Wednesday 23 September 2015

Rock Band 4 Xbox One Legacy Adapter Discount

For those of you that are interested in the Rock Band 4 legacy adapter, they were just released for pre-order on amazon at a very large discount! They are regularly priced at $25 USD, but there is currently a coupon code discounts it $15 making it only $10.

The adapter can be found here. Use coupon code "RB4ADAPTER" at checkout.

I am not sure if the offer is available outside of the US.

Friday 4 September 2015

Rock Band 4 and PBaE

Hello all,

I wanted to make a statement regarding PBaE going forward now that the band genre seems to be having a bit of a revival. I don't think there could be a better time than with the release of the Rock Band 4 achievement list.

For the time being, Rock Band 4 development of PBaE will not be happening. While it may not be possible to develop PBaE for Rock Band 4 at all, this decision is mostly personal. I have a lot of history with and respect for band games, which has led me to this decision. I go into more details below.

Initially I created PBaE for two reasons. One was a personal project that allowed me to tinker and to get the last few of my drum achievements before I moved out of the country and had to leave all of my drum sets behind. After seeing its potential, I thought it would be a good way to spread the fun that I had with Rock Band and Guitar Hero over the years to those that did not have the skill level to complete some of the harder achievements.

The target audience was both those that had never played band games because they cared greatly for their achievement/trophy completion percentage, as well as those that had regrets putting the games on their account many years ago. By offering a solution to the past regret and giving those that previously avoided the game a full opportunity to enjoy it, my goal was to give more people a more positive image of Rock Band going forward. Unfortunately, there was, and still is some opposition to the project. I do, however, feel there has be more positive than negative impact.

Rock Band and Guitar Hero are both very important to me. To this day they remain some of my favourite games. In the heyday of band games, I lived and breathed Rock Band. My friends and I would play daily, having regular weekend get-togethers that almost always involved Rock Band or Guitar Hero. Although the peak has long since passed, band games will always carry these great memories with them.

Additionally, Guitar Hero and Rock Band taught me to love music. When I was quite young, I had a few not so great experiences with music that led me to not listen to music. I had no interest whatsoever in learning to play an instrument. The first time I played Guitar Hero, that all changed. I was immediately hooked. I loved the music, I loved the gameplay, everything about it was great. It allowed me to give music a chance. Fast forward a few years, I have gotten into Rock Band with a focus on drums. I eventually decided to learn to play a real drum set. Now on my visits to the old country, I look forward to regular jam sessions with friends.

Because of my long history with these games I know the competitive scene is solid. While I did not make PBaE with the intention to put big scores and FCs on the boards, I know that it is a definite possibility however. I was not too concerned with this on older band games because they were really, for the most part, past their time for intense competition. However, with the revival of band games, I don't want to compromise competition, which is why I will not be developing PBaE for Rock Band 4.

I want others to be able to enjoy Rock Band 4 the way that I did, and competition is a very important part of that. By releasing PBaE compatibility for a current version of Rock Band, the potential harm is much greater than the potential gain. That does not fall in line with my mission for the project. Down the road when Rock Band 4 is much older and maybe (hopefully) has a few more sequels, I may look into it, but for the time being it will not happen.

This post is a little long, but I really wanted to fully express my feelings and respect for Rock Band 4. If you have made it this far, thank you for reading.
-Randy Twoseventwoseven

Sunday 19 July 2015

Fix for "Muse To My Ears" for Guitar Hero drum sets.

Hey all,

It was brought to my attention that there was a problem with the file for Assassin for use with Guitar Hero drum sets. It turns out that it suffers from an issue where it will not begin to play until either it has run for about two seconds or plays a few notes; I am not sure which. It is very difficult to time the syncing properly as a result. If played normally, the file will not play notes soon enough to prevent failing the song, making it impossible or nearly impossible to use.

In order to fix this problem I've created a hard file for Assassin. It will still achieve the required score without activating star power. The file will miss the first few notes and almost fail, but if synced correctly it will play the rest of the song perfectly. Just play the file as normal except set the in game difficulty to hard. If you use hyperspeed, just add 1 to your normal adjustment to match your normal expert speed.

Below is a set of video instructions and a link to the directory for the file download.

Directory


Thursday 23 October 2014

Delisted Games Issue 3 - Pinball FX2

Just a quick post today,

It was pointed out to me yesterday that the Rocky and Bullwinkle DLC for Pinball FX2 on Xbox 360 was missing from the marketplace. I started looking into in and an anonymous source confirmed that it appeared to have been delisted. Shortly after, the nice people at Zen Studios got back to me very quickly, and responded to my tweet confirming that it has been permanently delisted due to an expired license that they chose not to renew.

-Randy2727

Wednesday 22 October 2014

Delisted Games 2 / Discontinued Achievements 8 - Dark Souls, Ascend, and More.

Hello readers,

I have been quite behind on my blogging lately due to my overwhelming school schedule along with other commitments. I still want to do all the work on the site that I have been talking about and I do hope to get to it eventually.

