The Console & Video Game Topic

[Zellie]

This game makes me wish I hadn't moved and left my lovely well-paying job -_-;; of course, if I hadn't moved I wouldn't have a PS2 to play it on ^_~

It's a credit to the game that I'm super excited about it even though I'm very 'meh' about the song selection. The downloadable content might've made it worth it but ohh ps2 does not have that..... I've been looking over songs for the Korean version of DDR...PIU which has an emulator, Kick it Up. There are a bunch of Nightwish songs that people have created steps for as well as Sonata Arctica and Stratovarious and such. It'd be awesome if someone would do that with Guitar Hero or Rock Band.

 

[Snowy Owl]

Speaking of Timmy, when are we going to find out why he is living a lie? TIMMY! Livin a Lie, Livin a Lie, TIMMY!

I have tried playing Guitar Hero at medium and I just can't do it, which sucks because I want to unlock more songs. My fingers just won't cooperate.

 

[Tramz]

Speaking of Timmy, when are we going to find out why he is living a lie? TIMMY! Livin a Lie, Livin a Lie, TIMMY!

I have tried playing Guitar Hero at medium and I just can't do it, which sucks because I want to unlock more songs. My fingers just won't cooperate.

Practice makes perfect. I remember when i first picked up Guitar Hero 1. I felt slick that i could do Easy (the first couple of tries there were not pretty either). But that was quickly mastered and it was on to Medium. It took me a while to get used to using that blue button. Now? That's all second nature. Basically you have to train your fingers to have more control. I think at first, no ones pinky wants to co-operate for that blue button, but if you continue to have trouble working the blue that way, perhaps try to learn sliding your hand/fingers up and down the bar. You'd need to do it anyway for Hard and Expert.

Most skilled players would tell you to keep your first finger on red anyway, as it's easier to slide it back to green than up to the higher buttons. I found that they've fixed this "cheat" in GH3. On Hard there are many more green hits, making that tactic a bit less valid, but the general premise holds, especially for the older games (this is also why most reviewers say that Hard on GH3 is like Expert on older games). I would also say that it's much easier to learn on GH1 or Rocks The 80's than GH2 or 3.

 

[Snowy Owl]

Thanks...I'm going to try and get more practice. Maybe when Troggie comes to visit me again he can help me out.

Rocks The 80's is my favorite incarnation of the game, closely followed by GH2. I may never buy the original because it has many songs on it by groups who I would not consider Guitar Heroes by any stretch of the imagination!

 

[Trogdor 666]

Thanks...I'm going to try and get more practice. Maybe when Troggie comes to visit me again he can help me out.

Rocks The 80's is my favorite incarnation of the game, closely followed by GH2. I may never buy the original because it has many songs on it by groups who I would not consider Guitar Heroes by any stretch of the imagination!

Thou does not consider Megadeth, Judas Priest, Ozzy, Blue Oyster Cult, Stevie Ray Vaughn or PANTERA to be good enough to be in Guitar Hero?


Also, don't go buy Super Mario Galaxy and Assassin's Creed on the same day because both games are EXCELLENT (Screw all the reviews that trashed AC, it's a great game) and both of them deserve more attention than I can give either one of them!

 

[Tramz]

Also, don't go buy Super Mario Galaxy and Assassin's Creed on the same day because both games are EXCELLENT (Screw all the reviews that trashed AC, it's a great game) and both of them deserve more attention than I can give either one of them!

Everything i've seen, heard, read, etc about Super Mario Galaxy would force me to agree that it lives up to the hype and then some. The minor quibbles about controlling the fireball don't matter. The ability to switch boards if you get stuck is also very cool.

Assassin's Creed on the other hand.. I admitt all of those reviews did indeed turn me off. They point to repetitive gameplay, repetitive environments (ie, no indoors, just 3 outdoor cities), and the storyline, however cool, is built from the ground up with a sequel in mind. They also delved pretty far into spoiler territory, so i'll just say that according to them, AC wraps up half of the story and leaves the other half open for AC2. People bitched at Halo 2 for this kind of thing. Why should AC get a pass? However you are the second person in one night to tell me how great AC is. I might pick it up based on that alone, once the game gets a price drop (my gaming table is otherwise beyond full, so i am in no rush).

