Episode #100 Discussion

Question, comments, thoughts on the latest episode? Let us know here!

Direct Download - http://traffic.libsyn.com/signedin/Signed_In_100.mp3

Well done on hitting these great milestones, as ever much appreciation.

Long Live Cherryblossom.

Holy poop.

247 retail titles
196 XBLA games
359 indie games

Nice going guys, and good tallying it up Lunchbox.

I should of asked the guys how many of those games they completed.

Plants vs Zombies table is harder when you start trying for certain things because then you take weird bounces. Also the scoring is low because you get minimal points while doing a mission unlike other tables were you get good points whether you complete it or not.

What you should do is shut up.

I've been through all the stages of depression with Rock Band Blitz. Over the last few days, however, it has really clicked with me. I have all the achievements in it already (except for 300 unique songs played) and I have gold stars on exactly 100 songs according to the facebook app.

Things you'll want to do:

1) As Jeremy mentioned, change to Freakish controls. I played with Default for the first week and it took an hour or two to retrain my brain, but the difference in scores speaks for itself.

2) There's no one answer to the powerup combination to use for every song, but Road Rage + Blast Notes + Super Guitar is a really good starting point, unless you know that some other instrument will be better than guitar for it.

2a) If you get good at switching tracks without breaking combo to maintain Blitz speed, then you can replace Road Rage with Jackpot as the bonuses there are INSANE!

3) Sustain notes give tons more points than you realize based on classic Rock Band experience. Plus you're not going to break your combo staying on it. Point being is that it's not always beneficial to change off a Super-Guitar sustain to hit 6 bass notes instead.

4) If you know you're past the last checkpoint, just stay on your Super track since you'll get far more points staying there than going over to the other tracks to increase the multiplier. You'll only get 300points per maxed track more, but you're sacrificing double points from the super track AND risking breaking your Blitz.

4a) The problem with that is, you have to be familiar with the song so that you know when it's safe to ignore the other tracks. Harmonix really needs to change the color of the final checkpoint.

5) Play better.

6) 100% a solo gives 20k bonus, 99% gives 10k bonus. If it comes to it, just spam the buttons to hit all the notes and sacrifice the Blitz as there's no risk of "failing" the song.

You mean like once, or do you want to count each time?

You dont count OCD man.

A "Toll Booth Willy" reference! What a great thing for the 100th episode!

Congrats and thanks for the great show!

I gotta be honest, I don't even remember that happening. (Knowing very well that it could have even come from me.) Sometimes the show is like a blur.

The dude or dudes behind the XBLIG Face-Plant Adventures put our review from episode 100 to gameplay footage of the game! Give it a look and marvel at Craig's fantastic review abilities! (They did an amazing job at matching footage up!)

http://youtu.be/St0USR_XXTM

I didn't describe anything wrong! Though I shouldn't have been so quick to agree with Jeremy's "like a leaderboard"? It's not. It's like what Sean said.

I can't help but question the negativity that Blitz has gotten from many corners of the internet, here included. Especially for being a very leaderboard-centric game, which is something Rock Band proper is. The "having to play a song over and over" complaint seems silly to me when you know it's something you'll do eventually anyway if you wish to have, literally, ANY replay value with the game, and again something that's a part of Rock Band itself if you wish to do well (or be goofy or play multiple instruments or whatever). I can't count the number of times I've played certain songs in order to get a better score on them...in Rock Band 1 and 2. Even with 100%-ing songs, there are so many different times you can activate Overdrive that have huge effects on your score that...well, if you want to do well, you need to play and play again. In Rock Band proper AND in Rock Band Blitz.

Good points. I think for me, it's really the disconnect from the music that separates Rock Band Blitz from plain ol' Rock Band. In Rock Band I feel like I'm playing the music and just happen to be getting a score for it. In Blitz, I feel like it's the opposite--I'm playing for a score, and I just happen to be using the rhythm of a song to obtain it. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. It's just that it doesn't connect with me as a result.

I see what you're saying, but IMO replaying and the results that gives you is not the same thing in RBB as it is in Rock Band proper. There are far too many variables in RBB for it to be entertaining for me. Between the multiple Power-Up configurations and the fact that there is no set play path it's a much more random scenario for score improvement in RBB.

Replaying tracks in RB boils down to a form of practice. Outside of hitting the notes and learning when to use Overdrive there is nothing else involved. With RBB you have a multitude of various power-ups to use to see what combo works best on top of figuring out the best path of play. The score/performance swings are too varied for me to get any kind of fun out of replaying songs to "better" my score. If I can 100% a song in RB I'm never going to see a huge swing in points with multiple replays.

In RB it becomes squeezing everything down to a fine point and getting the most out of the track you can in harmony with your play skill on a given instrument. It's completely tunneled.

You know that carnival game where you shoot the water gun at the target?



That's Rock Band. RBB is essentially the same thing, except the front of your water gun looks like this: