"Well, there goes the illusion that Harmonix and Neversoft employees guard their secrets with ruthless abandon and that if either developer is seen on the other's turf, a switchblade fight ensues."
GH3 was alot of fun, plus it has some of my favorite rock songs in it along with an awesome remake (DWDTG). I know that people like to cry about RB being better, and maybe it is, but I enjoyed playing GH3 more. Course I enjoy RB2 a bit more then GH:WT if for no other reason then over 500 DLC.
@2NinjasTapedTogether: Rock Band's overall presentation comes off far more professional than GH. GHIII (and especially GHWT) come off so cartoony, to the point where it's somewhat distracting these days.
And when it comes to GH vs. RB, there's the eternal "Artificial Difficulty" argument.
@Bernard McGraw: I like GH's gameplay a LOT better. Small things like a countdown after you pause, or some of the new features they tried to do like holding a note and playing others, the hammer-on chords where you hit them in succession instead of all at once, open bass notes... it all makes it feel like they were trying to add to the game, and in a lot of cases did. I prefer RB's trophies and art direction, but RB2 didn't really do anything to improve on RB1. I still miss an occasional note because of getting / activating overdrive even. To me, it felt as if RB were cashing in, and GH really wanted to step it up - which was exactly the opposite of what I was expecting.
@Saxboy: I knew I friended you for a reason-- excellent points (especially regarding the new thing GHWT tried). I would have put it pretty much the same as you have.
More on gameplay-- I semi-hated RB1 because it was waaaaaay too easy. On the other hand, I thought the difficulty of GH3/GHWT was a little unbalanced. 'Hard' feels like a snoozefest, while 'Expert', on some songs, is too hard. (Please keep in mind that I'm referring to the guitar parts only...)
We all probably know of at least one good example-- I can pretty much 99% 'One' by Metallica on 'Expert', until you get to that one section.... seven hundred notes in the span of two seconds. You all know what I'm talking about. Your rock meter will go from 'green' to 'failed' if you miss just one of those stupid hammer-ons...
There is the 'GH is overcharted' arguments, but I don't care about that. If I wanted pinpoint accuracy, I'd put the plastic down and pick up one of my real guitars. Videogaming is videogaming.
@dae_giovanni: There is the 'GH is overcharted' arguments, but I don't care about that. If I wanted pinpoint accuracy, I'd put the plastic down and pick up one of my real guitars. Videogaming is videogaming.
Except that we'll assume not every single person who plays plastic instrument tapping games are guitarists. Mostly because, let's face it, if it was actual guitarists who were interested in this phenomenon the Real vs. Fake war wouldn't still be going on.
You might not care about that, but I personally do and pretty much a good portion of players who've played both and chose RB do as well. If the song feels off, it ruins the experience, and yes, even while inebriated. GH3 was bad. Yes, GH2's covers were atrocious (Harmonix, please, NEVER do another cover again. Please. Pretty please with sugar on top), but the main element - the gameplay, was very solid, and in fact moreso than GH3's. Ultimately, if we DO play a game, then gameplay is more important than song selection.
Otherwise, gameplay is less important than song selection.
As far as the Hard/Expert unbalancing goes, once Neversoft learns to notechart properly, this effect will still be there, except there won't be 700 notes in 2 seconds.
"Harmonix, please, NEVER do another cover again. Please. Pretty please with sugar on top"
Is that a Monkey Island 2 reference?
On mathers at hand: Having played Guitar Hero: World Tour for the first time yesterday, I felt like they improved the gameplay from GH3. But still the songs are way harder than they should be and overcharting is a major problem. I liked the little add-ons but really the only song I loved playing was Sweet Home Alabama.
There are some songs that I just don't understand why notes are placed there on the note chart. I mean the feeling of what you play doesn't really convey what you hear... I like GH but honestly, I left the bandwagon after the goal seemed to become: "How to make an extreme note chart we at activision can't even play".
Rock Band (Which I prefer) might be a oversimplistic but all in all it's made to have fun with friends. Truth is, some of your friends I'm sure, aren't as good as you with the plastic instrument thingy and should still be able to play with you.
Oh and one last thing, the presentation of GH suggest rock, heavy metal, hard rock and all in all, a healthy dose of headbang... So: WTF La Bamba??
@Malaky: Well, I've had a lot of fun playing with friends and family GHWT, Even with the ones that don't really know how to play it.
Just the other day i brought the game to my grandma's (family time every week) and we started playing. I was on guitar in hard (i'm still not good enough for expert on many songs) and everyone else in easy (my dad and my cousins) on drums, vocals and bass. None of them ever played guitar hero and we had no problems having fun.
Whenever a part got too hard for them and they started to go on red i just activated the star power so the metter went to green again and they could have more time to recover.
I agree. The first GH games had ridiculously strict timing even for a hardcore game like Beatmania IIDX or DJ Max - you could nail a note so that it would definitely sound proper, and still get "*plunk*" instead. In spite of that, I just sat down and powered through "hard" mode in one sitting, yet "extreme" mode was so punishing that my hands physically could not do it.
