Apple Dissapoints at iPod Conference

Republished from Valdosta State University's The Spectator

Last week’s iPod-centric conference was certainly exciting for the millions of manic Apple fans; the company has become just as good at building hype as it is at selling expensive MP3 players. Prior to the conference, internet forums and blogs were filled with speculation and rumor mongering. The event was expected to be especially important for the company, as it marked the public return of Apple co-founder (and stage personality) Steve Jobs who had been away from the company for several months due to health reasons. Fans expected Apple to pull out the big guns, like the long-rumored Apple tablet device (think a large iPod touch with Mac-like capabilities) or the “iPhone Nano” (a smaller, cheaper iPhone). Earlier in the week, Yoko Ono let slip a potential deal with Apple to bring the entire Beatles catalog on to their iTunes music service.

As usual, fans worked themselves into a fit of disappointment. Instead of tablet Macs, Apple used the time to take a look at their existing iPod line and iTunes service, an hour long pat-on-the-back with few real announcements.
What Apple did show was the newly-updated iTunes 9, a mostly unremarkable update to what’s already a great music program. Some of the updates include downloadable ringtones, which are curiously $40 more than a full song on the same service and downloadable art and liner notes for albums purchased through iTunes. Movies are getting a similar treatment—films downloaded over the service will now come with some DVD-like features like commentary tracks and deleted scenes. The service found a few cosmetic changes as well, which seem to mostly make the program more ad-friendly.

While no new iPhone related products were announced at the show, Apple’s senior vice-president of marketing, Phil Schiller, made sure to give the device’s horn a loud blow, this time focusing on the iPhone’s gaming applications. Schiller bravely compared his company’s smartphone to Sony’s PSP and Nintendo’s DS. Schiller bragged that the iPhone is currently home to 21,178 games compared to the DS’s meager 3,680. What he didn’t mention is that iPhone app store counts cheap tech demos, Family Guy soundboards, and demo versions of software as unique games for the iPhone. It would have been far more interesting if Schiller gave us the real number of games available over iTunes.

The most interesting announcements came for Apple’s iPod Touch and iPod Nano. The touch received an expected price drop from $229 to $199 for the 8gb model. The only problem being that the cheaper model is still home to the older hardware, meaning that some programs will not run as smoothly as they will on a more expensive iPod touch or a new iPhone 3GS. Jobs presented the Nano as Apple’s best selling iPod to date, over 100 million sold. So it comes as no surprise that Apple is pushing the small MP3 player as the company’s focus. The new model, released the same day as the conference, features a relatively high-quality camera that can instantly publish videos on Youtube once they’ve been transferred back to your PC or Mac. The new Nano also has a built in FM radio (finally aped from Microsoft’s three year-old Zune) and oddly enough, a pedometer.

If Apple fans overstretched their expectations for this particular conference, then it’s only because of the company’s pedigree. Apple fanatics expect revolutionary hardware and software because that’s what they’re accustomed to from these events. The fact that consumers came away disappointed from a one hour conference filled with price drops and hardware and software releases says a lot about Apple.

Beatles Mania Returns in Rock Band

Republished from Valdosta State University's The Spectator

There’s been a lot of hubbub surrounding Sept. 9, 2009, Entertainment Weekly dubbed the day as “the reinvasion of The Beatles,” a title that’s well warranted with the long-sought remastered release of the Fab Four’s entire work. These Baby Boomer-baiting sets carry a hefty price tag ($300 for the box) and an impressive amount of work—each album has been completely restored and enhanced from the original tracks, a process that took over four years. And the work hasn’t just been for show—even the most inept audiophile will have an easy time appreciating the difference between the originally muddy “Within You Without You” and the newly polished version.

But this time the interesting part of the invasion actually comes from America’s own Massachusetts, in “The Beatles: Rock Band.” Famed video game developer Harmonix landed the big one in 2008 when the company secured the rights to create a music game based on the most celebrated band of all time. It’s quite the honor, actually. Publishers EA and Activision have been scrambling for years to secure the Beatles license for their music games, and surviving members Paul McCartney and Ringo Star have been reluctant to attach the classic name to any product, especially something as gaudy as a video game (when a demo was first presented to McCartney a few years back, he called it “a couple of grownups looking very foolish with these little plastic guitars playing to a screen”).

Usually known for their over-the-top rock antics from the Rock Band series (think purple Mohawks and foot-long spiked jewelry), Harmonix has brought a lot of reserved class to “The Beatles: Rock Band.” Beautiful CG dreamscapes uniquely inspired by each individual song place players in a Yellow Submarine-like fantasy. Tunes like “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” look absolutely influenced by whatever hallucinogenic might have been around, true to the song’s namesake (even if that particular theory has been outright denied by McCartney and company).
Unlike other single band-themed music games (“Guitar Hero: Aerosmith” and “Guitar Hero: Metallica”), “The Beatles “is more than just “Rock Band” with a robotic Lennon thrown in. All of the game’s 45 songs are remastered tracks from the titular band with no annoying, needless filler present in the Guitar Hero offerings. “Story mode” starts “The Beatles” off in cramped Liverpool pubs before taking the band on a historical world tour that stops for famous shows like 1965’s Shea Stadium concert and ends at the Beatles’ completely depressing final performance on top of the Apple Corps building in London. Little touches like the quick banter between songs make the experience truly authentic; for example, Ringo can be heard complaining about blisters after a set.

