[taidan]

Someone oughta make a thread for Guitar Hero 3.

I'm getting my hungover ass up and walking over to Best Buy to pick it up. The demo made me quite excited for the game, more than I expected to be. Getting to know the songs in the demo a little better, what I said before about the game being easier isn't quite so true. In a sense it is becasue HOPO's are easier, but i realized there are some nasty little sections sprinkled throughout even tunes like Hit Me With Your Best Shot. I have a feeling this might be less of a "I can't beat it on my first try" game and more of a "I can beat it, but not perfect it", and once we get tot he final set lists things aren't going to be quite as simple.

Also, in Rock Band land, news that the Rock Band Guitar won't work with any other game, which most people believe is Activision/Red Octane locking them out of GH.

[Lick Meth]

[belthegor]

Yeah, I'll have Guitar Hero 3 tomorrow, and will gladly play with any of you dudes on Xbox Live.
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[km]

I got this!

Your assessment rings true, taidan.

Also, is the edge of the Les Paul digging into you guy's wrists? The SG had a beveled edge at least. The star power sensor also seems a bit twitchy. I'll be rockin' out, and accidentally activate star power.


The guitar battles are interesting, but seem pretty gimmicky.


None of the bonus songs really jump out at me at being awesome.


The Axe (body spray) guitar is actually kind of insulting. I don't want your dumb shitty ads in my game, especially since it costs so damn much to begin with.


So far it seems like this game seems to be of high quality, but feels like it's missing just a little something with the departure of Harmonix. The little interstitials during the loading screens, the item descriptions, the on stage actions of your guitarist... it just feels a little less than it used to be.
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vi) RPGs (Role-Playing Games)
For adolescents; half-formed personalities roaming (in packs) in search of identity.

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Man, I wish the Wii version had downloadable content.
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[km]

Wow, uh, tier 7 seems to get hard. Long, long stretches of quick, repetitive passages that if you don't have nailed mean a fail.
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vi) RPGs (Role-Playing Games)
For adolescents; half-formed personalities roaming (in packs) in search of identity.

[Lick Meth]

[belthegor]

[Monthenor]

I've used Midori and Metalhead so far, and they don't seem to do things when Star Power is activated. Is it just those characters? Or do we not get cool tosses and flips any more?

The Grim Ripper better eat some fucking souls, is what I'm saying.

[bleak]

[km]

[professor_scissors]

I got this today! I played through it on hard!

Set 8 is BRUTAL. I have not yet defeated the final boss.

Overall I like the game, though. I'd write more, but my fingers hurt.
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[taidan]

Now for the long post, with my own opinions and responses to others in this thread:

Art Design/humor - I'll stir a bit of controversy and say that aside fro Judy, all the characters look great in this one. The only other one that's a bit questionable is Johnny, but they seemed to want to make him a little edgy and harder, and I guess its growing on me.

The rest of the art in the game is a mixture of imitation-Harmonix and what seems to be Neversoft's own spin. I can't say any of it is entirely offensive.

I don't really see that many attempts at humor in this one, which alone is a bad thing. What is there seems fine enough, but it is true that its tough to beat Harmonix when they describe a guitar as "sometimes someone makes a guitar shaped like America. Sometimes you drink a cup of apple vinegar instead of apple cider. Things happen like that"

character animations - I just took a closer look at this, and wow. The singer is more animated than the guitarists! His animations often sync up wonderfully with certain parts of the song, but your own character often seems to be lifeless during star power. Its as if it gets worse with each game (I thought GH1 had the best star power animations). Seems like a rather important thing to miss. its like the camera work on the stage is much better, but the most important showcase there is lifeless!

I think Midori shoots butterflies or something when in SP.

Live play KM and I played some co-op together tonight, and it was quite good! There was only one spot of lag at the end that I could detect. Also, I have a feeling I'll mostly be playing with people on my friends list, because I'm not sure if I want to know what the hardcore crowd is going to be like on Live.

What isn't good is the way MP is set up. There are a whole lot of different modes to choose from, but it doesn't let you stay together for as long as you want. Play co-op for example, and you each get to pick songs to make a 5 song set. Once its done you're spit out and have to invite each other again. I think this would be easily solved by asking both players when you're done if you want another round at it.

