Being musically inclined I can’t help but to reach for anything that gives a player the feeling of being some kind of rock star. Its kind of like the new Karaoke in a way, people want that exposure and feel like they have mastered something without putting the lifelong effort it really takes to master some of these instruments. (However, people still are learning to play drums with the Drum Sets.)

For those of you as of yet, unfamiliar with DJ hero it takes the core game play of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and puts them in a new Medium, a DJ. The controller itself is a mock turntable with a mixer attachment.  On the table part of the controller, there are 3 buttons,  Green, Red and Blue all respectively from left to right. The table itself is free turning, now on the mixer there is a hidden compartment It contains the XYAB buttons, directional bad and a start/select buttons. Below that there is the “Euphoria” button which is the new name for “star power” and a mixing knob beside that, used to pick sound bites. Then of course is the mixing slider.

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the art of DJing, one simply has to look to you tube, but to be put bluntly, its taking two records and being able to play them simultaneously, making a new dance record. Also it could just be a slower Wedding style Dj that moves from song to song seamlessly. The game however is focused on Scratch DJ’s, and believe me there is a LOT of scratching in this game. Those with arthritis need not apply.

Now the screen is set up much like the Guitar Hero games that came before this, there is a curved moving chart with three lanes and a line running along each lane and as the song progresses three colored balls with come down the chart at certain points and you try to match tapping the buttons to the rhythm, standard music game affair.  Nows when it gets trickly, the circular table itself is spinnable so when certain colored “Scratches” pop up with directional arrows on them, you must press the corresponding button and move the Turntable back and forth to match up with the number of arrows and their directions. Not confusing enough? Now lets add the presence of the mixing slider, which slides between the two mixed songs, which you will have to use in conjunction with the scratching and tapping on the other side of the controller. If you want a quick peek, here is a Video..

As you can see, it gets pretty hectic. Now gameplay wise, this is either a game FOR you or NOT for you, lots of people like music games, lots of people fucking hate them with a passion. If you didn’t like any of the Rock Bands, Guitar Heros, Rock Revolution, Lips ect before this, DJ hero isn’t going to win you over.

The music styles represented within the game varie slightly, theres lots of Techno/Trance tracks, and of course lots of Hip-Hop and R&B, the sort of genres you expect to be synonymous with Turntables. Of course there are also lots of songs that don’t fit in with that stereotype, such as Queen, Weezer, Motorhead, Foreigner, Tears for Fears., Foo Fighters, Beck.

Some of the really big names to grace the game are legends Daft Punk, Mobb Deep, Grandmaster Flash, Beastie Boyz, Black Eye Peas, Eminem, Jay-Z, DJ Tiesto, MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, Gorillaz just to name a few.

The mixes are done by professional Dj’s such as Daft Punk, DJ Z-Trip, DJ AM, Grandmaster Flash, DJ Shadow, Dj Yoda, Dj Jazzy Jeff, The Scratch Perverts. No Armin van Buuren tracks on this one, but we can always hope for the DLC! *Crosses Fingers*

Now DJ Hero has decided to add a rather lackluster feature in which you can team up with a guitar hero player and play some of the guitar driven tracks together, it seems to be a feature thats thrown in at the last minute, none of the guitar tracks seem to be that hard or anything special, but it seems like a nice small feature that some people may find value in, but not something to write home to mom about.

My personal favorite aspect of the game is a feature called “REWIND” which is available once your combo reaches x4 and then you can spin your record backwards and redo a section and earn extra points, personally I use this feature when I mess up trying to get euphoria I can rewind and try it again, very nice indeed.

The game is reasonably paced for Newbies to the game or genre, if you’ve played Guitar Hero you will feel right at home on Medium, which is where I started initially, and by the time I was done I slid into hard at the begining quite nicely. I like how it doesn’t throw the world at you right away like some Guitar Hero games do.

