Would you like to be commander of your fate, captain of your own destiny? Harmonix has made public a little submission form you can use to bombard them with suggestions for songs you’d like to play in their upcoming co-op music game Rock Band. The link is here. There’s no promises attached to this form; you’re just firing opinions off into the void. Since that’s basically how I operate on a day-to-day basis, I’m letting Harmonix know that I would really like to play some Sunny Day Real Estate.
Because I imagine you haven’t had enough of the exploration of sterile environments, a version of Myst is being foisted upon the DS. Evil Avatar claims that is the official press release, which makes me laugh because it contains the following lines: "Some puzzles are very challenging, even obtuse, creating an odd paradox: many buy Myst, but few complete it. It is immensely popular, but most nonadventurers quit in frustration." Some copywriter taking out their own frustration on the game? Regardless, the game is said to include a new "age" (or level,) just as previous remakes have done. This one is caled the Rime Age; no word on ancient mariners, yet.
By way of Penny-Arcade, here’s an interesting writeup of BioShock, concerned with Ken Levine, Ayn Rand, and shooting things. Any time a developer, or a writer, or a filmmaker gets a little ambitious, I’m inclined toward sympathetic excitement. Levine has a lot on his mind, and I’m sure a fair amount of it will survive the distillation into game format. BioShock continues to look and sound like a wonderful action game, and I’m content to let it stay that way. In fact, I’d be thrilled even if the story is sent to the background, as this article suggests it may be. An action game with a conflict predicated on human behavior is guaranteed to catch my imagination better than one relying on spontaneous alien/demon invasion.
Here’s something a couple of days old, but the SimCity line is getting another installment. This one is going to be called SimCity Societies. Maxis, absorbed as they are with Spore, aren’t going to be contributing anything other than their logo to the game; instead, development duties have been handed to a little house called Tilted Mill, which recently made Caesar IV. So, uh… SimCity: Pompeii? I never was able to survive the disaster scenarios in SimCity 2000 when I was eight. I don’t think my FEMA skills have improved.