According an article i saw on engadget , the new Dj Hero Renegade edition controller is priced at $199. As far as we know this controller can only be used with the game, i.e. it does not act as a midi controller. Why would i pay more to be limited solely to their remixes when i could n buy a midi controller and mess around with friends with ANY Mp3 track?



I was actually looking forward to this game but how can you justify buying a toy controller that costs almost (or more for the Renegade edition) to the real thing? I mean, you can get a Numark Total Control midi controller for about 160, and sure it could still be considered a toy by real dj's (i.e. well, some dj snobs anyway) but at least you have the ability to actually mix and produce something pretty decent.

At the moment the Wii version almost costs as much as the console itself. At any stage did Activision consider that the price was somewhat excessive? I can imagine that the game will have a further price increase when released in the UK bringing it even closer to the cost of some decent dj gear.

So with this news, and the associated artists (e.g. new black eyed peas and eminem) i'm going to have to go on a complete turnaround on my previous blog post (Plea to Konami, make me a DJ HERO!) and turn my back on this game.



While i'm doing a complete turnaround on this matter, and will look like a hypocrite. I've been thinking that i think i was wrong about a Dj Hero game being a good idea at all. I play videogames because it enables me to do something that i can't normally do in real life or feel i can't learn. I can't play guitar and i enjoyed Guitar Hero, i can't kill a medusa and i really enjoyed God of War. A game like this however, pretty much teaches you the basics of Dj-ing.



Don't get me wrong i know that Dj-ing (yeah i will continue to call it that, i know it's retarded) is a real skill and i'm not saying that you're going to be Kid Koala after finishing a remix of JayZ and Eminem on Dj Hero. But i still think this game teaches you the fundamentals of beat matching and once you've got that you've got enough to screw around and make some mixes. Furthermore, you could claim the fact that turntable controller is pretty close to the real deal it therefore gets you comfortable with a simple mixer, more so than the plastic guitar with buttons to a guitar with strings. However, this game/controller will only teach/train you the fundamentals, if you want to learn more you'll need something REAL and when the barrier of entry to the game is more or the same to the real deal why bother with the game? The closer games get to reality the more you have to question why not just try the real thing? Perhaps escapism is proportionally enjoyable to how far from reality it is. But then, by that theory Ninja Blade should be the most fun ever, right?



I can't DJ (i mean, i can't DJ well) but i do know my way around a turntable. With a barrier of entry as high as this for a video game unless i see it ridiculously cheap somewhere second hand, there is no way i'm paying that much for a plastic controller when i could be saving a few more pennies and get a real midi controller. Have fun staring at dots moving to Black Eyed Pea's 'Boom Boom Boom', you'll catch me dancing with my friends to a hand mixed version of "Just like a Mini Mall".


Fleamarket. Montgomery.


p.s. how do i embed youtube videos?

Just watch this, it's funny, cute, is completely relevant today and has Final Fantasy VI spoilers: It's also OLD, but i had never seen it so perhaps others hadn't either.


SEGA Fantasy VI

Courtesy of http://www.dontpressstart.com/



P.s. I Love it how UMD hurts all the consoles, including the PSP

p.p.s. What the hell is a Playdia

p.p.p.s. Man, Final Fantasy VI was so good. Nuts to all of you that started with FF7 and never went back to play the others.

The dtoid community is a cultured bunch and likes to see the world. There are, however, a few lessons to be learned about moving overseas and how easy this may be with regards to gaming.



It’s almost been a year since i moved from New Zealand to sunny Edinburgh, Scotland (aka “yeah my city has an f’n castle!”). You would have thought taking two 12 hour flights, adjusting to the new climate and starting fresh with no credit rating would be the biggest hassle in relocating. In fact, the biggest problem I’ve had is moving electronically. Buying iTunes points, using a credit card/region locks on Steam, transferring licences to a new PC are all things you don’t really consider being difficult and to be fair are small annoyances. There is one problem that still continues to bite me in the ass, a year later: Xbox Live.


