. The goal of the game is to become the top airline in 5 of the 7 continents over a 20 year period. The game includes 5 levels of difficulty (and the top 2 are ridiculously tough), but even casual strategy fans can get really involved with the easy-to-learn/difficult-to-master premise. Supersonic is a sequel of the original “Aerobiz” which also was found out the SNES (and Genesis), and while both are welcome additions, the inclusion of more cities and more depth gives Supersonic the edge on this list.

4) Super Mario RPG – 1996

Super Mario RPG is at the top of many “most wanted” lists, but I don’t find the game aged as well as many people think. However, the game still stands among the best games released on the SNES, despite coming at the end of its lifespan. Mario RPG takes the famous Mario characters we know and love and throw them into a very quirky, fun RPG, the likes of which has been copied into the Paper Mario series recently. Overall, Super Mario RPG provides a great taste of nostalgia for gamers who played it before, and would easily be highly recommended at $8 for gamers who missed out on this classic. There have been rumors over the past year that the game was close to release by being rated by the ESRB, however that rating has since been removed. Hopefully, this game will be back in gamers’ hands sooner rather than later.

3) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time – 1992

The Ninja Turtles were always popular in the 1990s, starting with their cartoon and successful NES and arcade video games that had children fighting over who got to be Dontello (he was always the best, by the way). The turtles landed again in arcades with Turtles in Time in 1991, and was ported to the SNES in 1992. Turtles in Time was a favorite in my household growing up. The game wasn’t overly difficult, but it was challenging at points, and the co-op is top knotch. Unfortunately, the SNES version can only handle 2 players at a time, not the 4 of the arcades, but the game is extremely fun nonetheless. The SNES version added Time Trials, a vs. mode, and some bonus levels which sort-of made up for the deficiency. Turtles in Time is just an all-around fun multiplayer beat-em-up, and would be a first day purchase for me.

2) Zombies Ate My Neighbors – 1993

Zombies Ate My Neighbors. I mean, just read that title, how could this game be bad? It’s not. Zombies Ate My Neighbor became a cult classic in the early 1990s when it was released for the SNES and Genesis. Basically, your run around 50+ levels of zombies trying to save your neighbors before they get eaten. The game features both extremely fun co-op play, as well as some ridiculous weapons (squirt guns, bazookas, etc) and finally hilarious spoofs of famous horror films. This game would be a superb addition the VC, and would be a smash hit given the hype about it online.

1) Super Mario Kart – 1992

In 1992, my family spent more time playing Mario Kart than doing anything else. I can pretty much guarantee it. Battle Mode, Vs., 2 player Grand Prix. We played them all, and we played them all a lot. I could probably play Rainbow Road with my eyes closed (OK, probably not, that Rainbow Road was tough). Despite being 2D, this Mario Kart, may in fact be the greatest of the series. The music was phenomenal, the tracks were brilliant, and the gameplay was superb. Super Mario Kart is an absolutely no-brainer to go on the Virtual Console, and would probably be a day-one purchase for most gamers who were old enough to remember playing this awesome game, and would bring in a whole new generation of gamers to see how great Super Mario Kart really was.

[For a new feature here at Wow's Media Blog, I present to you the first video game review. Enjoy!]

Mario Kart Wii, the newest of the beloved go-kart racing series featuring Mario characters was released, somewhat bizarrely, two days before that of superstar Grand Theft Auto IV. Ultimately for Mario and friends, this poorly chosen release date finds Mario Kart Wii’s place in gamers’ minds and this review of the game both with the same ironic conclusion: Mario Kart Wii is ultimately forgettable.

Mario Kart Wii didn’t have much to live up to on the console. The original Mario Kart from the SNES, Super Mario Kart (which is surprisingly still absent from the Wii’s Virtual Console) and Nintendo 64’s Mario Kart 64 both were brilliant and hugely successful party games. Most people who grew up in the 1990s probably recall playing a few rounds of Battle Mode with their friends. Mario Kart: Double Dash for the Nintendo Gamecube was a poor reiteration of the franchise, and was unsuccessful in trying to include somewhat forced co-op play and be a “system seller” for the struggling GameCube. Mario Kart also had huge success on the Nintendo DS handheld, which was a good translation of the franchise to the handheld market.

