With the AppStore containing over 25,000 applications now, it is harder than ever to keep track of some apps that you are interested in but don’t want to pay the “normal” retail price. A great tool has emerged that can help with this called AppShopper.com, which is a web based application tracker for the AppStore. I have been using this for awhile now after being directed to it by Chris Paladino, and it is invaluable for learning in almost real-time what apps are moving in their pricing. AppShopper.com allows you to break it down by paid vs free, sub categories and a great looking top 100 list of Apps complete with daily movement, weeks on list, Avg rating, highest list position and current pricing. So if you are constantly wondering which AppStore games are dropping in price or going on sale, then AppShopper.com is a great place to start.  Until Apple creates the rumored premium AppStore for the best games and applications, this is a great way to sort through the logjam of stuff.

With today's news release of the first details of The Beatles: Rock Band, I have mixed feelings about what we can and maybe should expect.  As much as I love Rock Band and enjoy The Beatles, I will have to hold judgment (but not my speculative concern) on whether I will purchase this when I find out more details other than pricing, release date and which peripherals will work with it.  What we don't know yet is whether other artists besides the Beatles will be on the game disc (doubtful), how many of the Beatles tracks will be on the disc and how (if at all) previous and future DLC will be incorporated.

As far as downloadable content goes, I hope that previous DLC will work with the game (not holding my breath), but it would not shock me one bit if we have to pay a fee (again?) for that privilege.  I also have concern that the game will release with about 30 of the Beatles songs, but some of their best and most popular work may be held back as limited DLC strictly for this particular title.  If that is the case, then my biggest fear that Harmonix is taking us down the path that Activision has gone with Guitar Hero: Awerosmith (I am not a fan of the single band focus) may be coming true.  Unfortunately, at first glance it sure looks like we may be headed in that direction.  Doesn't it feel like Harmonix has led us from the robust catalogs of RB and RB 2 to an exclusive Wal-mart AC/DC $30 add-on disc and are now leading us by the short and curlys down the path to a $60 all-inclusive Beatles disc?  Does that mean we can expect a U2 game in two years (after RB 3 comes out) and maybe an Elvis version after that?  While we don't know this for sure, the natural development progression seems to indicate that a complete standalone title without (or with exclusive) DLC support is not out of the question.

For those of us that have invested hundreds of dollars into our Rock Band catalog, to release a version of the game that doesn't support those previous (and future) purchases could very well be a deal breaker for me.  In fact, it is quite likely that I wont be picking this up (I didn't bother with AC/DC) if there isn't a way to utilize that previously downloaded music with the game.  The reasoning is simple as I am of the opinion that the Rock Band experience is not just about playing through the campaign modes (local or online), but also hanging out and just casually playing random songs with your friends and family.  Focusing on a single band may be fun for awhile, but if I cannot easily change my songs in my set from the Beatles to the Doors to the Chili Peppers, then the time it takes to swap out discs, load the game and set everything up just messes with the continuity of playing and cuts into your un time.

I hope my concerns are for naught and Harmonix does us right.  However, due to the notorious death grip that Apple Ltd has had over the Beatles catalog and the amount of watered down rhythm games getting cranked out in the name of the almighty dollar (looking straight at you Activision),  then I fear it will either be all Beatles or Nothing for this title.  Hopefully the next couple of months will see more information released and my fears put to rest.  Feel free to share your thoughts on this topic in the comments or forums.

I'd meant to scrawl down some of my impressions for GTA IV's The Lost and Damned over a week ago, back when it still held some timliness and immediacy for the faster-than-light travel that the internet speeds around at, but my assigned review for Afro Samurai absorbed my spare time.  My apologies.  But some of the imagery has gelled to me, soaked through my skin as if beer-stained black leather could adhere and then sponge into my pores like osmosis.

I, as Johnny Klebitz, the anti-hero with his head squarely on his shoulders, couldn't ignore the Wild West tinge that Liberty City draped itself in during the Lost and Damned.  Me and the Lost Motorcycle Club--the Lost MC--rolled through the town like horseback-straddled outlaws, the only thing missing being bandanas tied over the lower-half of our faces and ten-gallon hats getting blustered in the wind.  Even if Niko Bellic's HUD wasn't all crisp and shiny, the road-worn scratches that edged the mini-map now portrayed Liberty City through a tarmac lense.  And even during the initial reunion of the Lost MC with its not-so-long-lost president, Billy Grey, the color of the city bled into sepia tones over the entire urban landscape, as if the city were being viewed via camera obscura. I half expected tumbleweed to take measured hops across dusty intersections.  Even the Lost's clubhouse is situated in a delapidated brownstone building, some of the oldest construction in the city, with room only for someone to hitch their horse--their bike--in the thin parking strip out front.  And those bikes are as vital to them as a man's horse was in the 1800s.

All of these subtexts (never mind the playbill font) wholly transform Liberty City into an out-west dustbowl where the streets are dried-up ravines and the highrises are canyon walls.  I know that Rockstar San Diego is hard at work on the sequel to Red Dead Revolver, but until then, the Lost and Damned is a brilliant revisioning of a Western tuned to the sound of Harleys and patched-up leather coats.