Be Excellent To Each Other

Things like Rock Band at £130 (if you got the cheap deal) and WiiFit at £65 (if you can find one), Guitar Hero at £55(ish).
They're all selling/sold shit loads.

Especially regarding Rock Band - at an RRP of £180 it is more expensive than some consoles - but the pre-orders are (apparently) huge.

£180 for a game? £180! For one game?

Are we mad?

simply yes.

Who's this 'we'?
By 'we', do you mean 'you', as in you? Then yes, you are.

Yes. There is no way I'm paying more that £35 TOPS for a game. No matter how many pieces of oversized plastic it ships with.

How much did you pay for GTA4, then?

34 sponds.

What Dimrill said, but Wii Fit is worth it.

Yes me - but quite a few others have pre-ordered Rock Band, too (mostly for £130, I think). Fuck, we don't even know if it's any good.

Yes, you're completely mad. The only reason I have GHIII is because I asked for it for Christmas. Donkey Konga was a present, also.

I agree, madness. And yet Stu keeps going on about stupid PC owners and their peripheral buying. I have one joystick priced £14 and a mouse that came with the computer. Tsk.

But yes, these overpriced peripherals baffle me. Though it won't stop me from enjoying my mate's Guitar Hero.

Is it twice as good as a £32 game, then?

It's fun as a fitness aid, but you've got to admit that the "game" part of it is limited and not that impressive, technically.

Yeah, okay - getting off the "me" thing, I was talking more about gamers across the world.

I tend to wait a while before splashing out on something with an expensive controller - that's why I only bought Samba de Amigo fairly recently (£99 RRP.. no chance). The official Guitar Freaks/Drummania/Keyboardmania controllers are never cheap either, although the build quality is supposedly a lot better than the third party stuff.

No, I want to talk more about you and your madness.

Because you're rich and stuff I'm going to start calling you King George.

Surely it depends on how much money you've got, so whilst someone like Grim... may be able to justify it us lesser mortals who would have to go without food for a month, less so.

You are mad in the UK, yes. Rock Band was out in the US by last winter, and it was possible to pick up the whole thing for very comfortably under £100, brand new, by walking into somewhere as obvious as Wal-mart.

Well yeah, if I consider how many hours of use I'll get out of it its definately worth it. It's not really a game as such though, obv, but for a 'placky-add-on' it's worthy of the sponds.

Anyone know what Steel Battalion's RRP was? Not only was it a lot to shell out for one game (ok, two if you count the expansion) but the damn thing looks huge.

Looks huge? It was huge. If I remember correctly it was £125. Only saw it once for sale second hand for £99.

I guess most of it is the desire to have somethign new. Whilst I dearly love CoD4 and would ahppily play it until my hands fall off, these other games are interesting because we couldn't do them before. They could well fall obsolete or be rubbish, but BY GAWD we can play guitars, drums and sing along to stuff... or we can snowboard and do yoga on a sensitive pad... or we can control our on screen characters with motion sensors rather than pushing buttons.

To a degree, it is novelty value. Of course, to another degree, a lot of these games/experiences are very entertaining.

It's not entirely a new phenomena. I remember paying 562347695379 pounds (approx) for Time Crisis on the PSone, and despite it being repetitive, and largely an exercise in memory, I freaking loved it, because it was different from using the pad or a joystick or a mouse.

180 quid's a bit much though... egad!

I wonder if a Para Para Paradise game would work on the Wii..

I believe it senses when your hands are over each sensor so you have to make dance moves in time to the music. Apparently, anyway. I've owned the game but not the controller...

Me and two other mates once put a combined total of £24 into an arcade machine in order to complete Time Crisis.

Steel Batallation was £129. I bought one on the day of release Not got it anymore, mind.

Was it worth it?

... No, not really, because it's just one single-player game. By comparison, Guitar Hero II/III were what, I think about £80 new?

It was simply because I had received my university loan about a day earlier, and I'm terrible for splurging.

It must be said, however, that the Steel Battalion controller itself is Pure Excellence.

I did always fancy getting it, mainly just for the sheer, barking madness of having a controller that big to play one game. I could never quite justify it on those grounds though.

It amazes me that over in the Rock Band thread, people are going nuts over the drums 'OMG, drums!' they say, despite the fact that for the price of the drums and the game, you could actually pick up a second hand beginners drum kit. A real one.

