It's easy to feel like the world is out of your control, to feel in a position where you have no power over the world around you. Or at least it is for me. It's tough to turn a helpless disposition around, and in a society that so values participation and activity, it gives a different perspective to the people who can't help but watch the world from the isolated comforts of their bedrooms.
As a twenty-one year old college student, our winter break spanned from December 18th to January 10th. Leading up to it was exciting to think of all the free time I'd have! No classes, no homework, hell, I didn't even have a job at home anymore. Doesn't that sound great? Yeah, great... The novelty of being home wore thin very quickly. It isn't long until I had exhausted the few things I had at my disposal. What did I do over most of the break? I don't really know. It's all a bit of a blur.
My biggest problem with long stretches of inactivity is that lack of structure breeds laziness and a stark lack of motivation. My life kind of fell apart, and I forgot how to operate as a human being. I found myself sometimes eating just one meal in a day, or staying up incredibly late and waking up in the afternoon for no real reason. On one hand, I saw it as being okay, as this is my period of time to do whatever I wanted and to "relax." On the other, I wasn't happy with my decision, they were just unhealthy things I did because I could. I still moved onto the next day regardless of the unhealthy habits.
It became difficult to start anything that would require effort, and my incredibly stubborn personality certainly didn't help. Regardless of whether the activity would actually be fun or rewarding, it took a large amount of willpower to engage. To illustrate, the top games video itself took about 15 hours to make, including getting the footage I needed. I could have started the first week of break, when Ducky gave me his footage, but it was two weeks before I touched any of it. And despite the hesitation, making it was fun, rewarding. I worked for the better part of two days and got it out and have gotten wonderful feedback and support from it.
So, then, where does Euro Truck come into any of this? Well, in my slump, I found comfort in single player games. To an extent, I can control my experience. Even though it was fun spending time with friends, it was draining. But Euro Truck? There's nothing but me and the road. Nobody to compete with, nothing particularly complicated about it.
It's important to note the difference between Euro Truck Simulator 2 and other "simulator" games. The biggest difference can be found in the title. It's called Euro Truck Simulator 2, and not something like Euro Truck Simulator 2015. In contrast to things like Woodcutting Simulator 2011, Agricultural Simulator 2011, or Crane Simulator 2009, this is a standalone game developed with an idea from the developers. While many shovelware simulator games are cash-grabs by a developer using reused assets to create a simple worthless game, developer SCS Software made a polished and focused game. While the main gameplay is fairly standard for what you'd expect, there's a sense of progression with a goal in mind. You're given options, you're given control.
This game itself is pretty basic, but when I play it, I feel like I'm at least doing something. It's a thing I can do to pass the time. Toss on an album, a podcast, some online videos, and get driving. I embrace the isolation I find myself in, and truck to occupy the time. It's something to do on my own for nobody else but myself. Sure, people can see that I put in around 20 hours in a week or whatever on my steam profile, but I don't have to play games for the satisfaction for the others. I can space out, enjoy whatever I'm listening to and won't have the guilt or dread of feeling "that I should be doing something."
Even though in the grand scope of things, I can see that my progress is all in my head and that I'm not doing anything, there's a sense of progression, accomplishment. I can feel like I'm slowly working towards some objectives, and that with every delivery I'm closer and closer. And that's really the root of it. Because whatever mess I've been dealing with in the day, I can at least find some serenity and satisfaction on the road in a simulated, miniaturized Europe.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Rock Band 4 Review
If you've been keeping up with the channel, or just myself in particular, you may have caught on that I quite like Rock Band. A lot. I've been known to say that Rock Band 3 is my favorite game of all time, and I'd still say it today WHOOPS spoiler alert!
Lemme run down the basics. Harmonix have pretty much pioneered the rhythm gaming genre into the juggernaut it is today, or rather what it was five years ago before everyone stopped giving a shit about plastic instruments. They were the kings of karaoke! From Karaoke Revolution to Guitar Hero to Rock Band, they were the biggest name in the music genre. Playing fake instruments was near unheard of, but now it's streamlined in a wonderful way. The games were fun and posed a decent level of challenge to those who wanted it. Like me.
Rock Band 3 was released in 2010 and was really good. They expanded upon their previous iteration, Rock Band 2, in some very good ways. The keytar addition was cool, even if not many people used it. The inclusion of the harmony vocals from the Beatles: Rock Band was great, and it allowed up to 7 people to play at once. That rarely happened too, but it was great fun when it did. They supported the series until 3 years later when they released their final DLC song, American Pie, in 2013. Rock band had a library of over 3000 songs then. But for all we knew, the rhythm gaming genre was over.
