Archive for Entertainment category
My Rock Band dream set list
Harmonix are taking submissions of ideas for songs in Rock Band. I thought I’d go one stage further and put together an entire dream list using the following criteria:
- Ideal for the four instruments (Drummer, Singer, Guitarists) – no Bittersweet Symphony
- Well known enough that you all feel the music – no obscure bands or tracks
- Attention keeping – no massive 2-minute intros or solos
- Killer guitar track – this is rock after all!
- Not previously featured on Guitar Hero I or II
- Variety – no band more than once plus a mix of 80s, 90s and 00s
So here it is…
1. Opening Licks
- The Passenger – Iggy Pop
- I Predict a Riot – Kasier Chiefs
- Bad Medicine – Bon Jovi
- Wonderwall – Oasis
- All Right Now – Free
2. Amp-Warmers
- Money For Nothing – Dire Straights
- Let Me Entertain You – Robbie Williams
- Paradise City – Guns ‘n Roses
- Somebody Told Me – The Killers
- It’s Been Awhile – Staind
3. String-Snappers
- Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana
- Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Green Day
- Going Down/Love in an Elevator – Aerosmith
- Bohemian Like You – The Dandy Warhols
- Holy Water – Bad Company
4. Thrash and Burn
- Summer of 69 – Bryan Adams
- Eye of the Tiger – Survivor
- Darts of Pleasure – Franz Ferdinand
- Inside – Stiltskin
- Sk8er Boi – Avril Lavigne
5. Return of the Shred
- Poison – Alice Cooper
- All The Small Things – Blink-182
- Walk This Way – Run DMC
- Danger! High Voltage – Electric Six
- In The End – Linkin Park
Okay so there is no way they’d ever put so many great tracks in one game – they’d be worried you’d not buy the next one to get more tracks and so we’ll get second-rate filler just like the record companies have been doing with albums for years.
Most of these are available at the iTunes store so enjoy my first iMix entitled Dream Rock Band.
[)amien
Hiding secrets behind the law – DRM, AACS and the 16-byte key
It surprises and annoys me when I hear of individuals or companies trying to use the law to hide secrets. Surprise at the sheer stupidity and annoyance that tax payers money is used in the process.
The latest secret under suppression is a short 16-byte key which locks away the content on HD-DVD discs that only licensed software and hardware can play it back and prevent you from making copies.
This type of protection used to be called copy-protection but these days it goes under the equally unpopular name of "Digital Rights Management (DRM)". It enforce the copyright holders rights whilst denying you yours and does it in such a way that in some countries re-asserting your legal rights means you end up breaking others.
The AACS Licencing Authority believe they can now protect by law what they failed to protect using technology. This is particularly amusing because their predecessor, the DVD-CCA, failed on both counts when the encryption on DVD was broken in 1999 by an enterprising trio. Apple gets it and is going down the DRM-free route and not treating their customers like criminals.
Basing an entire business model on keeping a sequence of characters secret defies belief and thinking you can wipe the secret off the face of the internet once it’s out is laughable especially when you consider the infinite number of ways you could represent it. The AACS are at it anyway with take down notices to the likes of Digg and others. Amusingly the take down notice itself includes the ‘magic key’.
Alternative 16-byte sequence where each byte is an offset on the previous one is "09 F0 18 F1 9B D7 6F 78 7D 69 15 6F 9E F3 32 38" which if run through the following program yields a certain magic key.
class Program {
static void Main(string[] argv) {
byte b = 0;
string key = string.Empty;
foreach(string a in argv) {
b += byte.Parse(a, System.Globalization.NumberStyles.HexNumber);
key += string.Format("{0:x2} ", b);
}
System.Console.WriteLine(key);
}
}[)amien
Taking on the role of a Guitar Hero
My friends and I have been very much enjoying Guitar Hero II on the Xbox 360 released earlier this month.
