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Thanks to your continued support (and our insatiable lust for influence and power) we’ve decided to take Silicon Sasquatch to the next step. We’re now located at http://siliconsasquatch.com/.
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We’ve only got a couple games for you this week. But trust me — if you’ve been playing either of them, you’ll understand why there wasn’t time for anything else.
The all-glorious Friday is upon us once again, so being the casual day it is let’s just get down to the news. No introductory hyperbole from me this time–a shame, I know.
Guitar Hero 5 is coming and it has songs (surprise!), free-to-play MMO Free Realms has racked up quite the player base in its first few weeks of existence, Valve’s sneaky with its surprises as usual, and Mass Effect 2 footage is available for your viewing pleasure.
Not Guitar Hero 5--but close enough
Though the game has been known about for a while now, Activision today tossed out a few official scraps of details on the upcoming Guitar Hero 5. Players will be able to tackle the game’s tracks with any instrument combination they see fit. Want to sing through a song with three other friends all using microphones? Go ahead.
It’s an interesting mechanic to put into a rhythm game–certainly one that isn’t “authentic” as far real bands go (though, yes, these games aren’t meant to be taken literally). And while we’ve been somewhat biased in favor of Harmonix’s Rock Band titles (or, at least Nick and Doug have), I personally find the gameplay freedom Neversoft’s offering to be great. Add-in the beginnings of a solid-looking track list and the new instant difficulty/instrument swapping, and the next Guitar Hero game might turn out to be one actually worthy of the franchise’s name.
Today Nick posted his review of Fable II’s second downloadable expansion, See the Future. He wasn’t exactly impressed.
The criticisms largely echo mine in reviewing the first add-on, Knothole Island, and it’s an overall shame to again see Lionhead botch its DLC. Costumes and potions will only get your game so far, you know.
You got all excited for nothing, pup
It’s also unfortunate that my predictions of See the Future being more worthwhile turned out wrong–that’s what I get for speculation, I suppose.
News for Thursday: Sony loses cash, a lack of funding shutters another development studio and Telltale Games sells a lot of Strong Bad. It’s all very money-oriented today. read more…
A beautiful vista symbolizing great things on the horizon. But a chance to see the future? Well...not so much.
After our last journey to Albion’s Knothole Island left us feeling cold, dampened our spirits and hung us out to dry, Lionhead brings us another content pack with See the Future. It promises new dungeons, new items, plenty of new achievements and an enticing glimpse into Albion’s (and the franchise’s) future.
But just like any of Murgo’s wares, this new purchase will probably leave you feeling swindled.
I’d like to apologize to our readers for a late Daily Recap. Our goal is to post these summations of the day’s news in a timely manner, but sometimes that doesn’t always happen. Yesterday a plethora of Windows Update-related problems and a strangely spotty Internet connection got in the way of my non-paying job.
Also, the two-hour season finale of Lost didn’t help much.
Hurley certainly isn't happy with the lateness of this post
Thankfully, it seems, Wednesday was relatively calm as far as news goes: DICE learned from its console prejudices, Blizzard reaffirmed its next MMO is not World of Warcraft: Part Deux and Microsoft bolstered its Platinum Hits collection.
Editor’s Note: This interview was originally conducted at Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade in Portland, Ore. on Tuesday, September 2, 2008. Rock Band 2 lead designer Dan Teasdale and audio producer Heather Wilson brought Rock Band 2 to Ground Kontrol’s Rock Band Tuesdays for one of the game’s first public play sessions.
Sasquatch writer Doug Bonham conducted an in-depth interview with Teasdale and Wilson that sheds light on the creative process at Harmonix, from catering to fans to picking the perfect songs to release as weekly downloadable content. Although originally published on Doug’s blog, he’s graciously offered to repost it here. Despite taking place months ago, there’s still plenty of insight to be found from two of the people responsible for one of the top music game franchises on the market. Enjoy!
Let there be rock - RB2 fires up for the first time at Ground Kontrol. (Photo by Doug Bonham)
Rock Band 2 is almost upon us. The game’s developers, Harmonix, had a large presence on the show floor of the Penny Arcade Expo – the line to play the game was usually at least a half hour. While fans got their hands on the game for the first time at PAX, a lucky group of gamers in Portland, Ore., got a special treat when the sequel was demoed Tuesday, September 2. Ground Kontrol (511 NW Couch St., Portland, Ore.) played host during the regular Rock Band Tuesdays to Harmonix’s Dan Teasdale, lead designer of Rock Band 2, and Heather Wilson, audio producer for the company.
Teasdale and Wilson were kind enough to agree to an interview with myself, Nick Cummings, and one of the lead volunteers in running Rock Band Tuesday, John Leslie.
In a bit of site-related news, today was our most active day ever in terms of unique page views. We can attribute such a solid boost in numbers to Nick’s wonderful review of Peggle for the iPhone (apparently one of the first online, even before the big-name blogs and sites), as it was our top story for the day.
"Awesome!" indeed
So, we want to extend a ginormous gracias to those of you who read Silicon Sasquatch daily and continue to direct your comrades to our corner of the web. We promise to keep bringing you things of a decidedly awesome and videogame-related nature.
Now, it’s time for the real news: Atari gets cold feet, the telenovela that is Midway’s financial woes gets juicier, we get to know Modern Warfare 2 a bit better and Valve’s Team Fortress 2 team takes a “bow.” (You’ll get the pun in a bit.)
Our three day extravaganza of Fallout 3 DLC reviews is finally over, capped-off by the best DLC Bethesda has to offer: Broken Steel. We hope you enjoyed the weekend feature and found it to be informative–maybe even life-changing.
But, I’ll be honest here and say I’m completely fine with not playing Fallout 3 in any capacity for a few months.
Please, Vault Boy...no more
Today’s batch of industry news has annoying legal teams crushing fan-made dreams, enough Japanese DS owners for Nintendo to start a conscription-based army, one announced title that no one really is surprised by and a perplexing possible addition to the English language that all gamers love to hate, but also use incessantly. read more…
The most dangerous thing about Peggle addiction? It’s that you don’t even see it coming.
Sure, you might’ve played a couple rounds here and there of Peggle, PopCap’s fun little peg-shooting puzzler, but it’s easy to shrug it off and get back to being a productive member of society.
But sooner or later, it’s inevitable: You’ve got some free time! You glance around, shrug your shoulders, and decide to pay the Peggle Institute another visit. “What’s the harm in a few more levels?” you ask yourself.
What’s the harm, indeed.
