I have really been looking forward to the release of Rock Band in the UK for quite some time now; seeing as it was released on the 20th November 2007 in the US, and a leap forward in time for the UK release on the 23rd May 2008.

So you may remember about the price drop. Well when EA first announced the crazy price for Rock Band originally it was somewhere in the region of £180, with software and instruments, which converts to $356 and with the US launch price at roughly $169 (£85 converted) more than doubling the price for no reason at all.

But that was last month, and people thought that the newly proposed price of around £120 would be far better, even thought that is $240 when converted anyway.

So I pop into a few retailers this afternoon to check out the prices, the bundles etc. I look in 3 retailers. They are GAME, HMV and Gamestation. Each and every one was selling the pack of instruments without the game (they were selling those separately), and every time I asked, “Can I get a pack with the game” they would say “Sorry, but you have to buy the game separately”

I suppose this plays into the EA motto of skews but I also did notice that HMV were selling the Drums & Guitar on there own too.

The prices are as follows:

1x Rock Band Set of 3 - Mic, Drums, Guitar - £129.99 ($255)
1x Rock Band Disc - £44.99 ($87)
TOTAL = £173 ($342)

What a bloody rip off, it’s even coming to the point where I can buy the XBOX 360 for cheaper, WITH THE HARD DRIVE.

I did some research and found out that the Rock Band instruments are made in China, then I found out the weight of the box WITH THE GAME costs a mere £15 ($30).

But the most annoying thing about this is that all these “apparent” fees that have been added onto the price of Rock Band are non-existent, the VAT for the UK is 17.5% meaning £129 = £22.58 VAT, so that’s £107, next is the shipping costs, so that’s -£15 = £92, so lets convert that.

£92 into USD iiisssssss…..$182!!!!

Tadaaaa!…and yet it’s still MORE expensive than the US version, which is now retailing on Amazon.com for a mere $149.

Bahh Humbug is all I can say.

PS: I was in a GAME shop and I quoted the prices from the US versions of Rock Band (with the game) and he said and I quote:

Well that’s America; everything’s cheap in America isn’t it

Apart from me not making a blog post for a little while, I have stumbled over this awesome app called Zattoo. What it is is like a streaming PC version of freeview, - the other sky channels, leaving you with BBC 1,2,3,4 and ITV, C4 and Five etc.

So far it seems pritty constant 700kbps streaming video and has a very nice now and next guide, which is handy too.

Hey guys and gals…(I really got to stop saying that)

I have been re-thinking basically that Transisco is a crap name…however snazzy it may be and my name is even snazzy’er. So I bought OllyNewport.com, a website that will keep everything I do under one umbrella, no more TRANSISCO PRODUCTIONS and crap like that, it’s all plain sailing from now on. I have been re-designing and coding a template from another one, because I can’t create a template from scratch, only edit to my needs. Above is an image of the re-design, the black bar is where an image rotator may be.

Well after playing GTA 4 like its going out of fashion, I think I have settled on the final note that this game is better than god and the holy heavens 10 times over.

Everything it does is just fantastic, the game world that seems to just happen around you; its not just waiting for you to cause havoc, everyone is going about their lives and doing what they want to do.
The attention to detail is amazing, each street you go down feels like its been there, and its been used. Its a new kind of game to the previous GTAs, I find the cut-scenes much more watchable than before, I think that’s probably because of the 1st class voice acting and writing that goes into this game.

Apart from the face over and the detail of the world, you have the classic dowhateverthehellyouwant aspect of Grand Theft Auto that pulled me to the first games that were just top-down classics. I remember playing GTA 2 with the crazy movie schematics and gang wars, everything seemed just so free and the sand box that awaited with open arms. It’s the same thing here with Grand Theft Auto 4 and this time its more “opener” than before.

A new mechanic, that I think adds a little more edge to the game is the new Wanted Mechanic. Now before in GTA, you would either try to run down the star rating by acting normally or just running away from the cops, this time however you now need to evade the fuzz by escaping this little circle on your minimap, now its not that easy, you have to escape from the cops, but if another unit finds you (this is also represented on the minimap) then you better go running the other way.

Unlike San Andreas the army don’t come storming in with the 6 star rating, but the N.O.O.S.E (SWAT) team, and the FIB, and once you have a 6 star rating, you better just give yourself up.

The things I kind of don’t like about the game so far is the reviews that people give out, that just blindingly give a 10/10 or 5 star rating, at the most I would give this an 8 or a 9; it’s not perfect but it can be overlooked for everything else in the game.

The nit picks are things, e.g. sometimes you can get through parts of the game world (under the floor) or you can drive though all the pedestrians and then your girlfriend your dating asks…are you involved in crimeee???

I will give a full view with a score once I have finished the game.

STATS:
Time Playing - 26:23:12
Longest Session - 4:54:43

I had a picture of Jack Moore and decided to do it up, insted of sticking a unibrow or adding a mostache, I decided to paint all over the image and take away the original, leaving me with the one below: