Angry Digital Garbage Pirates

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

2009-08-06T02:27:00.002-05:00

Is it wrong to say that I am pumped to see this movie on Saturday? Of course not! It will have no plot and the acting will be terrible, but who cares, its G.I. Joe. While Transformers was a total piece of shit, this will actually be $8 well spent on a summer action flick. An awesome cartoon from my childhood will finally be realized on the big screen exactly the way it was meant to be. Michael Bay is not capable of screwing this project over. It's about time we see something fairly similar to what we remember from the 90's.

Rock Band DLC 8/4

2009-07-31T12:29:00.004-05:00

Wooo Spinal Tap! I'm probably one of the few people actually excited to get this entire album. Only downside is it is the only thing being released this week, which has an odd feeling to it after such a long time of single releases.

We’re at the time of week again – DLC ANNOUNCEMENT TIME! I am very pleased to reveal next week’s awesomosity. What do we have? let’s take a look. Break out your tiny mock Stonehenge because we are bringing you Spinal Tap’s Back From the Dead on 360, PS3 and Wii. Wii also is catching up with Foo Fighters and Black Sabbath. We also haven’t forgotten PSP with some Jane’s Addiction and Styx. Next week kicks ass.

Rock Band DLC Additions for Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 Systems and Wii Console

The 11 songs that comprised the film’s original soundtrack were recently re-imagined and newly interpreted by the band for its latest CD Back From The Dead. The end result is that England’s Loudest Heavy Metal Band, Spinal Tap, has never sounded better. Back From The Dead also features six brand new songs including “Back from the Dead,” “Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare” and “Warmer Than Hell” which are already available in the Rock Band Music Store and an hour-long DVD featuring band commentary. This is Spinal Tap is now available on Blu-Ray from MGM Home Entertainment.

Tracks available on Xbox 360 and Wii (Aug. 4) and PLAYSTATION 3 system (Aug. 6):

Spinal Tap “(Funky) Sex Farm”
Spinal Tap “(Listen to the) Flower People (Reggae Stylee)”
Spinal Tap “America”
Spinal Tap “Big Bottom”
Spinal Tap “Cups and Cakes”
Spinal Tap “Gimme Some Money”
Spinal Tap “Heavy Duty”
Spinal Tap “Hell Hole”
Spinal Tap “Rock ‘n’ Roll Creation”
Spinal Tap “Stonehenge”
Spinal Tap “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight”

(All tracks are original master recordings from Back From The Dead recording sessions.)

These tracks will be available for purchase as part of the “Spinal Tap’s TAP TEN” or as individual tracks on Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 systems.

Price:
$1.99 USD, £.99 UK, €1.49 EU (160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) per track
$17.99 (1440 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) for “Spinal Tap’s TAP TEN”
$2.00 USD, (200 Wii Points) per track

Wii Back-Catalog Additions
Additionally, tracks from Black Sabbath and Foo Fighters will be available Aug. 4 in the Wii Rock Band Music Store. These tracks come from the catalog of Rock Band music already released to owners of Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 system. With the addition of these tracks, there are now more than 450 tracks in the Wii Rock Band Music Store.

Additional tracks available for Wii (Aug. 4):

Black Sabbath “N.I.B.” *
Black Sabbath “Sweet Leaf” *
Black Sabbath “War Pigs” *
Foo Fighters “Doll”
Foo Fighters “Enough Space”
Foo Fighters “February Stars”
Foo Fighters “Hey, Johnny Park!”
Foo Fighters “Monkey Wrench”
Foo Fighters “My Hero”
Foo Fighters “My Poor Brain”
Foo Fighters “New Way Home”
Foo Fighters “See You”
Foo Fighters “Up in Arms”
Foo Fighters “Walking After You”
Foo Fighters “Wind Up”

(* Denotes cover version)

Price:
$2.00 USD, (200 Wii Points) per track

Rock Band Unplugged Tracks for PSP®System
Rock Band Unplugged fans will enjoy the addition of Jane’s Addiction’s “Had a Dad” and Styx’s “Renegade” to the 25 tracks already available via the Rock Band Unplugged in-game music store for the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system.

Tracks available for Rock Band Unplugged (Aug. 6):

Jane’s Addiction “Had a Dad”
Styx “Renegade”

Price:
$1.99, £.99 UK, €1.49 EU per track on the PSP system>

Ion Drum Rocker Is Here

2009-07-28T20:06:00.008-05:00

Today was quite the exciting day. My Ion Drum Rocker set arrived around noon and I've been busy ever since.