I’ve had a 360 almost since launch and love the bloody thing (read: I am not a fanboy, some of my best friends are black.. etc..). I haven’t had too many troubles with it, except for the odd RROD. With this experience, and that i had already invested a lot in arcade games linked to my profile (not to mention gamerpoints), the smart choice for my first UK games console was the 360. No problems there, except when you start to involve Xbox Live.

In the process of moving, my Gamertag Gold membership had expired, but fortunately for me my local supermarket was running a special on 12 month live membership cards and point cards (as a side note i’m still not used to buying games with my foodstuffs). Well, that’s handy so i bought said card and got 4200points. I get home and login to my account

user: TheToiletDuckNZ
password TheToiletDuckNZistotallyawesome1hackmainframe

and i’m in.

Redeem code and boom goes the dynamite i have 12 months of gold membership!

Next up, my 4200 points.... code is not valid.

Hmm, must have typed it in wrong.


Code is not valid.

Okay, i guess i got shafted. Bugger. I rang up Microsoft support in Delhi and they ask me if i typed the code in correctly, then ask for my account details. They inform me that i can’t use UK points card on a NZ account. I say i’ve changed my location details and they said that it doesn’t matter. I ask if i can update my details with them and they say no. Well, fuck, what am i supposed to do then? I explain i now have 12 months on one account and can’t use my points.

She informs me the only solution is to make a silver UK account, put the points on that and then the games will be linked to that account and are able to be played with my Gold membership on the same console. Hmm, okay but then what happens if something happens to my console and i need to switch licences. Don’t worry about that until it happens she said (yeah like that’s reassuring with a console that has such a high failure rate).



You may ask, well fuck TheToiletDuck (you’ll have to buy me a drink first), why didn’t you just buy some NZ points online using a credit card? And you’d think i’d reply “wow, i never thought of that” except, i wouldn’t because i DID think of that and no dice .They don’t let you use a foreign credit card online. Hmm, actually i don’t even think they let me use my NEW ZEALAND credit card from an overseas IP address.

That was in August of 2008 so let’s fast forward to the present to when the two account fuckjuggle is still biting me in the ass.


Battlefield 1943 is released and i have a sweet moolah of points sitting in my account for just the occasion. Only, you can only buy this game using a Gold membership. Ah well, fuck it, the game has problems anyway and i have TF2 on PC. Impulse buy avoided.

Then, Dtoid lets me know that Ikaruga is half price!

Sweet, i’ve been waiting to pick this up for ages so why not. Only, it’s half price for GOLD memberships only. Fuck’s sake.


Hey, i see the 1 vs. 100 beta is out.. for GOLD membership only, no worries i’ll use my NZ account.. but the 1 Vs. 100 beta isn’t in NZ.

You get where i’m going here, if anyone tells you that your live ID is a global identity, you're right to tell them that is fucking bullshit (and then ask them why they're talking like a microsoft PR rep). Live is connected worldwide (by tubes i believe) but it’s far from a global identity. Keep this in mind when you move countries, even between compatible regions (PAL -> PAL) that things like xbox live memberships/itunes memberships/steam memberships ARE region locked. You might be able to log in with them from another country but don’t expect to be able to DO anything with them.

Once again, i’ll bring out EMO kiwi to summarize:
WAHH WAHH WAHH

I'm genuinely all for Destructoid being ad supported, i usually get a smile out of an ad for a lesbian RPG coming up in a BAN THIS SICK FILTH post. This one 'suggest your DREAM pc' ad for WEPC is a little bit... err unimaginative though.


