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

I have a brand new map that I just made with the aid of Joseph Atamaniuk called Rat Racer!

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The idea of Rat Racer was to create a map that was not only fun to race but had challenge and also a ground idea as well.

The many narrowed sections on Rat Racer
The premis of the map is you have either 4 Ghosts or 4 Mongooses on at either time, and battle it out against the many ramps, fusion coils and different assortment of wepons and items around the track, not only is it the enviroment that you have to worry about, but the other people who are shooting at you as well; as dotted around the track are bridges and platforms where rocket baring manic’s are shooting to you like life depended on it. So not only fun to race, but once you die the idea is to stop the other races as well.

The attackers Bridges, and Racers Obstical

I suppose you have to have a gentalmans agreement to not beat the living crap out of each other, so maybe some trust worthy friends this would work with, or if you just have 4 players at the time, just a quick race.

Another Attack Bridge, good to knock down…

I have play tested with a few mates who pritty much trashed the place while I was building it, but all I need now is the forge peoples opinion. Below are the photos and the link to the map.

A ramp, be careful!

Man Cannon Valley

Direct from Flickr: http://flickr.transisco.co.uk