What I don’t like firstly is the price, it is quite a spendy game, $120 for the regular version and $200 for the deluxe edition that comes with a metal case that converts into a stand, its nice but I don’t know if its worth the extra $80 for a stand/case for a controller thats worth at most $60. Also I found that the mixer knob comes off, pretty annoying when in the heat of mixing, it flies off and your holding onto a metal nub for the rest of the game. Also I found that if you don’t keep your little plastic door open, pausing is nearly impossible. Other then those few flaws, I feel the game is a good solid music game, maybe a little cheap in the manufacturing but very spendy in the Intellectual Properties area.

4/5

]]> http://thisweekinpwnage.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/hey-mr-dj-dj-hero-review/feed/ 0 thisweekinpwnage DJ Hero Controller http://thisweekinpwnage.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/back-from-the-dead-with-mw2-review/ http://thisweekinpwnage.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/back-from-the-dead-with-mw2-review/#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:46:18 +0000 thisweekinpwnage http://thisweekinpwnage.wordpress.com/?p=30 ]]> Woaw! Talk about a extended break!

Its been about a week since I last ranted and raved on this blog and was very suprised to see people actually read the ravings of a madman! Interesting to say the least. You can however guess how I have been filling my time recently, it is to say, Modern Warfare 2.  So instead of dancing around the subject and titilating you with little nuances I will just get into the review, and beware I bare all spoilers, so don’t go crying yourself to sleep if you see something you don’t like. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!

SPOILERS!!!!!!!

One cannot simply tell the story of Modern Warfare 2 with the game alone, it was more then just the game, it was the experiance alone. It started on the 9th of November, it was a monday, it was snowing here in Fairbanks, Alaska and it was cold as hell, -22 below. I was buzzing about the release and my room mate was lamenting as he had not the loot to cash in for a preorder, so I thought I would be generous. I handed him 60 dollers for the game and told him to go pre-order it as I didn’t want to be alone in my excitement. He was off and I went upstairs for a little Nazi Zombie action which would get my blood boiling for that awesome action that was to come, I had taken tuesday off and I was ready for anything. As I neared around level 25 in zombies, I heared the voice of my roomate call my name “Dom! Dom!” He ran up the stairs and informed me that you had to pick up a ticket, that they were giving away at 8:00 that you needed to get, to receive the game as the store had over 1000 pre-orders alone, they would be taking groups of thirty while the others sweatily waited in the Barnes and Noble next door. We rushed to the Gamestop, got our tickets, waited 45 minutes in line, half of which was spent in the aforementio ned -22 below. Yes, it sucked. We caught up with some friends there, hit up a late night diner, was pestered by a hooker in the booth next to us and proceeded back to the Barnes and Noble to wait around. Before that however, a friends truck had decided it wanted to die making another mad dash to retrieve a second vehicle. As I returned, numbers began to be called, I was eventually sucked into the third wave, my friends however had much more time to wait. I giggled a little on the inside as I exchanged my receipt for my shiny copy of Modern Warfare 2. Then proceeded to head home, to the warm comforting glow of pixalated gunfire. Mmmm…

I was surprised when I popped in the disc, dissapointed by the lack of Co-Op campaign mode which, I never heared of despite being on top of the MW2 news for some time, my question is…why? I understand that it may lend itself to bringing a person out of ‘character’ but, how does that affect the game ? Esspecially when Veteran mode is the cluster-fuck that it is, WHY?!?! I like Spec-Op mode, but its not a replacement for good ol fashioned co-op. Thats this games first and perhaps only strike in my eyes.

Lets say that this game is B-E-Autiful. When I was running around the first militia level, I was loving the characters face expressions that way they moved so realistically, and the bitmapping on the characters themselves, probobly the finest achievement of video game technology, only second to lets say Uncharted 2. All I am gonna say about the graphics, since no ammount of words can express it , is awesome. In that words original context “Awesome”. When in later levels, you come from a underground bunker and look up at the White House under seige, guns blaring in a obsideon black night and screams and gunfire are blasting all around you, I literally got chills. The first time a game really made me feel like that in such a way. The voice acting is also rather good, what I have noticed however is in the Call of Duty games the notion of Emotion has escaped the characters, despite the radical events going around the characters, they always keep their cool, it never becomes personal, its always buisness with these guys.

