Developer Harmonix announced today that they will stop releasing tracks for “Rock Band” after hundreds of songs, millions of downloads, and six years of service. Before they are done though, they have one last track to add…
How exactly Don McLean’s epic rock ballad “American Pie” (one of the few songs that can truly claim that title) avoided getting added to the music catalog until this point is beyond me, but as a fitting finale to the entire series, there can be no greater choice. It now joins songs like “Freebird,” “Cowboys From Hell,” “Jessica,” “Highway Star,” “Through the Fire and the Flames,” and the greatest of them all “Texas Flood” as the best digital songs the plastic instrument genre has to offer.
I haven’t played “Rock Band” or “Guitar Hero” in a while, but the games are institutions of my generation and among the coolest home releases ever created. It’s likely that twenty years from now people will still be able to pick up “Rock Band” for the first time and feel that same rush of rock star dreams joy, courtesy of an expertly made arcade style experience.
So while the music gaming genre craze is long past its heyday, let this stand as a good reason to dust off the drum kits, re-sticker that guitar, and get the band back together one last time.
As I fill out a bracket that will no doubt be null and void shortly after the round of 64, I kick back and smile at the upcoming joy that is the greatest playoff system in all of sports, the NCAA March Madness tournament.
It’s a tale of underdogs and goliaths. It’s one of men who aim to be heroes coming from all corners of the lands to do battle. From the heated debates regarding those involved, all the way to the moment one school, and one team, stand upon a pile of worthy, yet vanquished, foes to achieve the title of champion, there is no event in sports so epic and engrossing.
In fact, it would really make a great video game wouldn’t it?
This time every year, for the last few years, I have to remind myself there are no new college basketball games. The reasons why are nothing quite so epic as the famous tournament, but are as tragic as any great tale nonetheless.
Simply put college basketball games, unlike the NCAA Football games, didn’t sell well at all. Reports even put “NCAA Basketball 10,” the last entry in the field, selling just over 200,000 units total, which for a company like EA (the last developer to make an NCAA basketball game) was not cutting it. Combined with the always tricky NCAA licensing battles stemming from creating the likeness of college players in a game (and the historic so-so quality of the games themselves), from a business standpoint, the answer couldn’t have been more clear.
College basketball games had to go.
And you know what? It’s a damn shame.
While the games were never quite at the same level as their college football or professional basketball counterparts, EA’s series (and 2K’s before that for that matter) was improving leaps and bounds, and that strive to improve it each year washed away that “we’re the only game in town so deal with it” feel you sometimes get with their sports titles.
As for the sales, as atrocious as they were in terms of that type of game, as we near the opening rounds of the great tournament, I can’t help but feel like the biggest issue was the game’s typical release date around November, and not closer to the madness that is March for college basketball fans. Why you wouldn’t try to capitalize off of the frenzy surrounding that event remains beyond me.
You can do a lot of things in video games and get away with it, but at the end of the day you’ve got to sell. College basketball didn’t, and now they’re gone. Unlike that plucky “Cinderella” team that comes just short of the big game though, there is no next year for college basketball video games. Instead there is just time for even the most feverishly adherent of fans to vaguely remember that once, there was a contender.
When you consider the amount of work put into making a complete game even functional, it’s amazing that game developers have the time to create some of the coolest objects in the game, and hide them places where they may never be found. Yet ever since some hidden credits in “Adventure,” video games and secrets have gone hand and hand.
Of these secrets, the best are the hidden weapons. Often maniacally tucked away and requiring a great deal of luck and effort to ever wield, they usually serve as unopposed killing machines worth every ounce of time and energy used to harness them, though the journey to do so is often more difficult than the game ever would have been if you’d chosen not to seek them out.
I love them though for their holy grail like status in many of the titles they are featured in, and these are five of my favorites.
The Sword of Kings – “EarthBound”
Any day I get to mention “EarthBound” is a good day.
My favorite game of all time has a series of items that you only have a 1 out of 128 chance of acquiring after beating certain enemies in specific spots. Of those items, the most sought after may be the Sword of Kings.
While not the most powerful of the 1/128 items, it is the only weapon that one of your characters can use in the game, giving him a significant offensive boost. It also must be unlocked against a very tough enemy at a point where, if you haven’t been level grinding, you are lucky enough to survive a battle with, much less play the odds of defeating enough to find the fabled sword.
