It was with great trepidation that I checked out Battle of the bands for Wii. The logo alone left me feeling like it was going to be a cheap Guitar Hero knock off with it's heavy Metal pointy-ness. What I was shown when I actually played was a somewhat convoluted rock band/battle game that seemed to miss its mark.

They were showing of the multiplayer capabilities of the game which meant I was pitted against one of the game's developers. Each player chooses from a number of "bands" each with its own different style and type of music. Then a song is picked from a rather extensive song list although admittedly I only recognized a few titles like "Mama Gonna Knock You Out" and "One Thing Leads To Another." Once the song is picked you are presented with two Guitar Hero like fret boards with the now familiar scrolling dots representing the notes. But, instead of hitting buttons on a plastic guitar, you flick the Wii remote in rythm the direction of the arrow that the little dot has on it. It seemed a little weak and gave me the same feeling I got when playing Boogie. Rather unfulfilling. Every once in a while you could gather firepower or bombs and a little symbol representing that weapon would appear above one of the moving dots. If you flicked in rhythm at the correct time, you would send the weapon over to the rival band, knocking off portions of their points. By the end of the song, the band with the most points is declared the winner.

If this all sounds confusing and weird to you, welcome to the club. It's exactly the same way I felt after finishing playing. My buddy I was with actually quite enjoyed so I'm sure the game will find an audience somewhere, but certainly not with me.

Last night saw a swanky soirée that was otherwise known as THQ's Gamer's Day '08. After being held in a room and plied with top shelf booze and fancy finger foods for an hour, we were finally treated to what we came there for, the games! They had quite a few games showing including Saint's Row 2, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Darksiders and Deadly Creatures. Also on hand were Battle of the Bands, De Blob, Wall-E, Baja and a new Destroy all Humans game. Despite being talked about at the beginning of the presentation, Dawn of War 2 was no where to be found amongst the demo stations. Keep an eye out this evening for all of my coverage of this rather large event and tons of hands-on impressions when the embargo lifts.

The big news out of yesterday's THQ Gamer's Day was the announcement of a street date for Saint's Row 2. The follow up to the uber popular first title will be hitting your PS3 or Xbox 360 on August 26th. As expected, it's been packed with a bunch of new features that will enrich your gang related gaming experience. Look for more details from my hands on with the game later today! You can also check out the Saints Row 2 website which just went live.

Saints Row 2