koos

"and ... Cars. Well, four out of five ain't too bad."

As a parent of a four year old boy, I can tell you that without Cars in this game it wouldn't even get a second look from my kid. Don't get me wrong, I've exposed him to the other movies, and thankfully he appears to be getting out of his Cars phase (it's basically ages 2.5 to 4.5, from what I gather from all his little buddies), but more than half his wardrobe is Cars still and it's about 1/2 of his playtime, too. They just find talking cars very engaging, and they have such amazing imaginations that they can look past (or never see) the logical flaws of a car-only world and really enjoy the sh*t out of it.

Also, even though I've now watched Cars (and the Mater Car Toons) approximately fifty bajillion times, I still think they are well-crafted and amazing movies. For instance, the gas company (Dinoco) is also the gas company in Toy Story. Also, on the adult-only joke tip, the twin cars that come up to Lightning McQueen after the fist race to get his signature flash him before he says "I love being me" (get it?). That is some classic Pixar right there.

Or perhaps that's Stockholm Syndrome taking over?

@StClair

And yet another example: District of Columbia (D.C.) - the capitol of our fair country.

Funny, I grew up in DC and never thought it was related to Columbus.

Also, Devil in the White City is awesome.

I'm a father of two young children, and no hardcore gamer, so I feel like the Kinect (and therefore this conference) was targeted squarely at me. Since I already have a Kinect, I'm really glad they are putting out games for it. Here's what I liked about the E3 conference:

1. That Forza motorsport integration of head turning? That was exactly what I always imagined Kinect to be good for. I don't want to get rid of the controller - I want to integrate the Kinect with a controller. Would love to see something like that on FPS/RPGs. There are limitations to using your body as a controller as many people on this thread have commented on - mostly that you look like a jack@ss, it takes you out of the game, it's not always responsive, and it encourages developers to make on-rails/no-fails games.

2. Sesame Street, of course, blew Disney out of the water. Very much want (for my kids, natch).

3. Fun labs! Neat. Free. Avatar Scanning. Win. Want to go home now and try it out.

4. Bing voice search. I was actually really surprised this took so long. This is actually what I bought the Kinect for. Hope they integrate voice with Xbox's streaming media.

5. Bros not withstanding, I want Kinect Sport 2, since it has all the sports I'd want to play. But now I'm really curious - WTF was on Kinect Sports 1? Shuffleboard?

6. Dance Central 2... really like IDEA of co-op (but I won't get the game because then my wife would make me dance).

7. Ryse - would have liked to see it in action, but for a teaser that was pretty cool. So was that gunsmith thing in the Clancy game.

What I didn't like/care about: (i) Fable (I didn't pick up 3 and now I won't be picking up "Journey") (ii) upgraded Halo 1 (I, um... don't really care so much about the "plot", just like the shooty thing), (iii) star wars (looked horrible, and, um, did he say "lightsaber on"? you don't just flick his wrist or something?), (iv) UFC (don't care), and (v) Disney (I'm pretty sure my three year old would be bored by that).

@GreenLight - I think this is the first non-gameplay footage trailer Rockstar has put out (or at least the first one I have seen that doesn't say "made entirely of gmaeplay footage" at the end). I recommend checking out Rockstar's La Noire website - they have a whole gameplay footage video series. That series (along with Amazon's $15 dealio) sold me on getting my first pre-order.

Amazed that the book where a Texas preacher is instilled with the super-powered spirit of a half-demon, half-angel baby and takes off (with his gun-toting girlfriend and his hard-drinking Irish vampire pal) in order to force god to own up to his mistakes didn't make it. Still, a good enough list.

Damn. That's too bad. Maybe, then, they'll just release the three hits as their own DLC three-pack? I dunno. I'm still jazzed for these songs but it seems a bit mercenary.

Plus? I know Polly is going to be lame for drummers, but I still would have bought it to get the whole album. But since there isn't the whole album yet... no Polly for me yet.

My guess is that those two songs may be part of the 20 free d/ls for RB2.

I mean, one can hope, right? Please?

@Gunner McGrath

I recommend that you do rent games before you buy them. Also, if you're in the market for something that costs $60 USD, you could perchance do a bit of online research. After all, the updates and track list (with links to you tube videos) for RB2 which you seem so disappointed in were not difficult to find on the RB forums or even this here website. Or, you know, you could just be upset. I get that, too.

Yes, it is certainly too bad that Rock Band 2 is so similar to the best video game of all time and (almost) exactly what Harmonix promised, an attempt to perfect rather than reinvent. And it really sucks that there are so many tracks that you're going to end up hating 10-15 of the (soon-to-be) 500 of them available. I mean, gosh, I know I play Rock Band because the graphics are amazing and absolutely not because of the music. /sarcasm

I dunno. I guess I get the point of the nega-review, but some of these complaints are absolutely bogus - the "suburban whiteness" of rock and roll is a complaint against a video game? WTF. I think a real complaint (like the talkie expert vocals songs being, er, "missing any sort of difficulty whatsoever") might get lost in the cacophony.

As a non-gamer who went out and bought an XBox360 to play Rock Band and pretty much has only played the one game for months now, I'm kinda' glad they just refined and didn't overhaul. I thought RB1 was good enough that I didn't NEED a new game, particularly since Harmonix kept releasing DLC every week to keep the game fresh. All the little interface refinements are why I ended up getting RB2 (not to mention the extra 100 songs, natch) and why I'll probably keep this disc in my XBox360 until RB3.

Yeah! How dare those a-holes make a game that (apparently) millions of other people really like instead of something just for you, Kujel? And how dare Joystiq provide you with free commentary about it!?! After all, you are clearly the number one authority on the difference between a "game" and a "non-game", and if you say simulators aren't games, well - who are game bloggers or game programmers to question your absolute authority? I guess we should be thankful there aren't any crime, sports, war, flight, driving, shooting or even fishing simulation "non-games" out there! Otherwise your list of people to "rub out" (BTW... ew) would expand exponentially.

I mean, when you think about it, are death threats really enough for those kind of forward-thinking, money-making, video-game-audience-expanding people?