The ability to extend Guitar Hero with downloadable songs was main reason I made the investment in the next-gen version.  Investment is the right word, too:  I choked down that ninety dollars with a lot of twisting and full-body spasms.  It was like an anaconda swallowing a sheep.  But the idea that I'd be able to snag expansions and classic tracks straight over the wire was some comfort. 

The pricing on these new songs is simply a bad call - and knowing that Guitar Hero III is going to hit in a few short months makes me wonder how valuable this stopgap content actually is.  Five hundred points (or $6.25, in human money) for a three song pack is the work of a diseased mind.  These things should be priced like gumballs, obvious to any person who passes by.  Bundle them together.  Something.  Something that would make me feel like less of an idiot for buying your product again.

I understand that the songs are now 5.1, and that they include the second track for co-operative play - it isn't just the old shit hurled up on the auction block.  The pricing is still extortionary, and I've bought my last track. 

(CW)TB

Any opportunity to denounce my nemesis and his reprehensible Franzibilia is welcome - and I have seized it, just as King Ronard once seized his sword of gleaming rubian.

Sakuracon occurred, and we attended it. It was good to see Sam and Claire, to the extent that I actually did. The extended Questionable Content "kroo" also provided mechanically detectable amounts of joy. This was until I had to leave the convention unexpectedly, taking to the air in order to return to the ancestral homeland. This left Gabriel to manage a two-hour panel by himself in the convention's largest hall. I was distraught, but only regarding my dereliction and not because I thought he would be unable to manage it. He is the funny one, after all. It has ever been thus:  he the damaged genius, and I the loyal archivist who scrambles to collect his mad prophecies.

I don't believe it was ever referred to as Doobie Howser - even when the show was really big.  The news story we "reefer" to in the comic concerns a young schizophrenic who murdered someone after being high for a period of several years.  The article mentions Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in the body of the piece, but if we're trying to cook up a reason why this might have happened I don't think we need to work quite that hard.

I know it's late but I just wanted to remind everyone that we'll be at Sakura-Con starting tomorrow. We'll be bringing our new Heroism shirt, the RSPD poster and a bunch of other books and stuff. Sakura-Con honestly doesn't scare me like it used to. I made some discoveries at last years show that I'm excited to investigate further.

And to think!  I was actually depressed when I heard that Harmonix was moving on from Guitar Hero. I guess they're still there, sort of - they did the 360 version, and I believe they're also responsible for the upcoming 80's themed expansion for the PS2. It's got to be difficult to focus on those products when, right down the hall, their cohorts are busy annihilating the franchise.

The Emerald City Comic Con was - I feel secure in this point - a convention.

You might have remembered me freaking out about this adventure game from Frogwares, as it is basically a mashup of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H. P. Lovecraft.  Really kind of unfair, I think, to bait the trap so richly.  Unsporting, in a way. 

It was brought to the front of my mind by the review over at Gamespot, where it picked up decent marks.  I hit up the websites for Gamestop and EB to track down the exact release date, and (apropos to today's discussion) there is no entry for it in either database.  The game is completely incorporeal.  It is available digitally, however, should you find yourself inexorably drawn.

(CW)TB
 

One last reminder that Saturday the 31st is your last chance to get the early bird discount for PAX 2007. You can get a three day pass for $40 if you sign up right now. We're selling tickets about twice as fast as we were last year at this time which is amazing. We're actually expecting about 30,000 attendees this year and thanks to the massive new venue we can actually accommodate that kind of crowd.

The origin of Gamestop's fabulous profits is pretty straightforward. After relating Wednesday's strange and sordid tale of "stock shortage," I've been deluged by mail industry-wide about life with their "partners" in the retail space.

I just wanted to remind everyone that Tycho and I will be at the Emerald City Comic Con this weekend here in Seattle. I think we’ve got a panel or two lined up but other than that we’ll just be at our booth as usual. You can come down and get a sketch of your favorite PA character or buy some of our stuff. You could even just come down with your DS and a copy of Puzzle Quest and we’ll get some games going.

Puzzle Quest fever has apparently seized the fucking reins here at headquarters  This is probably the last you'll hear of it, purely out of politeness - but the game is a feast for the spirit.

No copies at my EB, no copies at the Gamestop, none at the Best Buy across the street, none at the EBX on the other side of the lake, but as luck would have it the Target above the Best buy here at Northgate had ten (!) copies.  I tried to pick up three extra to spread around here at the office, but they would only let me buy two.  I was annoyed by this until I remembered what a difficult time I'd had finding it myself.  No doubt some weary gaming enthusiast - kin to me, in a way - will shortly find their wish fulfilled.

Screenshots for games on the DS always look so nasty online, this is often true of the PSP as well, and I'm happy to say that the product itself is perfectly workable on these two small screens.  I doubt that you'll be disappointed.

(CW)TB
 

I've been having a hell of a time finding a copy of Puzzle Quest anywhere, which only adds to my garment-rending grief about the lack of a true PC version. I'll find it eventually, but I think I might avoid the PSP version, at least for now. I had intended to do so for purely ergonomic reasons, believing a stylus was probably the ordained interface methodology, but there is a bug that negates companion bonuses on the Playstation portable that I am keen to avoid.  I was worried about crowded screens full of text wrestling for space on the DS, but Gabriel says that they've experienced no ill-effects. I understand that he brought it home to Kara, suggesting that it was essentially a Bejeweled RPG, and now the two of them have hunched over those two screens every night since he bought it.