Primus Gives Master Track to Guitar Hero 2

Posted on By Wil

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My quest to play Guitar Hero 2 at E3 was a success! I played bass and I played lead in co-op mode on Van Halen’s "You Really Got Me" (at the Vans Warped Tour, because they’ve licensed some real locations this time around) hitting 97% and 98% respectively. "Strutter" by KISS seemed to be the most popular song for people to try out, with "War Pigs" by Sabbath coming in a close second. I could have easily spent the entire day there, rocking all eight songs they had available for demo play, but there was a growing line of other wanna-be rockers waiting, and I didn’t want to bogart the whole stage, man.

While I waited to play, I talked with some of the developers, who were all really, really cool guys, and told me something rather exciting about GH2:

Les Claypool gave RedOctane the master tracks for John The Fisherman, so when you play it in Guitar Hero 2, you’ll be playing along with Les, Larry "Ler" Lamond, and Tim "Herb" Alexander, just like you were with them in the studio recording Fizzle Fry.

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It was so nice to meet developers who aren’t completely in love with themselves and appreciate geeks like me who play their games, you know? Their entuhsiasm reminded me of the entuhsiasm I felt when I worked at NewTek during the launch of the Video Toaster 4000: we all knew we were working on something totally cool and unique, but we still got excited when someone who used it geeked out at us about it. I know there are pictures of me getting my rock on, so if I can track them down, I’ll post them here for maximum goat-throwing.

Colecovision
If you’re going to E3 and you want to play GH2, don’t bother fighting the crowds in the Sony booth (after you get past the 6 hour-long line of people waiting to play with the Wii). Go down to the Kentia Hall, and find the Red Octane booth. The lines are shorter, you can talk with the developers, and they’ve got GH2 posters and pins to give away. When you’re done rocking out, you can stay in Kentia hall and see an absolutely amazing history of video games exhibit, featuring playable Colecovision, Vectrex, Intellivision, Apple //e, Atari 2600 and other console systems, as well as look-but-don’t-touch collections of classic handhelds like the Tomytronic Pac-Man and Milton Bradley’s Macrovision. There are also about 20 arcade games down there, set for free play, including Tempest, Black Widow, Stargate, Tron, Gorf, and Crystal Castles.

UPDATE: There’s a picture of me in front of the Gorf, Donkey Kong, and Tempest machines from Ars here. For those of you scoring at home, of the machines in that picture, I played Gorf and Tempest, and I was incredibly sad that Gorf didn’t have any sound. It implied that I was a Spaaace Ca-det, though, which I answered by blasting the Flagship out of the sky. Who’s laughing now, Gorf?! Me! That’s who! Me, baby! ME!

In the picture, I’m wearing a shirt featuring the code from Konami, which I got from Think Geek. I realized as I was parking my car for E3 (I missed the train so I had to drive. Yay.) that I was kind of wearing the band’s T-shirt to its concert like a total dork. However, I got my rock on so hard on Guitar Hero 2, I’m really okay with that.

i’ll be on livewire at e3 today

Posted on By Wil

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I‘m getting ready to hop on the train and go down to E3, to do an hour on GameSpy’s Livewire program with David Lawrence. I’ll be on at noon Pacific time, and you can tune in for audio goodness through the Livewire website, but you have to register for the video goodness. Sorry about that; it’s beyond my control. I’m pretty sure it’s an interactive show, too, so come out and represent the posse if you’re in a representin’ mood, dogg. Uh, yo. Word. Westsieeeeeeeed.

When I’m done with that, my official quest to play Guitar Hero 2 will begin, which makes this the first time in three years that I’m actually excited to go to E3. Rock.

keep on jammin’ the rhino

Posted on By Wil

Activision bought RedOctane, the company responsible for Guitar Hero. Hopefully, this means more money for development, and not a bunch of corporate idiots screwing up my favorite game of 2006. Whatever comes of the partnership, epic congratulations to everyone at RedOctane (edited to add: and Harmonix! How could I forget Harmonix? -2 for me) who worked so hard to make the greatest fucking game in the history of me rocking out in my living room. You guys rock at least 97% of Cowboys From Hell on Expert, and I hope to throw some goats your way on Wednesday (which officially begins here in Los Angeles in 40 minutes) at E3.

Ryan and I have been having some serious Guitar Hero jam sessions recently. Last night, I finally five-starred Killer Queen and Fat Lip, and Ryan five-starred Stellar and Unsung (on medium; the kid slows down so he can play with the old man, which the old man appreciates.)

After I’d pulled a 99% on Killer Queen, I unwound with some Godzilla. As the song started up, Ryan said, "Dude, I think I hear cowbell in this song!"

I laughed a little bit, but maintained my focus: Yellow, blue, red green, yellowblueyellllooooowwwwww red yellow greenred . . . ROCK!

Ryan hopped up off the couch, and ran into the kitchen. A few moments later, he appeared back in the living room, a saucepan in one hand, and a wooden spoon in the other.

