The Rhythm Religion
by Kait Wheeler on June 24th, 2008
filed under Rants
I’ve been hesitant to start a gaming review on the Guitar Hero series for several reasons; the most important one being my deep seeded hatred for all of the peripherals. Slightly less important would be the fact that everyone pretty much knows all there is to know about the series and has formed their own opinions on it. Some say it’s nothing more than a crappy version of Simon Says, others say that it’s great practise for the real thing because it exercises your non-dominant hand coordination and your hand-eye coordination. Personally I’ve always kind of felt that it was a bit of both.
If everyone remembers correctly, the Guitar Hero franchise didn’t really kick in until its second edition. The first edition was almost a disgrace. The peripheral was horrible, the hammer-ons and pull-offs didn’t work, and there were even some incidents where the ‘lag’ was so off that it was utterly unable to be played. Yet still…some people really liked it.
In fact, people liked it enough for Activision and Red Octane to create a sequel that delightfully was more like Godfather II in terms of sequels instead of something like Police Academy II. The peripheral was MUCH improved, the gameplay was improved, and the song selection was, as always, only slightly disappointing because of some of the ‘pop’ songs on it. And of course, there was Freebird. That was THE song to beat if you were trying to make a name for yourself in the Guitar Hero world.
Of course, no good deed ever goes unpunished and I suppose that was why they decided to make Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80s. This was an ‘expansion pack’ of sorts though it still puzzles me how a console game could ever possibly have an expansion pack. Not only that, but this particular game was an absolute disgrace to the franchise. All they did was take Guitar Hero II, strip it of everything good, invert the colours on the selection screen, change the outfits on the characters and take away half of the things in the store. So, not only did I have extra money that I couldn’t spend, but the outfits for the characters made me want to barf. Judy Nails went from looking like a Punk Rock Goddess to a cheap sleazy stripper, and they turned Pandora into a member of the freaking Flock of Seagulls. Not to mention the fact that Johnny Napalm looked like someone had giving him an EXTRA helping of Speed. After that particular installment, I was about ready to give up on the series all together.
And then Guitar Hero III made its way to my house.
Wireless guitars, improved peripherals that detach for easier mobility, and perhaps most importantly, BOSS BATTLES. I immediately freaked when I heard about this. It was unprecedented. It’s as if Activision realized the error of its ways and smacked themselves with a rusty shovel to produce something so beautiful. I immediately bought it, played through the entire game and then started working on five stars on every song I could. And just about halfway through Expert I was realizing that I wasn’t doing so well.
It turns out that the new guitars are severely flawed. I don’t know if anyone other than myself has had this problem, but the new guitars have sensors at the end of the neck and on the inside of the base that must be touching so that you can rock out with your cock out. This of course should be no big deal as long as the locking mechanism is strong enough to hold the neck in place. Which, by the way…mine wasn’t. I tried replacing the batteries, tried using duct tape to hold it together but alas, nothing was working.
Note that up until this point I didn’t have an XBox, so I was playing all of these games on the Playstation 2 which perhaps was my first mistake. I fully intend on getting a copy of Guitar Hero III for the XBox to go along with what I now consider the best rhythm game on the market right now: Rock Band.
I can’t even describe how excellent Rock Band is and how good its peripherals are. Of course, I’ve already had my guitar and my drum kit replaced but it was done completely free of charge and the drum kit only broke when my boyfriend played on it (he’s used to playing drums with no amplifiers) and beat down on it so hard it cracked one of the pads. The guitar needed to be replaced due to the strum bar completely breaking, though that may have to do with the fact that I let all of my friends play on it and with the new guitar being desined to look as ‘real’ as possible, the locking mechanism for the bar was removed and thus making it a bit more delicate.
I’ve had the game since Christmas and I haven’t had another problem with it since. The embedded keys on the guitar was an absolute genius idea and makes sliding your fingers from one note to the next an absolute pleasure. Of course, I have this one for the XBox so the online play is even more amazing, esepcially when you want to rock out with complete strangers in the Band Quickplay mode. Not only that, but the downloadable content is absolutely amazing. What else could possibly be improved on this game?
Being able to add your own music of course, and an improved drum kit. But what would you call this game? Rock Band II? Oh no my dear friends. We’re going to call this game Guitar Hero IV. And righteously so considering it’s made by the Guitar Hero people and naturally it’s no nevermind to them that there’s going to be drums in this game…but no microphone.
I’m already seeing several flaws in the peripheral design for the drums. The major one being that it’s going to be collapsable and therefore will mean the same problem that I had with the guitar for GHIII. That, and no microphone means less people to play with and therefore people are going to want to stick with Rock Band as long as they want to play with four people.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I have every intention of buying Guitar Hero IV because of the above mentioned reasons. Most importantly being the fact that I cannot WAIT to play Sonata Arctica’s brilliant songs on this game.
The real question however is going to be how Rock Band is going to compete…and how quickly they’re going to do so. Is Guitar Hero IV going to be worth investing in when it’s an obvious fact that Rock Band’s sequel will be able to do all of this and more?
The answer…probably not.
General Mayhem
by Kait Wheeler on June 3rd, 2008
filed under Updates
I’ve generally been neglecting updating this for lack of something better to write about. In the past month I’ve done a lot of thinking about private things and I’ve come to a few conclusions about who I am, what I believe in, and my general quality of life. I am not a whiner or a complainer and so I choose not to go into detail about these specific things; but I find it all too shocking that not a single person around me really cares to know how I’m feeling.
Having said that I feel it all too incumbent upon me to inform the two, perhaps a whopping three people that read this blog that things are very likely to speed up a bit. Coming up this month I’m scheduled to have an article about the new Guitar Hero game and will most likely dive into the specifications of its predecessors. I’m also contemplating several other articles based on my readings as of late, and perhaps another sociological article to follow up from Hobbies.
Unfortunately I’ve been somewhat reticent to update this all too often for lack of feedback or any other kind of positive comments. As said before, I don’t feel that blogging is a necessary undertaking, I feel it a way to express one’s opinions (or go into great detail about the emotional aspects and happenings of adolescent minds) and get their voices heard to the community that reads them. Now of course, I do not see myself as a particularly gifted writer. I know I make many grammatical errors which is most likely born from my years of chatting online and overusing the comma so much I think even perhaps Edgar Allan Poe would roll in his grave. However, I do rather feel as though I articulate myself well enough and my articles are concise, poignant and generally well thought out.
I do believe that will be all for now. Cheers.