Despite reservations we’ve found ourselves jumping around performing a variety of silly stances, head bops and special moves whilst we attempt to strum ‘n chord in time to the tricky yet rewarding tracks available. Once we got a second guitar and hit the co-operative (one bass, one lead) and VS modes (turns each or both together) then out-performing the other player off-screen as well as on became an integral part of the game.
The line-up of songs is a little disappointing – when there is one “made famous” by a well known band then it tends to be one of their less famous song. I say “made famous” as the game clearly points it out they are, alas, cover versions bar a small handful.
Extra tracks are available on-line in packs of 3 for 500 MSP‘s each. These are again cover versions presumably due to the developer being unable to licence the original audio mix to the songs so that they can cut out the guitar and bass lines when you fail to hit the right combination of colourful buttons and strum in time.
One pleasant surprise is that the guitar is just a normal USB device and can be used under Windows once the Xinput common controller driver is installed or on the Mac using TattieBogle’s Xbox 360 OS X driver.
Why would you want to do that? To play the free cross-platform Guitar Hero clone Frets on Fire with all the fan-created songs of course!
Whilst there are plans for Guitar Hero: 80s Edition and Guitar Hero III the franchise is being handed over to Activision’s Neversoft team (Tony Hawks) as they bought the rights to the name when they snapped up Guitar Hero’s publisher Red Octane.
Original music-game-only developer Harmonix aren’t whining about it or heading to the courts, oh no. They are fighting back with Rock Band that throws drums and vocals on top of lead and bass guitars.
Fantastic!
[)amien
PS: Under no circumstances consider playing either game with a keyboard or a regular controller – the experience just isn’t the same.
PSP Open Firmware Edition
I mentioned in at a previous post that I had modified my PSP so I could run my old favourite Lucas Arts adventure games and even my original PS1 games.
Dark Alex is the guy behind the firmware but the whole scene/process is full of terminology and a bit complex. This are the steps that worked for me (via 2.71) and for a couple of friends (via 3.03)
This will invalidate your warranty and has the potential chance to leave your PSP useless. By following these instructions you are agreeing to take that risk and liability into your own hands – no warranty is expressed or implied, the author will not be held liable for damages, etc. Sony certainly do not authorise such modification.
You will need
- PSP currently running firmware 3.03 or earlier
- Memory Stick Pro Duo with some space
- Various files linked to from this post
Also, if your firmware is above 2.71 you will need:
- Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (original with 2.0 firmware update on it not 2.6)
My instructions below are for the earlier TA-079 hardware not the newer TA-082 so go check this guide for details of identifying which you have – they also have information on what you need to do for the TA-082 model.
Getting enabled
So check which firmware you have in the PSP’s Settings > System Settings > System Information menu option – it’s called System Software.
If it is 1.50 already jump to Flashing Open Edition section.
If above 1.50 but below 2.71
Make a note of your network settings, they will be lost!
- download the 2.71 firmware
- create the folder /PSP/GAME/UPDATE/ on your Memory Stick
- rename the file EBOOT.PBP and move it to this folder
- put Memory Stick in PSP and go to the Game > Memory Stick menu
- choose the 2.71 firmware update option and follow instructions
- download the homebrew enabler for 2.71 (I used Rev C)
- copy the contents of the downloads MS_ROOT folder to the root of your Memory Stick
- put Memory Stick back in PSP and use the Photo viewer to look at the HENx folder
- your PSP should now crash with a blue/green screen
- check the System Information menu option again – it should say HEN at the end of the System Software
- if it does, skip to the Flash 1.50 downgrade section
- if it does not, power off your PSP and try viewing the picture again
- download the generic 2.71 downgrader and unpack contents of MS_ROOT to Memory Stick root folder
- download the 1.50 firmware
- rename the file UPDATE.PBP *then* copy to /PSP/GAME/UPDATE/ on the Memory Stick
- put Memory Stick in PSP and go to the Game > Memory Stick menu
- choose the x.yz firmware update option and follow instructions
- Agree to reset the corrupt settings when it reboots
- check the System Information menu option again – it should say 1.50!