The gameplay remains pretty much the same as previous installments of Call of Duty, you got your grenade chucking, swapping weapons and ducking and prone positions. What has changed more then anything is the multiplayer aspect of the game. MW2 has taken some perks and replaced them in what they call “Deathstreak Perks” this is a handicap set up for newbies, or players who aren’t as good as others in the room. It gives them certain help to level out the playing field, unfortunatly I think it fails in this regard. Giving someone 10 seconds of juggarnaut health, or giving them their enemies weapon isn’t my idea of leveling the playing field. Another addition is the ability to upgrade the perks, giving you the initial perk plus another, throwing a “Pro” on the end of the title. It gives the player another level of unlockables that really hold the multiplayer together. One overpowered point of multiplayer is of course the air support, between AC-130, the attack chopper, the pavlow, theres lots of airsupport that literally rapes the opposing team and yours as well. It seems they hang around for way to long, kill almost instantly, not to mention the golden bragging right, the tactical nuke, which ends the game in your favor and kills everyone on the map instantly. Its a show stopper, but in my opinion not nescicary. What happened to the dogs?

I love this game despite the shortcomming, that I think could be easily fixed with a few patches.

But I still think this is the game of the year, and probobly will wear that crown.

Make sure to keep checking in the next couple days as I got a review for DJ Hero bubbling!

Now a bit of the gay community is upset that Infinity Ward would use the acronym “Fight Against Grenade Spam” or “Fags” for short.

Personally I believe this joke was already used in the cult classic “Team America” ala the “Film Actors Guild”. I don’t remember them getting so much flack over it, but I think people understood whose the audience was for that show. But this is Modern Warfare 2 and it seems IW kind of sunk to their lowest common denominator, the mic kiddies who scream gay and faggot over the headsets.

I don’t think it was TOO over the top personally, its a part of gaming culture the use of slurs in otherwise normal situations would be base or coarse, it would be in bad taste but its pretty commonly accepted that in gaming culture demoralizing the enemy is part of the game.

So common F.a.g.s. Grow a pair…

Well now they are calling foul on the game and are looking at banning it from circulation in their country all together. Its another attack on free speech around the world unfortunatly.

If you want the full AP story you can find it here:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TEC_VIDEO_GAME_TERRORIST?SITE=NCASH&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Modern Warefare is the sequal to the popular and very successfull Call of Duty 4: Modern Warefare, its a modern day game with addicting online gameplay and thousands of gamers across the globe. Its newest installment has one of the biggest preorder numbers ever for a video game, its very well the closest thing to a Halo-killer thats out there. Yet there are numerous groups kicking and screaming about the contents.

Probably the most recognizable group is the gamers themselves, they are concerned and outraged over of course the lack of dedicated severs in the PC version of the game, making the players have to join in on developer controlled environments online. This of course puts a major brake on the modding community, a large reason why the PC gaming market stays so large is the communities ability to tweak the game in ways they want. It seems IW (Infinity Ward) is taking a step into a stricter realm, one much more console-esque. There are many petitions going on line and boycotting that will hopefully (in the eyes of the PC gamers) change the minds of the developers. I don’t personally see any of these petitions doing anything as I don’t recall one case of a online petition or boycott that actually achieved its goal but you have to respect the gamers for standing their ground. In their defense the time in which IW announced this was complete bullshit. They waited four weeks before launch, while 2.5 million pre-orders hung around their heads to drop this on gamers? They could have disclosed this information long before 2.5 millions folks dropped 60 bucks, of course I think it was a slap in the face.

What I think is hilarious is the people who preordered and are now sitting around with thumbs up their asses, crying petition and boycott and not being able to go pick up the money’s worth that they dropped off at the local gamestop.

Another add-on Infinity Ward had said would be in-game is the ability to play the game in a 3rd person perspective, of course the 1st person players won’t be able to join in on 3rd person games, there will be the ability to play the way you would like.