 

[Snowy Owl]

Thou does not consider Megadeth, Judas Priest, Ozzy, Blue Oyster Cult, Stevie Ray Vaughn or PANTERA to be good enough to be in Guitar Hero?


Also, don't go buy Super Mario Galaxy and Assassin's Creed on the same day because both games are EXCELLENT (Screw all the reviews that trashed AC, it's a great game) and both of them deserve more attention than I can give either one of them!

I know some excellent groups are on there like the ones you mentioned, what I meant were the more emo and pop groups in the game.

 

[Trogdor 666]

Assassin's Creed on the other hand.. I admitt all of those reviews did indeed turn me off. They point to repetitive gameplay, repetitive environments (ie, no indoors, just 3 outdoor cities), and the storyline, however cool, is built from the ground up with a sequel in mind. They also delved pretty far into spoiler territory, so i'll just say that according to them, AC wraps up half of the story and leaves the other half open for AC2. People bitched at Halo 2 for this kind of thing. Why should AC get a pass? However you are the second person in one night to tell me how great AC is. I might pick it up based on that alone, once the game gets a price drop (my gaming table is otherwise beyond full, so i am in no rush).

Well, considering I've only just started Assassin's Creed, I can't really speak on the ending. I can say that Gears of War definately had a Halo 2-esque ending where it barely wrapped up any of the story and just set it up for the sequel and I was VERY pissed. If Assassin's Creed ends that way too, I will not be happy, at all.

I hear the "Repetitive" arguments and I can understand where they're coming from as I can recognize even in the 4 hours I've played it so far I did do the same few things several times over and over again, but I'm having such a great time being in those "repetitive environments" and doing those things that I'm not really noticing any of the problems mentioned in the reviews. I'm just having a great time playing the game and running around doing whatever I want.

I don't like the whole, "You're playing it wrong!" argument, but I think that's where the problem of the reviews for this game come in, how you approach this game will literally change how much you enjoy it, and Gabe from Penny Arcade wraps up this argument perfectly. He said he was just playing the game just for fun and loving every minute of it, but when the bad reviews started coming out he changed his play style to try to beat it as quickly as possible. He stopped taking advantage of the open-ended structure of the game and JUST did the missions and actions needed to finish the game, and he started really, REALLY disliking the game. So once he stopped and decided to say "Screw this, I'm playing how I WANT to play", he started loving the game again. Overall, here are his thoughts on what was going through a reviewer's head:

"Imagine what an open ended sandbox title must look like to a reviewer especially right now. How many games do they have piling up on their desks? A game like Assassins creed isn't meant to be played under a deadline. You shouldn't be trying to beat it as fast as you can so you can move on to Mass Effect or Mario Galaxy. As soon as I gave myself a deadline all of a sudden I understood all their complaints. It was like a fucking Escher painting. I had put myself in their shoes and suddenly the landscape flipped and I could see games from their perspective. In the end I wasn't angry at them for their bad reviews. I actually just felt bad for them."

 

[Teleute]

Have officially quit WoW, casually restarted A Tale in the Desert, and casually started Lord of the Rings Online. I HEART THE BEAUTIFUL SHIRE!!! I really could spend a Sunday afternoon just running around the Hobbits' countryside admiring the scenery, it is SO beautiful. And yeah, despite this and despite all the other games I have piling up to try/play/finish, I still spend most of my time on SimCrack. :Smokin:

The only GH song I could rock was the introductory I Love Rock N Roll I hate to say it but I suck at GH (yes Tramz, before you say it, I know practice would help, but I hate practice! lol... have I ever told you about my clarinet, piano, and violin careers? hehehe) which makes me sad, cuz I wanna learn to play bass at some point in the future. Ok, so I actually suck at videogames in general, which is weird cuz I play them so much... I'm like a blind person trying to make a career as a race car driver. I'm a no-strategy button-mashing short-fused girl, but dammit I love my beepbeeps!!