If above 2.71 but below 3.03
- download the 3.03 firmware
- create the folder /PSP/GAME/UPDATE/ on your memory stick
- rename the file EBOOT.PBP and move it to this folder
- put Memory Stick in PSP and go to the Game > Memory Stick menu
- choose the 3.03 firmware update option and follow instructions
- rename your /PSP/SAVEDATA/ folder to /PSP/SAVEBACK/ or something
- download the homebrew enabler for 3.03
- copy the contents of the downloads MS_ROOT folder to the root of your Memory Stick
- put Memory Stick back in PSP and attempt to load Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
- the game should flash the screen blue before you get to play and reboot
- check the System Information menu option again – it should say HEN at the end of the System Software
- if it does not, power off your PSP and try loading GTA again
- delete the /PSP/SAVEDATA/ folder and rename /PSP/SAVEBACK/ back to /PSP/SAVEDATA/
- download the 3.03 downgrader and unpack contents of MS_ROOT to Memory Stick root folder
- download the 1.50 firmware
- rename the file UPDATE.PBP *then* copy to /PSP/GAME/UPDATE/ on the Memory Stick
- put Memory Stick in PSP and go to the Game > Memory Stick menu
- choose the x.yz firmware update option and follow instructions
- Agree to reset the corrupt settings when it reboots
- check the System Information menu option again – it should say 1.50!
If above 3.03
You’re out of luck for now.
Flashing Open Edition
Dark Alex’s official patch requires you grab a few Sony firmware images and run a patching tool… but there is a very unofficial pre-made package available. The steps are
- download the 3.10 OE-A Easy Installer
- unpack it to your hard disk
- copy the 310oeflasher and 310oeflasher% folders to /PSP/GAME/ on the Memory Stick
- put Memory Stick in PSP and go to the Game > Memory Stick menu
- choose the 3.10 Open Edition firmware update option and follow instructions
- check the System Information menu option again – it should say 3.10 OE-A.
Get your old favourites on there!
Your PSP is now ready to play images of your original PS1 games (image with Alcohol 120% or similar image making software then convert with PopStation) and third-party “home-brew” software like ScummVM to play all those great point-and-click adventures you’ve got lying around.
In both cases just create a folder on your Memory Stick inside /PSP/GAME/ and drop the EBOOT.PBP file in that new directory. Access it from the Game > Memory Stick menu as usual!
As a bonus the battery appears to last longer playing home-brew and PS1 games – perhaps because of the lower CPU requirements or the fact the UMD isn’t spinning all the time.
[)amien
PlayStation 3 – the last straw
I was a big fan of the original PlayStation with such amazing titles as Ridge Racer, Wipeout, Tomb Raider, Parappa the Rapper, Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Gran Turismo 2.
Of course when the PlayStation 2 came out I jumped at the chance and have enjoyed some great titles too – more of the same franchise really but some great titles nether less and you can still use it to play all your PS1 games. It’s a great machine although it’s definitely due for replacement by now.
I’ve spent a fair amount of cash on those PlayStation games and hardware despite flirts with Dreamcast (yum) and Xbox 1 (which did nothing for me).
PlayStation 3 should be my logical upgrade path – all they had to do was more of the same but with better hardware and on-line support but the news this week was the final straw.
Not content with overcharging Europeans for the machine they’ve also decided to make the hardware a bit cheaper for them to produce by removing the hardware for backwards compatibility with the PS2 stating it’s "not a priority" for them.
So what we have is a machine that’s been repeatedly delayed, that developers won’t be able to harness the CPU power of, that is expensive, uses proprietary media from a company that has a long list of failed media formats, that offers no compelling titles, has a poor on-line experience, has no unique features at all, is expensive and late to the party.
I know, this isn’t a unique viewpoint there have been comics and even songs (thanks Lab) about how Sony are killing off their own PlayStation brand with sheer incompetence.
[)amien