Echo Chamber Post Game Episode 8E-3 and 8E-4

E3 FUTURE PREDICTIONS: YOU WILL DOWNLOAD THIS EPISODE

-Mega64 Skit

There was also a later one, but I'm not including it because of Harrison Ford's traumatic death.


-Is E3 necessary?

I forgot who it was, but someone on the Giant Bombcast mentioned that while those of us "in the know" already knew a lot about what's going on in the video game industry already, E3 is more for the average consumer who gets their news through more standard/mainstream outlets (Newspapers, evening news, 24 hour cable networks except for Fox News because technology is scary). A local news station that Bombcaster worked at was only aware of video games during the E3 conference, or during some kind of moral panic.

Your average consumer couldn't care less about what's coming up outside a game that's already being advertised on TV, or more than a month down the line, so they still look to go "GOLLY, look at all these shiny new toys!" before caring about the couple they buy a year.

There was the failed "E for All Expo" that happened a couple years ago which was supposed to be a "Hey, guys! Come and see what's coming out!" thing, but it ultimately flopped.

FOR NOW, until more consoles get online so we might be able to do some time-limited demo/beta stuff for the masses, and until the news gets more video-game savvy (see below) we still need that central rallying point.

-Re: Arcanon on Amplitude: Given Jeff's comments on the previous episode (his credit limit was boosted more or less right away, Arcanon had to wait), I think from this we can determine that Arcanon's bank is WAY LESS likely to receive a government bailout in the future.


BROADCASTING TO YOU LIVE FROM UNDERWATER

-So, while my Skype setup was all good, I still had my USB mic plugged in, which Reaper set as the default. FFFFFF-

-Carolyn was a great guest, and probably the main reason (behind Ozone of course) that this podcast happened in the first place. It was really awesome to hear how much she loved running the RBN Network, and she felt warm fuzzies with us talking about how much we loved making stuff for the RBN.

-Revolution 60- This game sounded really unique from the description she gave, and my brain is stuck on The Walking Dead Telltale meets Megaman Battle Network, which is enough to get me to play it. According to their Facebook page, it's ready for testing.

More pics on Flickr, which is the Online Photo Service of all the cool kids.

-So, yes, THIS ACTUALLY RAN ON THE L.A. TIMES:

"Nintendo's 'glacier white' Playstation 4"

See also, "Cowboy Bebop at his Computer"

Which reminds me that I still need to watch Cowboy Bebop and on top of that, I got my brother bitching at me to watch Attack On Titan.

-We out ourselves as Nintendo Fanboys a lot on this one. Whereas Sony and Microsoft are competing with each other, Nintendo at this point is flailing it's arms going PAY ATTENTION TO US!!! Mario Maker and Splatoon got us the most hype, but my attention was more focused on 3DS and their offerings. So, in average PODCAST RECAP TRADITION, here's what's going to be on my wishlist in the coming months:

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright:

A.K.A. Two of my favoritest DS games had a baby and now I get to play them at the same time instead of choosing what to bring with me on the toilet.

Persona Q:

The universe and characters of the Persona Series, on a console I don't have to beg my brother to use!

Project  S.T.E.A.M.:

Steampunk Advance Wars where you and Abraham Lincoln fight aliens and for the love of Xenagos you had me at "Advance Wars"

-Your annual reminder that Frog Fractions exists

-Following the news that John Drake was let go as well, maybe we can have him on as well?

Echo Chamber Episode 82 Post Game

AT THE $0 REWARD TIER, YOU GET THIS EPISODE

A.K.A. "The Amplitude Education of Weffery Jebster"

-Yes, Jeff did spend $7500 to have one of his songs in the game, and gets to work with the Harmonix Audio Team, which is, as the kids say, pretty dope ass baller.

-Amplitude did make it's funding goal and then some, which, while awesome, still fell short of the original goal, which was to include Online Multiplayer.

-Looking through the Amplitude tag, I found a post from 5 YEARS AGO signaling the return of the franchise. This was of course, before Kickstarter. 3 months, if Wikipedia is to be believed.   
The key thing from the interview is that they were still busy with all the Rock Band and

-So, while deducing which songs would be a good fit for Amplitude didn't work out, here's what I think are best songs from Amplitude that would fit in Rock Band (Xenagos rest its soul):


5. "Push" by Game Boys

I really like this song. It was one of the tracks made just for the game, by the Game Boyz, which for all I know could be another Kasson Crooker side project. Simple, but the riff is pretty sweet, and the electronica inspired drums could provide a nice challenge. If mixed right, it could be really fun to play.

4. "Rockstar" by The Production Club

Kinda similar to "Push", but overall the guitar and bass work here is more complicated, where as unlike "Push", simple vocals. Still, the more rockier songs, and outside of some creative fuckery like "Synthesized" or "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" this is where we'd get the most electronic.