 

[Tramz]

The only GH song I could rock was the introductory I Love Rock N Roll I hate to say it but I suck at GH (yes Tramz, before you say it, I know practice would help, but I hate practice! lol... have I ever told you about my clarinet, piano, and violin careers? hehehe) which makes me sad, cuz I wanna learn to play bass at some point in the future. Ok, so I actually suck at videogames in general, which is weird cuz I play them so much... I'm like a blind person trying to make a career as a race car driver. I'm a no-strategy button-mashing short-fused girl, but dammit I love my beepbeeps!!

Hey now, it never entered my mind to say anything. I know when encouragement won't work Now if you could practice while in dreamland.. you'd be a professional video game champion (or at least a member of Ubisoft's quasi-gimmick, the Frag Dolls )

Hmm "no-strategy button-mashing short-fused girl". It sounds like you would love some old Bloody Roar 4. It's a fighter on the ps2 from 2003 (and a genre you are sure to SAY you hate, but if you were whupping people, you'd be getting a thrill ). It was given shit reviews but my brother once told me he hated fighter games where you had to be all technical (ie Virtua Fighter), so i got this one for him and he loved it hehe (not sure if saying my brother liked something is exactly a positive though )

Or if you had an xbox or 360, the Dead or Alive games.

That or you can just make mean Sims that go around into houses and randomly slap people ;]

 

[Trogdor 666]

So Rock Band is now upon us, and I didn't buy it but a friend of mine did and so far it's pretty fun. The Guitar component is definately a lot easier than Guitar Hero but manages to still give you a great guitar-playing experience. The drums are definately the hardest part so far. It's pretty addictive but it can be pretty frustrating at the same time, you want to hit beats that aren't there and you end up missing ones that are there, but still a great time. I haven't tried singing yet but I hear it actually is pretty challenging, even on easy! I can hardly wait until I get out of here today and re-establish my place as Lead Guitar for our band!

 

[Tramz]

I haven't picked it up yet, but i plan to soon. Yeah the drums are the most exciting part for most everybody i think. I used to be a drummer/percussionist from my single digit years straight through my upper teens (and once you are beat trained, it's in your head for life), so i am especially interested in seeing how this translates across the difficulty levels.

As for singing, the reviews have suggested that it doesn't reward flair or emotion. Rather it is based on just keeping a steady pitch, and the harder the difficulty level, the less forgiving it is of pitch variations. So yeah i can imagine this is rough.

My one problem with the Rock Band guitar is the way the buttons seem more or less disguised to match the fret bar. I imagine many people will find it troublesome to not have big glaring colored buttons there to help guide them when needed (i occasionally find myself looking down to center my fingers on higher difficulty settings). But this nothing more than a quibble. :]

 

[Trogdor 666]

Maybe I should've put in a note that I actually haven't used the Rock Band guitar yet. I was using my wireless Guitar Hero III guitar and it was working perfectly.

 

[Tramz]

This Saturday, life decided to dump a big ole mess of worry and doom onto me and mine (it involves ambulances, hospitals, surgery and serious life/death decisions). It's the perfect gift for the holidays.. thanks, life. To drown my woes, i went overboard and bought myself a boatload of new games:

Call of Duty 4 (X360)
Crysis (PC)
Unreal Tournament 3 (PC)
Sam & Max - Season One (PC)
The Elder Scrolls - Oblivion Game of the Year Edition (X360)

It doesn't really make me feel much better, but at least whenever things settle down (hopefully for the better), i'll have some good gaming to look forward to.

 

[Tramz]

Best Buy sucks so much that they are actually good again heh.

I went to play Unreal Tournament 3 last night after installing, and i noticed there was no freaking CD Key (and i was already pissed because the manual was torn in a few places)! The place on the back of the book where it would be was blank! So i went back to Best Buy today and right to Customer Service. After explaining the problem, i went to get another copy from the shelves and there were no more. So i told the girl, she checked the computer and said there were 10 in stock, and to ask someone to check in the back. I did, and when he returned, he had a Collector's Edition and asked me if this was the one. I said it was the collector's edition and he told me that it was the only thing he could find. So i took it and went back to the Customer Service counter. She took off the wrapper, so i opened it up to make sure it had a code, which it did. I then showed her how one had it and the other was blank. Well, she scanned the item and wanted to charge me the $10 difference (as collector's items usually cost $10 more). I had to run around and be inconvenienced and they can't find their own stock so i should have to pay more? F that. so i told her how i didn't WANT the Collector's Edition, i wanted the regular, however "the guy" told me this was all he could find. So after talking with someone next to her, she gave it to me for no additional charge.

