Where’s The Love, Microsoft?

Posted Feb 6, 2007 by Wes Phillips

Updated Feb 6, 2007 at 01:48 PM

There have been a couple of ways to weasel your way into the online multiplayer beta of “Halo 3” that is scheduled to take place this Spring. But if you haven’t been accepted by now, you only have one way left.

And that means buying a copy of Microsoft’s “Crackdown” when it is released on Feb. 20. I’ve played the demo thanks to my trusty Xbox Live Marketplace, and it’s pretty good. But the “Halo” freaks who haven’t made it into the beta yet surely will line up to plunk down their cash for a temporary “Halo” fix.

But is it right? I remember back in the day when the PlayStation 2 game “Zone of the Enders” came bundled with a demo of “Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty”. I bought it for the demo, but “Enders” was pretty good. However, there wasn’t Xbox Live Marketplace or a digital distribution equivalent back in 2001.

“Crackdown” is $60 and one version of “Halo 3” is $99. Microsoft knows the hardcore portion of the fanbase will buy it all. So the question is ... are they taking advantage of fans or making a good business choice? After all, they could just make the demo available to all of their Live Gold subscribers who pay $50 a year because they love it so much. Where is the love in return?

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Beauty & The Geek—- 01.31.07

Posted Feb 6, 2007 by Chris Kuhn

Updated Feb 6, 2007 at 08:53 AM

Only four teams are left on Beauty & The Geek (Wednesdays/CW) and I wish I liked each pair but in most cases, I just like one of the two players. Nate, JennyLee and Scooter are great. But Cecille, Niels and Megan (their partners)—- not so great. There’s only one team left for which I like BOTH players, and that’s Nadia and Mario. For this reason, I think I’m now rooting for them the most even though I like Nate and JennyLee more. But their partners are poor sports and aren’t really using the experience to grow as people at all.

We’re back in the mansion. Nate and JennyLee are growing fonder of each other every day. But the host announces they’re going to shake things up this week and add a third member to the team. The groups are visibly worried. Are past ousted players returning for revenge? Will players be shifted among remaining teams? Nope, everyone’s getting a doggie.

Yep, the cutest little pups enter and immediately the Beauties are smitten. The guys will have to go to a dog park and get as many phone numbers as possible, using their trusted best friend as bait. And the women are going to be introduced to the contents of a toolchest to build a doghouse.

Teams pick their favorite pup and within moments after moving in, the Chihuahua is leaving a little friendly “deposit” in new teammates’ Nate and Cecille’s room.  Cecille says she’s had these little doggies her whole life and knows just how to treat them and proceeds to dress the poor dog in an oversized bandana and several bangles around its neck. Nate feels bad for the animal and puts his foot down, coming to her rescue and snipping the plastic bracelets off of her neck. He’s getting tired of Cecille’s out of control antics. (And frankly, so am I!)

The men head out to the dog park with their mongrels. No one has any luck getting a phone number. Until, a thought strikes Mario. He approaches the women with a line about doing an exercise to boost his self esteem and asks the ladies if they would mind giving him their number. Surprisingly, this very thin and suspicious-sounding explanation works! He is soon gathering numbers faster than anyone. Only Nate starts to catch up by appealing to people as a new guy in town seeking fitness advice. And in the end, it is Nate who reigns as the winner but being the good guy that he is, he attributes their success to Cassandra, the Chihuahua.

JennyLee and Niels are bickering about the effort he put into the challenge. She implies he didn’t try hard enough. He says he felt dirty asking women for their number. Megan and Scooter work together on putting nails into wood, and I’m really starting to see that they are a team to be reckoned with – they work so well together. Mario and Nadia also talk about constructing the house, and she’s just worried she’ll hammer a nail into her hand.

It’s the ladies turn. Cecille and Nadia have no idea what to do but Cecille eventually decides to use double-faced tape rather than nails. Nadia can’t seem to get the hammering thing right. JennyLee and Megan are the only ones who apparently underestand how to do this and clearly it will be one of them winning.  I’m rooting for JennyLee so she and Nate can continue their little lovefest in the house.