Lick Meth's linked story is kind of what I was getting at with the guitars: Harmonix's guitar only works with Rock Band because Activision is locking them out, like it tries with 3rd party manufacturers. The GH controllers will work with Rock Band because of their open platform.

Conclusion, for now - as much as we'll all miss the Harmonix touch, Neversoft didn't really screw it up, and that's important, because the same good game is here with enough bells and whistles (Live play, maaster tracks) to make up for the dismal 80's disc and keeps the franchise as a viable option with Rock Band on the way.

That being said, I am not sure how much of this praise should be put on Neversoft. It just seems to me that the core of this game was solid enough, and that it wouldn't be a tremendous feat for any competent developer to be passed the reigns and make a sequel. Unless they want to go the Rock Band route and make more instruments, I don't see what else they could do with Guitar Hero. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I look at this franchise that has had updates yearly, coupled with a developer who likse making updates yearly, and I can see future sequels being getting lazier. Theoretically they could just make cheap song discs around this core game for a while, but we already know from the 80's disc that that probably won't happen, and next year will see GH4 with another controller I don't need but will buy anyway. We need to hope Rock Band does well too to give Neversoft incentive to work hard.

Also, I really didn't need this guitar, but dammit the Les Paul is the best one they've made so far, and I'm really glad I have it.

[Deets]

Raining Blood expert is pretty fucking ridiculous. And it feels like Cliffs of Dover should be in set 7, as it is way too upbeat for a BATTLE IN HELL.

[km]

I think slipknot needs to invest in some new note patterns
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vi) RPGs (Role-Playing Games)
For adolescents; half-formed personalities roaming (in packs) in search of identity.

[Lestrade]

Cross-posting my comments from TGQ, because I'm fucking lazy:

Note: I played the PS2 version.

[taidan]

Man Les, sorry to hear about that in the PS2 version. The 360 version has faster than I expected loads, the audience members are full polygonal. That makes me pretty pissed that they put second grade effort into the PS2 version, as it is still the biggest platform the game has.

I guess we'll have to disagree with the interface. The only thing I think is harder to see is how many notes you have left until the next multiplier. The multi itself is fine, and the star power meter is no better or worse than the last one (the old one was simpler, but it was placed at an angle and sometimes didn't give you a true idea of how much power you really had stocked up).

I'm getting a lot of bad vibes around the net. I can understand the issues that people have with the game, at least here on SB where reasonable people can be found, but I'm also starting to wonder if other folks are just finding something to complain about for the sake of it. Perfect example - on Parish's forum a bunch of people were whining about the difficulty being too easy based on the demo, and now others are moaning that some later songs are too hard. What the hell do you want folks? Should it be casual and accessible, or absolutely hardcore? Or is it merely that people want it to be one or the other, rather than mix both together?

Actually, now that I remember, people had a lot of trash to say about 2 when it came out, and now everyone regards it highly. The same won't happen here, but I do think that after the initial impressions cool off we'll think at least a little differently.

Except for the PS2 version. Seriously, that's bullshit.

[km]

Yeah, I'd regard the 360 version as "solid," especially with the online play so I can rock out with the friends back home.

I really hope the downloadable content is worthwhile! It'd be awesome if it became a platform for lesser-known artists to get their music out there.
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vi) RPGs (Role-Playing Games)
For adolescents; half-formed personalities roaming (in packs) in search of identity.

[taidan]

Yeah DLC is going to be interesting. I'm not really sure who is to blame for the spottiness of GH2's downloads. I'm going to guess it was Red Octane, in which case we're screwed, but if it was Harmonix then maybe we'll get some better support.

Or GH2 could have just been a testbed to figure out the best balance of price and delivery. Who knows? Maybe someone here :) ?

[professor_scissors]

Honestly, the load times don't bother me at all! Neither does the audience, or the interface, or the admittedly lackluster Star Power. Maybe I'm too easy to please, but I am just having a blast with it.

Let's talk about the cutscenes! They are oddly endearing. I particularly like how nobody ever actually speaks.
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[km]

[Deets]

One of the best things about the cutscenes is that they're different if you play co-op career mode.

My roommate brought home the wii version. It's pretty good! Online play is about as clumsy as I expected but at least you can specify what kind of game you want to play against strangers to some degree.