"What are you doing?" I said. Yellow, blue, yellowwwwwwww redyellow greenyellow rest yellowblue yellooowwwwwwww Star Power!

He held the saucepan about chest high, and began to tap it with the wooden spoon. "This song needs more cowbell," he said, "and this the closest I could get."

I played about twelve more notes before I collapsed into song-ending giggles.

limited edition chapbook available SOLD OUT!

Posted on By Wil

Morethanthiscover
I wanted to have something new and cool to show off when I went to the Grand Slam Sci-Fi Summit back in March, so I worked like crazy and made a very limited edition chapbook called More Than This, which is a few stories from the Do You Want Kids With That? manuscript (which is a book similar to Dancing Barefoot, but all about stepparenting.)

I wanted it to be something really cool and worth having, so in addition to three stories that I really like, I asked Ben Claassen to do an illustration like the ones he did for Dancing Barefoot, and I asked my stepson Ryan if he’d write a foreword. Luckily for us all, they both agreed, and the result is really cool, if I say so myself.

I only made 200 of these books, and sold 51 58 of them at the convention. Since I gave Ryan and Nolan numbers one and two respectively, that means there are 147 140 left in the whole entire universe, including the far off Dangot (that’s pronounced "dang-oh," not "dan-got," which you may have heard) Nebula.

I was only going to make 100 for the convention, but it didn’t cost that much to increase the run to 200, and I figured that I’d be able to offer whatever was left on this here website.

See where I’m going with this? I knew ya did!

If you’d like to pick up one of these limited-edition chapbooks, you can use the "Buy Now" button below. I’ll sign the chapbook to whomever you want, and number it by hand with my very favorite squishy-handled pen. I’ll keep this offer up as long as I have books, and of course I’ll refund any orders that come in after they’re all gone (assuming they sell out.)

One last thing: in the writing and editing process of Do You Want Kids With That?, my editor and I have come to the conclusion that it probably doesn’t work as a full-length book (long story) but will almost certainly work very well as a 60-minute audiobook. So it’s quite likely that this will be the only way you can get your hands on this material in any sort of book form.

If you’re interested, here are the details:

More Than This – A Personalized, Autographed Chapbook by Wil Wheaton, featuring a foreword from my stepson Ryan.
Length: 20 pages.
Price: $25.00 (includes shipping)

Please allow 3-5 weeks for processing and shipping. At this time, I can only accept domestic US orders (international
shipping is a real bitch for a small time operation like mine, and I
have to increase the costs quite a bit to justify the extra time and
work. Sorry.) If you have questions, put them in comments, so I can sort of FAQ it up. Thanks.

UPDATE: As of 8:30 PM PDT, there are just 75 left. 74 left (I thought I should probably set one aside for my mom.)

UPDATE AGAIN: As of 9:38 PM PDT there are just 32 left. Wow.

UPDATED AGAIN AGAIN: At 11:05 PM PDT, there are only 11 books left.

UPDATED ONE LAST TIME: It’s 11:44 PM PDT, and all the books have
been ordered, so I’m going to bed now. I’ll start processing orders
tomorrow after breakfast. Thanks to everyone who placed orders!

Boston CONFIRMED – July 2nd!

Posted on By Wil

So it turns out that Eventful Demands really work! Thanks to everyone who demanded me in Boston (currently a staggering 209,) I was able to confidently contact a few bookstores and tell them that I was coming to town, with about 200 people who would come to their store, spend some money, and freak out the regulars.

As I’ve tried to put this together, I’ve learned that Boston has no shortage of outstanding bookstores, (especially indie book stores) and scheduling something for two days before the Fourth of July holiday is really, really hard . . . but I stuck at it, because this is such a unique opportunity to find out if decentralized tools and the power of the internets really does work for a guy like me.

On the advice of several WWdN:iX readers, I focused my attention and my efforts on Brookline Booksmith and Porter Square Books. If I was going to be in town for more than two days, I could probably do events at both stores, but since I’m only there for a brief time, (and because they called back first) I’ll be at Brookline Booksmith on July 2nd. The store is working with the theatre across the street from the store to set up a screening of Stand By Me, followed by a Q&A with me. If they can get a print of the film, it will start at noon; otherwise, I’ll just take the stage at one, do a reading from Just A Geek, and take some questions after. Either way, it’s going to be really, really fun.

More details will come as they get worked out, but so far, here’s what I have in easy-to-cut-n-paste form:

Who: Wil Wheaton, author, actor, cad, knave, raconteur.
What: Reading from Just A Geek, possible screening of Stand By Me.
Where: Brookline Booksmith – 279 Harvard Street Brookline, MA 02446
When: Sunday, July 2, 2006  – 12:00pm

This is really exciting for me. I feel the same level of anticipation and giddiness I felt when I was about to release Dancing Barefoot through Monolith Press, because this is something that I never could have done on my own (both practically, and courageously) and I can’t wait to see how this whole thing turns out.

Now, I can turn my attention to taking care of Montreal, which is going to be a hell of a lot easier, I think.