Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Beatles:Rock Band Midnight Release Party

I've written about lots of midnight releases on here before and if there's one correlating factor about all of them, it's that you never know what to expect. I dealt with screaming 12 years olds for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, took pictures of stormtroopers, Boba Fett and Darth Vader for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and stood in the absolute longest line of my entire life for Grand Theft Auto IV (it went from inside the store, out the door, and all the way to the doors of Target which is down quite a ways). For Beatles: Rock Band, I expected quite a few people. I, however, was totally wrong. Out of all the midnight releases I've ever been to, this was probably the weakest. I'd say there was, at most, 20 people there. Quite surprising considering a) the popularity of the Beatles and b) the ridiculous marketing campaign that has accompanied the game. I guess you just never know.

I got there at about 11:15, which is a lot earlier than I normally get to these things. I usually try to stay away until about 15 till midnight but I didn't really have a whole lot going on at home so I thought I'd head over. I chatted it up with one of the Gamestop employees. He was nice and really wanted to talk about games which I thought he'd then turn into, "Oh, you should totally pre-order like a quadrillion games coming out next week!" but he didn't. The only annoying thing about talking to these guys is that they a) Think they know more than you about games and b) They never actually do, at least in my case.

Then they started a Beatles: Rock Band tournament, which wasn't really a tournament at all, but more just a hey! You won. Good job. I volunteered to play, more so that I could just play the game and not really caring about winning or losing. I figured I had a good chance of winning though because I'm pretty good at these types of games. I played a cute girl in score duel, which is basically just where we play the same things and whoever has the highest score at the end wins. You'd think with her being a cute girl and all, I'd be nice and let her win. But, I just can't help myself. I thought, "Sorry, cute girl, I'm totally going to murder you at this game." And I did. We played, "I Got A Feeling" and I doubled her score. She was kind of mad about losing. I thought it was pretty hilarious. I, then, got to win a mysterious prize, which consisted of leftover pre-order items that they were trying to get rid of. Sounds really great, right? No, it's not. Most of the stuff was for games I've either never played nor do I care to play. But luckily, they could see I didn't want anything and dug out some drumsticks for Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, which was good because my Rock Band sticks are getting a little worn down. I felt special with my sticks until 5 minutes later, they just began handing out sticks to everyone there. My small victories in life never last long.

We started standing in line and the local news, Channel 13 showed up. They were doing a piece on the release of the game and were looking for someone to interview. Nobody really wanted to do it. I thought about doing it, and then thought, what the hell would I say? "Yeah, you know, it's the Beatles! I love the Beatles. They've really touched my life and I'm glad I get to play as them in a video game." Even if it is true, that doesn't sound any less retarded. So, I declined, and after some begging, someone else finally agreed to do the interview. I still might be on the news though, because he took a lot of shots of the whole store. I'll be the guy at the front of the line, trying to not look so dang nerdy to no avail. Overall, one of the more enjoyable midnight releases, if only because it was way low on the nerd factor.

This is a trailer for the game. As of this writing, I still have yet to play the game except for the song I played in the store. I considered playing it at my home but figured my wife wouldn't appreciate playing loud rock songs while she's trying to sleep. :)

3 comments:

Nene said...

Wow, the graphics on that are really good! I love the Beatles!

Amber said...

that sounds fun, I'll have to go with you sometime to one of these midnight releases, I gotta work on my gaming nerdiness ;>

Bullet for Babs said...

It turns out I was on the news. So, was Shay, cuz she went with me. We're just in one shot but still kinda cool. :)