To this day I’ve never unlocked the Sword of Kings, though I regularly try.
The MIRV – “Fallout 3”
There is a weapon in “Fallout 3” called the Fat Man that shoots a mini-nuclear warhead that nothing in the game can withstand. The MIRV shoots 8 of those warheads at once.
To unlock it, you must find five transcripts from the Keller family spread throughout the world. Unless you’re cheating, these are not easy to just run across, and even doing so yields no guarantee you know what the hell they lead to. Piece it all together though, and you’d find your way to a hidden section of the national guard depo where the most powerful, and unnecessary, weapon ever in a video game lies.
Even in a world built upon, and still teeming with, nuclear atrocities, the MIRV might just be the greatest war crime ever constructed. It’s also happens to be fun as hell.
Biggoron’s Sword – “Ocarina of Time”
A gaming secret in a major release that few people knew about? There was a pre-internet time when such a thing was possible.
You may think there is no greater sword in “Ocarina of Time” than the Master Sword, but you would be wrong. To get it though, you have to complete a VERY lengthy quest of which there are very few hints of its existence, or where to go next during it. Make it through this hellacious and confusing journey though, and you’ll be rewarded with a two handed sword that does twice the damage as the Master Sword, and looks 10x as intimidating.
Finding the Biggoron’s Sword without the step by step instructions was a truly rewarding experience back in the day. Even with the walkthrough, it is still one of Link’s greatest all time weapons.
Scarab Gun (Main Location)- “Halo 2”
The Scarab Gun is like the lost Ark of the Covenant in that it may be something man was never meant to find, and is face meltingly powerful.
Whoever discovered this gun in the game, and the sequence to get it, is an obsessive compulsive evil genius. The Scarab was clearly not meant to be found by 99.9% of the people who played “Halo 2,” as the commonly accepted process to acquire it demands tremendous skill, potential hours upon hours of patience, and a split second moment of reaction thats absence negates the previous two requirements.
Your reward is a normal looking gun floating above a warning marker in a seemingly unreachable part of the level, that just so happens to pack the firepower of a tank, and will obliterate any single obstacle in your path. The gun only lasts one level, but the thrill of acquiring it is forever.
Excalibur II – “Final Fantasy IX”
Though I’m sure this isn’t factually true, from my personal knowledge and experience, this is as hard of a hidden weapon to unlock as exists.
See, if you play “Final Fantasy IX” the normal way (beat the main game, do a few side quests, enjoy yourself) it takes you about 45-50 hours to complete. To unlock the Excalibur II, you’ll need to get to this 4-disc adventure’s final boss in under 12 hours.
Yikes.
It’s not a challenge any sane individual would ever undertake, and requires all of your powers and efforts to complete. Manage to do so though, and you are rewarded with a sword that can deal the series’ 9999 damage max to even the most powerful of enemies at will, not to mention more hardcore nerd bragging rights than you could acquire even through sex with an actual un-paid human.
So I’m very curious to know what your favorite hidden weapons are, and which are the most difficult you’ve ever personally found. Be sure to let me know in the comments below.
While the original “Payday: The Heist” was a fun game, you wouldn’t be blamed for just remembering it as a particularly well made “Left 4 Dead” mod, even if it wasn’t.
The 4 player FPS co-op style was a big cause of this, but it was more the fact that each level played out like the “heist gone wrong” part of the story, and required you to shoot your way through waves of enemies to escape with the loot. It was more smash and grab than the perfect crime.
The details on the sequel (known only as “Payday 2”) are starting to emerge, and it’s obvious that the change of ownership (Starbreeze acquired “PayDay” developer Overkill) isn’t the only thing new in the series as there is a change in philosophy as well. This is evident through the early information, which points to a smarter game, and one not shoehonrned completely into the action genre.
Among the ideas contributing to this are new character classes like the “ghost” class, and varied approach and execution options which will allow for a level to theoretically be completed with minimal violence, assuming you are able to craft and execute the perfect plan for a job. Standing in your way is the usual security and alarm systems, made all the more cumbersome by the introduction of random elements which will change the location of guards, traps, and even the loot on multiple playthroughs.
