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She Tried To Make Good Video Games For Girls, Whatever That Meant First it was microphones. Then guitars. Then guitars and drums. Now it seems half the showroom floor of a games store – not to mention your living room – is devoted to piles of the plastic instruments required for today’s music games. Which doesn’t leave you, or your mother (who has to clean up after you) happy. Same goes for retailers. Speaking with MTV, XS Games have said that, when originally pitching their game Popstar Guitar to retailers, it was intended to come bundled with a guitar controller. But retailers – Wal-Mart in particular – were having none of it, complaining of “the problem of every single publisher coming out with a new, big controller.” So X Games released their abridged peripheral instead. Of course, it could just be a sign that retailers are sick of seeing crummy games with large peripherals, but as self-serving retailers, they’ve got a point; you could fit a dozen copies of Madden in the same spot you put one Rock Band bundle.
Lack Of Space In Stores Threatening Proliferation Of Instrument-Shaped Controllers [MTV]
As much as I like to make fun of XS Games’ PopStar Guitar for even existing, I can’t shake the feeling that if I were 20 years younger or so I would really get a kick out of their track listing. They’ve just revealed five new original master recordings for the game, two from Fall Out Boy, one from Paramore, and two from the All-American Rejects, joining a lineup packed with tunes from The Jonas Brothers, Hannah “Stop Calling Me That” Montana, Maroon 5, and Three Doors Down. The track list reads like an iTunes shopping list for creepy internet men who want to pretend they’re 14-year-old girls on MySpace.
It seems recently that a day doesn’t go by without some rhythm game announcing new artists, new albums, or new features for the forthcoming versions of their franchise, and XS Game’s PopStar Guitar wants in on some of that hot announcement action. In a press release that claims to be announcing four new blockbuster tracks, five new tracks are listed, which I assume means one of them isn’t blockbuster enough. Is it Rihanna’s “Shut Up and Drive”, “SOS” by the Jonas Brothers, “See You Again” by Hannah Montana, or “Wake Up Call” and “Makes Me Wonder” from Maroon 5?
Whichever of the selections is deemed unworthy of blockbuster status, one thing is perfectly clear: the demographic for this Wii and PS2 game does not include me. Should sell like hotcakes to preteen girls and their creepy admirers though.
Electronic Arts. Activision. Konami. XS Games? The relatively tiny publisher is wading into deep waters this October when they ship PopStar Guitar, a guitar playing game for the Wii and PlayStation 2. The game features more than 50 pop songs from artists such as 3 Doors Down, Simple Plan, Blink 182, and many other bands you’d be likely to find on that damn Buzz Cuts CD they keep advertising on television. The game includes single player and co-op mode, allowing one or two players to visit 25 unique venues on their road to making their hands tired.
The difference with PopStar Guitar is the way you control it on the Wii. While the PS2 version is compatible with Rock Band or Guitar Hero controllers, the Wii version ships with something called the AirG, which attaches to your Wii remote to form “an electrifying air guitar”. Sounds dangerous. Look, I’m all for competition in the marketplace, but you have to bring something more to the table than a one-shot accessory and more than 50 pop songs ” including several masters performed by the original artists”. Several?