I will start off this time with the delisted games that I am aware of since my last post. All of these were taken down without notice or reason. Krissx, Frogger (WP), Castlevania Puzzle (WP), Rocky and Bullwinkle, NBA Baller Beats, and Trivial Pursuit. Trivial Pursuit and NBA Baller Beats are still available as retail versions, while the rest are gone forever.

There have been a few discontinued achievements since the last post. Something happened to Team Crossword that prevents the last few achievements to not unlock. Whenever an achievement would unlock the game freezes, causing the entire game to now be discontinued. Redbox for Xbox One has shut down leaving 3 unobtainable and 24 discontinued achievements.

These games are not discontinued yet but may become discontinued in the future. It was announced on Steam that Dark Souls (PC) will be transitioning to Steamworks some time in November, so for those of you who are planning on finishing that one I recommend doing it sooner than later. The post makes it sound like both versions will still be functional and you will not be forced to update so the achievements may still be okay. Fortunately there is a retail version of this game and all the achievements are obtainable offline so in the worst case scenario it should still be possible to earn these achievements.

Doritos Crash Course 2 was scheduled to close on October 15, rendering all achievements discontinued, however, as of a couple of days ago, it is still up and running. There may still be a chance to finish these achievements up for those of you that still don't have them.

Ascend Hand of Kul is set to close on November 18. It is an online only game so the server closure will discontinue all achievements.

I had a look into Toy Soldiers Cold War (Win 8), but unfortunately my VM software does not support enough video memory to run the game. However I did confirm with a couple of people still running Windows 8.0 that even a fresh install of the game still has the functional DLC so it appears this is just a Windows 8.1 compatibility issue and not an issue with a server or download of some sort.

Unfortunately I did not have time to make up a video post to go along with this blog and I apologize for being behind on this info.

Until next time,
Randy2727

Thursday 4 September 2014

Discontinued Achievements Issue 7 - Glacier Blast, Dawn of War 2

Hello readers,

Another Windows 8 game had its servers closed recently. Glacier Blast’s servers were closed on the 28th of August 2014. As far as I know no notice was given prior to the shutdown. This unfortunately seems to be a trend with Windows 8 games lately. The game was online for less than a year before shutting down. This renders 15 of the game's 20 achievements discontinued.

As far as I know Dawn of War 2 is still online and for those of you that still have not completed the game I would like to offer some help. I have completed game saves in both the original Dawn of War as well as Chaos Rising on primarch difficulty. This means I can let anybody join me in coop and unlock all of the primarch difficulty achievements for you in less than five minutes. Just send me a message any time you see me online on Xbox LIVE and I will most likely be able to hop on DoW and pass you the achievements. I am currently idling games in G.R.A.W. part of the time so if I am online in a team game I am likely not actually there.

-Crandy

Wednesday 27 August 2014

Discontinued Achievements Issue 6 - Ascend, Karaoke, Gunpowder, Toy Soldiers.

Hello readers,

I have been a little behind on my updates lately. I was away and busy so I didn't get a chance to keep up so I will put everything into this post. I am going to start updating delisted games as well. I will write the first delisted games post in the next couple of days.

It was announced a few days ago that Ascend Hand of Kul will be closing its servers on November 18 2014. This will render every achievement in the game discontinued as the game requires you to be connected to the servers at all times while playing.

Karaoke which was announced to close on August 15 is still online in some countries. I have heard, but not tested, that the game is no longer playable in Canada and Belgium and is still playable in the United States, and some European countries. Along with the servers still being online the free songs are still changing about once every week so all of the achievements are still obtainable if you live in a country that still has functioning servers. The ability to purchase new Karaoke passes is still disabled, however.

Gunpowder unexpectedly gained some discontinued achievements recently. The game was removed from the Windows 8 marketplace in the beginning of July but up until what appears to be only a few weeks ago the Lost Levels DLC was still available for purchase. The DLC, which is now unavailable for purchase, has been disabled in game, even for those that had previously purchased it. Since there is now no legitimate way to access the DLC pack all of the achievements related to it are now discontinued.

Something similar has happened to Toy Soldiers Cold War (Win 8). The Windows 8 version, unlike the Xbox 360 version, included the content that was released as DLC on the Xbox 360 in the base game. Or so it appeared. The content has now gone missing from a number of people's games causing four achievements to become partly discontinued. Those achievements are "The Might of the Red Army", "Counting Stacks", "The End Of An Odyssey", and "In Memoriam". A couple of people on the Game Info Team at TrueAchievements.com have been testing the game and it appears that the levels only disappear on devices running Windows 8.1 and it has nothing to do with the game's servers or version. I am currently installing Windows 8.0 on my computer to check for myself and see if I am able to play the DLC. However, for right now I recommend those of you that have the Napalm and Eliv Empire DLC still available should get the related achievements as soon as possible.

-Randy2727