watch_it_burn

I don't know why I read gaming news, there are precious few games I'm interested in and even the best games produced don't seem to have the same thrilling effect they once had. My PS3 acts mainly as a conduit for the stuff I've downloaded off the internet, or Guitar Hero. But read I still do, seeing interesting things like Polyphony studios now implementing crash damage in GT5. Well done guys if you could make opponents seem like they aren't following a groove on a Scalectrix track you may actually be able to claim the honour of "The Real Driving Simulator".

What irked me today though was the news that a few Queens of the Stone Age tracks are coming out for Guitar Hero. Being a fan this peaked my attention, until I saw what they were. In case you've not seen here they are -

Mexicola
Avon
How to Handle a Rope

Erm... Anyone recognise them? Perhaps I'm whining unnecessarily it's not like QOTSA have a backlog of classic hits or anything. Or a bunch of stone cold rocking behemoths that would probably cause you to grow an extra nutsack with their sheer manly rock power should you play them. No, they only have a bunch of songs neither I nor iTunes has ever fucking heard of.

This seems to happen a lot though. There's an AFI track pack available that manages to not include a single decent song. The Yeah Yeah Yeah's song is some ballsweat off the last terrible album instead of something off the two awesome ones. And although I'm happy to see some Brand New on GH5 I've got to say I wouldn't have chosen "Sowing Season" (I'd lumbered people with "Vices" off Daisy, just to see amateur vocalists have an aneurism).

Lets have a look at the forthcoming Classic Rock Pack -

The J. Geils Band - "Freeze Frame
Peter Frampton - "Show Me The Way (Live)"
Triumph - "Lay It On The Line"

Who? Who the fuck are those people? Classic Rock is Zeppelin, The Stones, The Who and other men in bands that could win a nuclear war with a few well placed power chords. Not people responsible for "Centrefold" and a joke in "Waynes World"

And while I'm on it where the hell is "Stairway to Heaven"? You call your game Guitar Hero and so far have not given us the chance to pretend to be Jimmy Page. For shame Neversoft.

So there you have it, today I am annoyed by a video game were you thrash about with a toy guitar. Not only that add-ons that I don't have to buy aren't up to my standards. I'm surprised people haven't taken to the streets over this, apathetic bloody planet.

To other things. I saw the trailer for the remake of "A Nightmare On Elm St" today. No I'm not going to lay into for being a pointless remake, I never have to see it or even recognise its existence. My complaint is that (and this purely from 90 seconds of film) they might be trying to humanise Freddy Krueger. I hope I'm wrong but it does follow a trend of trying to explain the boogie men that stalk the screen.

Things become less scary when they are explained. Would our ancestors have tried to appease the sun if they knew it was just a massive ball of gases exploding millions of miles away unconcerned about how many people we sacrificed to it? Probably not, it's been explained and now we have no reason to fear it. For now anyway.

Same goes for Freddy, Jason, Mike Myers etc etc. As soon as you turn them into things we can relate to they aren't scary. They're just instruments used to puncture teens to death with. And I'm bored of movies that exist to show how well effects can dismember people. Tom Savini did it with some pipes and rubber back in Friday 13th to Kevin Bacon and it was far more convincing than anything your PC can pump out. Give us something scary dammit!

Something like this perhaps -



I've been following this for a bit. It follows the ideas laid down by "The Blair Witch Project" and "Cannibal Holocaust", someone finds footage of a terrible event and then edits together for our benefit. And apparently its terrifying, I can't wait.

That's me done, goodnight.