Mario Kart Wii attempted to capitalize on the success of its SNES and N64 predecessors by bringing the gameplay back to it’s roots, as well as making it a huge casual game success by including the Wii Wheel, a plastic wheel that allows gamers to pretend like they’re actually using a steering wheel rather than a controller. Ultimately this juxposition of trying to appease the classic Mario Kart fans and the casual game market (which is what the Nintendo Wii has been pushed almost completely into) is what causes this game to fail to live up to what little expectations I had.

The Wii Wheel is Mediocre at Best

The game’s failure on the casual front is that the Wii Wheel is decent on the easiest levels (50cc), but when you get to the harder levels (100cc +150cc), the Wheel simply isn’t precise enough. Constantly I find myself overturning, underturning, and unable to do “tricks” (which require you to flick the Wii Wheel up and down during a jump). Users are able to switch back to a Gamecube controller, the Wii Classic Controller, or a Wiimote + Nunchuck setup, but the game really loses a lot of the charm Nintendo was going for without the Wii Wheel.

Additionally, “elastic banding” is back, causing the computer-controlled enemies (CPU) to catch up to you magically no matter how far your lead is by the end of the race. Additionally, the CPU constantly uses the “Blue Shell” item, which automatically hits whoever is in first, and causes them to wipe out and come to a complete stop. Generally, this happens about 10 feet from the finish line, making your near-perfect race end with a 5th place finish. All of these complaints will annoy casual gamers who are looking for a game without ridiculous and annoying antics by the CPU.

The Blue Shell, You’ll Be Seeing A LOT of These

For the long-time Mario Kart fans, the list of complaints continues to grow: No longer is the beloved battle mode a head-to-head or 4-player free-for-all until one kart is left standing. Instead, a piss-poor 6v6 team system has been included. That means no longer can friends go head to head, instead computer players make up over half of your team, and unfortunately, they are downright awful. Additionally, losing all 3 of your balloons, which used to mean your were knocked out of play, now means absolutely nothing. Instead you come back with another 3 balloons and keep playing until time runs out, which defeats the entire purpose of Battle Mode. A final complaint from a long-time player is the disappearance of head to head races and 2-player Grand Prix. Both of which would have been easy and enjoyable additions.

It’s not all bad for Mario Kart Wii. The newest addition: motorcycles are a welcome one, giving a really different feel to the racer, with unique advantages and disadvantages. Speed and being able to do “wheelies” will keep fans entertained, but the lack of handling on most of the bikes makes them dangerous on curvy tracks.

There are also more characters than ever. 12 are available from the onset, including the return of SNES favorite Koopa Trooper. But several more are unlockable, including numerous fan favorites from the early Mario games. Each character also has numerous karts and motorcycles available to them, meaning that each character has a lot of replayability. The only complaint with the characters is that it’s really like only having 3 characters: Small, Medium and Large, with different skins. They all share similar bikes and karts, and there is little difference other than aesthetics (but Mario Kart has always been that way).

Mario Kart also includes 32 tracks. The new tracks are pretty solid overall, there are only a few annoying or forgettable tracks, but each game has had a few. 16 Tracks are brand new and 16 are classics from the previous games. Their choices on the classic tracks range from superb to downright awful, especially the SNES tracks which are two of the less inspired tracks from the original.

Instead of the classic 8 players, 12 karts now race around the track in the Grand Prix (and every other) mode. This means the tracks are wider, even the originals, which is welcome given the medicore Wii Wheel controls.

Finally, online play is available, which is a welcome addition to the franchise. The addition of tournaments and friends lists is great, but the Wii still handles the online component poorly, as you have to enter your friends’ “codes” in order to play with them, which is time consuming and annoying.

