The GiantBomb beta just started, and it seems pretty awesome. Add me to your friends as "gakon5," mmmkay? Because what other handle would I use on the internet?

It's 2 in the morning Eastern time, and I'm wide-awake, which means it's a perfect time to write about something I've wanted to for a while: the arms race between Activision and Harmonix that's hitting a next-gen landscape near you this September or so.

We all know the story at this point: Harmonix had this little game called Guitar Hero. At first it was just a rumor; supposedly there was this crazy guitar rythym game tucked away in the LACC's famous Kencha hall. The game was first seen at E3 2005 and was released that same year to universal acclaim. Guitar Hero pretty much made the modern music game a reality and a success.

Eventually the sequel came the next year. Then Harmonix gave the Guitar Hero franchise to Neversoft and Activision and said "See ya! We're off to make Rock Band, the greatest music game ever." Of course Rock Band was praised much more highly than Guitar Hero III, but how could it not be? While Guitar Hero III was essentially more of the same (how could it not be?), Rock Band gave us not only guitar, but drums and vocals, along with one of the best social multiplayer experiences of last year, and a steady stream of downloadable songs to boot.

I'm sure Activision felt like they had gotten the short end of the imaginary rythym game stick, so what's the only logical answer? Make your own band game! Guitar Hero: World Tour promises to have everything Rock Band has and more. Granted, they wouldn't put it to you like that.

It seems like an easy move to predict, considering Holiday 2007 established the new rivalry between Actiblizzard (?!?!) and Harmonix, at least for rythym games.

So here's where the problems start. There's going to be a Rock Band 2, despite all the "platform" stuff they were raving about before the game came out. To be fair, all current and future DLC from Harmonix will work in both games, so you don't have to upgrade to Rock Band 2 if you don't want to. But let's look at the facts:

-- 80-something new songs
-- Plenty of new modes, and improvements to old modes
-- New and improved instruments

So why would the avid Rock Band fan not want to purchase the sequel? You can go on playing your ghetto half-broken RB1 drumkit if you want, but the grass will be oh-so-much greener on the other side of the fence. (sidenote: the yellow pad on our drum kit is fully broken)

What am I worried about exactly? Let's look at the facts:

-- Rock Band and the "new" Guitar Hero may very well be yearly franchises now
-- Each new game for each series will have to top the competition's previous game and their own previous game in features
-- Each new game includes new intstruments that will probably be better than the last iteration
-- Each new game will carry the same hefty price tag that associates itself with a bundle

See where the problems start? Do music game players really want this? Just imagine what Guitar Hero and Rock Band would look like come one year from now. Every year will bring new music, new "better" instruments, and games bloated with even more features than before. Not to get all retro hippie here or something, but it's just not what it was in 2005: a simple music game.

Now we've got two companies (one known for running franchises dry) at war. The problem is, the war never ends, because each year will be a new iteration, better than the last, at least in theory. At what point do consumers get tired of having two (or even three?) band music games coming out a year?

Bah, I should go to bed.

In both the video game and shareware software market, there exsist two kinds of demo software. The first is the timed demo, which in most cases gives you free access to all parts of a game, but in a limited span. Example: Peggle. If you're really, really good at Peggle you can finish the entire game in the 60 minute demo. However, in most cases a game's demo timer is short enough that the developers shoulnd't have to worry about the retail product becoming obsolete for any reason.

The other common type of demo is the free demo, or limited play demo? I don't have a good term for this. Essentially, if it's a game we're talking, the demo will give you access to a limited section or piece of a game, but let you experience it as long as you want; that is, the demo never times out. I guess this is a more relevant type of demo for open-world games, where a developer could either give you timed access to everything, or just a snippet of a game that you can stay in forever. In software, most all shareware works like this: you can have the ghetto version for as long as you want, but if you'd like the real deal as it were, you had better go buy the real thing. Example: Game Maker. The free version is more than enough to create all kinds of awesome. But if you want access to the 3D tools, if you want the "Created in Game Maker" banner removed from your loading screens, if you want all these other exclusive features, you need to pony up the $20.

These differences in demo types in the PC software industry usually also represent the kind of software it is. You can get a some-amount-of-days trial for Flash, but Adobe intends for you to eventually buy the full product. Game Maker on the other hand was made to be a free product with an upgrade option. In video games, it's more up to the developer how they want consumers to demo their game. It's all about how much of the game they're willing to show you for free.