The box itself is a bit bigger than Rock Band drumkits, but it weighs a lot more (over 30 pounds). Previous people have commented on packaging, and they're true. This set has tons of cardboard and barely any Styrofoam. Every item is neatly packaged in its own box, all of them clearly labeled as well. Within that, most are in some kind of plastic wrapping. Simply put, once all the items are taken out, there will be very little roam to work with.

Putting the kit together was very quick and easy. Everything is easily put together, and all the tools needed to do so are included. I'd estimate the total time was around 1 hour. After that though, you have to spend time moving the individual drum heads to the proper position. This takes a decent while to figure out. After playing a few songs and doing some minor adjustments I managed to reach the perfect setup.

The kit itself is fantastic. The moment I started playing I already knew this was money well spent. The kit is relatively quiet in comparison to the standard kits. The drum heads make a nice deep thud sound. The rebound is amazing, and the amount of room to work with is great as well. I have been doing noticeably better in the songs I've played since I started using the kit. Things that I would miss in the past can suddenly be done, and best of all, no more dropped notes.

Of course, there are always downsides. Obviously the drumkit is bigger. I'd estimate 50% bigger than the original Rock Band Drumkit. The only real negative that I've found is the bass pedal. It makes this annoying metal vibration every time you press the pedal down. Also, the cymbals are not nearly as responsive as the pads. Overall they won't add much to the game play, but they do complete the experience.

Overall, I totally love the Ion Drum Rocker, and if you're an expert drum player with a original set that is failing, then this is totally worth the investment.

Champions Online

2009-07-27T15:03:00.003-05:00

I am quite excited for this game to come out September 1st. Ever since I quit WoW for good I've been having MMO withdrawals. A few of my friends are also planning on getting it so I already know it will be a decent experience. If you know nothing about Champions Online you should definitely visit the official website. It is a superhero game from the creators of City of Heroes/Villains. This means the developer already has a solid background in making successful MMO's, and even better, it has plenty of experience in creating a superhero MMO. Sadly, after the failure that was AoC, Warhammer and Wotlk I am going into this with relatively low expectations. We'll see how it is in 9 days (I got lucky and secured one of the beta keys in the recent giveaway). I am sure the NDA will still be in place at that point though, so sadly I will not be able to openly talk about it.

In other news, I fixed my bass pedal with two butter knives. Hopefully this lasts until I receive my Ion Drum Set.

Ion Drum Rocker

2009-07-25T19:23:00.002-05:00

So I finally pulled the trigger on the Ion Drum Rocker kit for Rock Band. I've been really tempted to buy it since I first heard about it last summer, but the lack of money always kept it a dream. Luckily, things have turned around and the price has dropped a bit so I went ahead and bought it from Walmart ($267 out the door). It is supposed to arrive sometime next week and I am already stocking up on DLC that is fantastic for drums. I plan on giving it a proper review after a few days of playing it.

Rock Band DLC Week 7/28

2009-07-24T17:45:00.003-05:00

The latest DLC for Rock Band has been announced:

Hey everybody,

Early announce today as all of HMX will be on a boat today (for real,I’ll even take pictures). Here is the master list of all the DLC coming out for all the systems. 360 and PS3 are getting Weezer, Blink 182, Kiss, and Damone. Wii is catching up at a blistering pace with Mötley Crüe , Kings of Leon, Rancid, Rise Against and more. And on the PSP? How about some James Gang and Alien Ant Farm? Does that work? Yeah it does.

Tracks available on Xbox 360 (July 28) and PLAYSTATION 3 system (July 30):

Blink-182 “Down”‘
Blink-182 “Feeling This”
Blink-182 “The Rock Show”
Damone “Out Here All Night”
KISS “100,000 Years (Live)”
KISS “Deuce (Live)”
KISS “Parasite (Live)”
Weezer “My Name is Jonas” (Sorry it’s a link to a GH video, it’s the only studio recording I could find on Youtube)
Weezer “Pork and Beans”
Weezer “Undone – The Sweater Song”

(All tracks are original master recordings)

These tracks will be available for purchase as part of the “Blink-182 Pack 01,” “Weezer Pack 01,” “KISS Pack 01” or as individual tracks on Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 systems.

