Bitchy McBitcherson's Blog

Tag: video games

  • Cooking, Singing and Making the Dogs Howl

    Last night I spent a bit of time trying out Cooking Mama – Cook Off on the Wii. I loved the DS version and was really looking forward to playing it on the Wii.

    As usual, we rented from Gamefly. Their “keep it” feature is very convenient. Their used prices are reasonable, so it works out very well. We spend a lot less money on video games overall, even considering the rental fees. We get to try more games and we only buy ones we actually like.

    I like games that I can spend whatever amount of time I have available playing, and then I can leave and do something else. Needing to play another hour to get to the next save point, or leave a game on pause hoping that the cat didn’t screw something up is not to my taste. I like the quirky games. I like the thinking outside the video game box games. I like them in theory even when I don’t like them in play. I want to support them so that some other developer can interest a publisher in some offbeat, not a sure thing that I absolutely will love.

    I still like this game, but I don’t like it as much as the DS version, so far. Most of this is do to my own SPAZ FACTOR. Hand eye coordination is not one of my strong points. This game, like Trauma Center is simply easier for me to cope with in small gestures with the stylus on the touch screen that waving my hand around. Maybe I am too lazy for the Wii? Anyhow, after approximately 45 seconds of Cook Off, I was feeling like, in my hands, it was mainly a recipe for carpal tunnel syndrome. That is certainly not going to stop us from buying it (we already did) and I am still going to play it. However if I stop posting, perhaps it will be because I can no longer type due to a Wii injury.

    Along with the new recipes and new interface, you can now play against other people. After approximately 45 seconds of competitive Cook Off against the husband I wanted to smack him over the head with the remote. I refrained. Barely.

    Next I spent some time checking out Karaoke Revolution Country. I have not made a firm decision yet, but I think this might well have the distinction of being the first KR title that I do not purchase.

    I started out using a new microphone purchased by a friend after one of her kids broke ours while they were borrowing it. My first song choice was The Gambler, because it is a one note (easiest level) song I know it and it is typically easier to cope if you have some familiarity with the words and melody. I totally sucked and attempting to hit the green was making my throat hurt like hell. I can often sing male vocalist rock songs just fine in the game, but looking back, I’ve had trouble with country before, the few times country showed up on the other games. Now KR is not about singing well, it is about using your voice as the controller. I do not have particularly good vocal range and with the lower male voices I don’t tend to do well. I can’t sing high enough to hit the correct pitch in higher octave and I can’t sing low enough without straining my voice. Either direction I go, it is completely painful for myself, and everybody withing earshot. It makes the dogs angry too.

    Next I tried Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys. I also know the words to this, although I wish to insert “Chipmunks” after Cowboys and make other alterations as well, thanks to Alvin, Simon, Theodore and Dave. Same problem as before, except much much worse.

    I switched to a two note song that was at least by a female vocalist. 9 to 5. That went better. However at this point my voice was completely raspy. For my final song attempt I went with How Do I Live which is a three note song, but again, at least by a female vocalist. That was also okay, but I was exhausted and not have any fun at all.

    I also tried the mini-games. This is the first KR with mini-games. I sucked at them in ways that are difficult to describe.

    In those 4 songs, I opened up some new outfits and other random crap, but no extra songs. Looking through the songs that are visible, there just are not very many I have any familiarity with. I have not decided for certain not to buy it. I’ll let the kid mess with it first. She is much better at her vocal control than I am, but she is going to have even less knowledge of what the songs are.

    We’ll decide by Monday whether or not to send it back, unless the dogs have done themselves a favor and eaten the disc.

  • I Smell Like I Sound

    Huh?

    I am certain those were not the lyrics I was mumbling back when I thought I was singing along to Hungry Like The Wolf a million years ago.

    Yep, I was playing Karaoke Revolution again. It is much easier to get high enough scores to open up new stuff on a song you find at least vaguely familiar. I was definitely no Duran Duranimal, but had reached the point where Hungry Like the Wolf was the last song left that was both somewhat recognizable AND a single note difficulty rating. The lyrics were much dumber than I would have guessed.

  • Turn Around Bright Eyes

    We rented Karaoke Revolution: American Idol and tried it out tonight.

    The American Idol aspect is totally R-Tarted. However the rest is very KR, and I do love KR.

    First let me just take the time to complain one more time, why the fuck does Harmonix keep making these games without any saved player or character carryover. I am so sick of everybody needing to reenter their info every time we get a new game. It is dumb. DUMB. If anybody from Harmonix ever happens by to read this, FIX THIS. Of course now that you were bought by MTV you will probably only become more suckful.

    Alright, so we are all sick, so KR is not really the game of choice, but Gamefly sent it, so there it was. The kid and I made new characters but we didn’t bother to use the EyeToy to put our own “Cameo Face” on the characters. For one thing, we already have been there, done that and they won’t let us move our fucking characters over. For another it is late and we feel like crap.

    Make characters, enter player names. Get started.

    I didn’t look up all the new song options, but I sang “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and “Just the Way You Are”. I sang them both on easy, because I am in a bad mood and don’t want to be rated harshly. Scored Platinum on both of them.

