Temple of Storms + Levitate = Awesome

One of the best things about Lev­i­tate?  Jump­ing from extremely high ele­va­tions.  Tonight while quest­ing in The Storm Peaks, I found a new win­ner: The Tem­ple of Storms.  This place is so high up you can’t see the ground from the top.  Perfect.

It’s lonely at the top.

Con­tem­plat­ing death.

Tak­ing the plunge.

Free fallin’.

It’s a loooooooong way down…

Bonus points if you can land in Engine of the Makers.

Know of any other awe­some places to jump?

Rock Band 2: The Perfect Game?

Okay, I know Rock Band 2 has been out for a few months, but after get­ting it for Christ­mas and being com­pletely con­sumed by it ever since, I feel more than a lit­tle com­pelled to declare my love for it.

My pre­vi­ous Rock Band expe­ri­ence had been lim­ited to a one-night stand with Rock Band 1 at a seedy karaoke bar in Bal­ti­more where the gui­tars and drums had seen bet­ter days and the same bunch of drunk douchebags kept get­ting up to play “Wanted Dead Or Alive” over and over and over again.  And know­ing how expen­sive it was to buy the whole out­fit, I fig­ured I’d wait it out and keep myself occu­pied with the Gui­tar Hero series I already owned and loved for PS2.  Besides, I had heard about Rock Band’s hard­ware issues, the drums break­ing, the guitar’s strum­mer suck­ing, and felt fully jus­ti­fied not ever buy­ing it.

So when Rock Band 2 came out and I heard about all its fea­tures, new songs, and improve­ments over the orig­i­nal Rock Band, it imme­di­ately went on my wish­list.  But being some­what broke around that time and try­ing to save money for Christ­mas shop­ping, I held off.

And then I got Rock Band 2 for Christ­mas, and I felt like Ral­phie open­ing his Red Ryder BB gun.

Fun Solo Play

I took it home and set it up imme­di­ately, where it is cur­rently dom­i­nat­ing my liv­ing room.  I cranked the vol­ume on my sur­round sound sys­tem and tried a cou­ple of Quick­play Solos on the gui­tar just to warm things up–I’ve had dif­fi­cutly putting it down ever since.  Since I was already famil­iar with the Gui­tar Hero series, I had no prob­lems play­ing gui­tar for Rock Band 2 and was suprised at the qual­ity of the gui­tar con­troller.  Very smooth, nicely weighted, and realistic-looking.  Next I tried out the drums, which I had never played before, and I admit it took some get­ting used to.  My hand-eye coor­di­na­tion is awe­some, but my foot-eye coor­di­na­tion?  Not so much.  Hit­ting those beats embed­ded in the foot pedal beats were rough, and I’m glad nobody was around on my maiden voy­age of rock to watch me make a com­plete fool of myself.  But still, the drums are FUN.  Sur­pris­ingly so.  And I’m get­ting bet­ter.  Then I tried out the mic and sang for a few songs (again grate­ful that nobody was around) and by that point the sun was com­ing up and I couldn’t tell you where the time went.

Awe­some Mul­ti­player

The next night I invited fam­ily over, anx­ious to try out the mul­ti­player.  I should pref­ace this by say­ing  that except for my brother-in-law, my fam­ily does NOT play video games.  But with a few drinks in them and my sin­cere promise not to laugh, they let loose–on Easy mode, of course.  The game­play is so infec­tious on mul­ti­player since everyone’s try­ing to do their best so they don’t screw up the song for the other peo­ple in the band.  And it helps that the music is great.  I was really impressed how much fun it was for a bunch of non-gamers.  Also, the char­ac­ter cre­ation process was really fun; every­one had a good time with that.

Tour Mode is Addic­tive

Then my boyfriend and I started a band (I’m the drum­mer, he’s the lead gui­tarist) and play­ing through all the venues and rack­ing up fans and cash is super fun.  Although I think some gigs com­pletely whore you–$20 bucks for a 5-star per­for­mance?  Seri­ously, GTFO.  Warn­ing: play­ing Rock Band 2 with your sig­nif­i­cant other will lead to argu­ments.  Like when I want to spend all our money on cute slutty out­fits for my char­ac­ter, and he wants to save up for bet­ter qual­ity instruments.

New to Rock Band period?

Here’s why you should buy Rock Band 2 instead of Rock Band 1:

• Abil­ity to pur­chase lots of addi­tional tracks = unlim­ited replay value
• Improved drum set, com­pat­i­ble with cym­bal kit add-on (sold separately)
• Improved gui­tar with bet­ter strum bar and more real­is­tic feel
• You can import all the songs from Rock Band 1 (for $5/500 points)
• No Fail mode
• Online world tour play

I can’t see any rea­son to even go back and pur­chase Rock Band 1.  Rock Band 2 is really that much better.

Awe­some solo game?  Check.  Awe­some mul­ti­player game?  Check.  Kick­ass music?  Check.  Fun for both gamers and non-gamers?  Check.  Just a few rea­sons why I think Rock Band 2 is the per­fect game.

My Gamer’s New Year’s Resolutions for 2009

In 2009, I resolve to:

Quit buy­ing into the indus­try hype lead­ing up to huge game launches.  So far it has con­tin­u­ally lead to disappointment.

Give more love to my old game sys­tems. I have a closet full of old con­soles and games that prob­a­bly miss me.  I hope to find some time in 2009 to fall in love with them all over again.

Fin­ish games before start­ing new ones. I am prob­a­bly least likely to suc­ceed at this one, but it’s a noble aspi­ra­tion all the same.

Mas­ter the Hard mode on gui­tar in Rock Band .  I do all right on Hard, but some of the more wicked solos make my fin­gers hurt and my fans dis­ap­pear.  Of course, then I watch things like this and it makes me weep.

Level my war­lock to 80. I have less and less time these days to play WoW, but I’m hop­ing I can carve out a few days in 2009 to level my oft-neglected alt .

Play more adven­ture games. Even though it’s get­ting harder and harder to find decent titles within this unpop­u­lar genre, I’ll con­tinue try­ing to seek out and dis­cover great new point and click style games I love so much, and feel good about sup­port­ing the mostly indie devel­op­ers who still make them .

Embrace the game industry’s desire to make games that appeal to girls, even though they’re get­ting it all wrong .  At least they’re try­ing, right?

Stop spend­ing so much money on Wii & Xbox Live points. It’s just too easy and con­ve­nient to get in trou­ble going shop­ping on these next gen con­soles!  Actu­ally, I think I’m just addicted to watch­ing Mario run across my screen…

And finally…

Break down and buy a widescreen HDTV this year. Because right now I look too much like the guy in the above pic.

It’s a tall order, but my mind is open and my thumbs are ready.  Here’s to a fun and pro­duc­tive 2009!