I’ve been waiting for the day that Harmonix would realize that releasing a Dream Theater song for Rock Band is a good idea.   That day came yesterday, via downloadable content (not to mention that there’ll be a Dream Theater song on the disc for Rock Band 2, according to the website.)

As any good Dream Theater fan would (I’ve got 30+ of their CDs), I immediately turned on the XBox 360 when I got home from work last night, and began feverishly downloading the new track pack (as I do most every Tuesday.)

My cockiness got the best of me: “I can do this on Expert, no problem.”   After all, John Petrucci’s only one of the best guitar players on the planet. No problem.

Fail.
Saved by the wife.
Fail again.
“I can’t friggen do this, I gotta practice it.”
Quit.

Dream Theater – Constant Motion is not for the faint of heart.   If you download it, good luck.   If you’re not a full time Rock Band pro, don’t bother trying expert on any instrument.   It’s not happening.

Why did Harmonix make some of the new downloadable songs so difficult? Simple.   Because they can.   Making songs that are extremely difficult, that don’t impact the outcome of the actual “career” mode of the game, make people strive to be better without making the game impossible to beat.

Well done, Harmonix.   I look forward to Rock Band 2.   Oh, and please hire my wife for the Production Assistant job she interviewed for.   Thanks.

I’m not a huge Aerosmith fan, but I gladly bought the new Guitar Hero – Aerosmith game.   Mainly because I dig Guitar Hero, and think it’s fun.

I promptly started the game Sunday night, when I got it (the day it came out), and named my band cleverly: HtimsoreA (Aerosmith, backwards).

I began my expert career, thinking, like the other GH games, it’d start easy, and ramp up to difficult. (See Slayer, GH 3).   I was sadly mistaken.   I blew through the entire game, with only one small failure, that I attribute to the over-sensitive star power activating itself before the solo, to get me through a tough part.   It’s my own fault, really, I hold the guitar like a real guitar, and not horizontal.   I wish Activision would give you a different way to activate star power.

Anyway, 22.5 hours later, and only two sessions, I finished the game.   I thought maybe I just got better at the game.   So I went back and played Rock Band on Expert, and GH 3 on Expert, failing the same songs that I’ve been stuck on for weeks/months (Green Grass and High Tides, and Slayer).

I’m utterly disappointed in the first band-branded version of GH being so easy.   Just getting through the game on Expert gets you almost 500 gamer points, which in today’s day and age, is weak.

Also, in looking at XBox.com, beating the game on Expert also gives you the gamer points for beating it on the easier levels, which is cool, I guess.

It looks like I’ve unlocked most everything.   The awards left are stupid ones, like buy all the stuff from the store, and earn money, play online and win, etc.

The ones I’ll go back and try to get:

* Score Hero – Score “325,000” or more on the song “Train Kept a Rollin'” (Which was one of the hardest songs in the game)
* I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing – Earn a gold star rating on a song on Medium or harder difficulty (Local only)
* Ain’t That a B***h – Earn a gold star rating on a song (I guess that means 100%?   Christine and I got a 100% on co-op on the first song we tried. I guess that wasn’t good enough)

I hope the next band-branded version of the game is someone uber-difficult; Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold, Led Zeppelin, Slayer, Disturbed, Dream Theater, etc.   Make it tough. If we’re gonna shell out another $60 for the game (or $90 with the controller), make it worth our while, Activision.   Oh, and Activision, if you’re listening, fix the stupid star power activation.   No one plays the guitar horizontally.   Gimme someone to press on the guitar, to activate it.   Or a footpedal or something.   Please?