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I’m sitting here at work trying to prepare my talk for MSPC, and all I can think about is Rock Band. My awesome friends got it for me for my birthday last month, and I’ve been steadily banging away on the drums ever since. I made it through both the Easy and Medium tours, and now I’m working on Hard. I actually bought a downloadable song for the game, “Interstate Love Song” by the Stone Temple Pilots.

I was a big Guitar Hero fan, but Guitar Hero 3 felt more like work than fun. I’m finding Rock Band much more fun, mostly because I really enjoy playing the drums. Unlike Guitar Hero, I feel like I’m learning a real skill — teaching my foot to tap independently of my arms. From what I hear, Rock Band drums are pretty similar to real drums, so I dream of one day sitting down at a real drum set and playing a flawless version of “Cherub Rock.”

I’m listening to Weezer’s Pinkerton and thinking how much fun the drum parts would be to play in Rock Band. Coincidentally, “El Scorcho” comes out as downloadable content this week. My resistance is low…

I realized I don’t post a lot about video games here. It’s not that I don’t play them, but often there’s not a lot to say that other people haven’t already said. I played Halo 3, and it’s pretty much what you’d expect it to be: More Halo with prettier graphics. I’ve been playing Guitar Hero 3, and it’s the same deal: more songs but still Guitar Hero. Most games I play are like that: Enjoyable, but nothing surprising.

But recently I’ve been playing Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass on my Nintendo DS, and I’ve been surprised at how much I enjoy this game. Like the previous examples, it is essentially a Zelda game. You wander around an overhead map, slash at monsters with your sword, solve puzzles, and help villagers with their problems. A big difference is that, instead of controlling Link with the D-pad and buttons, you are forced to use the stylus for everything. To slash with your sword, you tap the enemy with the stylus or move it toward the enemy in a quick swipe. You move around by holding the stylus wherever on the screen you want to go. You can also write on the map to record hints that people give you or mark interesting places on the map.

I should also admit that I haven’t kept up with the Zelda series over the years. I played the original and Zelda 2 on the NES probably 20 years ago, and then I played A Link to the Past (Zelda 3) about 6 months ago via Game Boy Advance cartridge. I disliked A Link to the Past, despite its reputation as one of the best games of all time, so I wasn’t sure what I would think of Phantom Hourglass. But Phantom Hourglass fixes a lot of the problems I had with Link to the Past by bringing in modern features like a map you can write on, more frequent save points, and less frustrating battles.

Anyhow, I was very surprised by how much I’m enjoying this game. I would rate it as one of the most enjoyable I’ve played this year on any system.

Can’t help it. Some more thoughts about my new 360.

- I’m really impressed with the Live service on the 360. On the original Xbox, basically all you could do was play online with people. Now there is a lot more stuff to play with. You can download demos, movie and game trailers, minigames, etc. Just being able to play the demos adds a lot of value to the system. I’m pretty sure that, so far, I’ve spent more time playing demos than I have playing either of the 2 games I got with the system.

- I originally thought the backwards compatibility was just a gimmick, but I’ve come around a bit. I just played Forza and they did a good job with the emulation. It works perfectly, and you can even play online. While only 3/5 of my original Xbox games are supported, most of the ones I would actually play again are there. So this definitely adds some value to the system. It’s nice to know that, if I get the itch, I can play Halo or Knights of the Old Republic without hooking up my original Xbox.

- Graphics look very good, even on a standard definition TV. This was another thing I was worried about. People online say that you really need an HDTV to appreciate this console. While I’m sure that’s true to an extent, a good-looking Xbox 360 game still looks quite a bit better than an Xbox 1 game on a normal TV. For example, I’ve been playing a lot of PGR3 on the 360. It looks good, not mind-blowingly so, but good. When I put in Forza today, it looked noticeably like a last-gen game. I was surprised that the difference was so large since I hadn’t been blown away by PGR3’s graphics.

- The media center stuff is cool. I mentioned how you can stream MP3s from your computer, but last night I got the video streaming to work. It’s very cool. Now you can download your favorite TV shows and watch them on your TV rather than on your computer. You have to convert them to WMV though, which is a pain. I’ve hatched a plan to use my primary computer as a Media Center box, recording shows, and stream those to the 360. I had previously thought I would need a new computer to do this, but with the streaming capabilities of the 360, I should be able to get away with doing this on my current computer.

My 360 arrived today, just as UPS predicted. I left school early to check it out. First of all, the guy I bought it from did an incredibly thorough job of packing everything up and sending it to me. He included the original box for the 360 and all the manuals. He included batteries for the wireless controllers. He even included the little caps on the ends of the optical audio cable he included. I was very pleasantly surprised.

