When we are discussing fair food, it might be useful to note that we are talking about the Puyallup Fair. My father used to work said fair when I was a young man, so my memories of the event are optimal. He’d somehow gotten plugged into some vast carnie fraternity, so that everywhere I went there was a nod and a handful of tickets, slyly conferred. I wasn’t able to attend this fair, which makes the Tycho present in the strip a simulation of a simulation. Barring the days spent in the alternate dimension of PAX - or speaking to your aggregated consciousness, here - every moment has been dumped into writing the next Precipice.
If you would like to know why writing in games suffers, or is bad, or is not valued, know this: it is because in order to secure writing, one must deal with writers, something no-one in their right fucking mind should ever even contemplate.
At the end of the day yesterday, we finally started transforming our Rock Band rock band Cair Paravel into a global brand. While this has been going on, unbeknownst to Rock Band, I have been checking out Guitar Hero setlists and other bizarre news with a growing fascination. There must be a support group for people like me: those with a firm and declared allegiance, for whom the lure of the other has taken on a terrible and beautiful fascination.
The setlist has a lot of very “obvious” tracks on it that Rock Band doesn’t yet have, although this gap could close with the promise of twenty free songs to be delivered shortly. I should be clear - when I say “obvious,” I don’t mean that they lack verve. I’m saying there’s just some straight-up, ship-of-the-line tracks on the Activision offering that belong in a Goddamned rhythm game - Hotel California, Up Around The Bend and Santeria, just to start. The included Tool tracks are, universally, missed opportunities. But I’ve been waiting to sing Interpol’s Obstacle 1 literally from day one. I understand that pricing on DLC is ever controversial and I don’t want to give motherfuckers any ideas. Here, though, is truth: Obstacle 1 is a case where I would spend sixty dollars for a single song.
(CW)TB out.