3. "Dope Nose" by Weezer
 This was a hard call to make, especially since I would KILL to see in Rock Band (it was in Guitar Hero: Van Halen... yeah...) There's so much to love here, especially on the guitar. The solo is awesome without being to hard, and both it and the drums have nice little fills to keep it interesting. Also, you can TOTALLY here the room going along to the WHOOA OOO OOOooO parts, right? Fun fact: This song was used in the prototype builds to Guitar Hero.

2. "M-80" by Papa Roach

Putting personal biases aside, this WOULD be the best fit musically, but fuck you. Every instrument here pounds with fury and energy, and it switches frequently intense punk and hard rock groove. It's incredibly easy to picture this being DLC when Harmonix was still making it.

1. "Everyone Says Hi" by David Bowie

BECAUSE IT'S DAVID BOWIE. The mix used in the game is a little too mellow, but this is one of the many Bowie songs that haven't really been utilized, such as "Changes", "Man Who Sold The World" and "Speed Of Life", the latter of which might make for a good "first tier" track on the new Amplitude. Originally I was going to put it lower, but the album version of the song would be fantastic, especially if they do their due diligence on the rhythm guitar.

Echo Chamber Podcast Post Game Episode 43 and 44- E3 Edition

BEFORE THE STORM
AFTER THE STORM

DURING THE STORM- Oh. We're done with that? OK, then.

SO, here's what we talked about:

-Second Life is STILL a thing, BTW
I don't know who's using it nowadays, but it's there. You'd figure there would be something else.


-Fantasia: Music Evolved was still the biggest one for me. Now while the trailer made the game look like this:

(I CAN CONTROL BRUNO MARS WITH THE POWER OF DUBSTEP!)

-The gameplay looks incredible, and I've been looking for something to fill that Elite Beat Agents void:



-Another one we liked was "The Division"


-SWERY65 has a new game on the horizon! (But it's Xbone Exclusive D:)

I'm digging the "Walking Dead" style art and character models, since Deadly Premonition's "Like the PS2 but better's" aetschetics was a turnoff to some.

 -The Hyperkin RetroN 5 looks SO HYPE. I can play 9 different kinds of retro consoles? EBAY, AHOY!

-Even though Microsoft retracted its statement on DRM, and allowed used games, I'm still on the side of "not getting one". Mostly out of trust, since all of these measures like "connect every 24 hours" or "no used games" could have been used for great things by the developers except for two reasons:
1. Games aren't going to get cheaper
2. Budgets aren't going to get cheaper
and
3. That shit is fucking hard. When you take the first two points into consideration, ANYTHING that could POSSIBLY throw the consumer off will screw you over in the end.

My Success Is Failure

Still under the weather, new song a comin' the second I stop being so nasal. My singing voice isn't perfect, I know, but any little bit helps. You'll probably be getting a song sometime around the 20th.

In gaming news, Bobby Kotick talks about opportunities lost:
Another acquisition that could have gone quite differently was that when Activision was looking at purchasing Guitar Hero from RedOctane, he stated that he didn't look in Harmonix's direction, which he felt was "somewhat a failed developer of music games." Kotick alluded that had he taken the trip to Boston to meet Harmonix, the "world of Guitar Hero would have been rewritten."

This is quite interesting. It also highlights the key differences between Rock Band and Guitar Hero.
Harmonix is a company of musicians making video games. Activision is a company of gamers making a music experience. Harmonix focuses on band dynamics, and getting good songs, Activision focuses on features and difficulty.

But it's interesting to see what would have happened should the two meet. I think I can make a few predictions:
1. The DLC scene would change dramatically. It would probably be a teensy bit more expensive (i.e. $2.50 instead of $2 per song) to compensate for Harmonix being less eager to put out more SKUs.

2. Better importable shit. For example, imagine if the AC/DC Track Pack not only featured a playable AC/DC, but you could import their likenesses and costume pieces into the main Rock Bandtar Hero game. Activision (at least Kotick) wants MOAR GAYMEZ, but Harmonix hates switching out discs. You get the star power of Aerosmith, Metallica and the like, without having compromise the overall songlist.

3. Green Day: Rock Band would have come out before The Beatles: Rock Band. Shit, imagine how everyone would have reacted: "Oh great, ANOTHER band centric game? Who did they get this time? NickelHOLY SHIT IT'S THE BEATLES!!!"

Amplitude Is Back! (Kinda)

According to Joystiq via Primotech the upcoming Rock Band: Unplugged will be like Amplitude. Now I need to get a PSP... Or I can play AmplituDS on my homebrew card...

Songs so far according to the ESRB:
"What's My Age Again?" by Blink 182
"Lump" by The Presidents Of The USA
"My Own Worst Enemy" by Lit
"Chop Suey" by System of a Down

What's Down Doc?

The number of artists from which Harmonix is willing to license from.