The guys visit with the dogs to check out the houses. Everyone’s pretty impressed. Well, Nate’s not too knocked out with Cecille’s which he aptly names the “doggie bordello.” She covers her taped-up house with sequins and feathers. (Oh brother.) The construction expert gives his view of their work and decides that the best constructed houses are from JennyLee and Megan.  But since Megan got the farthest, even attaching shingles, he awards her the big prize. Drats. So this means my favorite team (Mario and Nadia) and one of my favorite players (JennyLee with her useless partner Niels) will be headed into the elimination room.

JennyLee makes the best use of what could be her last hours in the mansion, hanging with her favorite geek. Nate finally gets up the nerve to kiss her. And they do. Over and over. It is both sweet and sad. She could very easily go home the next day and the two are just beginning to learn about each other. I’m torn. I want to root for Mario and Nadia because I’ve been rooting for them all along, but I really like JennyLee and I’ll be sad to see her leave Nate.

It’s time to see who will be one of the final three. Scooter and Megan and Nate and Cecille are watching the competition upstairs. The men will be tested on dating and picking up women. The women will be tested on tools and construction. Ladies are first and both of them hit it out of the park – 2 for 2. So it’s up to the men. And here, I think Mario has the edge. The guys both answer their first questions correctly but Mario misses the second question, so the two of them are headed home. JennyLee and Niels are safe.

I’m so sad to see Mario and Nadia going home – they were such good people and a really cohesive team. But I have to say I’m just as excited to see next week’s reunion of JennyLee and Nate after her big win in the elimination room. Next week, the three remaining teams do battle on a farm and it looks like quite an adventure. After the next show, we’ll know who makes the final two!

What did you think of tonight’s show? I thought the moments with Nate and JennyLee were so tender and sweet and the parting words from Mario and Nadia showed what class the two have. They were really good competitors and great people, and I can’t wait for the reunion show already! But first, we need a winner. Stay tuned…

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Where Did the Major Record Labels Go Wrong?

Posted Feb 4, 2007 by Sir Robert Davis

Updated Feb 4, 2007 at 07:26 AM

Increasingly,  major labels (sure four companies actually control them all,  but still…) are closing their doors to currently active artists in favor of back catalogs and Christian music (certainly not “artists”) - just look at V2’s recent changes.  These folks are telling us that pursuing new acts just isn’t profitable and they blame digital downloading.

You don’t need me to tell you that the vast majority of the records the majors have been putting out for the last fifteen years just haven’t been very good.  These labels have spent vast fortunes marketing mediocre pop groups (and lousy rap artists in a vastly overly saturated market) rather than doing some actual work scouting and developing quality acts which would,  ironically,  cost them a lot less. 

Digital downloading has done little more than allow people to sample a product so that they can make a more informed purchasing decision and people are deciding not to buy because the choices are almost always bad.

In the mid-1990’s the major labels,  sensing the demise of “alternative” music,  bought up the entire indie/underground infrastructure (most independent promoters,  labels,  distributors,  etc) in hopes of imitating the passing fad with their own “assembled” acts which flopped.  This infrastructure and it’s associated touring circuit never grew back.  During this floppage,  the majors saw that the profits of their back catalogs went up - they weren’t smart enough to realize that music fans were going to buy something,  so long as it is good and if they have to dig into the past,  so be it. 

The first few years of this decade saw a lot of success for trust fund brats (see the Strokes,  My Chemical Romance,  etc) who were surprisingly long on marketing clout (aka funds) while remarkably short on talent - especially where songwriting is concerned.  As a fine example of this,  I saw an “up-and-coming” band on a late night talk show. I don’t remember the name of the band or which show (it’s irrelevant anyway),  but they had A+ vintage gear (clearly well-funded),  a great look (with fancy clothes and stage decor),  fantastic stage presence and a great sound.  Their song was barely mediocre (it had one weak hook at the end of the chorus) - and this was their single!  Imagine if they had a label like Polygram in the mid-60’s developing them and surrounding them with people to help them write better songs like the Beatles had? 