Similarly it amazes me that people will spend even £20 on a darts game.

You can't just form a band with a drumkit, though. This argument comes up time and time again. Some people just want to bang plastic drums and pretend to be in a band, not actually be in one for real.

You can say that about a lot of things, though.
You can get an old beater of a car for the price of a 360 steering wheel and Forza 2, for example.

And what Myop said.

We had one traded in when I worked for GS. Naturally, I had to fully test it before putting it back on sale. The controller took up half the counter, but it was utterly amazing - all flashing lights and everything. I'm not into mech games in the slightest, but it was impressive how you had to go through a checklist of commands on the thing to even start your mech up, and you had buttons for things like the window washers. It was very impressive overpriced tat, for sure.

As for Rock Band, I was really looking forward to it until they announced the UK price. I've been incredible irresponisble with my money over the years to be sure, but even I can't justify laying out 180 sponds on one game.

I played Steel Batallion at the London Science Museum. It was fun but no way could I ever justify buying it.

Did the mech get nicked?

and once again This "you could buy a real instrument" is nonsense. A real instrument isn't going to entertain me and six of my mates during the key 9pm-1am drinking window.

Also: I'm sure I remember Street Fighter II for SNES costing £60 in the mid 90s. Which makes Rock Band look bloody cheap.

If you play them in an exciting and novel way, you can.

And before someone asks, no I don't mean by holding the sticks in your hands or crammed into bodily orifices or whilst on fire or something.

Let me put that another way I just thought of: do you think playing Guitar Hero is just like playing a real guitar? No? Then why the fuck do people keep insisting that playing a real guitar is just like playing Guitar Hero? It's different, not better. It's like saying that chalk is better than cheese because with chalk you could draw great works of art. Well, when I'm making a sandwich, I know which one I'm wanting. Capiche?

Why are you now called Richard Happy - Ed Wood? Have you a bipolar disorder where half of you thinks you're a really terrible film director?

Don't diss Richard Happy, fucknuts. Very underrated filmmaker.

Fact: just come back from Gamestation, a customer wanted to 'test' his tiny, tiny girlfriend carrying the Rock Band Instrument Set tomorrow. She was able to heft it with ease. Then they learned that they still have to buy the game - they don't have enough money for it, but have saved up for ages to get Rock Band (they looked like students). The despair was palpable.

Grim... has imposed editorial guidelines before anyone gets offended by my name. He's just thinking of the children. NO NOT LIKE THAT.

It's supposed to be ('Happy' -- Editor) like all the old games mags did. At least in this country, where we read game mags instead of wrestling bears in the frozen wilderness or whatever you did in the Land O' Canucks.

Oh man, I feel their pain.

Yes, I knew. I made at least two such amusing comments today, you ("silly guy" -Ed.) today. Clearly my own joke has backfired (at the disco)

TRANSPARENT SELF-JUSTIFICATION AHOY!

The thing with Rock Band is that it's pretty much three and a half games - the guitar, the drums, the vocals and the communal band thing - all of which I'm interested in playing. At Play rates, that's £40 or so each for three games and funky peripherals - not exactly a bargain, but close enough to sane that I won't feel like the Hedonism-bot when I'm playing it.

I was more straightforward. It's twice what I paid for GH3, comes with twice as many plastic instruments, and will be played considerably more than twice as much. Almost from launch in the US I'd decided I'd pay £120-£130 and I think it clocked in at £127 delivered.

I got it Perks, Richard must be hyper-retarded today. Work that forehead wand!

Things like that actually make me sad. I've been feeling genuinely upset for the past minute or two now, and will probably be in a bad mood all day now. I get very upset when other people get upset.

Tell me about it. I was crying my fucking eyes out the other night, just watching a TV program, pathetically, because sad things were happening to good people.

In any event, I'm sure they'll figure out some way to get it, so cheer up!

If you had a heart you'd have bought it for them. You bastard.

I was too busy getting The Golden Compass, Perfect Dark Zero, Prey and a bunch of other crap to worry about their petty concerns. Maybe if they had both been female, I might have taken pity. Then we could have rocked out on our instruments all night together.

He's probably just being kinder by teaching them the value of patience.

Edit: No he is a selfish bast.

Also, it isn't available to buy yet, gommos.