Until this year! Five years later, Harmonix are coming out with a brand new Rock Band game! I was hyped. I still tried to play Rock Band 3 on occasion, but now it'd be on the new systems, and there'd be no hassle. After having it for a week, I knew everything I needed to know.
And oh how I was disappointed.
Here's the thing. If you play Rock Band for fun at a friend's place? Yeah, you'll probably enjoy this one. Hell, I enjoy this one because I still like Rock Band. And this is just that, but with more an incentive to play it. But it's not Rock Band 3. Not even close.
Very soon I noticed that the setlist kind of sucks. For me, it's got about 6 songs that I really like. Most bands have better music than the songs they chose. Hell, most bands have better songs in previous games. Like, Spiders by System of a Down. Great song. Weird choice. Really, that in your party rock band game?
At least you can bring in your whole previous libraries, right? Nope. As of now, only about 1700 DLC songs are available in Rock Band 4. You can't import any previous disc games. You can't import anything from Rock Band Network. Will we be able to in the future? Maybe, but Harmonix felt this game was ready for release now.
So the setlist is a bit thin, but how about everything else? It's equally as thin. Things from Rock Band 3 were scrapped almost randomly. Why can we not see the note streak we had in the song? Why can we not see each section's breakdown? Why is there no online play? Why is there no practice mode? All of these were in games back to Guitar Hero 2. Which was released in 2006.
Yeah, but how does the game actually play? Well, as I said before, it's Rock Band. The formula hasn't strayed too much. A new feature they've been touting is the new "freestyling." For vocals, this means singing something that's not the melody but still getting points. It's actually pretty all right. It's annoying how finicky it is for it to fully register, but it's a nice idea and it's implemented pretty well. Drums fills have been replaced with "dynamic" fills, pre-made fills made for each genre. They all suck. They sound not good. I like the static fills, which they thankfully included, but you can lose your streak in them. But if you have the classic fills, you can't. And classic fills are impossible with the amount of lag needed to calibrate out.
And then there are the guitar freestyle solos. In a way, it's impressive that the game can interpret constant mashing and strumming to try and make it go along with the song, and if you're drunk with a bunch of friends, it can be pretty funny. But it doesn't sound good. It sounds waaaaay worse than the original solos they replace.
And yeah, all these things can be turned off, but the game likes to forget settings. Like, I never ever want mic volume. Not only is it unnecessary because I can already hear my own voice, there's a ridiculous delay which makes it impossible to deal with. And every time you start the game up, it forgets that. And when you sign in, you're automatically set to guest, at least on PS4. And with my old legacy instruments, you can't access the dashboard. That can only be done with the ps4 controller. And so every time you do that, it sets everyone back to guest for no reason whatsoever.
So is there anything I do like? Yeah, actually. The best thing about it is that they went back and gave all the old DLC harmonies. That's great. It's great that they did that. Now "Feeling This" by Blink-182 won't feel so strangely hollow. Hopefully we can see it for the rest of the songs.
They also added a new "play a show" mode. You play a song and then vote on the next one based on categories. It's varied enough for random selections, but it also gives the players enough control so that it's not frustrating. This is good.
But that's about it. As I've explained, most of the changes are bad. There are just too many things from Rock Band 3 that aren't in this game. The song selecting screen was cleaner and more helpful. Practice mode. Online play. Fucking note streaks! Yeah the spade challenges were pretty stupid, but at least the scores carry over, and when you have achievements like "5 star every song" and "get 1,000,000 points in a song," it's ridiculous that they must be in quickplay mode. Actively discouraging people for enjoying the best feature in the whole game. Why don't "show" and "career" scores translate to quickplay?
And when they were adding things, why didn't they add some of the cooler things that previous Guitar Hero games implemented, like playing notes while holding sustains?
This might be the most disappointed I've ever been in a game. It's not that bad, because Rock Band is still an inherently fun game to play and maybe get drunk to. But wow. This is way worse than Rock Band 3. Hell, it's worse than Rock Band 2 in some obvious respects. It's just the only way to play it on the newer systems.
At least it's better than Guitar Hero Live.
Lemme run down the basics. Harmonix have pretty much pioneered the rhythm gaming genre into the juggernaut it is today, or rather what it was five years ago before everyone stopped giving a shit about plastic instruments. They were the kings of karaoke! From Karaoke Revolution to Guitar Hero to Rock Band, they were the biggest name in the music genre. Playing fake instruments was near unheard of, but now it's streamlined in a wonderful way. The games were fun and posed a decent level of challenge to those who wanted it. Like me.