More critisism for Modern Warefare 2 comes from the belly of the conservative beast. Many conservative groups are calling foul on the game for its depictions of realistic terroristic activities, most notably in a leaked trailer was shots of the White House being taken over by terrorists and washington D.C. itself turned into a warezone.

The next big bit of controversy is the newly leaked “Airport” level, in which the player apparently, willfully massacres hundreds of civillians inside of a airport. From what I have heared the level itself is based around the character is a mole and must prove himself to a terrorist cell so they go into a airport and spray down innocent people.

I have watched the trailer for myself before writing this blog and my opinion is the following…

I think the level itself isn’t totally neccisary, I think perhaps it might be unappealing to some gamers. It doesn’t lend itself to the cartoony wackiness of the GTA series of course the newest addition to that series wasn’t as cartoony as the earlier adapatations. The new level is still very mature orientated.

If you want to watch the leaked Video you can find it here:

http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/modern-warfare-2-leaked-footage/333509

My big beef is why can’t any of these damn leakers find out how to fucking film correctly? They all slap a handy cam in front of the screen and call it good.

Also for those of you interested this weeks “This Week in Pwnage” podcast has been delayed on accounts of both me and my buddy Dee have been caught in the middle of the flu season and both of us are hoping to be ready to record tomarrow.

-Dom

We will be covering a few of the following item…

-Miyamoto Critisism,

-ODST Review,

-Top 3 Scariest Games

-Fail of the Week

-Uncharted 2 Impressions/Mini – Review

-Nazi Zombies

-Borderlands : Overhyped?

-Movies of the week

Firstly you will need of course,

-A Xbox 360

-Halo 3 : ODST

-Xbox Live Gold Account

-Balls (Perferably steel)

You may be asking, “Dom, What is it I must do to get this awesome achievement?”  Well simply you have to beat a entire level without firing a SHOT or throwing a Grenade, there are some little annoying rules you have to follow as well..

-No shooting, none. Don’t even lay your finger on the triggers. Even if you charge the laser and don’t fire it spoils it, so don’t fuck with the triggers.

- No Grenades, just like up above.

-No horn honking, I don’t know why but the game won’t give it to you if you honk the horn on the warthog.

-No power slides in Warthog

-Boosting in Ghost is ALLOWED

-What you can do is, jump, melee, switch weapons, and hop in and out of vehicles and you can have gunners and shotgun riders.

-You MUST play on Legendary,

-Must be a solo game, no help.

-Must be connected to Xbox Live with a Gold Account

-Probably should do it on Uplift Reserve, easiest level to complete it on, (Not saying much :/ )

First, load up the level with all the prerequisits mentioned above intact.

Move forward into the large circular battlefield and keep to the left, ignore the turned over warthog and move towards one of the two driving around on the left, don’t worry one will eventually stop for you. When it stops kick out the driver and give him your spartan laser as you wont be needing it. Jump in the drivers seat and let him ride shotty, it really helps to have him/her with the laser. You might wanna sit afar and let the gunner take out the choppers as they can fuck you up major with a simple love-tap.

Head across to the west side of the circular battlefield and zip between any enemies and into the trail, you will meet one chopper, one ghost, and two wraiths, remember DON’T powerslide, just be quick, it may take a couple times and follow the trail to a large metal entrance. There is a ghost there, you can use it if you want, its possible but you die a lot easier, and you can’t fire the weapon. You can boost, so you are faster. Whatever you decide to do continue through the cave entrance ( if you need it, theres a medpack on the little ( Bus Stop? lol) on the right side of the cave entrance. Theres some pavement and once you come out, go to the left, don’t deal with the enemies there, follow the shore to the left and to the north there is a ledge you have to get on, theres lots of stationary plasma guns and a few ghosts, just try to make it past them. DON’T go into the tunnel, go to the east and follow the ledge, it should bring you to a ledge you jump down and will follow another little twisty canyon. There will be a ship dropping off troops, just head to the left as its not railed off, follow the trail down and head to the left side of the large structure in the middle. Theres a few soldiers, a spartan laser, medpack, and a warthog. If you want a warthog or a new one, grab a medpack, grab the laser, give it to one of the soldiers then jump in the drivers seat. The soldiers will jump in after you. Head out and to the opposite side of the round battlefield, theres another windy canyon, you will run into Two Wraiths, a ghost and a chopper, there will also be a gunner above. This is probably the hardest part of the level, if you can get past this the rest is cake. When you pass them by you will go through a tunnel and then you will cross a bridge, some conversation will happen as the tunnel system collapses above, if you need a new Warthog theres one halfway across the bridge.  When you get to the other side, make sure to grab the medpack on the well next to the exiting bay door. You will follow yet another windy canyon and will come to a small circular field with a ramp leading up the right side, there should be a covenant anti gravity tower in front of you ignore it. As you go up the ramp you will see two gunners, don’t hesitate, just run them over or you won’t make it out alive. As you head up the trail there will be another bus stop like building on the left, theres a medpack there as well. Continue foreward, you will come to another large field with a big covenant plateau in the middle, keep to the right to the entrance to another long windy canyon, theres one wraith and one ghost, zig past them and continue up the long canyon.  You will see a series of purple covenant shields on the ground, ALMOST THERE!

