Game Diary: Running to the Hills
In between playing Rez on beyond mode and small sessions of Geometry Wars, this week seems to be dominated by Rock Band (what else?) In addition to playing some Tug of War online (got my Tug of War champ achievement by getting 20 wins in ranked matches! Woo!) I joined up with Grant and Amy (formerly The Geek and White Mage) for some band quickplay over Live. We had some issues.
First, Grant's invite bleemped at me on the screen but didn't show up in my message list, not allowing me to join the game. Then Amy sent an invite, which magically worked. Then I couldn't figure out how to plug my headset into my guitar, as I have never done it before and I generally loathe talking to people over Live. Man, they made that little hole for the headset tiny and hard to find, for a while I was just stupidly turning the controller over trying to figure out where the damn plug goes. Then Grant reminded me that I needed the included adapter, which I had to rummage through my random boxes of electronics and wires to find. After getting that all set up, we noticed my headset audio options weren't working, as Grant and Amy's voices were coming through my speakers and my headset, no matter what I toggled in the special menu. So I had to turn off the game and get re-invited. Apparently the Xbox Live headsets don't like to be plugged in after you're already signed in and ready to go. Plug and play, Microsoft! Plug and plaaaaaaaaaaay.
We eventually got it to work and ripped out a few rockin' tracks, but as it usually goes I wanted to continue my Rock Band marathon after they had left. On a whim I started playing solo tour on expert and progressed quite far. I then applied my new magical drum skills to my existing hard solo setlist and completed all of the final tracks (Next To You, Flirting With Disaster, Won't Get Fooled Again and Tom Sawyer) except Run To The Hills, which kicked my ass. I've played it a number of times and failed miserably, going back to practice mode and trying to get the stickings down. That weird galloping beat... so... so weird.
I am actually reading forum posts to see what the correct sticking is. Is it left-right-left right-left-right? Or is it right-left-right right-left-right? Sigh.
