Playing This Weekend: Pinball FX, Gears of War (PC), Rock Band, Lumines

With a special three day holiday weekend I get an extra day of gaming in. Nice. I played quite a bit on the new Pinball FX table and it is worth the 200 Points it costs. It has plenty of complexity to it while not being to crowded. Just the kind of table I enjoy.

I finally added another stick of RAM for Gears of War (PC). While the game is now playable it still stutters quite a bit and has challenges when dealing with either a lot of enemies or a big enemy. Nevertheless, I have progressed through Act I without seeing anything new. I tried to play in a multiplayer game and had zero luck. Apparently, this not a hot PC title.

Finally, we played a bunch of Rock Band yesterday (hi Beck!) and we unlocked the Endless Set List. We didn't invest the 30 hours it takes to beat it - that'll hopefully be next weekend. I also tried the vocal tour. At first it was a challenge to adapt my awful voice to pass the songs. Once I stopped worrying about how I sounded - things are much better.

One last note, OXM issue 80 arrived on Friday. There are three Rock Band songs on the demo disc. The tune Sprode is something absolutely amazing to behold. And that is all I will say. (This disc also has the Turok demo on it. I did not try it... yet.)

Playing Today: Rock Band, Pinball FX, Lumines

After beating Rock Band's Guitar tour, I took a few days off. Now I was ready to tackle the Bass tour... and found out that there is no Bass tour. While I understand this exclusion, I think the game could benefit from a Bass tour. Playing the Bass on expert is no cake walk. A tour would have been a great practice and test. Instead, I'm forced to either do Quick Play or Band Tour to practice.

The new Pinball FX table is out and it is one of the better ones. Like the Agent Board, there is plenty of open space to work with and I didn't feel as contained as on the Extreme Board. It appears that the new achievement might be a bit easier than it needs to be. It will suck if I get it quickly because it won't encourage me to come back and play some more.