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Rock Band 2 details: wireless instruments, playlists, drum trainer
Let's get this out of the way first: Rock Band 2 isn't the innovator Rock Band 1 was. But if it walks like Rock Band 1 and rocks like Rock Band 1, then what makes it Rock Band 2? If you're afraid of getting a glorified song-pack, Harmonix has a handful of new features in store that they hope will assuage your fears, and they all seem to revolve around the user experience. That means no new instrument types and no fancy, new graphics, but a whole lot of what you love about Rock Band 1 has been fixed up and added onto. We got a chance to check the game out at EA's EA3 event last month and EA shared a fact sheet with us that lays out all the new features. The sequel's major feature seems to be "backwards compatibility" – that means all your previously purchased DLC will work, no need for redownloading or authorizing. It just works. The same philosophy extends to your equipment: all of your Rock Band 1 equipment will work with Rock Band 2. %Gallery-27156%
Joystiq hands-on: Spore (the whole thing)
click to enter gallery var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/Joystiq_hands_on_Spore_the_whole_thing'; As equal parts excuse and contrition, I feel it's necessary to add the following disclaimer to this writeup: spending thirty minutes with something like Spore is like spending thirty minutes on the history of the Russian space program or spending thirty minutes on the theory of evolution (or any other seemingly disparate discipline you may find in one of Will Wright's famously schizophrenic presentations) – it may be deep enough to wet your toes but there's an ocean out there. At a recent EA event in Los Angeles, myself and the rest of the E3 Judges had an opportunity to get our feet wet (figuratively, of course). Before being lead into a private demo area with a half-dozen high-end gaming rigs outfitted with the latest build of Spore, Will Wright – along with what seemed to be every other team at EA – gave a short presentation covering ... well, he covered a lot (see above). I was able to extract two fascinating details from my furiously scribbled notes. First: Wright (and EA we presume) was hoping to have 100,000 creatures created by the time the game ships in September; of course, they beat that in the first couple hours. In fact, they had announced the night before that 250,000 creatures were created and, after getting a quick real-time check during his presentation, estimated they would hit half a million before the end of the day's event. (They did).Second: Wright told us that they expected to "exceed the world population of 3D models in Spore" within the first couple months. If we heard him right, that means there would be more 3D models in the Sporepedia than every other game, movie, you-name-it combined. And, wrapped in the embrace of Will Wright's own special reality distortion field that afternoon, nothing seemed more plausible. %Gallery-26579%