Warner Music Group (yeah, it was a long was to go for a Warner Bros. reference) claims that the amount they get in licensing and royalties from Rock Band are not enough. According to an article in Wired Magazine (via Rock Band Forums):
"The money Warner recieves for the use of its songs is 'paltry' [Bronfman] said, and if the game makers dont pony up more cash, 'we will not liscense to those games."

"...Rock Band publisher MTV Games is now boycotting Warner artists, according to a source close to the negotiations."

"...Aerosmith has reportedly earned more from Guitar Hero: Aerosmith than from any single album is the bands history."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Music_Group_artists

The shit kinda hit the fan a while ago with tons of Youtube videos of Playthroughs being taken down because of claims by Warner. The problem is that we don't really know how much. The most reasonable estimate I've seen is 9 cents per unit sold. The source isn't professional, but I said it's an estimate.

Here's a list of all the bands I'll be missing:
-AC/DC (HA! We already got the Track Pack!)
-Avenged Sevenfold (I loved Beast and The Harlot)
-The B-52s (No "Love Shack"?)
-Eric Clapton (No "Layla"?)
-Garbage (No "Cherry Lips"?)
-Green Day (NOOOOOO!!)
-Huey Lewis and the News (I thought their early work was a bit too new wave for me, but when Sports came out in '86, I thought they came into their own both commercially and artistically)
-Killswitch Engage (No "Holy Diver"?)
-Led Zepplin (Well that was a crapshoot anyway)
-My Chemical Romance, only for the possibility of "Desolation Row" in time for "The Watchmen"
-The Ramones
-R.E.M.
-Red Hot Chili Peppers
-The Sex Pistols
-The Stooges, therefore no Iggy Pop or "I Wanna Be Your Dog", "Search and Destroy", "The Passenger", "Lust for Life" and so on.
-Sugar Ray (remember, people, I grew up in the mid/late 90's)
-Hendrix
-Pantera (Surprisingly, Rock Revolution was the only rhythm game to get them...)

However, I'm thankful that the following bands will not be availbile, even though I am not required to download them:
-Phil Collins
-Dragonforce
-Nickelback

I'm An Amplitude Dude

Guys, Amplitude, the game that first indroduced me to Harmonix, might be coming back, according to this interview.

Relevant part:
Ars Technica: We spoke to someone else at Harmonix about Amplitude, and I believe Sony owns that property?
Rigopulos: They do, yeah.
Ars Technica: Has there been a conversation about bringing that game to the PlayStation Network? You've proven the formula, and you can say "From the people who brought you Rock Band."
Rigopulos: Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
Ars Technica: It seems like it would be a mutually beneficial thing to do.
Rigopulos: I would love to. That game is still close to my heart. I love it. I'd love to do a sequel to Amplitude, actually. It's an issue of prioritization. It's challenging enough to keep the Rock Band train on the tracks. (Editors note: earlier that day, Rigopulos had announced that there would be no new Rock Band sequel in 2009, in order for Harmonix to focus fully on the Beatles title.) We've grown from about 80 or 90 people a couple years ago to more than 300 now, and managing that kind of growth takes focus.
For us, that lingering question of "what are we going to do about Amplitude" is still very much out there. I would love to come back and do it right for the PlayStation 3, for example.
Ars Technica: Has there been a conversation with Sony about that?
Rigopulos: Oh, yes. They... I think they recognize that the environment for that game is different now than it was six years ago when it was first released. I'd love to see us come back to it at some point.

Amplitude was the true precursor to Rock Band. You had to "blast" these notes on different highways, and each represented a different instrument. Coolest however, was the ability to remix the songs, and change tempo, beats, and melodies, beating Guitar Hero World Tour by 5 years. It was a club-heavy song list, but I liked it.

News Stuffs

IT'S ELECTION DAY. VOTE BITCHES.
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Remember how a few weeks ago I called the Rock Band Stage Kit stupid and impractical?

I take back the first part, and the second if you have friends. Found out via FakePlasticRock that it ain't half bad. Looking at some of the videos, it seems like a worthy buy for frequent party people. The effects range from OMG!AWESOME! to Eeeehhh.... and it feels like the game.

BUT HOW? You ask,
Apparently the company making the kit worked with Harmonix, so that everything syncs up with the virtual light and game effects, so everything is all programmed in.

It looks good, but $99 is a bit too much for me right now.

I leave you know with Boston:

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"Say It Ain't So" is really hard for a Tier 2 song. I guess I'll do "Hand That Feeds" in the background.
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The reason Harmonix is now the true overlords of has right to the Beatles songs, is accountable to one thing: flexibility.

I guess this means with royalties or branding, whereas Actvision would want the games in the Guitar Hero franchise, I have no idea what this game is supposed to be. Harmonix just wanted it more and would be willing to do something else entirely rather than say BEATLES IN ROCK BAND NAO! Sometimes it's not who gives you the most, but who gives up the most. Both companies stance have something, but again, I would like some more details. Holiday 2009?!? I still don't know what the hell I'm doing for Holiday 2008!