[HJProject]

I was playing the Wii edition today and I really liked the les paul, but since the remote fits into the guitar you get the missed note sound coming out of the tinny remote speaker. I found it to be a bit distracting.

[taidan]

ahem

I hope Maz doesn't mind me using the logo from our Steam community.

[Pavement]

[km]

[taidan]

[schild]

I would sleep with black and white pleather Casey Lynch in a heartbeat.

Oh, a list:

1. Beat everything 4 times except for One. One is kicking our ass. We've played through single player PS3, PS2, X360 and COOP PS3.
2. Xbox Guitar has lots of issues. PS3 guitar perfect. None are as good as the original PS2 guitar... sigh.
3. Paint it Black and Cliffs of Dover are amaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing.
4. Song list is _awesome_.

[bleak]

[professor_scissors]

I have to say, I'm really happy with the song list. Having gotten to the end of Career Mode, I haven't encountered even one song that I hate! No Freya! No Institutionalized!

One of the songs in the first set is way the hell too long, though. So, one Jessica.
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[Lestrade]

Dammit, everyone's having fun with this except me. I want to play more but the battles are so bad, I can't continue. Every time it looks like I'm about to win and then it's DEATH DRAIN time again. Fucking stupid; can I please just play guitar?
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Illustration Portfolio | The Gamer's Quarter

[schild]

Just Wuss Out, the only thing you lose is the ability to play as the start. I fucking hate the existence of these battles as I'M SUPPOSED TO BE THE MOTHERFUCKING STAR. NOT TOM FUCKING MORELLO. HE HASN'T BEEN A STAR SINCE 1996.

Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh stupidest mechanic ever.

Not as stupid as Rock Band having Cherub Rock instead of Tonight Tonight though.

[boojiboy7]

[RobotRocker]

Okay, answer me. 360 or PS2 version, because I am willing to hold out on the 360 version if its better until my 360 is repaired. Otherwise, I shall grab the PS2 version. And just how bad is the product placement?

[Lestrade]

RR, don't get the PS2 version! Seriously!
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Illustration Portfolio | The Gamer's Quarter

[Worm]

Yeah, the PS2 version is sort of bad. All my notes were silent for the first boss battle, and I just gave up on it anyway. At least GH3 made me realize that hard is too hard for me and medium is too boring, so it's nice to have that done with.
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gonna right the wrongs, an' gonna wrong the fuckin' rights

[inmatarian]

I got to see GH3 today, a friend bought it. On the subject, I have this to say:

Dragonforce, what the hell.

I've noticed a lot of sell-outs appear on the list of songs.

The box says "Become a Legend of Rock over 70" if you look at it the right way. The game also features the Rolling Stones.
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2993 badness blog email

[HJProject]

The game is very technical. I was playing on hard and just getting through and beating the song is much easier on 3 than 2. But it is much more difficult to score well. Often there will be long strings of star notes that are in a difficult pattern. It isn't as easy to get you star power filled up because of this.

[Monthenor]

Oh joy! Slipknot and Disturbed, right next to each other! It's like sophomore year all over again.

It was worth it to get to Cult of Personality, but damn if that Slipknot song didn't piss me off.

[Focus]

I was surprised to hear that my father bought guitar hero 3 for his wii today. apparently he wanted to sit around with my mom and laugh at her playing the game. along with, you know, playing it himself. he just got a subwoofer for his setup downstairs (already with HD and surround sound, so) and i think it is only helping his experience.

he calls it DDR for lazy people.
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[Monthenor]

I just bought the rest of the bonus songs, confirming in the process that French rock has never had a guitar solo. Ever.

I made a vow to myself many years ago that if I was ever in a band, it would have to be named Ded Kitty Hed. Imagine my delight while perusing the bonus guitars! If I could slap a yellow paint job on that baby, I might have to start touring.

So my opinion is still washing out to "ambivalent". The songs are great, everything but the songs is the worst in the series. The worst Guitar Hero is still better than 95% of the games out there right now, but c'mon. They could have pushed a little harder than this.

And you can't tell me that Neversoft doesn't have some 720 kickflip skeletal animations they could have thrown in for Star Power time. They have a warehouse full of Christ Airs.