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February 17, 2008
Almost "Paradise"
I'm on Day Three of a four-day weekend, and lemmee tell ya, the living's good. It would be great, but I woke up today with a splitting headache. In my defense, it's so not my fault. Mrs. Me and I celebrated a belated Valentine's Day last night, so that meant getting good wine to go with the steaks we made. (She marinades, I cook. It's a team thang.)
Well, while out buying the wine, I saw the Holy Grail of beer: Sam Adams Irish Red. Know how in the movies they do that slo-mo shot of a person's face, then cut to a certain object, suddenly lit as if nearby angels all held up their cell-phones at a concert, and their melodic "aaaaahs" suddenly filled the atmosphere? That's what it was like to see Sam Adams Irish Red. I love Sam Adams, and I love red beers, so this was the equivalent of coming home to find out Kate Winslet and Olivia Munn wanted to mud-wrestle to the death in order to win my affections. Just too good to be true.
And trust me, the beer lived up to the hype. Unfortunately, Mrs. Me and I had also demolished two bottles of Cabernet by the time I started drinking. Her friend from school came over around 10 to play Rock Band at our place, and the SAIR started a-flowin'. I had to keep a close eye on this friend, lest she steal a six-pack on her way out. If you have the means, people, go get this beer. I talked to the guy behind the counter, saying something to the affect of, "Where have you been hiding this all of my life?" And he said something to the effect of, "This is the first month they've sold it in mass quantities, sir. Now let go of me, take your hands off of my collar, and the for the love of all that's holy, put your pants back on."
As for Rock Band itself, I'm actually PRACTICING the drums for this game. This I find amusing, in that I can't be bothered to learn, you know, a REAL instrument. But I'm at the point where the Medium drums aren't doing it for me anymore, nor for the game. My second band, Unos Dos, can't earn anymore fans until I step up my game. (And luckily, I don't have to step up in any way related to "Step it Up 2: The Streets". I don't wanna wear Apple Bottom jeans, nor boots with the furrrrrr, while steppin' up my game.)
So this means sitting in the Man Room and practicing each song. The game itself lets you practice at varying speeds, something like 50% to 100% speed. And moreover, you can practice individual sections that you find difficult. I like this feature, in that I can handle everything but the chorus on The Pixies' "Wave of Mutilation," whereas the entire song "Vasoline" by Stone Temple Pilots is a complete mockery of my rhythmic skillz.
But drums it is for me, in that the singing part of my game couldn't be a bigger joke. Mrs. Me thought it would be a good idea for me to belt out OK Go's "Here It Goes Again" while on SAIR #3, and believe me, she couldn't have been more wrong. That was her equivalent of Bush declaring "Mission Accomplished". Just a train wreck of an exercise.
But that's not all in the world of gaming news for yours truly: I've been playing "Burnout: Paradise" and I'm pretty sure I've accomplished something in it I've never done before: reached a leaderboard! The game's a sandbox racer, meaning you can pretty much progress as you want. In addition to the 120 races in the game, there are hundreds of billboards to crash, secret passages to find, and on each individual street, you can beat a race time and a crash score. And I'm pretty sure I own the worldwide record for one street in crash mode.
I mean, in the world! This is both incredibly lame and incredibly cool all at once. It's the equivalent of trying to break some obscure record in the Guinness Book of World Records, just to have your name it. Here's the problem: I can't seem to verify I actually own this record. All I know is, after completing my mega-crash, a little ticker appeared across the bottom alerting me (and potentially the world, or at least the world playing "Burnout") of my record. But I can't see my score on the leader board as compared to the world: I can only see it compared to my online friends. And, as you probably guessed, I don't have online friends, which is why I spend so much time playing videogames by myself in my Man Room.
Below's an example of how crash mode works. It mainly runs off the assumption that one should forget anything you know about mechanics, physics, or morality, and you should just crash your car intentionally, hit the L1+R1 buttons, and then press X to shoot yourself into oncoming traffic for as long as you can.
Like I said, this is not a sim racing game. But fun as all hell. I only hope I can get proof of my crash dominance, in that it might be the second greatest achievement of my life, coming in slightly behind convincing Mrs. Me on a daily basis that she didn't make a huge mistake in choosing me as a husband.
Posted by Ryan McGee at February 17, 2008 12:34 PM
Comments
I used to enjoy the occasional beer myself, that is, before I had kids. I even went so far as to join a Beer Club while enjoying my early 20s (now 10+ years ago). I'm assuming the Sam Adams Irish Red is their version of Killian's Irish Red, of which I am a fan of. However, as I have more or less settled down in my life, I now enjoy Yuengling beer. Most people haven't heard of it, as it isn't nationally distributed, but it is a damn good beer. I started drinking it when I lived in Maryland, and was surprised that it also had a plant down here in Florida when I arrived.
As for games, I'm more into the 1st person shooter games (i.e. Doom, Medal of Honor) but also enjoy the occasional car game. However, I'm still using a PS2, as most of my games are in the original Playstation format.
Posted by: Shaggysteve at February 17, 2008 08:56 PM