Price: $1.99 USD, £.99 UK, €1.49 EU (160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) per track
$5.49, £2.49 UK, €3.99 EU (440 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) for “Blink-182 Pack 01,” “Weezer Pack 02” or “KISS Pack 01”

Wii Additions
Additionally, tracks from Kings of Leon, Rancid, Rise Against and Lush, as well as back-catalog tracks from Children of Bodom, Finley, Mötley Crüe, Platero y Tú, Squeeze and Tokio Hotel will be available July 28 in the Wii Rock Band Music Store. These tracks come from the catalog of Rock Band music already released to owners of Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 system. With the addition of these tracks, there are now more than 425 tracks in the Wii Rock Band Music Store.

Additional tracks available for Wii (July 28):

Kings of Leon “Crawl”
Kings of Leon “Molly’s Chambers”
Kings of Leon “Sex on Fire”
Rancid “Last One to Die”
Rancid “Ruby Soho”
Rancid “Time Bomb”
Rise Against “Prayer of the Refugee”
Rise Against “Re-Education (Through Labor)”
Rise Against “Savior”
Lush “Sweetness & Light”
Children of Bodom “Are You Dead Yet”
Finley “Tutto è Possibile
Mötley Crüe “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)”
Mötley Crüe “Dr. Feelgood”
Mötley Crüe “Kickstart My Heart”
Mötley Crüe “Rattlesnake Shake”
Mötley Crüe “Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S)”
Mötley Crüe “She Goes Down”
Mötley Crüe “Slice Of Your Pie”
Mötley Crüe “Sticky Sweet”
Mötley Crüe “Time For Change”
Mötley Crüe “Without You”
Platero y Tú “Hay Poco Rock & Roll”
Squeeze “Tempted”
Tokio Hotel “Ready, Set, Go!”

(All tracks are original master recordings)

Price: $2.00 USD, (200 Wii Points) per track

Rock Band Unplugged Tracks for PSP®System
Rock Band Unplugged fans will enjoy the addition of James Gang’s “Funk #49” and Alien Ant Farm’s “Smooth Criminal” to the 23 tracks already available via the Rock Band Unplugged in-game music store for the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system.

Tracks available for Rock Band Unplugged (July 30):

James Gang “Funk #49”
Alien Ant Farm “Smooth Criminal”

Price: $1.99, £.99 UK, €1.49 EU per track on the PSP system

** Dates for Rock Band game tracks are tentative and subject to change. **

Personally I am quite excited for KISS and Damone. However, I've never been a fan of Blink 182, and Weezer is ok, but it will ultimately come down to how good the charts are. All in all, this is a very solid week and I hope Harmonix keeps up with the good releases.

Play us out, keyboard cat

2009-07-24T17:41:00.004-05:00

Quite possibly one of the greatest shirts in recent times has finally begun printing. I present to you Keyboard Cat being sold on Threadless.

I am quite surprised it took so long for someone to create a design like this seeing the immense popularity the short clip has had on the internet.

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon

2009-07-23T17:57:00.003-05:00

I've always been a fan of the Fire Emblem series. However the latest entry on the Nintendo DS is a total flop. It's almost embarrassing to call it a Fire Emblem game. Sure it plays exactly like any of the other games, but at the same time it has lost everything that made it fun.

To start off, the game is ridiculously easy. There was absolutely no challenge in this game. You always had an abundance of items, even more specialized ones. The amount of units in the game is somewhat mediocre compared to previous installments. Also, it is quite short, maxing out at like 25 missions in the game, most of which are very short and boring.

The story is lackluster. Sure you get to play as Marth that has gained fame in North America due to SSB, but it doesn't matter when you don't care what is going on in the game. Worse than that, there are a stupid amount of characters you get throughout the game. Honestly, it felt like every map I'd get 2 more people (most of them were terrible) to add to my army, who had absolutely no personality or need to be part of the game. The problem with the Nintendo DS is that they always try to make parts of the game 3D. The awesome looking sprites of the past are long gone, and instead are replaced with horribly generic 3D character models. It felt as though the very heart of Fire Emblem had been torn to shreds and stitched back together with copper wire and dunked in a tub of hydrochloric acid.

Simply put, skip this horrible game.

