Harmonix: Rock Band 3

Rock Band 3, the most recent installment of the ultra-popular Rock Band series. Like the other 4 games of the Rock Band series, this game features songs which can be played with the original selection of instruments: guitar controller with 5 fret buttons, drum set with 4 pads and a kick drum pedal, bass guitar(same as guitar controller), and vocals. However, three new instruments have been added to Rock Band 3. They are as follows: harmonies which can be sung in addition to the lead vocals (previously featured in The Beatles: Rock Band), a new keyboard controller with 25 keys, and a brand new "pro" guitar controller with 17 frets each with 6 strings and a button for each string on the fret which means there are (6x17) 102 buttons!!!!!! This almost forces the user to learn how to play the real guitar in order to play pro mode. Who ever can play hard difficulty on pro mode must be extremely talented, or must play the real guitar well. There is so much put into this new pro guitar controller. Basically, everything you can do with a real electric guitar, you can do with this controller. Individual string strumming, slides, chords. hammer ons and pull offs, even arpeggios, you name it. A demo of the pro guitar controller can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5De9eCH1EU. There is also somewhat of a pro drum set controller called the ION electronic drum kit, which can also be used as an electronic drum kit outside of the game. This controller has the original 4 drum pad and kick pedal with an additional 3 cymbals and a hi-hat with its corresponding pedal. Rock Band 3 is the closest you can get to playing in a real band without knowing how to play an instrument. With so many instruments there are many songs in the game which have most if not all of the instrument in it. There are also songs which have specific instruments that play most of the song.

Harmonix Kinect project

Harmonix Music Systems recently released a game for the new XBOX 360 motion detection software, Kinect. Dance Central is the title of the new game in which players can dance to many different songs while they do the correct dance moves displayed on the screen. The Kinect is like Nintendo Wii, except the controller... is your body! The camera on the Kinect tracks movement and can be used for any type of videogame. In Dance Central, different dance moves are displayed on the screen which you must do in order to get points and to keep the dancer on the screen dancing. Popular moves like the sprinkler, the double dig, the robot, the fist pump, the knockout, the hitch hike, the freeze, and even song specific dance moves like "the jerk" and the "souljia boy". Like the rest of Harmonix's games, Dance Central is a great game to play with friends. Ok D block is over, im out.

Black Ops: Continued

I got Call of Duty: Black Ops yesterday. I played the campaign mode and I must say that I am impressed. The single player gameplay is fun and not repetitive at all. It is also kind of like a fake history lesson. It gave me an idea of what was going on during the cold war which nobody knew about. The landscapes are beautiful, especially the jungles in Vietnam and Laos and the mountains in Russia. The multiplayer online gameplay is very fun. After gaining experience points from racking up kills, you can purchase new weapons and attachments to use. A new aspect of multiplayer in Call of Duty has been introduced. That is the new currency, called COD points. Everything can be bought with these, weapons, accessories, etc. They are obtained by completing different challenges and just playing well. Since there is a currency, there are also wager matches. These are special game modes in which players bet COD points, and the winners get their respective cuts of the money at the end. Since I just started playing yesterday, i have not accumulated many weapons. I definitely enjoy the wager matches the most, because they have special fun game modes that can only be played as wager matches. And an old game mode returns from Call of Duty: World at War, Zombies. In this mode you can go solo, or team up with friends or strangers to kill endless waves of the undead. This game is intense, and i have only begun playing. I recommend buying it if you like First Person Shooter games.

Black Ops

This is no review. I am simply talking about what i know so far. Call of Duty: Black Ops is a new video game that came out a few days ago. Everyone i have talked to who has played it says that it is amazing. I have my doubts, but i will not let the get the best of me. I loved the previous first person shooter/military simulation games by Infinityward, the makers of most of the other Call of Duty games. But Black Ops is made by Treyarch, new guys. Infinityward sold the Call of Duty label to Treyarch, and my thoughts are that they did it because they are working on another huge project. Just a hunch though. I believe Black Ops is set in the vietnam war time frame. I know nothing about the single player mode(s), but the online multiplayer sounds good. Basically it is a bunch of people running around killing eachother for rewards and experience points with which can earn you new guns and other cool stuff. I may be getting the game soon, but it can wait. It certainly is not on my "MUST PLAY NOW" list.

movies based on videogames???

I know the idea sounds weird, but there are many videogame based movies. Many movies are made from successful or popular videogames, but are mostly terrible movies. Why? same reason as why videogames based on movies are bad. the two types of media are very different and when a crossover from videogame to movie or movie to videogame is made, the outcome isnt usually good. Also, the popular videogame Assassins Creed II was made into a TV show: Assassins Creed Lineage. I watched two minutes of it and couldnt stand to watch more. There have been many movies made from videogames. the reason you may not have heard of any is because they are all garbage.

videogames based on movies?

In my opionion, videogames based on movies are generally just awful. I'll start with some examples. The avatar videogame is absolutely terrible, every copy in the world should be destroyed. All of the james bond videogames were never that appealing to me, they are just boring. The star wars videogames are repetitive and boring. the idea of making a videogame out of a movie may seem cool to some, but a videogame is very different from a movie. also, most of the movie based videogames are made by crappy game designers. this explains how the videogame of such an amazing movie like avatar could be so bad. Low budget games which are based on movies never get any sales.

RDR

Today i downloaded the "Undead Nightmare" add-on for Red Dead Redemption. Red Dead Redemption is the newest game made by Rockstar Games and just recently for halloween an expansion to the game was released. RDR is set in 1911 in a fictional area in the west. The came is basically a cowboy style grand theft auto game. Undead  Nightmare is focused on a crazy zombie outbreak. The protagonist and player character, John Marston, investigates the cause of the zombies. So far it is fun killing zombies and zombified animals. But the one thing to know about zombies is: they don't die unless you shoot them in the head. And in a chaotic state like this, you cant trust anyone, because once they are bitten, they become a zombie in front of your eyes and then try to feast on your flesh. Although it was a nice add-on for halloween i feel like it wasn't really something i could play over again. It was worth the 10 dollar download.