Keep driving and as you come around you will see two wraiths, drive between them both and hug the wall as the canyon wall curves behind them, it will come to a ledge that leads to nowhere. Jump it! a cut scene will play and DON’T skip it, I heared it can fuck with your achievement, and I am superstitious so don’t temp the devil. As the next level loads the achievement should pop up.

If it doesn’t work the first time try and try again making sure everything you do is up to par. I know when I did it it took 10 tries to get it right, its hard to train trigger fingers NOT to fire.

Cheers,

-Dom

To me this is one of our saving graces. Here in the bitter cold of the arctic, far from the political and corrupt world below we deal not with third parties skewing our vision, or greasing our palms. You may find we might be the most unbiased people in the entire land of america, as no one breathes down our necks. It may seem asanine to explain ourselves but being up at 4:30 am does strange things to the mind…strange things indeed..

-Dom

I however knew I was in for a ride as soon as the intro credits to the movie had finished…

The heroic, yet unorthadox protaganists

The movie starts out when two very different men run into each other in a post-apocalyptic world run over by zombies. As the main character of the story explains “Mad cow disease turned into Mad Human and that turned into the zombie disease.” The United States is now know simply as “Zombieland” and no matter where you go you will inevitably run into zombies. The two men are thereafter joined by two scheming sisters who are very good at…well, schemes.

One thing bugged me throughout the entire film however, the namesake of the film “Zombie” is missing allot from the film itself. In fact there are very little zombies to be seen in this movie, however it still seems to stay entertaining minus a few hundred bloody bodies running through the streets chasing living humans. What interactions with zombies our heroes did have were few and far between until a powerfully ending that will leave you  chomping at popcorn feverously kind of like a zombie would on any of us juicier humans. Thats not to say the interactions weren’t both action packed and very funny. If your looking for something like Shaun of the Dead, you will find it here, perhaps not as British or as depressing near the end, but fun nonetheless.

The main character “Columbus” is a neurotic and OCD-WoW Playing-Shut-in-Nerd extroadinaire, and his partner in crime (or zombie-crime as the case may be…) is Tallahassee, played by the ganja smoking man of mystery Woody Harrelson. Once they team up with little miss bad-ass Emma Stone, you know guns are gonna come out, and how.

The trademark of the film is “The List” which is 32 rules explained throughout the movie to surviving a Zombie apocalypse. My favorites being “Wear Your Safety Belt” and “Cardio”. (Both rules #3 and #1 respectively.)

Throw in a segment that will appeal to every movie fan on the planet and you will most definatly be thinking about buying the DVD as you walk out of the theater. There is a special cameo, not to be a spoiler but….lets just say its the old “Man eating toaster” trick.

This is a guarenteed wild ride if your into anything zombies, guns or bad ass intros. Believe me this has one of the best opening credits since the Dawn of the Dead remake mixed Johnny Cash and footage of riots and zombies.

4 out of 5 Stars.

“See It!”

Thats my Word,

Dom