You know Rock Band.  You know you play Rock Band.  You know you love it.  But how much harder is it to pass a song that you actually can’t stand to listen to?  And then when you can’t pass it, you have to keep listening to it over and over and over until you want to smash the guitar and throw your drumsticks at the TV.

Until Harmonix releases the DeSuckify update for Rock Band, I present the top 10 suckiest songs they included in Rock Band (taken from the main setlist, not the bonus songs (they all suck) or downloadable songs (if you pay for crappy music, that’s on you)) in no particular order:

1. Dead on Arrival by Fall Out Boy.  At least when I play this song and don’t pass I enjoy hearing Fall Out Boy getting booed off stage.

2. Foreplay/Long Time by Boston.  These guys are probably (fore)playing with each other, which is why this endlessly long song sucks.  (Get it?)

3. Highway Star by Deep Purple.  These guys want to fuck their car.  ‘Nuff said.

4. Green Grass and High Tides by The Outlaws.  What the hell are these guys singing about?  And couldn’t they do it quicker?  Hey Outlaws: Long meaningless songs an artist does not make.

5. Welcome Home by Coheed and Cambria.  These guys are basically rocker-looking emo artists.  So they whine in their songs.  Really, who wants to play four and half minutes of crappy whiny music?

6. Flirtin’ with Disaster by Molly Hatchet.  Sorry, I thought I bought “Rock Band” not “Crappy Southern Mullet Rockers”.

7. Train Kept A-Rollin’ by Aerosmith.  As much as I like Aerosmith, they really should’ve picked a better song to include in this set list.  I mean, where’s Dude Looks a Lady, Rag Doll, Janie’s Got a Gun, or even Angel?  Why’d they have to pick some horrible unpopular song?

8. Mississippi Queen by Mountain.  Although I’ve gotten used to playing this now, I can’t say this is a good song.  It’s just playable.  I’m just glad I don’t sing it.

9. Paranoid by Black Sabbath.  I would’ve preferred Iron Man.  Again, don’t give us irrelevant material from artists who have much better songs to offer.

10. Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones.  I’m not a big Stones fan, and I don’t enjoy playing this song.

Disagree with my list?  Sound off in the comments!

Tags: Harmonix, Rock Band, Song List

Ah, the Internets really do bring us all together, eh?

I’ve been having trouble with my Guitar Hero 3 wireless guitar for my XBox 360. I don’t like my Rock Band guitar, so I had gotten back one my Guitar Hero 2 X-Plorers, which is working great.

When I finally got around to googling the problem with my guitar, it turns out I’m not alone, by a long shot.

Red Octane, the makers of Guitar Hero, don’t seem to be interested in doing right by their customers at all. I tried to RMA Exchange the guitar, and was told it is out of warranty - that’s all. Too bad, so sad.

Fuckers. I could’ve just bought the game and kept playing with my X-Plorer controllers. But I paid extra for a wireless guitar. Going forward, fuck them and their piece of shit controllers.

Red Octane, you just lost my business. Rock Band is way more fun anyways, so go fuck yourselves.

Update: At least Costco isn’t a bunch of assholes. They took it back as soon as they heard me say it was defective.

Tags: Guitar Hero 3, Red Octane

Oh man oh man oh man. I usually don’t care much for shooters, but I really like Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six game. I really enjoyed Rainbow Six Vegas on my XBox 360. Now Rainbox Six Vegas 2 is coming out. I’m psyched. Peep the trailer.

March 18th, huh? Maybe I’ll have to take the XBox to Hawaii with me. I think Neela will love that idea, as long as I take a guitar and a mic, too, for Rock Band.

Tags: Gaming, Rainbow Six, Tom Clany

As you can see, Sony (i.e. Blu Ray) is (sadly) winning the Hi Def Disc Format War. With only two studios now backing HD-DVD, I decided it was time to cover all my bases. So I have the HD-DVD drive for the XBox 360, as well as a PS3 now, only for the Blu Ray drive.

Sorry, world. I really tried not to let Sony win. I wish you all would have supported me.

Format Wars: Where Things Stand In The Hi-Def DVD Format War

Tags: Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, PS3, XBox360

I’ve tried a lot of different uPnP servers in the pursuit of using my XBox 360 to be a media hub. Now that I have a PS3, I figured one of the two ought to be able to fill the huge gap in my technology requirements.

As I was out there looking once again for the latest offerings of uPnP servers, I came across nullriver’s MediaLink (for PS3) and Connect360 (for the, well… you can guess).

I installed both on my mac (yeah, native apps!). They both quickly dipped into my iTunes and offered iPhoto integration (no integration offered for Aperture). They even let me pick which folders to share, presumably for videos.

I got them both configured, thinking I would give them both a go and see which worked best for me.

Well, as you can guess from the title, Connect360 is the clear winner, for many reasons:

• The PS3 interface sucks ass. There’s very little anyone can do about that, so there’s that.
• MediaLink let me traverse the shared folders on my mac, but none of the files actually showed up.
• Connect360 showed all my files, let me quickly sort through them, and let me fast forward, rewind, and pause my videos without an issue.
• While the XBox 360 UI is no gem, it’s usable - there I said it again. The PS3 really blows.
• It all worked with Connect360 on the first try.

Now, how much will I use this capability? I dunno. Now that I can play DivX files, maybe more often than previously expected. But it’s nice to know it’s there - and it’s easy enough to use.

I wonder if I’ll still need to get an Apple TV (take 2). Hmmmm…. probably… but for all the wrong reasons

First off, if you haven’t been playing Guitar Hero II, start now. Second of all, if you plan on playing on your XBox 360, don’t expect to find a wireless controller. Why? Because Micro$oft won’t share their wireless secrets.

Screw you Micro$soft!

I can’t believe you have to buy the god damn XBox 360 Elite to get HDMI.  That’s so lame.  They should have offered it as a connector to those with “legacy” XBox 360s, also.

Hey, I hope you miss my OS business.  And my Office business.  In fact, I don’t need anything from you anymore.