Overall, Mario Kart Wii provides a fairly enjoyable experience to both casual and longtime gamers, but misses it’s mark by trying to appease both by dumbing down the game. The online play, motorcycles and 12 player races are fun, but ultimately, this game won’t be remembered in the same vein as Super Mario Kart or Mario Kart 64

Rating:

2 out of 6 Triforces: Forgettable
Pros: 12 Player Races, Online Multiplayer, Lots of characters, karts, and motorcycles.
Cons: Wii Wheel is lacking, Battle Mode stinks, Elastic Banding and Blue Shells annoying.

Microsoft, the maker of the XBox 360 went ahead yesterday and gloated that they had become the first next-generation high definition console to sell 10 million units in the United States. That’s pretty exciting news huh? But I bet if you’re like me (and you’re probably not), you also noticed all those qualifiers like “High Definition” and “in the US.”

Why is that? It couldn’t have anything to do with these sales numbers right?

Credit: Vgchartz.com.

Thanks for playing Microsoft. Unfortunately, the Nintendo Wii has outsold the 360 worldwide, and by the end of this fiscal quarter should have a lead in the United States as well (of course, the Wii is not “high definition” so it doesn’t really count)! Did I mention that the 360 was released a year before the Wii as well?

Not exactly your crowning achievement Microsoft. But feel free to let us know that you’re the “best next-generation console in North America that isn’t made by Nintendo” at the end of the year too. (And by the way, why on earth is it still considered a “next generation console,” isn’t next generation, you know, the next one?”

A response to a newspaper editorial about video game violence:

There was a lot of speculation that the release of Grand Theft Auto IV (GTAIV) would hurt the ticket sales of the first summer blockbuster, Iron Man. At least in the “movie industry,” which needed to find some excuse for why other movies had flopped near big video game release dates.

This week proved those assumptions wrong.

GTAIV sold a record-smashing 60m copies for $500m in it’s opening week.

Iron Man sold over $100m in ticket sales in it’s opening weekend.

Jeez, I guess no one wanted to see Iron Man. Especially all those movie pirates right “movie industry?” Here’s an idea: Keep making good movies, and maybe people will pay to see them.

Grand Theft Auto IV’s (GTA IV) release was never in doubt to be a media sensation. The newest installment in the open-world-free-for-all-violent-shooter-with-hookers series has already been panned by lawyer Jack Thompson and others who think GTA will cause us to go pick up hookers and then kill them and spend their days shouting “think of the children”.

But there’s one thing that no one expected: Perfection.

I now know how film critics felt after screening “The Godfather.” It’s been days since Grand Theft Auto IV’s credits rolled, yet I can’t seem to construct a coherent thought without my mind wandering off into a daydream about the game. I just want to drop everything in my life so I can play it again. Experience it again. Live it again…Grand Theft Auto IV doesn’t just raise the bar for the storied franchise; it completely changes the landscape of gaming.

– Gameinformer

With over 20 reviews posted for today’s release. Grand Theft Auto IV has officially surpassed the classic N64 fantasy game Zelda: The Ocarina of Time as the Highest Rated Game Of All-Time. GTA IV isn’t just another controversial or violent video game. It’s a masterpiece.

GTA IV for those of you blissfully ignornant, is the “fourth” installment of the Grand Theft Auto series. The first two were popular top-down car-jacking games for the PC. The third, released in 2001, was among the first 3D “sandbox” games, where the player can literally roam around the city doing whatever they please, either playing the main storyline, or just enjoying what the city has to offer. GTA III was followed up by two successful sequels in “Vice City” (set in a faux-Miami in 1986) and “San Andreas (Los Angeles/San Fransisco/Las Vegas all combined into a massive state).

GTA IV goes back to the same locale as the first three GTAs, Liberty City, except this time it’s a near replica of New York City. Central Park (Middle Park), The Statue of Liberty (The Statue of Happiness) and Times Square (Star Junction) are all found in their own interesting re-imaginings of the real life landmarks. Four of the boroughs of the real New York are present (Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens) as well as part of a faux-New Jersey.

