Practice Makes Perfect...or Nub-sauce Unite!

[It's RANT time! Yay! Seriously though, I'm about to go off on some little thing that probably doesn't mean squat to anyone but me and a few other people out there...so feel free to skip this one.]

Ok, so the other day I was at home and I was bored so I thought I would hop on on PS3 and play some "Rock Band." Now, for those of you who don't know what this game is...well, get a clue.

It's much like Guitar Hero (and if you don't know what that is you better hit up this link, cause I ain't about to explain it) but you have 2 guitars, a microphone, and a drum set. It's a four player game where everyone gets to pretend to be a rock band and play together. Its pretty much the funnest (and possibly funniest) pretend thing since they invented arcade sim games.

Anyway, the creators of the game realized that you won't always have four people at your house for impromptu jam sessions. As such, they put in an online multiplayer feature. That way when I wanna play, but am all by my lonesome, I can hop online and find three other players to rock out with.

So I was doing this very thing the other day. I logged on and was playing the "Bass Guitar" part of the band. Now, when the band leader selects a song, everyone gets to select what difficulty they want to play the song on. The difficulty are as follows:

Easy - Any reasonably coordinated monkey could play this setting on any instrument.

Medium - Requires some concentration and a bit of coordination, on all instruments.

Hard - If you can't connect your brain to your legs and hands independantly dont even try drums, and if you can't "WTFPWN!" Medium on the guitar, dont even try. Also, if you are a "Shower Singer" only, then please don't try the Microphone on this setting either.

Expert - OMFG we're all gonna die! If you don't belong on MTV (or at least YouTube) with your skills then please, please, leave Expert alone.

Now, having explained that, the first group of Nubs that I hooked up with started out on Medium. They did alright, but nothing special. I was playing the Bass part on Hard because I can cut that just fine. At the end of three songs they both had completion rates in the low 90's and I was averaging 98% complete.

After that song, they both decided (one playing drums and the other playing Lead Guitar) that they would switch to Hard so they could keep up with me. Idiots. About 20% into the first song they both failed out like the College rejects they are. I was left playing by myself for about 15 seconds before the crowd boo'ed us offstage.

Now at this point my rage hadn't boiled over into "Wrath of God Destruction" yet, so I figured whatever they tried it and we will go back to what was working on the next song. The leader queues up the next song and...we all choose Hard.

At this point I just sat there blinking, thinking: "WTH? Did they just do what I think they did?" And, lo and behold, they failed out again and instead of cursing at my TV I just left the band and rejoined the "Find Players" queue.

I found a new band, and we all jumped in and chose Hard on the first song. My first thought was, "Sweet, some players who have Skillzz!" When they both failed out of the song about 30 seconds later and I was left holding the fort down (until the crowd boo'ed us offstage again), my rage moved back to "Curse at the TV" zone.

So, I left that band and rejoined the "Find Players" queue AGAIN! Third time's the charm right? Wrong. In this third set, the drummer was the one with delusions of grandeur. He kept dying and the rest of the band would eventually get boo'ed offstage (because your band cannot survive without all the players who joined at the beginning). Everyone HAS to make it to the end or we ALL have to start over.

After a few more songs the drummer got the point and chose a setting he could always succeed on, thank goodness. However, this problem shouldn't exist at all.

People...PEOPLE! Come on now, get a clue! The SINGLE-PLAYER mode is for PRACTICE! The online multiplayer is for FUN! Now, while it may be "fun" for you to choose a setting and then fail miserably at it while other poeple look on, that IS NOT fun for the rest of us. So please, when you go online to play "Rock Band" and you are about to choose a setting that is out of your skill range remember this: I'm from the "Smack-a-Hoe" tribe and I WILL smack you upside the head!

Ok, rant done...'nuff said.

New Blog...

Ok, so I have a new blog dedicated to my writing. I've started a new and exciting story just for this blog too. Go check it out, I promise to bring you story updates at least once a week.

Enjoy!

Silver Siade

Growing Pains

You ever get that feeling that life is crushing you under its iron heel? Yeah? Well don’t worry you aren’t the only one that has had that feeling on occasion. I only write this now because I’ve been feeling that way lately (mostly because of my job). It’s been putting a strain on every other part of my life (including my writing; which is why I haven’t updated in forever).

There really isn’t any “fool proof” way out from under this crushing feeling that life gives you sometimes. None that I know of at least. I woke up this morning and prayed really hard about what I should do about this feeling. I got my answer and even though from what I understood of that answer the relief from this crushing feeling won’t be immediate, it didn’t matter to me; I felt better almost immediately. The day went smoother, life didn’t seem so stressed, and I even had the energy to write. No it had nothing to do with the writers strike being over…funny coincidence that though.

About that though, the whole strike was about the writers wanting the right to get paid when people watch their shows online. I don’t really think there’s anything wrong with that either, I mean they should get paid for what they do, no matter where someone tunes in to see it. A funny thing happened while the writers were striking too: People started watching more online videos. So basically, the writers staged a strike to get paid for when people watch stuff online and the strike itself caused people to go watch stuff online because TV became boring (or rather more boring that it already is).

Now that’s what I call good strategy!