Guitar Hero III (and demo!)

[miffy495]

In the case of Psychobilly I can understand why. I think I know the part you're talking about, and on Expert those are all chords so you do need to strum every one. Probably just the game trying to keep you from making yourself unprepared for the next jump in difficulty.

[Thorne]

:hmph: :hmph: :buyme: :buyme: :buyme: :buyme: :buyme:

[miffy495]

Uhhh... hi? Getting your coat pretty quick there, aren't you? Well, feel free to make an introduction any time.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yes. Then we can openly mock you

[Erkki]

Yay! I finally got 100% in Cherub Rock (Medium), although I was quite certain that I missed one note during the outro (and remember seeing the "50 note sequence" message after that). I almost feel like I cheated.

IMHO, Cherub Rock is the best track in the game (most fun to play + I like the Pumpkins), along with "My Name is Jonas".

I have completed a few songs on Hard, but it's quite hard indeed. Every song needs half an hour or more practice at least. How difficult are Hard & Expert for you?

[Noyb]

(Coming from beating-but-not-five-starring the first two games on expert): Hard wasn't bad until the final set, where it became insane. Expert became masochism for me around the 6th set, and I gave up disgusted and switched to Rock Band around the seventh set. I still feel like Neversoft really borked the difficulty curve, especially since Hard is supposed to ease you into using the fifth fret.

[DanJW]

Talking of this game again:

Give this man a medal.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Good lord. Wow.

[Noyb]

Ah, crap. An intermittent problem my Les Paul was having with the orange fret being flaky stopped being intermittent. Anyone know if Red Octane is able to fix/replace launch guitars, or am I just going to have to get a new one? (Yeah, I know, I should have had it fixed as soon as I saw it had problems. That's the problem with intermittent issues. You never know when they'll get worse. )

Edit: OMG. Did that guy just full combo Through the Fire and the Flames? Wow.

[ThunderPeel2001]

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/04/scoop-the-guita.html

Could it get any worse?

[DanJW]

Quick! Choke the life out of it while it's still breathing!

[Nachimir]

The physical form of the DS version obviously leads into an interactive guitar hero mug. Then people could play it at the office while pretending to work.

There's an entire world of things beckoning to have guitar hero integrated into them. Sports rackets, golf clubs, etc. A guitar hero tennis racket would definitely work. Bicycle handlebars, brooms and other cleaning implements, walking sticks, subway car poles... there is clearly not enough guitar hero yet.

[Scrobbs]

Reading someone talking about GH2 being better - can you get it for the 360? Will my wireless guitar work on it?

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yes and yes

[ThunderPeel2001]

There is clearly not enough Guitar Hero yet.

Agreed. Where's Guitar Hero for my PHONE? Is it being developed? Surely they didn't miss an opportunity to completely sell out?

The really sickening thing is the Wired journalist's take on it...

Letting people play a mini-version of the game with their keyboards is certainly a clever marketing idea.

And it could pay off for persistent gamers: Get high scores and stay on the Top Ten leaderboard, and you could be eligible to win prizes from developer Rocket XL and Activision.

Of course, [Wired.com's] exclusivity on this news only lasts until the second that somebody else grabs the embed code and puts it into their own site. It'll certainly be interesting to see how far and how quickly it spreads!

Yeah, I can't seem to move for websites clambering over each other to add this to their pages.

[miffy495]

Before any of you see my "recently played" on Xbox live and make fun of me for it, I did not pay money for Aerosmith. My mother's boyfriend bought it, and in less than a week decided he hated it. I went home for dinner last weekend and he gave it to me saying "Just in case you like it any better than I did." As such, I now have a free copy of GH: Aerosmith. I don't really give a shit about Aerosmith, but at least I can play the Kinks now. And hell, easy achievements...

[miffy495]

Ok, I've played the first three sets. Here are my impressions:

First off: Why the hell is there an encore every two songs? What the hell?

Also, of the 15 songs that I've played, I enjoyed 5. I can't ever remember thinking "Is this damn thing over yet?" in any other Guitar Hero game. And I don't hate Aerosmith. I'm decidedly neutral towards them. I even really like a couple of their songs. Even those ones seem boring. Rag Doll, for example, is just fucking boring to play but still one of my favorites from this band.

For the record, the 5 songs that I enjoyed were All the Young Dudes (Mott the Hoople), All Day and All the Night (The Kinks), Complete Control (The Clash), Personality Crisis (The New York Dolls), and Moving Out (Aerosmith). So in Aerosmith's game 4 of the best 5 songs for me are not by Aerosmith.

On the positive side, credit to them for including the New York Dolls at all. That's not a band I expected to see in Guitar Hero. Of course, from the looks of it, Rock Band 2 will have Dinosaur Jr, so maybe lesser-known-but-still-very-accomplished bands are simply starting to get a bit more of their due. I know that among most people I know, the mention of either band typically draws blank stares.

The biggest positive I have for the game so far is that I haven't yet had to play a fucking battle and I'm halfway through the career. If I can make it through this game without some ridiculously bad forced battle, I'll come away actually liking it more than GHIII. Still not enough to make me not give up on Guitar Hero, but I'll at least be a little more forgiving.

And before I forget, there is one more positive to this. I didn't actually give them money for it. I don't think I ever would, and I don't recommend any of you do either.

[ThunderPeel2001]

And before I forget, there is one more positive to this. I didn't actually give them money for it. I don't think I ever would, and I don't recommend any of you do either.

Yikes. As much as I hate Red Octane/Activision for sullying the Guitar Hero name, I can't imagine that they'd really make a GH that bad. Wow. Is this kind of like that "Rocks the 80s" thing? I still try and play GH3 from time to time (I do WANT to like it!) but I always end up feeling like it's a hollow experience.

Are there any game mechanic changes to GH:A or is it really just an expansion?

[miffy495]

It's just a skin change. The mechanics are all the same.

And for the record, I really liked Rocks The 80s. It was like getting GHII DLC before they had such a thing. Aerosmith could have easily been done in a forgettable $20 download.

EDIT: except for the unimpressive new venues, I guess...

[Tommy Gun]

Yeah, Rocks the 80s has awesome music. I haven't played GH:A yet, but this weekend my cousin is coming over and is bringing it. I'm not very excited.

[toblix]

This thread should be renamed to Guitar Hero III (and counting!)

[DanJW]

Penny Arcade linked to this blog post, that illustrates the difference between the Harmonix and Neversoft approach.

[miffy495]

I know a guy with a pet peeve that I don't understand. He hates any game that makes him unlock things. I don't quite get this, especially if the content is not necessary for a fun multiplayer experience. As long as all the game modes are there and there's enough to have fun with, I don't have a major problem with having some extras tantalizingly out of reach.

Why mention this? Because I just beat GH: Aerosmith. We're talking 199 our of a possible 200 stars for the set list on expert. I'd say that's pretty beaten. So I think "alright, let's see what bonuses I can unlock with these mounds of in-game cash I've accumulated." I go and start unlocking characters. I unlock all but one before I'm informed I'm out of cash. "This can't be right?" I think to myself. "Perhaps I can accumulate more stacks of cash by playing the 11 bonus songs." I go and buy all of the bonus songs. Lo, I get precisely $0 for beating them, so I stop playing. Honestly, now that I've beaten every song in the game on expert, it really expects me to go back and play through the lower difficulty levels if I want to be able to unlock the secrets? I don't mind having to unlock things, really I don't. But I figure that when you can demonstrate that you can thoroughly stomp the hardest the game has to offer you, you should be able to unlock all the secrets. What the bloody fuck?

Oh, and there was a Guitar Battle. Joe Perry tasted bitter defeat to me in about 45 seconds. Not a particularly troublesome nuisance, but the game gets docked major points for including it.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Sounds like they've lowered the difficulty somewhat(?), which is probably a good thing. Are you sure you earn cash for completing a song on lower difficulty levels? That wasn't the case with any of the other GH titles...!

Maybe that 1 final star is worth a lot of money?

How was it to play? Have they learned anything from the poor gem layouts of GH3?

[Tommy Gun]

Are you sure you earn cash for completing a song on lower difficulty levels? That wasn't the case with any of the other GH titles...!

That was always the case! In the early games I played through on Hard, and by the time I got to expert I had almost everything unlocked.

So my cousin is over now, and he forgot to bring GH:A! Oh well.