Tilteed

2009-07-22T16:25:00.003-05:00

I kind of have this odd addiction to T shirts. Especially for the competition T shirt sites like Teefury, Shirt Woot and so on. The latest entry in the competition site business is Tilteed. It's a bit over a week old now, and already has a pretty good following. The first design they are selling is awesome (I actually received it a couple days ago, and the quality is fantastic for the price you pay). At the end of July they will have their official launch and the first few winners will be announced. The current designs that are submitted all look fantastic, and I already feel my wallet hurting.

Anyway, I suggest checking it out if T shirts are your thing.

Go Figure

2009-07-22T16:18:00.002-05:00

I'm honestly quite surprised it lasted this long. My Rock Band 2 bass pedal finally broke. Half a year of abuse by random people plus myself was enough to break it. All the duct tape in the world couldn't save it. Now I finally have an excuse to buy the Destroyer pedal!

In other, yet similar news, I saw the latest The Beatles: Rock Band trailer. I'm still relatively excited, but I am somewhat dissapointed that there will be no option to export the songs to Rock Band 2, and the DLC for it will be specific for the game. Will that stop me from getting it? Not at all, I'm looking forward to playing the guitar while singing along with the whole harmonies system.

What Happened

2009-07-21T18:36:00.002-05:00

School happened.

Anyway, I'm deciding to restart this old project, but with a much more general feel to it than reviews.

To start things off I'd like to give a shout out to Rock Band Parts. I purchased the Xcell Drum Pads from there a few months ago and I have to tell you, they are the best $20 you can spend on Rock Band. If you are using a Rock Band 1 or 2 drumset then this is a solid investment. It reduces the pad noise by a massive amount, and apparently it adds more rebound, but I haven't really noticed this. The only issue I had with it was when I removed it from my Rock Band 2 drumset and put it on my Rock Band 1 drumset. The adhesive no longer worked very well on the red and green, so I added some double sided tape and duct tape on the corners to hold them in place.

If you're looking for a way to reduce the noise of your drum set then this is the perfect way to do that.

The Beatles: Rock Band

2009-04-15T19:49:00.002-05:00

Ok, I have to admit I am very excited for The Beatles: Rock Band to be released this September. For those who haven't heard, Harmonix got the rights to make a game about The Beatles. The game has been rumored to include 45 master tracks, chosen from the Beatles albums recorded during their 1962-1969. The only thing I'm not sold on is the price tag for the bundle. Maybe its just me, but $250 for the bundle seems way too overpriced. It comes with:

* The Beatles: Rock Band software
* Höfner Bass controller
* The Beatles branded Rock Band drums
* Microphone and Microphone Stand
* and additional special content

Now realize the normal bundle for these games costs around $180. Is the extra $70 really worth it? I highly doubt it. That won't stop me from picking up the game alone though. All I can say is they better allow two singers in this game, or I will be a sad panda.

Pokemon has lost it

2009-04-07T01:20:00.003-05:00

So the latest addition to the ten year series has just been released. Pokemon Platinum is basically Diamond and Pearl with a few extra features. I suppose that is cool if you haven't already played the other two.

Seriously though, what the hell happened to Pokemon? Remember the original 151 Pokemon and how totally bad ass and unique all of them were? Remember the animated series and watching it before school and memorizing the damn poke-rap. Yeah, that stuff was awesome. Now we have like....500 Pokemon with each new one looking more retarded than the last. The games as a whole have progressed...not at all. The battle system has actually become slower and more inefficient, and the world map is now 3D. You'd think by now we'd have sprites that actually do some movement and attacks that look interesting. Change is good, right? Long standing serie's always try new things, even if they don't always work out well. Not Pokemon though, it hasn't changed in ten years.

Dear Nintendo, please kill Pokemon or at least CHANGE something about it

Spongebob Squarepants in my Rock Band?

2009-04-05T22:33:00.002-05:00

When I first heard the announcement that Spongebob Squarepants was coming to Rock Band I could have sworn it was an April Fools joke. However, it turns out to be 100% legit. I know what you're thinking: how lame, why would Harmonix do this? At least thats what I thought, until I looked at the songs. Where's Gary, I Can't Keep My Eyes Off You and the best of the bunch, The Best Day Ever.

I applaud Harmonix for doing such a fantastic job with all three of the songs. The drums, bass, guitar and vocals for all three songs are low tier (aka easy), but they are still tons of fun. The vocals are easily the highlight for all three songs, so if you love to sing this is a decent pack for you.

