Games

Day 1 of E3 complete. This is the biggest, most extravagant sausage party I have ever attended.

The whistling guy on the bus seems to be making a medley of "The Girl from Ipanema" and the "Doogie Howser, MD" and Tecmo Bowl themes.

I’m not a Scott Pilgrim fan, but this looks crazy fun.

Huge news today for Rock Band fans! usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2010…

Finished Alan Wake. Its hype-to-delivery ratio is one of the most staggering I've ever seen. What a waste of time.

Yes, please.

Harmonix is looking for a senior web designer. Is that you? tbe.taleo.net/NA3/ats/careers/req…

Judas Priest toured through the summer of 2009, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the seminal metal album British Steel by playing it live in its entirety every night. Now fans can celebrate too by playing live versions of all nine tracks from the album in Rock Band!

Could Judas Priest’s landmark British Steel be the most metal album in history? Let us examine the facts. To begin with, the cover depicts either an ordinary man’s hand… See more →

Bummed to hear that this upcoming NBA Jam game is a Wii exclusive. The original (1993) was probably the last sports game I really enjoyed.

Harmonix is looking for a senior web developer. Is that you? tbe.taleo.net/NA3/ats/careers/req…

I share this only to semi-publicly air my shame.

Of the officially 1 million people that now possess this game on this platform, I am currently ranked 148. This achievement is due to considerable skill, yes, and that skill was accrued over the more than 17 full days (dude, 420 hours, dude) I spent playing over the course of about 7 months. That works out to roughly 11% of my waking hours during that time… See more →

Heading out to PAX. I'll be at the Harmonix booth/stage/thing from 5-6 if anyone wants to say hi.

You know, EA, I paid you $60 for this Battlefield: Bad Company 2 game. I thought part of the deal was that you'd let me play it.

This is light on actual information, but for any UI folks interested in how shit happens here, these slides give you a glimpse into the process.

"Super Mario World was no longer about jumping. It was about… eating shit" — @shauninman

Kaboom!

The Rock Band Network Music Store is live! rockband.com/news/rbn-music-store…

I can’t wait to try this. I love the Expressionist look of it, and the gameplay looks cool too. Peep the trailer here.

One of many reasons gentlemen prefer chess: No luck to hope for. No odds to calculate. Just 100% transparency and accountability.

Has it really been twenty years already?

I still have that 90-minute cassette whose A-side contained my first copy of Megadeth’s Rust In Peace. Though I had already cut my teeth on other metal bands, I was wary of Megadeth at first. Their name alone seemed to embody everything that was supposed to be frightening and dangerous about heavy metal, and this particular 14-year-old Catholic boy was slightly less interested in rebellion than he was… See more →

There is little doubt that different people are blessed with different amounts of cognitive gifts such as long-term memory and the visuospatial skills chess players are said to employ. One of the reasons chess is an "unparalleled laboratory" and a "unique nexus" is that it demands high performance from so many of the brain’s functions. Where so many of these investigations fail on a practical level is by not recognizing the importance of the process… See more →

I tweeted that one of my all-time favorite albums was coming to Rock Band soon, and apparently the fans were watching. This is one of at least two forum discussions with dozens of posts that are scouring my web site and last.fm account for clues as to what the album might be. Kinda creepy but mostly funny.

One of my all-time favorite albums comes to Rock Band soon. The many adolescent hours I spent studying its drum parts have finally paid off.

Intentions of a productive night in were disrupted by friends, beer, and Improv Boston's final Rock Band night of the year. That'll do.

Material. Time. Quality.

Today is awful.

One year ago today, I started working at Harmonix. twitter.com/cowpiesurprise/status…

I’m not usually into fan art/cosplay/whatever, but if you’re at all familiar with BioShock, this is really impressive. I just wish they didn’t use those stupid Photoshop filters on the photos. Also, don’t miss the details on how this costume was made.

Missing the final note of "A Day in the Life" in The Beatles: Rock Band shouldn't rank among life's greatest disappointments, but it does.

Aside from allowing you to find your Facebook friends on Xbox Live, Facebook and Twitter on Xbox 360 are completely useless.

The Boston Globe has declared Harmonix the third best place to work in Boston! boston.com/bostonworks/topwor…

This is great, but I do wish the knights were each represented with an N, as they are in proper chess notation. pushes up glasses

In 1993, Washington DC’s fertile indie rock scene gave birth to a band called The Dismemberment Plan. Musically, it skirted genre conventions inconspicuously. Lyrically, it found wisdom and poetry in the commonplace. The whole package was a rare, fun, magical blend of sophisticated and approachable, and the band built a respectable and devoted following with it.

Ten years later, not long after releasing its fourth and arguably best album, The Dismemberment Plan decided to call… See more →

Rock Band for iPhone coming this month! digs.by/VL3

Irked as I am by most cases of misspelling, camel case, and word/letter numeral substitutions, it's a wonder I can stomach Xbox Live at all.

Watch the video. I wish we’d see games with this caliber of distinctively gorgeous art direction more often.

I’m not sure if I’ll pick this one up, but the first Lego Indy game was ridiculously fun.

I’m not particularly interested in the boycott or the game, but I was amused by the Fail Whale graffiti in the screen shot.

I’m really intrigued by this. The look and feel is great, and the gameplay has real potential. I’d like to see a more challenging level to know if it lives up to that potential.

It is 09/09/09 and The Beatles: Rock Band wants you to play.

The Beatles: Rock Band! This was a very pleasant surprise since I didn't think my insignificant contributions to the game merited a credit.

I can’t wait to try this.

Um. Kaboom. I can finally talk about one of the things I’ve been working on.

Psst. Hey. Musicians. Want your music in Rock Band? Soon you can do it yourself. Behold, the Rock Band Network! rockband.com/rock-band-networ…

I really hope this has online multiplayer.

If this is in fact the final box art (and I’m really skeptical that it is), this is some seriously half-assed shit. Ordinarily I’m a fan of understatement in design, but everything about this is awkward: the composition, the wording of the new features, and especially the reworked logo (which I know IS final), complete with phoney-baloney Photoshop spray-paint effect. I feel pretty confident that my obvious bias barely factors into my opinion on this.… See more →

Learning a whole bunch of songs I just realized I need to know for the mocap audition I'm doing in two hours. This should be interesting.

Ordinarily, I try to be mindful of my neighbors when playing Rock Band drums at home, but all bets are off with Iron Maiden.

I was never all that into Metroid, but the Contra aspect of this looks like fun, especially since it’s a side-scroller. I’m beginning to think the limited scope of XBLA games is more appealing to me than the sprawl of most disc games, probably because I’m old.

Finally you can see exactly how difficult it has been for me to keep quiet about this game. Set mind to "blown."