Because of the complete lack of developing talent and the audiences that flock to them,  the remaining venues on the live circuit have been dropping like flies.  This isn’t an Ybor City phenomenon.  This is happening nationally.  Legendary CBGB’s closed it’s doors in 2006 with little fanfare and they weren’t alone. 

Here we are in 2007.  Majors are closing their doors to focus on back catalogs and the indie labels are scrambling to pick up the available talent with warm dreams of cashing in.  Meanwhile,  the best pop groups in the United States (see Bipolaroid from New Orleans or Tampa’s very own Seahorse Orchestra for prime examples) are somehow still unsigned and seemingly struggle to fund a music business enterprise on their own.  At least they have comfort in knowing that they can blow 99% of the major label bands on earth off any stage on any given night,  right? 

Good songs don’t count for as much as they used to.

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Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2

Posted Feb 2, 2007 by Doug Buel

Updated Mar 28, 2007 at 04:12 PM

System: Sony PlayStation 2

Publisher: Atari

Reviewer’s rating: B

ESRB rating: Teen

Game type: Fighting

Kind of like: “Naruto: Ultimate Ninja,” but with flying

Best feature: It’s fun throwing bolts of energy that can smash mountains.

Worst feature: The characters control essentially the same, so there’s not a lot of fun in learning to use more of them.

The bottom line: We have to hand it to “Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2.” There are very few games that show so much devotion to the material from which they’re drawn.

In this game, you can re-enact the many stories of “Dragonball Z” for countless hours of fighting action.

One of the complaints we have with fighting games today is that so many of them do not have enough characters. This one certainly does. Included is just about everybody you could think of from anything “Dragonball”-related.

If you don’t know, “Dragonball Z” is adapted from a comic about super-powered individuals who get in fights connected to powerful stones called dragonballs. Whoever can collect all the dragonballs can use them to receive a wish. This leads to a lot of fighting over them.

The characters in this fighting game fly in 3-D space, and flying is a lot of fun. Characters can zoom away from the opponent, or dash from the ground up into the air to attack with a flurry of fists.

They also hurl gargantuan bolts of energy. The fighting areas can be smashed—mountain structures, for example, can be leveled, either by energy blasts or by hurling your opponents into them.

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WarioWare: Smooth Moves

Posted Feb 2, 2007 by Wes Phillips

Updated Mar 28, 2007 at 03:21 PM

System: Nintendo Wii

Publisher: Nintendo

Reviewer’s rating: B+

ESRB rating: Everyone 10+

Game type: Mini-games

Kind of like: “Rayman: Raving Rabids”

Best feature: “WarioWare” comes up with really interesting ways to control the action on the screen.

Worst feature: Random, silly imagery doesn’t qualify as a narrative, but this series isn’t really known for the art of storytelling.

The bottom line: For the generation with no attention span ... your game has arrived. The latest “WarioWare” game takes the frantic formula of rapid-fire mini-games and adds the Wii spin. The Wiimote controller acts as the central part of each puzzle, whether it is carrying it like a waiter or a bicycle pump.

If you haven’t been introduced to the series, all you have to know is that it’s just a bunch of weird tasks thrown at you really quickly. Each task is random and you usually get about four seconds to figure it out before you lose a life.

One of the really cool features of “Smooth Moves” is that somehow the game knows if you aren’t holding the Wiimote in the embarrassing position it is intended to be wielded. For instance, there is one position where you have to hold it up to your nose like an elephant’s trunk. If you try to cheat, you won’t be able to complete the task.

If that didn’t make any sense to you, don’t worry. None of it will.

But just like “Wii Sports,” this fun diversion is a crowd pleaser.

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