The care and respect that has been put into “The Beatles: Rock Band” is tremendous, especially when you consider the atrocities Activision has committed against their game’s famous faces. “Guitar Hero 5” features a clumsily animated Kurt Cobain, who can be set to play and sing any song on the title’s extensive catalog. If you ever dreamed of seeing the famous grunge artist sing along to Coldplay, now’s your chance. Kurt’s spinning in his grave like Nevermind in a teenager’s CD player.

Not that “The Beatles: Rock Band” is without its faults—the disc only ships with 45 songs and many Beatle’s mainstays are curiously absent, like Let it Be, Help, and Yesterday. However, the promise of future, albeit expensive, downloadable content (like Abbey Road, available next month) looks like it will fill that particular hole. Also, for understandable licensing reasons, none of the songs on the new disc is exportable to any other” Rock Band “games.
But I digress; The Beatles: Rock Band is the best music game since 2006’s Guitar Hero II—an earnest, love-filled effort that stands above the mass of musical cash-ins that have littered the past three years.

Batman: Arkham Asylum Review

Batman fans are a thick-skinned bunch. When George Clooney donned the newly nipple-adorned batsuit to fight the cliché spouting Schwarzenegger “What killed the dinosaurs? The ice age!,” they hid behind their copies of The Killing Joke. When Dark Horse Comics published Batman vs. Predator, they scrambled to have the story stricken from Batman canon. When Jim Carrey somehow managed to play The Mask playing The Riddler, they looked on the bright side, calling it “a new take on the character.” And there has been absolutely no comfort to be found in the long-running Batman line of video games, which have proudly strutted the range from sub-mediocre to downright abysmal.

So yeah, it’s no secret that Batman has been savagely exploited by any media production company looking to make an easy licensed buck. That’s why when videogame publisher Eidos announced “Arkham Asylum” last Summer, it was easy to understand why the entire fan community let out a collective sigh. After all, you’d hope that after fooling them the first dozen times, it would be harder to get the comic fans to unclench their chained wallets.

But jaded Batman fanatics are in for a surprise: “Arkham Asylum” is good. Really good, actually– successfully blending the tone of last year’s “The Dark Knight” the charm of the classic animated series with the best ideas from this generation of videogames. Not only is Arkham Asylum “good for a comic book game,” it’s also an easy contender to be the best game this year.

The game is set on Gotham City’s comic-equivalent to Alcatraz: Arkham Island, an isolated horror of a mental hospital/jail that just so happens to be currently housing some of the series’ most notoriously nasty villains (think faces like Poison Ivy, who is even more tarted-up in this version than ever before). The Joker, voiced again by Mark Hamill, conducts a typically elaborate mass-breakout, and Batman sets out to clean up. Kevin Conroy and Arleen Sorkin are also along for the ride, reprising their roles as Batman and Harley Quinn, but don’t let the old animated cast fool you—Arkham Asylum brings the murderous tone and brutality from Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” and Frank Miller’s series of comics. Mark Hamill as The Joker is just as unsettling as the character has ever been, and the developer (Rocksteady Studios) did not skimp on the series’ trademark violence.

The single setting of the asylum may seem a bit restrictive, but it’s actually the game’s best feature. Rocksteady put the boot to the traditional fractured levels so common in action games of the past; instead, the island is completely realized and explorable. Like Bioshock’s underwater city, every building and room on the island feels like it has a purpose, restricted only by whatever neat bat-gadget you’ve found along the way. The highly-detailed island makes for a great playground for the Dark Knight; every ability you might expect is in there, from hanging thugs upside down from the ceiling to cape-spread gliding through the air.

In true Batman style, much of the game is spent sneaking in the rafters and shadows. However, the game’s rhythmic one-button fisticuffs are just as satisfying. Batman punches and counters with the grace of 2007’s Assassin’s Creed, and the animations remain fresh and exciting all the way through the game’s lengthy 10-12 hours.

Unfortunately, “Arkham Asylum” falls short when it comes to its fairly numerous bosses, most of whom add up to dodge- and smash-bullfights, which would actually have been fine had there only been one or two encounters, instead of the five or six that made it into the game. Whether Rocksteady ran out of ideas or just time, it’s still disappointing. Also, the highly touted detective gameplay doesn’t work out as well as it should, either. Usually, it ends with the player following a boring Pacman dot trail through previously visited rooms, looking to find wherever super villain A drugged innocent scientist B. And if you hear Batman mumble, “there must be some way out of this room,” then expect to have to rip the damn vent grate in the wall and climb on in. It doesn’t take “The World’s Greatest Detective” to figure that one out.

But in the end, these small flaws amount to little when the rest of the game is considered. To call “Arkham Asylum” the greatest comic book video game of all time would be a great understatement—Rocksteady has set a new standard for what is good or even acceptable for licensed video games.