Playing a Losing Game » Rock Band 2

This is the Painkiller

mike delosreyes — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:27:49 +0000

Planets devastated
Mankind’s on its knees
A savior comes from out the skies
In answer to their pleas

Through boiling clouds of thunder
Blasting bolts of steel
Evils going under deadly wheels

He is the painkiller
This is the painkiller

Dead Space, Gears of War 2, Resident Evil 5, Bioshock. Epic games in plot, premise or production value, but no matter how bombastic the adventure feels, the final boss for these games are whimpies.

Bioshock’s is a Street FIghter 3 character. RE5’s is an exercise in “hold on a sec while I slowly get behind you, shirtless Wesker.” The boss you fight in that massive zero gravity chamber should have been Dead Space’s final boss. And Gears didn’t have one. It had a helicopter ride.

The last final boss I beat that had me struggling for the win? Judas Priest’s Painkiller.

“Yeah…wait, what?”
“Rock Band 2.”
“Oh yeah…wait, what?”

Painkiller is so a final boss. It’s the last song in the last gig in the largest venue, sponsored by Rolling Stone. And after you rock the song the credits roll. Sure you can go to Shanghai and still have venues to unlock; just look at them as side quests on the world map.

The song is difficult. The song is long. And while I don’t like the song, I think it’s outrageous and glam enough to be the big bad. Up to this point you’ve been playing a nice slice of the spectrum; some alternative, some pop; a little bit of grunge and a whole lot of rock. This is the journey you have to take, and by the time you reach Shanghai you have the battle scars and the skills needed to be a Rock Immortal.

“Uselesses, let’s show them who is going to be the painkiller.”
“But we don’t want to be the Painkiller. We want to be Useless.”
“I mean we’re going to be the ones who kill the Painkiller.”
“But Painkiller is supposed to be mankind’s metal savior.”
“Shut yer face and start strumming.”

IM Conversation #4

mike delosreyes — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 03:09:00 +0000

mike d: it’s amazing how much char customization affects my enjoyment of a game.
Tai: Are you speaking towards the lack of customization in The Witcher?
mike d: i started doing tour mode in rock band 2. and then from boob, i learned that you can do a roundabout way of customizing your entire band – instead of randomized chars filling in the spots for every song. this was enough for me to restart tour mode.
mike d: yes, and then there is the witcher
mike d: “god this fool looks stupid.”
mike d: “i dont care if his weps appear on his boody. i wanna change his face, dangnabit.”
Tai: How are you enjoying that, by the way?
mike d: another thing that bothers me aboot the game is that i have a difficult time with the combat’s feedback. i not only cant tell if im getting hit but how much it’s hurting…
Tai: There’s no indication anywhere?
mike d: since the combat is based around timed clicking, combine this with his manic combat animations, my eyes focus on this instead of the floating numbers and their effect on the various life/endurance/something else bars
mike d: the floating numbers are really small
mike d: at least with the baldurs, there is feedback text and a drowning in blood portrait
mike d: and screaming
Tai: So have you died in the witcher as a result of being unable to gauge your health?
mike d: witcher has screaming, but not “oochies.” more like “harrrgh, im swinging hard, swinging fast!”
mike d: ive only played the first area. the boss was the only dude who was doing significant damage
Tai: And then you went back to Rock Band.
Tai: …which coincidentally is also about timed clicks.

You Are Useless

mike delosreyes — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 01:40:00 +0000

GimmeCookies, Bullet Hell, Bullet Ballerina, and Mean Bitch. They are Hard On. Harmonix says the name is not “classy.”

We play nothing below hard difficulty, are one gig away from being a Rolling Stones Rock Immortal. Judas Priest’s Painkiller is the last song for that playlist. It’s an Impossible song with difficulty ratings all in the red. I like the challenge. I hate the song.

We had a bumpy start, Hard On and I. We barely 4-starred songs, hardly ever received comments beneath the completion percentage. “That was a terrible solo. Next time how bout strumming instead of crying on the amp.”

Pearl Jam’s Alive killed me. “You’re never getting a bus,” Merch Girl said.

Normally I’d be pissed. Games don’t beat me, I beat games! Exactly who I screamed this to, I don’t know. I guess that’s why I’m a loser.

I’ve played at Savile Row so many times people think I’m paying off a debt. “Play something other than Pretty in Pink you pussy!” Sadly, it’s not the fans but Bullet Hell who is telling me this.

I do play other songs, but only in Practice Mode, where I don’t get to play with my Hard On.

You see, I like Practice not because I can change the speed of a song but because it loads much faster than playing in Tour – I’ve got to pick a city, a venue, a gig, at least 2 songs, and then I gotta sit through an autosave and a “communicating with the rock central servers” load. I’m the dude who likes his MP3 player to go from on to autoplay in one button press.

Part of it feels like I’m cheating on the band by not having them rock out in the background, and the other part rationalizes that I’m practicing for them.

Look, I know we haven’t Toured in a while, but look at what I can do now.

I like to think when I 98% a song on Hard, Hell is smiling at me.

So by Practicing, we were able to get the bus. And a plane, a sound guy, and a world promoter, who I almost failed to impress.

“You must hate the 70′s like you hate practicing with us,” Hell says to me.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, a sorry sack. When you gonna step up and Expert some songs?”

“I can Expert songs.”

“Besides Pretty in Pink, you pussy!”