It’s an exciting step in the right direction, and should still result in an entertaining game, but it’s still not the heist game I’ve been dreaming of.
No, the ideal heist game doesn’t skip to the shootout like so many others, but rather looks to the unappreciated strategy element. The perfect heist game would be 80% planning and strategy, and the rest left to execution, with action only as a last resort. This doesn’t mean that it has to abandon the FPS genre, but rather take the influence away from “Left 4 Dead” and closer to the original “Rainbow Six” games, which required precise planning and loadout selections, as well as effective on the job group management, to even have a chance of surviving a mission, much less flawlessly executing it.
There are other ways to go of course. A “Syndicate” style pure strategy game, an isometric original “Fallout” or “Baulder’s Gate” RPG sort, an “XCOM: Enemy Unknown” simplified grid based game, or even a “Dishonored” or “Deus Ex” think on your feet multiple approach for each problem type would be great.
Honestly though I’d just like to see more attempts at the genre until someone gets it right. Heist games are among the rarest in video games, and ones that approach it with anything more than a shoot first mentality are even more-so. A real shame too considering the inherit potential in the genre.
Not all hope is lost though, as the “Payday” series can still continually evolve, and “Grand Theft Auto V” promises more heist missions than ever. Plus let’s not forget that another “can’t miss” genre, the western, took almost 30 years to do right.
There’s a great line in a “Sopranos” episode where Tony confronts his long loved crush, and therapist, with the possibility that she may not have taken the chance to truly get to know him.
Forget the way Tony Soprano makes his way in the world. That’s to feed his children. There’s two Tony Sopranos…you’ve never seen that other one…That’s the one I want to show you
EA and Maxis must be relating to that quote now as it pertains to the new “SimCity,” because there are certainly two sides of the game. One is the game that critics have informed players is a brilliant mix of every great thing the series has become up until this point mixed with exciting new evolutions to the formula leading to a title every inch as great as it could be.
The other though is the one that the rest of the world is seeing. It’s the one that is causing the entire internet to roar in fury over the fact that they haven’t even gotten a chance to play the game yet due to server issues so encompassing, it can only be classified as an epidemic. Even if you’re lucky enough to log on to the game, you’ll most likely be booted in an instant for your audacity.
There is no greater example of this dynamic than the astounding difference between the critic review score (82) and the user review score (1.7) on metacritic.
It’s as if EA flipped the disaster option available in the game on in real life, and the name of the chosen catastrophe is “DRM,” as just like “Diablo III” you must be signed in to the internet at all times, even if playing by yourself, and just like that game, the server congestion this causes in unmanageable.
Companies say its a feture that will one day lead to better security in games, and unique social benefits. So far it has only led to catastrophic server issues that break games like Ivan Drago breaks opponents.
It must be stopped.
There can be no room for debate on this topic. Not for now anyway. Putting aside the absurd notion that a gamer can’t play the game they bought and installed without a high quality internet connection available at all times, the cases of “Diablo III” and “SimCity” show that any potential benefits this atrocity of an idea may yield are in no way able to be implemented safely yet.
Actually, let’s not put aside the absurd notion of the idea. Let’s hit it on the head, throw it in a bag, chain the bag, put the bag in the car, and drive the car in the ocean and never speak of it again. It’s a terrible concept that becomes insulting when you consider that the only real explanation of its current existence is that gamers will eventually get used to it.
Yeah well you get used to having your hand on a stove eventually, but you’ve still done permanent damage.
That’s what it boils down to. Even though gamers will one day be able to actually play the game they eagerly waited for and quickly snatched up, much like “Diablo III” and its sales records, “SimCity” will be a game forever tarnished by this incident, that no amount of figures or good will gestures will aid.
At the end of the day gamers just want to play this game, and EA and Maxis (oh who are we kidding, EA) have done the one thing that could prevent them from doing that, and seemingly did it knowingly, as there is no way they could not have seen something like this coming, considering the massive amount of pre-sale orders.
It’s a sick joke that a game years in development and all about effective planning, management, and creation, should be affected by problems that exhibit none of those ideas, and leaves what should be a world of thriving metropolises, into a nothing more than a large ghost town.
If Only They’d Known How Appropriate This Video Would Be
