In a stunning turnaround, I have switched from a Guitar Hero fanboy to a Rock Band aficionado in the space of a weekend. After cutting my fake plastic rock teeth on Guitar Hero 3, I desperately wanted to like Guitar Hero: World Tour. However once faced with the facts, I have to come down on the side of Rock Band.

In the ultimate face-off, I scraped up a ragtag bunch of misfits and rock heroes (huge thanks to those that helped out) to thrash the two games over the space of a sunny afternoon. They ranged from your typical 13 year old freak of nature (playing on Hard difficulty after picking up the game 2 months ago), to complete newbies.

After swapping between games for a couple of hours, it dawned on me that Rock Band’s gameplay was better suited to rocking – as a band. World Tour on the other hand feels like a quickly thrown together hash on Guitar Hero III, with a drum controller. I’m sure the developers would say otherwise, with the addition of vocals, more input options on the guitar, and the custom track creator being a significant step up from Guitar Hero III. The truth is, additional features and content just don’t come into it if the core gameplay is limp.

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The XBox 360 has been receiving some positive press lately, mainly about the increase in sales in several markets. This will be a welcome change for Microsoft after the horrific “red ring of death” news previously.

If you look back through the news, you’ll see PS3 sales and XBox sales leapfrogging one another on an almost monthly basis. I won’t even mention the Wii because it is so completely dominating the overall current-gen console ware.

Outside of Japan, PS3 and 360 sales are effectively neck-and-neck, with the 360 holding a 6 million unit head-start. You can see this pretty clearly by the parallel green and blue lines in the TGDaily graph below:

Even within Japan, the 360 is getting the occasional boost from new releases and console price drops. While tiny, these victories to Microsoft would have been completely unheard of with the previous generation consoles.

Overall, I think Sony has a hard road ahead if they want to overtake the XBox 360 in worldwide sales. The 360 has just had another price drop, and is nearing a likely hardware refresh. Sony, on the other hand, is reluctant to lower PS3 prices – probably pointing to the lack of cashflow they are seeing from lower than expected game sales. If they (as you might expect) forecast console and game sales on the meteoric trajectory of the PS2, I’d imagine there are some pretty long faces around Sony boardroom tables.

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Microsoft have come out and announced that XNA developers can build games for second-gen Zunes. Finally a use for the Wifi in the Zune instead of the crappy ‘Social’ and wireless syncing.

Cesar at ZuneInsider adds some clarity:

Here’s an important point of clarification: The announcements at GDC
are about the new XNA Game Studio tools, which allow developers to
create games that run on Zune devices. These added XNA capabilities are
the first step toward offering developers the opportunity to design
games that could be played on Zune devices, but Zune is a
wireless music and video player first and foremost.

I own a first-gen Zune, so I’m outta luck. I never turn the Wifi on, because I’ve tried syncing several times but it seems impossible everywhere but within about 6 foot of my wireless access point. Same with the FM radio. The RF reception on the Zune is horrible at best, probably because they’ve shielded the buggery out of it so you don’t get any RF noise through the headphones.

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Is it possible to call oneself a gamer having never clocked a single Mario game? I can recall picking up many Mario games in the past, but quickly losing enthusiasm.

Super Mario Galaxy seems different. Time will tell, but so far (after several hours of play), it is turning out to be an absolutely stunning game.  The combination of the inimitable Mario style, the crazy-yet-intuitive gravity system, and incredible level design make for a completely new style of game.  Yes it’s a platform game, but not as you know it.  On one level you might be doing the standard jump’n’spin on boxes, but then you’ll find yourself playing Wipeout… 

…on a track of suspended water…

…riding on a stingray. 

I couldn’t suppress my wide grin as I discovered more and more play modes.  I flew off to the “Rolling Green” galaxy, presuming it to be a nice walk in the grass.  Seconds later I’m holding the Wiimote like a joystick, balancing Mario on a shiny ball and rolling around some zany Mario cross between mini golf and marble madness.  Back in the “Space Junk” galaxy I’m forced to defeat a comically evil spider by sticking Mario to the spider’s elastic web and using the Wiimote to pull on the web and fire Mario off like a slingshot.  And I haven’t even mentioned flying a bee-suited Mario around the Honeybee galaxy.

Then there are the tiny touches.  Like the way Mario flies between galaxies and planets like a cartoonish tie-fighter.  Or the hungry Lumas: feed them enough star bits and they’ll swell up and explode into a new bonus galaxy or sling star.  And I love the tranquil Comet Observatory, your place of quite tangible respite between galaxies.

Great game.  I have absolutely no idea when Nintendo will deign to release it officially to those of us in the Third World (aka PAL territories), but there are other ways to get your fix.

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I haven’t had any issues at all with my Wiimotes.? I’ve never broken a strap, nor smashed up my TV or anything.? Still, when Nintendo broke out the offer of a free, stupid looking, soft, padded “jacket” for the Wii remote, I decided to take them up on it.? Free stuff always gets me.? I did wonder if the offer extended all the way to New Zealand, so was mildly surprised when I saw the blue glow of a message on my Wii, which directed me to nintendo.com.au, and in turn an Australian phone number to call.

I made the call yesterday. Was on hold to Aussie for 10 minutes, then pretty much had to spell out my complete name and address because of a combination of a bad line and my kiwi accent.

Name?
Ben.
Bin?
No, Ben. B. E. N.
B. E. M?
No! Bravo Echo November.
Icho?

You get the idea…

Anyway, the nice Australian lady told me that jackets will be shipped after the 9th of October, so I’m guessing quite a while after that if they are sending a batch to the NZ distributor (Softprint) who will then on-ship them.

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