Exhibit a)


Umm... Isn't EVERY* screen glow-in-the-dark? *my apologies to the Gameboy/Advance



Exhibit b)


Hardly a dream PC, dual monitors have been around for years and years. Hell, my shitty laptop at work is connected to a monitor thus making it a dual monitor PC.
Also,


Exhibit c)


Laptops with built in remotes have been around for a while too. Not to mention the Pandora




Come on WEPC, what about Smello-vision, PC's with bobble head hula girls, a laptop with keys made of chocolate... DREAM BIG DAMMIT! I'll give them the 'holographic' display one, but i'd say the keyboard would get a bit messy if people use it for what i think they will (i.e. what EVERYONE will use it for).

I guess that's why they need you to submit your dreams.


As a point of note, everyone should click on that link and support Destructoid. If you use an ad-blocker, make an exception for Destructoid, it won't hurt you to see ads on one page and sometimes the ads can be unintentionally thought provoking... or you might get to see some anime softcore furry rpg pr0n.

Hell, you might even get a shitty blog-post out of it.

It is a fundamental aspect of human nature that most people will steal something if there is no danger of getting caught. And this is what has happened to the recorded music industry. Most music residing on MP3 players in the world is stolen, it has been downloaded over the internet using peer to peer filesharing. In fact most young people today think that it is quite normal and acceptable to steal in this way and they kick up a fuss when someone tries to stop them.

With the advent of broadband this stealing spread to movies. So now every movie is available online before it is in the cinema. And many millions of people are regularly stealing from the film industry. To these thieves it is the acceptable norm.

Which brings us to games. To a large extent these have the DRM protection of being on a console. Where this breaks down, as in boxed PC games, the market is decimated and the supply of new products dwindles to a trickle. http://www.bruceongames.com/2008/04/23/game-piracy/

The thieves make lots of excuses for their thieving. Such as the fact that one incremental copy does not cost the producer anything. But they miss the fundamental moral point that they are benefiting from another person’s work without contributing towards it. And if everyone steals, then who will pay for new music, films and games to be made?

The only way to stop this stealing is to stop the illegal traffic on the internet. It currently comprises well over a half of all internet traffic, so widespread is the stealing. The French have introduced a law that thieves will have their internet connections stopped if they offend repeatedly. This approach is what a lot of governments and a lot of the industries involved want. So if it works in France it will be rolled out to other countries.

This stealing is not victimless, the recorded music industry has been decimated, the film industry is suffering from a huge loss of revenues and the games industry has just about deserted several gaming platforms. All this means people losing their jobs and less content being produced.

In the UK the creative industries contribute £112.5 billion (or 8%) to the economy and provide 1.8 million jobs. It has been researched that half of this is at risk from illegal file sharing. So something has to be done. Peer to peer downloading is the biggest epidemic of theft in the history of mankind. The law has not kept up with the technology and everyone will be a lot worse off until it does.

It became apparent from the comments on the Destructoid Mosaics (Version beta 1c) that some key members (hehe members) were missed off of the mosaics. That wasn't going to do, so i looked into the settings and i think I've managed to include more people. Seems i was missing the avatars hosted on outside servers (not dtoids) in the pool of images.

Surprisingly, this took me a lot longer than last time. The biggest problem was how to get the 1000odd avatars without clicking save-as on each one. My temporary internet files method was no good, so i settled with saving the page. Anyway... using Mr Sadistic's avatar (Destro ftw) as my litmus test these new pics seem to pass. Again, there are bigger versions in the gallery.

















Now... let's make things a bit more interesting (and try to ignore the fact that this blog post is essentially a shameful copy-pasta)

I have a newly acquired XBLA code for Connect 4 which will go to the first one that can find these 3 avatars :

RioMcCarthy:.......................Niero:.......................Char Aznable:
....

in this masterpiece :)



Screen caps or written location posted in comments section is fine. Shouldn't be too hard as every avatar can be on there up to three times.



And just to make sure that RAB and Y0j1 don't feel left out this time:







purplemonkeydishwasher.


UPDATE: Congrats Justice, the code has been sent via message to your Gamertag.