So thanks to Best Buy's general inventory stupidity i have a spiffy Unreal Tournament 3 Collector's edition for the same price as the regular.And now it's time to go blast some fooz. ;]

 

[Teleute]

I am now dying for an X360 and a Wii. The former I will most likely splurge on after New Year's; the latter maybe will be available somewhere for me to buy at its $250 MSRP before I turn grey? Here's hopin. I also "need" to get a 19" flatpanel monitor and 20" flatpanel tv at some point; my LCD monitor's clarity is declining in certain spots and my LCD tv doesn't have the resolution I need to appreciate games, and both items take up so much darn space. Sigh... stupid money.

 

[The Stormbird]

I'm buying myself an X360 for Christmas. I haven't owned a console since the 80's (although I've played those of friends and family); tired of doing it all on PC I guess. And I get a Christmas thingy at work that'll give me 20% off, so it'll be even more super-cool-like.

So in the coming months you may see me post to this thread a lot more!

Halo 3, here I come..... Assassin's Creed, oh yeah.....

 

[Tramz]

I'm buying myself an X360 for Christmas. I haven't owned a console since the 80's (although I've played those of friends and family); tired of doing it all on PC I guess. And I get a Christmas thingy at work that'll give me 20% off, so it'll be even more super-cool-like.

So in the coming months you may see me post to this thread a lot more!

Halo 3, here I come..... Assassin's Creed, oh yeah.....

Excellent. Be sure to hit me up if you need some advice. But some general guidelines, i strongly suggest against buying the X360 Arcade. It's the new package for the Core system.. aka it has no hard drive, which is pretty important for not only saved games, but demo's, updates, videos, XBL Arcade games, etc..

Xbox Live is supposedly going to start offering Xbox1 games for download, at least that's what the people on the EGM/1UP Podcasts were saying. You should consider your possible interest, or the lack thereof in both that and the idea of downloading movies/tv episodes onto your 360. How important/not important this is to you would really be the deciding factor as to whether or not a Pro (the 20GB version) or the Elite (120GB version) would be right for you. Both the Pro and the Elite come with HDMI ports these days, though only the elite comes with an HDMI cable. I don't think you have an HDTV, so that is moot.

As for games, the current bundle includes Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. I'm not sure if either of those interests you, but hey more decent games isn't a bad thing.

Anyway, if and when you get one, let me know and i'll add you to my friends list there. :]

 

[The Stormbird]

Thanks Tramz. I had already decided to go with the Pro.

 

[Trogdor 666]

So I'm currently thinking of what my top 5 games of 2007 will be. It's not that picking the top 5 is so hard, it's just that my personal top 5 are all so great that narrowing it down to one winner is proving to be quite difficult. Such great games, but just as the Highlander, there can be only one!!!

That being said, I'm still trying to get the last few stars in Mario Galaxy and Assassin's Creed and Rock Band are both AMAZING! I've been having so much fun just wandering the streets and scaling the buildings in Assassin's Creed, not to mention assassinating random guards on the street that I've barely scratched the surface of the storyline and I don't care. As for Rock Band... let me say that ever since I first played Guitar Hero 1 back in 2005, I've been nothing but completely loyal to it as the greatest music game series ever made... until now. Rock Band is the ultimate Rock Star Simulator. Guitar is just as much fun as Guitar Hero, although it feels a little easier. Singing is more fun than I expected, but can be frustrating. I tried Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" on easy and got a 100% the first try, then I tried Expert and failed out before 1/4 of the song was done. I guess my voice isn't as close to Ozzy's as I would like to imagine. The biggest improvement over Guitar Hero is the drumming, it's the hardest part of the game, but an excellent addition and it's lots of fun to be able to play something different in a rock song. I'd recommend Rock Band to anyone... period. Not just a Guitar Hero player or rock music fan or a gamer, but anyone, anyone and everyone should enjoy Rock Band, if you don't, it's your loss.