In similar news, Kotaku has reported that a LEGO Rock Band is rumored to be in the works and will be announced at E3. I will admit I love LEGO's. I recently sorted out all the ones I had just for the heck of it and I thoroughly enjoyed the LEGO Star Wars games. Sadly, Indiana Jones and Batman were more of the same and nowhere near as exciting. I feel that the LEGO games have worn out their welcome and have become quite stale. I guess time will tell to see if this is even true, but I'm not exactly thrilled about it. Luckily, Harmonix has two other awesome games in the works: The Beatles which is insanely awesome and Unplugged, which is a spiritual successor to Amplitude which has me pumped even though I don't own a PSP.

Seriously X-Men? Seriously?

2009-04-05T18:10:00.005-05:00

Okay, I'm here to talk about something very dear to me: Comics, especially when they get brought over to film. We have X-Men Origins: Wolverine, coming up and I cannot express enough rage over this film.

They took a great concept of Wolverine in his Weapon X days and they ruined it with one simple character, I'm of course talking about Deadpool. If you're even slightly familiar with the actual Marvel comics, then of course you've heard about the Crimson Comedian, The Regenerate Degenerate, the Merc-With-a-Mouth: Deadpool.

In this tragedy of a movie we see two versions of our beloved anti-hero: Deadpool as Wade Wilson, played marvelously by Ryan Renolds, and the uglier, FUBAR version that is known as Weapon XI. Why do I use the term FUBAR? I'll show you:

Here's Deadpool in the comics:

And here's what they did to him in the upcoming movie (Wolverine Left/Weapon XI "Deadpool" Right):

See the difference? It's not just the lazer eyes or the swords coming OUT OF HIS FREAKIN' HANDS! It's also the fact that... oh, I dunno... his mouth is sealed closed. Way to go Hollywood, you mess it up once again. I mean, fine, you're not the comic books, you have artistic freedom. But you could've made this monstrosity known as Weapon XI ANYONE but no, you made him Deadpool. It's like you went out of your way to piss off all of the fans. I pray to God that every other online source is wrong and that somehow when this film hits theatres that Deadpool won't be a completely ruined P.O.S. but I doubt that will be the case.

God I hate you Hollywood. I hate you so much.

Nintendo DSi: Why?

2009-04-04T15:21:00.000-05:00

Alright, so the Nintendo DSi comes out on April 5th. Now I haven't bothered looking into it at all until now, and all I can ask is...why? Basically what they decided to do was take an existing system which totally rocks, and replace it with a "sleeker" piece of crap This isn't like the GBA vs GBA SP. Here lets look at what they did:

+ 12% thinner than DS Lite but slightly wider
+ Added two 0.3 megapixel cameras (one on the inside and one on the outside)
+ They removed the glossy finish with a matte one
+ Changed the power switch to a power button that allows soft resets
+ Speakers improved
+ Has an extra brightness setting

Those all sound kinda nice, right? Just look at the negatives:

- Battery life reduced to 9-14 hours from 15-19 hours on lowest brightness setting
- Removed the GBA front slot
- All existing homebrew flash carts are incompatible

Those three alone are complete deal killers to me. Lack of GBA front slot means you can't even play existing DS games like Guitar Hero. BUT WAIT! You can connect to the internet and pay more money to download region locked applications and games. Let me remind you that there already was a DS browser, and it was terrible. Doesn't that sound thrilling? I'll stick to my slightly bigger and longer lasting DS so I can play whatever game I want. However, if you want to waste $170 on the DSi instead of the DS Lite so you can browse the internet and take pictures, be my guest.

This thing on?

2009-04-03T13:44:00.000-05:00

Aaaaaaaaand we're off! First ever review for the geniuses at Angry Digital Garbage Pirates. Here's hoping you all enjoy it! While it may be somewhere over a year late it sure was fun to do and we think it'll have a lasting impression for everyone who went to Best Buy, picked up a copy and said, "Eh... looks fancy, but is it worth it?"

A quick little order of business: Our e-mail that the Cap'n so willingly put up didn't exist at the time. But we have it now so if you have ANY comments or maybe want us to review a particular game please drop us a line at ADGPReviews@gmail.com we'll be more than happy to read your letters.

Here's looking forward to wherever this little voyage takes us. At least we know it'll be better than friggin' One Piece. Those pirates suck.

First Review: Bioshock

2009-04-02T12:26:00.000-05:00

Check out our first ever review: