Posts Tagged ‘guitar hero
22
Jul
Well, Why Not?
If Guitar Hero games were the three bears’ porridge, GHII is the one that was “just right”.
I popped the game in for the first time in many months and was instantly having a good time all over again. It’s that perfect match of difficulty and accomplishment; not only that but as a guitar player, I think the layout of each song’s “gems” are placed in a genuinely compelling way.
Don’t get me wrong, I still prefer Rock Band for its content and drumming, but I must fault myself for not giving GHII its due credit. Well shit, Harmonix made both games so I’m still giving credit where credit is due, in a way.
17
May
Drum Kits A-Plenty
Honestly, I was a little annoyed with the Guitar Hero IV drum kit. Should I have to make room in my living room for two fake plastic drum toys?
And along comes Konami:
That’s the drum set for their new Rock Revolution game, coming out this fall. Look at all those pads! It makes the game seem like work or something. Not very fun.
Either way, Rock Band wins by default, because I really can’t see myself getting a whole new set of peripherals.
14
May
Guitar Hero IV Drum Kit
I’m not going to go on a tirade about how the game is called GUITAR Hero; instead I will just post their drum kit model, which was revealed in the latest Game Informer magazine.
I think the yellow “cymbal” is out of position to work effectively as a high-hat. And if the foot pedal isn’t colored, how will it be implemented?
Your thoughts?
08
May
ATDI on GHIV(?)
The gods have spoken, and I have once again influenced the planet. You may remember my Five Spazz-Rock Songs for Rock Band list from a couple months ago, which featured a song by At The Drive-In. I just read here that ATDI’s “One Armed Scissor” will be on Guitar Hero IV. Wrong song, wrong game, but it’s damn close.
The source is a bit sketchy, and the press release says that GHIV comes out in June, and it definitely doesn’t, that craptacular Aerosmith Guitar Hero is.
I’m not even sure if I’ll be getting GHIV, but I’m happy to see ATDI get some exposure. And just six short years after they broke up.
I went to pick up my second Iron Man Slurpee at 7-11 yesterday, and was surprised to see an unfamiliar stack of Guitar Hero collector cups juxstaposed to Tony Stark’s ugly mug. The ones I saw had Judy Nails’ face plastered all over them (side question: why do all the commercials and advertisements always show Judy like she is some major part of the game? I don’t know anyone that even plays as her. Axel Steel FTW!). Then I read on Joystiq this morning that it’s part of the new GH: Aerosmith ad campaign, although the band is nowhere to be found on any cup.
So it looks like I’ll be drinking my third Coke and cherry mixed Slurpee of the week later today, and my ever growing stack of collectable cups continues to get more impressive.
Mark and Tyler have a longer history with the fake plastic guitar games than I have. They had the first two Guitar Hero games on the PS2, and then Guitar Hero II and III on the Xbox 360 before me as well. But I think it’s pretty safe to say that all three of us threevue.com editors have sided with the more recent Rock Band camp, for several reasons. Aside from its crappy guitar (pictured above), it has much more going for it with better songs, a better overall atmosphere, more instruments to play (drums! drums! forever the drums!) and weekly DLC. I could keep going. And really, preferring Rock Band over Guitar Hero III isn’t a betrayal or anything, since Rock Band was developed by the same makers of the first two Guitar Hero games.
So, imagine my surprise when I read this article on Joystiq.com, which says that Guitar Hero III has sold 9.1 million copies to date versus Rock Band’s 1.5 million. That’s a huge difference. They attribute it to the massive brand awareness of Guitar Hero and the fact that it launched a few weeks before Rock Band last year.
Comparing the two, it’s an easy choice for me as to which is the superior game. Yet America is doing the exact opposite of what logic dictates. I feel like this has happened before.
Contrary to what you might think, given my frequent rhythm-game postings, I didn’t realize they were working on a Guitar Hero DS title. Makes since, since Activision has has been trying to cash in on the franchise since day one.
The controller seems just a tad lame, and more than a tad embarrassing. Who in their right minds will be playing this, say, on the city bus? I don’t think I’d even play it on the crapper.
At least two people disagree:
The entire internet (but mostly just Joystiq, I guess) is abuzz because some dude from one of those millions of companies making billions off Guitar Hero said that a “Beatles Edition” of our former-favorite clickety-click guitar game is something they are interested in doing. Whew, long sentence.
I really hated the idea of an Aerosmith Edition, but I’d go for some Beatles action. Although I would definitely prefer to have it as DLC on Rock Band instead.
Let’s just hope Heather Mills doesn’t get any of those royalty checks. I think I kind of hate her. Why exactly does she get 49 million dollars?
Did she write “Let It Be”? “Eleanor Rigby”? “Hey Jude”? Nuh-uh.
I was pretty good there for a while - playing every day, and making progress - I could wail on the guitar or pound out some snazzy drum beats with the best of ‘em. And then life caught up with me, and I haven’t touched a fake plastic instrument in what feels like weeks. It sucks to feel a skill slip slowly away from you. Like any time I don’t play an FPS for a few days, whatever skill I had accumulated is gone. At least I’ll always have my super long eyelashes, they’ll never let me down.
Found these pictures here online, thought I would share:
Continue reading ‘I’m Probably Really Bad At Guitar Hero and Rock Band Right Now’
15
Feb
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
I thought this was a joke at first, until I sadly realized that April Fool’s Day is over a month away.
What I like about Rock Band (among other things) is that they have a whole slew of content in the pipeline for us to download: about 200 songs planned, last I heard. Today, Rock Band’s rival Guitar Hero announced that a new game is scheduled to come out this June. Yeah, and this is on the heels of Guitar Hero III, which came out just this past October 28th. You know, 111 days ago.
My gripe? This new “game”, which features only Aerosmith songs, is not worthy of a new release. The Video Game God created downloadable content (DLC) just for this purpose - howzabout you just release a cool “Aerosmith Pack” that features a bunch of their songs, and the ability to play as some of their members? Should we have to shell out $60 for a whole new disc? Chances are, it’ll come at a “discounted price” of $40, but it’s still a rip-off.
So my hat to you, Rock Band, since you plan on releasing entire albums as DLC, and not clogging up our stores (and confusing all those game-buying parents and grandparents) with unnecessary junk.
23
Jan
please forgive me
I would like to issue a public apology to a certain Gamestop employee that helped me last night. You see, I thought we were just having a regular video game conversation, but on the way out my girlfriend said she thought that I was very rude to him. Here’s what went down. I traded in some games, and actually got a good amount of credit for them ($39 for Super Mario Galaxy!), so much so that I didn’t have to pay anything out of pocket for a copy of Rock Band (just the game, not the whole bundle). He did his job and asked me if I was sure that I didn’t want the bundle. I said that my friend is getting me the drums, and I already have two Guitar Hero guitars. He told me that you can’t play Rock Band with the GH guitar, which anyone in the world will tell you, you most certainly can. I told him you actually could, and he backtracked a little and said the he couldn’t play it with his guitar. Alright fine, I was a little annoyed, but I let it go. After that we were just casually conversing and he said that he likes the GH2 guitar so much better “because it is wired, and because the strum bar is so much better.” This is where the problem arrived. I replied, “I feel the exact opposite of everything you just said.” I had no malicious intent when I said it, I didn’t think I was being rude, but in retrospect, like my girlfriend said, if some one had said that to me, I would have been pretty angry.
So, Mr. Gamestop, I don’t know what your name is (you probably know him, Tyler), but I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be a jerk. Just for that, next time I’m in, I’ll reserve something from you.
It’s official, video games have taken over my life. How do I know? These are just some of the reasons. When I walk around outside, I am constantly checking rooftops for snipers, and wondering at what angle I would have to lob a grenade in order to get into a window (thanks, Call of Duty). I see imaginary red and green guidelines on the road when I drive, indicating whether I should speed up or slow down to take a turn (thanks Forza 2). I imagine what my life would be like if it was a video game (a boring RPG). But the thing that has made me realize that I’ve gone over the edge is the fact that 95% of what I’ve listened to on my iPod in the last week has been either the Joystiq podcast, or the Guitar Hero 1 soundtrack. The sad thing is that it’s not even the song by the original artists, it’s the game’s cover versions, most of which I like better. I also downloaded the Hitman: Blood Money soundtrack, and Chop Chop Master Onion’s theme from PaRappa the Rappa.
