music games

Bit.Trip Beat HD Review

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(iTunes)

If you’ve never played this game, seen video of it or had someone explain it to you, it can be hard to comprehend what the heck is going on in the image above. For over a year now, I’ve heard the gaming press talk about how amazing this Wii Ware release is, but just by looking at images of it, I couldn’t comprehend what this was or why it was so cool.

Since it’s on sale right now for both iPhone and iPad, I decided to give the iPad version a go. If you’re interested in finding out what this game is all about, read on.

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Is Def Jam Rapstar Hip-Hop’s First Great Music Game?

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Hip-hop has historically gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to quality music games. While rock, pop and dance have been adequately served, hip-hop fans got DJ Hero (which was half not hip-hop), the obligatory Beastie Boys song in the rock games and Get On Da Mic (which was awful).

Def Jam Rapstar aims to finally bring gamers a good rap video game. I don’t know enough about the gameplay or feature set to talk intelligently about it, but so far it appears as though they’ve got the most important part right: the soundtrack.

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Dance Central: My Kinect Killer App?

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I am not a fan of motion controls. I’ve made it very clear on this very blog. In particular, I have a number of doubts surrounding Microsoft’s motion controlled solution. While I think the idea behind Kinect is cool, I have concerns about how the technology works, the price (rumored to be $149.99) and the types of experiences being made available for it. So far, Microsoft is marketing this squarely at the casual audience, providing no shortage of Wii-inspired and Wii-ripoff games, such as Kinect Sports, Kinect Adventures and Kinectimals. As Darth Vader once said, “Do not want!”

After watching Microsoft’s e3 presentation, I was ready to avoid the Kinect completely. But if I told you I didn’t want to play anything the Kinect has to offer, I would be lying. I want to play Dance Central really bad.

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Girlfriend Gaming: Dance on Broadway Review

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Dance on Broadway is a very interesting game. When Ubisoft scored huge with Just Dance, there was no question that they would capitalize on that success. What I didn’t see happening though, was Ubisoft creating a dancing game based on Broadway musicals. I’m not sure if there are enough aspiring Broadway dancers that want to live out their Hairspray dreams through a Wii game to justify this game’s existence.

Even my girlfriend, who just so happens to be a fan of Just Dance and musicals, was reluctant to pick this up. With only 20 songs on the disc, it’s not easy to justify picking this up at regular price. Thanks to a Wal-Mart sale that took 50% off the regular price, she now owns it and we’ve strutted and shimmied our way through a number of show tunes. I haven’t played through every song, but I think I’ve played enough to say if this one deserves a standing ovation or whether it should exit stage left.

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Girlfriend Gaming: What We’ve Been Playing August Edition

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Ever since she got a Wii for Christmas, my girlfriend has amassed quite the game collection for herself. I haven’t actually taken the time to count our respective game stashes, but if she doesn’t already have more Wii games than me, she’s on pace to surpass me very soon.

We haven’t had too much time to play games together of late, since we’ve been out of town together for a number of reasons. In spite of that, we have spent some quality time with the Wii fired up. Hit the cut to see what we’ve been playing together. Maybe you and your significant other may enjoy together as well.

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Excited for Rock Band 3?

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When it comes to my level of excitement for the release of a game, not many games in my life matched the hype I felt the original Rock Band. I was in the apex of my Guitar Hero love around the time when rumblings of a full-band music game from the developers of Guitar Hero II appeared on the Internet. When the rumblings finally turned up this initial video for the Rock Band proof of concept, I was sold. So sold, that I was the first person to pre-order the full Rock Band kit at my local EB Games and was even the first to pick up my kit because I showed up at the same time as the guy who was delivering the Rock Band kits to the store.

Three years, four Rock Band branded games, hundreds of hours played and hundreds of downloadable songs bought later, I’m kind of burned out on the plastic instrument formula. I forced my way through Lego Rock Band for the achievements and can’t find the motivation to even begin the career mode in Green Day: Rock Band. Rock Band 3 looks to revive the genre with new features, new songs, and for those who want it, a pro mode that takes the genre into realistic new heights. Are these changes enough to bring me back in?
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Impressions on the Green Day: Rock Band Demo

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I like Green Day. I like Rock Band. Therefore, Green Day: Rock Band should be a day-one purchase for me, right? Maybe not. I’m definitely starting to feel burned out on the music game genre, and I’m not sure I want 47 Green Day songs at once. Going into this demo, I was a bit skeptical about what I’d find.

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Pick Up Post: You Say You Want A Revolution

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Over the weekend, I just so happened to be at an HMV when I stumbled across one of the most ill-conceived games of the last decade (if not of all-time). I have made fun of this game incessantly since it was announced in May of 2008 and have watched it fall into the absolute bottom of the bargain bin. I have seen stores have difficulty selling the full kit for $10 and the disc alone for $5.  At the price of $2 (which was the price I got it for), even I had to stand there and think about whether or not this would be a good investment. It probably wasn’t, but at least I can now speak first hand on why this game sucks.

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I Play Just Dance and See Why It’s So Divisive

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Hope you had a great Easter weekend. For me, it was a great opportunity to spend some time with my family as well as my girlfriend’s family. As far as gaming goes, most of it went down at my girlfriend’s house, where my girlfriend, her sister, her sister’s boyfriend and I played a bunch of Wii games. We played a bunch of games, including the Beatles: Rock Band, Rock Band Track Pack Volume 2, Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 (which was really fun) and we beat New Super Mario Bros. Wii (which was epic, because we stayed up till 3am on Sunday night to beat it).

The one game I wanted to talk about today though was Just Dance. My girlfriend and her sister had been extremely excited to buy this game and finally picked it up over the weekend. Just Dance is the hottest new game on Wii, having sold over 2 million copies worldwide and garnering rave reviews from customers. However, the gaming press and core gamers have slammed Just Dance hard, claiming that it’s a half-baked product that doesn’t even work.

Now that I’ve played it, I see where both sides are coming from.

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Last Night, a DJ Saved My Life

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The other day, I received my DJ Hero setup in the mail. Not having bought refurbished products before, and being a bit concerned over the condition of the stuff they sent me, I was very quick and thorough with my inspection. The game was opened, yet the disc and manual looked to be in mint condition. As for the turntable and mixer, it looked just fine as well. Considering the fact that I can’t even get DJ Hero used for anywhere close to what I paid for this refurbished version, it was a steal.