Additionally, the storyline of the main character “Niko” is unlike anything we have ever seen in gaming. He’s from war-torn Eastern Europe, arriving in Liberty City to find the American Dream. Instead, he finds himself without anything but a few family members who are in equally dire straights struggling to survive. GTA IV is apparently a unique criticism of the very way we envision America, and how people can “choose to succeed.”

Without going into too much detail on the game and it’s storyline, GTA IV has made a huge splash critically and among gamers.

Here’s just a small selection from the reviews of the near-perfect game:

I could go on and on about why Grand Theft Auto IV is one of the best games we’ve ever seen and why even folks who are easily offended should play it, but that would be pointless. The only thing you need to know is that you have to play this game. Period…

A “10″ is not a score we give out very often. In fact, the last time we gave a 10 to a console game was Soul Calibur in 1999. A 10 doesn’t mean a game is perfect — it means a game is pushing boundaries, expanding a genre, and doing many things to a level so far above and beyond its competitors that they overshadows any flaws. Certainly, GTA IV has some issues, the most noticeable being the occasional flaw in the cover system, but there are many more pieces of GTA IV that are better than anything I’ve seen from a game in the past decade. We don’t give 10s often — just to games that merit the score.

– IGN.com

[P]erhaps the biggest innovation is the notion that you can create a game that’s as valid a piece of art as any book or movie. Is this our “Citizen Kane” moment?

– Team XBox

We all knew GTA 4 would be a great game and sell millions of copies, but I didn’t expect it to shame pretty much every other game I’ve played this generation.

- Videogamer.com

Rockstar have surpassed themselves, delivering unquestionably the definitive GTA and perhaps the greatest videogame of all time.

– Xbox World UK Magazine [June 2008]

If you don’t play video games, or think that violent video games have no merit. Then I implore you to give Grand Theft Auto IV a shot (no pun intended). And you don’t have to take my word for it, there are dozens of reviews from gamer reviewers to the New York Times who are all saying the same thing:
This is the greatest video game of all-time.

The New York Times opens its technology headline article with:

Nintendo sits atop the home video-game market. Its Wii, though lesstechnologically advanced than Microsoft’s Xbox 360 or Sony’s PlayStation 3, continues to outsell those machines and is now in more than 20 million homes.

So why are retailers having so much trouble selling Wii games?

They go on to cite Super Smash Bros, which sold 1.4m copies it’s first week, and sales have plummeted 90% in the last 4 weeks to almost nothing. The answer is simple to expert video game analyst Michael Pachter:

The average Wii owner buys only 3.7 games a year, compared with 4.7 for Xbox 360 owners and 4.6 for PlayStation 3 owners, said a Wedbush Morgan analyst, Michael Pachter. “It reflects the broadening of the demographic,” he said. “Nintendo’s market doesn’t feel the same sense of urgency to buy every game that’s coming out.”

So while Nintendo’s cheap console is making a splash in the casual gamer market, the result of this for Nintendo is a real lack of interest in the games thus far by the audience. They don’t want to pay full price for the games, nor are they eagerly anticipating their releases like hardcore gamers. The “attach rate” (the # of items such as games, controllers, memory cards, etc bought with a console) is so significantly low on a Wii it’s is scary. Thus, Nintendo’s own market is what’s causing their software such hardship.

See what I did there?

Ads for the popular and probably-to-be-best-selling-game-of-all-time Grand Theft Auto IV (GTAIV) were put on buses and trains in the city of Chicago, and a crime wave ensued. Because of the ads. Seems pretty reasonable right?

Well according to Fox’s local affiliate in Chicago, it’s exactly what happened:

Last weekend, Chicago saw quite a bit of violence. At the moment, CBS is reporting a total of “37 Shot, 2 Stabbed, 7 Dead,” while pointing out that 13 of the victims were Chicago Public School students. Fox News Chicago noticed—in a moment of divine correlation—that Grand Theft Auto advertisements appear on CTA buses and train stations.

Divine correlation? Absolutely, It involves some mysticism to make that correlation.

In other news the Chicago Cubs swept the Pittsburgh Pirates this weekend. The result? 37 Shot, 2 Stabbed, 7 Dead. We should probably shut them down too.