Rock Band 3 was released in 2010 and was really good. They expanded upon their previous iteration, Rock Band 2, in some very good ways. The keytar addition was cool, even if not many people used it. The inclusion of the harmony vocals from the Beatles: Rock Band was great, and it allowed up to 7 people to play at once. That rarely happened too, but it was great fun when it did. They supported the series until 3 years later when they released their final DLC song, American Pie, in 2013. Rock band had a library of over 3000 songs then. But for all we knew, the rhythm gaming genre was over.
Until this year! Five years later, Harmonix are coming out with a brand new Rock Band game! I was hyped. I still tried to play Rock Band 3 on occasion, but now it'd be on the new systems, and there'd be no hassle. After having it for a week, I knew everything I needed to know.
And oh how I was disappointed.
Here's the thing. If you play Rock Band for fun at a friend's place? Yeah, you'll probably enjoy this one. Hell, I enjoy this one because I still like Rock Band. And this is just that, but with more an incentive to play it. But it's not Rock Band 3. Not even close.
Very soon I noticed that the setlist kind of sucks. For me, it's got about 6 songs that I really like. Most bands have better music than the songs they chose. Hell, most bands have better songs in previous games. Like, Spiders by System of a Down. Great song. Weird choice. Really, that in your party rock band game?
At least you can bring in your whole previous libraries, right? Nope. As of now, only about 1700 DLC songs are available in Rock Band 4. You can't import any previous disc games. You can't import anything from Rock Band Network. Will we be able to in the future? Maybe, but Harmonix felt this game was ready for release now.
So the setlist is a bit thin, but how about everything else? It's equally as thin. Things from Rock Band 3 were scrapped almost randomly. Why can we not see the note streak we had in the song? Why can we not see each section's breakdown? Why is there no online play? Why is there no practice mode? All of these were in games back to Guitar Hero 2. Which was released in 2006.
Yeah, but how does the game actually play? Well, as I said before, it's Rock Band. The formula hasn't strayed too much. A new feature they've been touting is the new "freestyling." For vocals, this means singing something that's not the melody but still getting points. It's actually pretty all right. It's annoying how finicky it is for it to fully register, but it's a nice idea and it's implemented pretty well. Drums fills have been replaced with "dynamic" fills, pre-made fills made for each genre. They all suck. They sound not good. I like the static fills, which they thankfully included, but you can lose your streak in them. But if you have the classic fills, you can't. And classic fills are impossible with the amount of lag needed to calibrate out.
And then there are the guitar freestyle solos. In a way, it's impressive that the game can interpret constant mashing and strumming to try and make it go along with the song, and if you're drunk with a bunch of friends, it can be pretty funny. But it doesn't sound good. It sounds waaaaay worse than the original solos they replace.
And yeah, all these things can be turned off, but the game likes to forget settings. Like, I never ever want mic volume. Not only is it unnecessary because I can already hear my own voice, there's a ridiculous delay which makes it impossible to deal with. And every time you start the game up, it forgets that. And when you sign in, you're automatically set to guest, at least on PS4. And with my old legacy instruments, you can't access the dashboard. That can only be done with the ps4 controller. And so every time you do that, it sets everyone back to guest for no reason whatsoever.
So is there anything I do like? Yeah, actually. The best thing about it is that they went back and gave all the old DLC harmonies. That's great. It's great that they did that. Now "Feeling This" by Blink-182 won't feel so strangely hollow. Hopefully we can see it for the rest of the songs.
They also added a new "play a show" mode. You play a song and then vote on the next one based on categories. It's varied enough for random selections, but it also gives the players enough control so that it's not frustrating. This is good.
But that's about it. As I've explained, most of the changes are bad. There are just too many things from Rock Band 3 that aren't in this game. The song selecting screen was cleaner and more helpful. Practice mode. Online play. Fucking note streaks! Yeah the spade challenges were pretty stupid, but at least the scores carry over, and when you have achievements like "5 star every song" and "get 1,000,000 points in a song," it's ridiculous that they must be in quickplay mode. Actively discouraging people for enjoying the best feature in the whole game. Why don't "show" and "career" scores translate to quickplay?
And when they were adding things, why didn't they add some of the cooler things that previous Guitar Hero games implemented, like playing notes while holding sustains?
This might be the most disappointed I've ever been in a game. It's not that bad, because Rock Band is still an inherently fun game to play and maybe get drunk to. But wow. This is way worse than Rock Band 3. Hell, it's worse than Rock Band 2 in some obvious respects. It's just the only way to play it on the newer systems.
At least it's better than Guitar Hero Live.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)