So far, I am most impressed with the Xbox Live service. I had no idea how awesome it would be to be able to download demos to this thing. You can also download videos and game trailers in high-definition, and in about a week, you will also be able to rent movies and buy TV shows through the thing. It’s a great service that adds a tremendous amount of value to the console. You know how usually when you buy a console, you need to buy a game because otherwise you can’t do anything with it? Not true with the 360. Just go online and download some demos. There’s enough to play for days.

I’m also impressed with the media center features. You can set up the 360 to stream music from your computer, so I’m currently listening to Weezer being streamed from my computer onto my nice 5.1 audio system in the living room. This is great; no more hooking the iPod up to the speakers.

As I said before, the seller included two great games: Oblivion and Project Gotham Racing 3. Of the two, I’ve played more of PGR3. It’s a nice racing game and not too hard to get into, after playing Forza on the original Xbox. Cath and I played a split-screen game tonight, and she enjoyed it. I played a little bit of Oblivion, but frankly I’m scared to get into it. I haven’t played many RPGs, and I’m not that familiar with the genre. Plus I know I’ll have to dedicate 60+ hours to the game.

The game I’m most impressed with so far is actually the NBA 2k7 demo. It plays very similarly to NBA 2k6 on Xbox, but the graphics are ridiculous. The characters look a heck of a lot like real people, especially the better players (Dwayne Wade, Shaq). It’s really crazy. Plus they have depth of field effects on the replays, which add a lot to the presentation. It’s awesome.

Will probably post again soon once I get more time in with this thing. Back to playing.

I just got the Paypal out for that Xbox 360 I bought last week. It’s such a pain to work with Paypal. First, the checking account I have linked to my Paypal account is not our joint one, and I keep very little money in there. So I had to transfer $350 into that account to cover the cost of the system, and that took 2 days. Then I had to transfer that money into my Paypal account before I could send it to the seller. That took 5 days. This morning it was finally ready to go, so I sent it out to the seller.

Once the seller received my payment this morning, he sent me an email. He had packed up the system and games last Thursday and had everything ready to go in a box by the door. His girlfriend, trying to be helpful, went ahead and shipped the package for him. All this time, before I had paid for it, the system has been in transit and is due to arrive tomorrow. I’m very pleased as this means I’ll get to play with it about a week earlier than I had expected. The seller is lucky I’m such a trustworthy guy.

Well, now I’ve gone and done it. I just bought a used Xbox 360 from someone on an online forum I frequent. It was too good a deal, and I couldn’t pass it up. For $350, I’m getting:

• Xbox 360 Premium (comes with hard drive, wireless controller, etc.)
• Extra wireless controller
• Play and charge kit
• Project Gotham Racing 3
• The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

That’s a tremendous deal. All that stuff new would be $550. And I do want most of it, in particular the extra wireless controller and Project Gotham Racing. Oblivion is supposed to be a great RPG, but I’m not really an RPG guy. I’ll give it a try though.

The system itself is only 3 months old, so hopefully it will be more reliable than the launch systems. I’m planning to buy the extended warranty for it anyway, so it shouldn’t be a huge deal if it does fail within the next 2 years.

I’m very excited for this! Can’t wait to play Gears of War and NBA 2k7.

The hype finally got to me, and I went out last night and bought a Nintendo DS Lite. The thing that pushed me over the edge was the New Super Mario Bros. game. It’s a new Mario game in 2d, not 3d like all the other recent platformers. But the graphics use 3d models, to give it a unique look. So you can describe it as having old-school Mario gameplay with up-to-date graphics.

I think Nintendo is onto something here with their focus on simple games that anyone can play. So much of gaming these days is involved, and you have to devote your full attention and lots of time to these games. Games like Halo and Grand Theft Auto, you have to sit down to play. You can’t just play them to burn time; they’re an activity in themselves. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s certainly a place for those kinds of games. But I also think there’s a place for simple games: puzzle games, Mario-type platformers, etc. Nintendo has refocused on these types of games, and I think it’s a great strategy for them. Plus these games will draw in people who don’t normally play games, people who are intimidated by the complexity of today’s games. Whereas I have a heck of a time getting Catherine to play Age of Empires 3 with me (at least an hour commitment), I bet she would love to pick up the DS and play 10 minutes of Mario.

What am I trying to say here? I think Nintendo is on the right track. Don’t waste money trying to out-hardware Sony and MS. Put out a cheaper system with simple games, and hope casual gamers eat it up.

Oh, and the DS Lite is very cool.