    The kid sang “Unwritten” and “Sugar We’re Going Down” also on easy, she does have a cold. I usually make her get rated at a harder level than me so it is more “fair” because in KR, I like to falsify a sense of fairness. She scored Diamond on both of them. Yeah, she kicked my ass, even with her snotty nose and froggy voice.

    It is mostly like KR except that if you choose the AI option the three dorks babble at you after you finish singing. Also at the end the winner sings an encore of the song they won with. I left and did not listen to the kid reprise her song. Not I was tired of listening to her, but because Indy hadn’t stopped farting the entire time we had been playing, and I couldn’t take it anymore. Nothing like playing karaoke with a dog fogging up the air.

    Anyhow, we bought it. I don’t think I will ever play the AI option again. It just made it take longer and wasn’t any fun. The rest of it was fine and it will be cool to have new songs to mess with. Now we just have to add in all our friends names again. We should be done by the time they come out with the next version.

  • Aggravation, mental wiitardation, aggravation, a game we used to play

    I do my best to avoid going into any store that isn’t a grocery store from Thanksgiving until mid-January. Holiday crowds and holiday shopping irritate the shit out of me.

    When Nintendo announced the Revolution, I wanted one. When they announced that the official name would be Wii, I still wanted one, although I was not impressed by the name. The thing is, I wanted the console. I wanted Zelda. I wanted to rent other Wii games to play. What I really wanted was to preorder the fucking thing online from a retailer I actually have heard of, when it was convenient for me, and I was at the computer. Then I wanted that retailer to ship it to me as soon as possible, in a fair fashion based on when the order was made. If it got was sent out on launch day, great. If they fairly were not able to provide my order until January, fine. I just wanted it ordered and taken care of.

    Instead, even to get a preorder, one needed to wait in line, or hope to get it during the hour a place might accept preorders online. In many cases one was expected to preorder in offensive ways, “You have to agree to buy a bundle, but we don’t know what the bundle will consist of.” So preorders came and went and went and went, and I had no preorder.

    Now, if it were just me, I would be done. Whatfuckingever. My husband really really really wanted one. Being in the video game business, one would fantasize that it would be easier to get new consoles, and in some cases it is, but the timing of his recent job change kept him from getting one from his old company, and it was too late to arrange to get one through the new company. He really wanted a Wii, and I really like to provide him what he wants.

    Now, we might not see eye to eye on the exact point of when we get so annoyed with the whole purchasing process that it is time to simply say fuck it and wait until they are available everywhere easily, much less when to get so irritated that we wait until the fucking things can be found on clearance. However, we at least agree that we should not need to buy bundles that include shit that we don’t want. We should not have to wait out overnight, and we sure as fucking hell should not pay over retail.

    The night prior to launch found me, disturbingly, teaching my daughter how to purchase something online so that she could man Amazon.com at midnight while we went out to a 24 hour Walmart. No joy. Launch morning saw me hitting Target, TRU, Best Buy and Circuit City as well as continuing to try to order from Amazon and trying to get a Costco.com order. Nothing anywhere except an increasingly pissed off me.

    Now if everybody was buying one for themselves, it would be one thing, but the whole purchasing them to make a profit on ebay, while taking them away from people that just want to play, gets on my fucking nerves. I am even further fucking irritated by the dumbfuck parents who are so worried about putting what their spoiled brat wants under the tree for the dumbass holiday, that they will pay above retail on ebay. Not only do they encourage the asshole ebay hoarding behavior, but they just add to the fuckedupedness of their kids. This wouldn’t be so bad if they would just keep the kids in their basement forever, but they insist on letting them out of the house.

    So a couple of weeks have been spent, checking online multiple times a day, stopping by stores, making phone calls, and with each bit of effort expended my interest in the Wii has further waned. It is not a unique piece of artwork, or even a limited edition print. It is a consumer electronics item. I don’t like Nintendo fucking around with availability and I dislike the retailers fucking around with it even more. Get a shipment in and put it on sale, don’t hold it over for a certain date so you can create buzz and lines. Nothing like launching a product and quickly leading me to dislike all the companies involved within a short amount of time. Impressive.

    The online reports told me to once again expect limited quantities available this morning, so once again we woke up early and headed out into the foul holiday shopping world. The first store at 10 minutes before opening, the line outside was too long to even bother stopping. The second we drove past wasn’t opening for 2 hours and we were not going to wait that long. The third place we got to 15 minutes after opening, so we parked and went inside to see what was up. In the electronics department there was a line. They had 33 units and had handed out 33 tickets. We decided to lurk. A couple had 2 tickets but one of them had to leave for work and it was taking them forbloodyever to check people out, so the man had to bail and gave me his ticket. Another couple had seen the line and hopped in, they had no idea what for. When they finally got close enough that they saw what it was for, they didn’t want it. They gave one ticket to a lady who was there with her boyfriend. The other they gave to our friend. Our third friend did not luck out. We waited through all 33 sales in case somebody had a bad credit card situation.

    So now we have a Wii. My husband is happy. My daughter is happy. I am relieved to be done looking, but I am not happy. I am still irritated.

    On the PS3 he is just going to have to wait. I don’t want to set foot in a store until after the holidays are over.