Some XBLM demos I've played recently can't even get demo length right. Have you played the Orange Box demo on the Xbox 360? Yeah... while I already own the Orange Box on the PC (only way to go, friends), I downloaded the X360 just to see how the game looked and controlled on the console. The demo specifically covers HL2: Episode Two. And how much did I get to play of said game? Probably five minutes at best. It's the opening crawl [through a train], a very brief combat sequence, and a cutscene (they aren't really cutscenes though). And that's it. Nowhere near enough to convince any console player who still needs to be sold on Half-Life that this series is any good. Consider the console FPS audience; it's a very different one from the PC. They needed to showcase a better section of the game. Or hey, throw in a piece of Portal with the demo, which they've done on the PC already. It's a pretty good chunk of the game as well IIRC.

What got me thinking about all this demo nonsense was Crackdown. Looking through the new demos, and finding I can't download the Too Human demo because of my Silver Account, I decided to fire up Crackdown and give it another go, because I had never finished the demo before. I did a lot more when I played through it, and man, that game is wicked. I haven't played any GTA games, so the whole open world shoot dudes thing is a little new to me.

Like GTA, it seems to be all about screwing around, except in Crackdown you get to do it with super speed and super strength. Shoot dudes, punch dudes, pick up moving cars, kick random cars, kill racialy stereotypical crime lords, then do some wicked parkour kinda stuff and jump around buildings picking up agility orbs. It's good fun. But what disappointed me was that the demo kicks you out after an hour. I'm sure what piece they give you of the game to mess around in is a pretty small one, so why not let me stay there forever? Same goes for the Tony Hawk's P8 demo; it has a 20-minute timer IIRC. But all they give you is a really tiny skate park to mess around in. So why not let me just skate around as long as I want? The amount you're getting out of that specific demo isn't going to change if you have or don't have a timer, because if you do, you can just start the demo over once the timer expires.

Some publishers seem to have this thing about "free." This thinking that all things associated with it are bad, and as such, you need to make bad, short demos for your games. This thinking that there's some kind of imaginary risk assocated with game demos, as if you could make one long enough that someone could say "well.. that's all I needed from that game. Thanks to the demo, I don't need to buy the full game!" Sure, you could give someone a large chunk of a game, which wouldn't be smart. The purpose of a game demo is to show you enough of the game to make you want more. The Bioshock demo did that perfectly, as did the Crackdown demo. Have you seen the Portal demo? It's called Portal: First Slice, and you get to play 11 levels; there's only 19 in the game. It's pretty generous, but not too generous IMO.

So which do you prefer? Now that my walls of text are over, I'm going back to play more Crackdown if you don't mind...

[edit] After another session with the Crackdown demo, I found this: it isn't even an hour. Once you've gained enough XP to rank up one of your major skills (Strength, Firearms, Driving, etc), a 30-minute timer starts. If you kill all three of the crime bosses the game gives you, it lowers the timer to five minutes.

Also, the amount of free-roaming space you're given seems to be something 1/6 of the city's total land mass. You can divide the entire city into three parts, and each of those parts can be split in half. Thus, in this demo, you get one-half of one-third of the city to play around in, which is more than enough.

My E3 press event icons are one icon.

No. Err, yes? I don't know. At first it was a rumor, but now it's real. Blizz says there will be over 500 different achievements that span all aspects of the game, from solo content, to 5-mans, raiding, PvP, exploration, and all other things people tend to do in World of Warcraft.

The rewards will be "purley cosmetic and just for fun." Things like small pets, goofy items, or even titles. Man, titles. I want a title. I've got an idea: get 100 achievements, unlock the suffixed title "Achievement Junkie." Example: Rawfle, Achievement Junkie.

While I can't help but wonder "why?" at least a little bit, it may simply come down to this: achievments are trendy. Microsoft made them, everyone else followed suit.

At least there will be actual rewards. A small pet? By all means. A title? Awesome, because I don't have one on any of my toons. Microsoft tried that once with the rewards system, but only once. The challenge was to get 1500 points in a month, and win a copy of Contra for XBLA. And win I did!

Valve is doing the same thing with the cIass packs for Team Fortress 2: unlock x number of achievements as this cIass get some sweet guns. And that's been great, even if it's relatively easy to say, join a dedicated achievement farming server and then proceed to farm said achievements.

So that begs the question: will servers be coordinating cross-faction achievement farming events? One of the sample goals is to kill 50 players of the opposite faction when they're attacking one of your faction's capital cities.

"OK guys, today at 2:00 PM server time, the Alliance will be raiding Orgrimmar. An hour later, the Horde will be raiding Ironforge. Be there if you want your achievement!"

Ah well, such if life. Or uh, the Internet.

From the front



From the side



The inside



The lower side



The game in action



See? Doesn't work. I mean, I assume the game runs fine but the video is messed up. I'm going to ask on the arcadecontrols.com forums about this.