Rock Band: Drunken Doozies Download Party Pack

I noticed that Jane posted a wish list of female vocals songs for Rock Band.

I thought I'd add my own, only this time, this is 'songs Harmonix really should have included for drunken Rock Band parties'. Here it is, along with the envisioned end user experience:

1. Cream and Bastards Rise (Harvey Danger): Alright. It's friday night, you've had a hard week. You wouldn't have to flip burgers if those in the fake music biz hadn't screwed over your fake band. F*** 'em! It's about the music man! [Play 5 times until scoring perfect or your angst has been sated. One beer per iteration]
2. I'm the Man (Joe Jackson): That's right. You're the man. Let it be known. [Play thrice, with one jager shot per iteration. Why jager? Because you're The Man]
3. Mexican Radio (Wall of Voodoo): The tequila's been busted out, and now so has this song. (This song isn't on Amazon's mp3 service, but there are a bunch of good covers, see here. If Harmonix opt's for the Bruce Lash version, then move to very end of playlist :-) [play 4 times or until tequila finished and you lose count]
4. Pump It Up (Elvis Costello): Time to rock out. Go. [Play twice or until sick of it. Do tequila poppers during guitar interlude bits. Yeah, you ran out of tequila on #3, so these are 'miscellaneous poppers']
5. Iron Man (Black Sabbath): This one isn't in the download pack. The guitarist got carried away on the last song and kicked the controller out. The singer is now just screaming "I AM IRON MAN!" repeatedly while standing shirtless on the coffee table. [Repeat doing so until controller plugged back in. Drink JD directly from bottle throughout]
6. Bonin' in the Boneyard (Fishbone): The basist has been whining for this one for a while. Fine. [Play once only, and only if he agrees to buy the beer next week. Meanwhile drink the 6 pack of wine coolers he was going to bring over to his ol' lady's place after practice. He wasn't going to get any anyhow. Its a school night]
7. Hornets! Hornets! (The Hold Steady): OK, you got in a fist fight with the drummer over who finished the coke and should go to the 7-11 for refills. Your girlfriend left because Rock Band doesn't make you sexy. Forget her! Priorities! [Play once. Now might be a good time for the rum. Since the coke is all gone, you mix it with vodka]
8. Bro Hymn (Pennywise): You and the drummer have made up. Revel in drunken camraderie. [play, say, 10 times or so. Swill malt liquor and spill a little for your dead homies (don't let the fact that you don't actually have 'dead homies' sway you. You don't have a real band either)]
9. Rock and Roll, Part 2 (Gary Glitter): OK, now we are on a proper bender. The group has reached the point where the chords need to be blurry, and vocals have been reduced to slurred yelling. Screw who has the mic, everyone is the singer now. [Play till you pass out, drinking whatever's left if anything]
10. There's a track number 10, but no one ever gets to it, so they don't know what it is.

There you go. Harmonix, please get right on it. I'll buy first round!

Duelling Guitar (games)

I just blogged some more Rock Band footage, this time out of the E3 MS press conference.

Among the various bits of news leading up to and coming from E3, are a bunch of factoids released about the 2 duelling guitar games: The Activision-acquired Guitar Hero sequel Guitar Hero 3 and the MTV/EA published Rock Band from the creators of GH, Harmonix.

I'm starting to worry a little about the escalating arms race of spend going into both these titles to pick up various music licenses, band/musician signups, etc.

Rock band has an advisory board.
Rock Band gets Metallica, plus has entire albums as DLC.
Slash to be the Boss in GHIII, plus do an original track for the game

etc, etc.

It's great for consumers, but I hope that (a) they remember that it's about the GAME, and (b) they both make money so we see more of the same.

To be clear, I'm sure they'll both see an assload of units, I'm just wondering whether the budget growth is outpacing the likely sales.

Video Clip of Harmonix's Rockband gameplay

Posted over on my other blog.

As the guys at Kotaku put it, it's like staring into the face of God.