I guess it could be worse, but, just like the pied piper led rats through the street, I’m afraid I may be swaying to a symphony of destruction.
14
Jan
Shredder
I haven’t done much game posting lately. That’s because I haven’t been doing a whole lot of game playing. But my time spent mashing buttons lately has been productive - I’ve beaten Rock Band’s solo drum tour on Medium, and just yesterday I finished the elusive Hard career on Guitar Hero II. That last achievement was over a year in the making, and quite possibly my crowning gaming moment. And so what if I used a glitch to pass “Carry Me Home” and “Free Bird”; the rest were legit.
Next up: solo drum tour on Hard. I’m already a dozen songs through it, and I’m failing left and right, but I can feel myself getting better with every attempt. My powers….they are growing.
Mark:
Guitar Hero III is in essence the same game as the first two iterations. You use a fake quitar to play real songs, and you feel cool for a few minutes. The main differences in part 3 over the last two versions are pretty much cosmetic. Even though they were used to make the characters look like common trolls, the graphics on part 3 are significantly better than parts 1 and 2. There are also some new venues, a new “story line,” and a new boss-battle mode (which I could do without), but the core gameplay is still the same. This leads me to my major gripe on GHIII, the track list.
On release, the reviewers were raving over the track list saying that there is “something for everyone,” but the amounts of these are drastically different. For example, I love Weezer, and, although they could have picked a better track, I was super excited when I saw they were in it. The problem is that along with that one great song comes 35 other nu-metal tracks, or cheesy classic songs, or one terribly obnoxious Queens of the Stone Age song. There are a few gems, like Muse’s Knights of Cydonia, Pearl Jam’s Evenflow, and Eric Johnson’s Cliffs of Dover, but there are plenty more stinkers (I’m looking at you, Slipknot) for it to get a very high score from me.
75/100
Russ:
Guitar Hero has changed so many things for the gaming world that it’s hard to fault it. But it has its faults, and they really start to shine through on this latest edition. The game’s development changed hands from Harmonix (now doing Rock Band) to Neversoft (known for its Tony Hawk games), which led me to believe that some big changes were to come. Some changes came, you can bet your sweet ass - but they were all bad. For instance, they added a “battle” system, where instead of acquiring star power, you get the power to inflict annoyances on your opponent. It’s lame. And there are now “boss battles” against famous guitarists. Also lame. And the characters look like crap now. They’re creepy.
I could go on and on about its faults (GH2 songlist was better, difficulty is ridiculous, achievements don’t work half the time), but despite these shortcomings it’s still something I’d prefer to 80% of the games out there today. I still get that little rush when I really knock out a sweet fake riff. The new guitar is a huge improvement over the last model, and it’s wireless. It’s not changing my life, but it still makes me smile a bit.
79/100
Tyler:
Two weeks ago, I was really into GH3. I was on my way to completing the game of hard, unlocking all of the songs I wanted and having a fun time with the multilayer. I really was enjoying the fact that Neversoft kept the streak alive. My fears were that in the changing of hands from Harmonix to Neversoft ideas like fun and playablility would be thrown out the window in favor of making some of that good ol’ green money, which they were sure to receive no matter what content was put on the game disc. The wireless GH3 guitar works so well, it really is the best rhythm based guitar music game controller out there yet. I can’t believe I get to play “My Name is Jonas” on my 360!
That said, you can’t just come to the table with the same game with a new soundtrack. Yes, there is online multiplayer. To counter that, there are some songs that are so punishing I had to leave the room in order to refrain from destroying guitars, TVs and friends. The lost love for GH3 stems from three things.
1- Too many good games. GH3 stikes me as more of GH2… and I got some first person shooting to do.
2- Terrible song choices. Maybe not terrible, but most deffinitely a steps back from GH2, just too much garbage… didn’t we already play an 80’s edition?
3-Rock Band looks so much more fun. You gotta give them credit, whole band inclusion makes me more interested than the third version of a game I’ve already played.
84/100
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