In GH3, the timing windows feel more generous, but the levels are more interesting and packed with notes. In "hard" there are actually hard songs, and a couple I can't beat, while "extreme" is usually too hard, but sometimes quite playable - the difficulty curve seems more curved now instead of going from boring to ok to impossible.
As for music... I think they're all ok up to 3, but not fantastic. My faves tend to end up in the indie tracks anyway, but I did really like some of the normal tracks in GH3.
Reading Kotaku, you'd think it was the biggest flop in the series, while RB walked all over it. RB was alright, but TBH it still feels like the same game to me since I'm most into guitar. (It's also funny how people accuse Guitar Hero of ripping off... Guitar Hero, yet when Harmonix sells the rights to it openly, then makes a one-off, they're still the good guys somehow.)
Ah well, either way, at this point, if GH3 is a failure, then so is Super Mario Bros, haha.
Uhm... Wii Fit anyone? Currently at 14.18million units sold at $99 a pop is higher then 1 billion dollars. Hell, even at an average of $70, it would be higher then 1 billion dollars in sales.
Activision is just lucky Nintendo doesn't release press releases every week telling us how great their sales are.
I actually disagree with that. I felt that there were quite a large amount of good songs in the game and the charts were perfect to me. Comparing it to RB2 and GHWT, I think GH3 was much funner to play.
03/24/09
03/24/09
i've already beat it 100 percent on expert.
IM JUST THAT FUCKING GOOD, BITCH
03/20/09
03/20/09
Learn to build a real cabinet!
03/20/09
03/20/09
03/20/09
03/20/09
Guitar mode varies on how the number of years and money entered.
03/20/09
03/20/09
Comment of the Week, right there.
Can I get a 'Ohhhhhhhhh SNAP'?
03/20/09
03/20/09
I'm not sure he's ever done that.
03/20/09
I loved that illusion...
01/12/09
highest grossing game ever?
scary indeed.
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/12/09
I mean... when you boil it all down (excluding vocals anyhow) isn't it all just timing?
01/12/09
And when it comes to GH vs. RB, there's the eternal "Artificial Difficulty" argument.
01/12/09
01/12/09
More on gameplay-- I semi-hated RB1 because it was waaaaaay too easy. On the other hand, I thought the difficulty of GH3/GHWT was a little unbalanced. 'Hard' feels like a snoozefest, while 'Expert', on some songs, is too hard. (Please keep in mind that I'm referring to the guitar parts only...)
We all probably know of at least one good example-- I can pretty much 99% 'One' by Metallica on 'Expert', until you get to that one section.... seven hundred notes in the span of two seconds. You all know what I'm talking about. Your rock meter will go from 'green' to 'failed' if you miss just one of those stupid hammer-ons...
There is the 'GH is overcharted' arguments, but I don't care about that. If I wanted pinpoint accuracy, I'd put the plastic down and pick up one of my real guitars. Videogaming is videogaming.
01/12/09
Except that we'll assume not every single person who plays plastic instrument tapping games are guitarists. Mostly because, let's face it, if it was actual guitarists who were interested in this phenomenon the Real vs. Fake war wouldn't still be going on.
You might not care about that, but I personally do and pretty much a good portion of players who've played both and chose RB do as well. If the song feels off, it ruins the experience, and yes, even while inebriated. GH3 was bad. Yes, GH2's covers were atrocious (Harmonix, please, NEVER do another cover again. Please. Pretty please with sugar on top), but the main element - the gameplay, was very solid, and in fact moreso than GH3's. Ultimately, if we DO play a game, then gameplay is more important than song selection.
Otherwise, gameplay is less important than song selection.
As far as the Hard/Expert unbalancing goes, once Neversoft learns to notechart properly, this effect will still be there, except there won't be 700 notes in 2 seconds.
01/12/09
"Harmonix, please, NEVER do another cover again. Please. Pretty please with sugar on top"
Is that a Monkey Island 2 reference?
On mathers at hand: Having played Guitar Hero: World Tour for the first time yesterday, I felt like they improved the gameplay from GH3. But still the songs are way harder than they should be and overcharting is a major problem. I liked the little add-ons but really the only song I loved playing was Sweet Home Alabama.
There are some songs that I just don't understand why notes are placed there on the note chart. I mean the feeling of what you play doesn't really convey what you hear... I like GH but honestly, I left the bandwagon after the goal seemed to become: "How to make an extreme note chart we at activision can't even play".
Rock Band (Which I prefer) might be a oversimplistic but all in all it's made to have fun with friends. Truth is, some of your friends I'm sure, aren't as good as you with the plastic instrument thingy and should still be able to play with you.
Oh and one last thing, the presentation of GH suggest rock, heavy metal, hard rock and all in all, a healthy dose of headbang... So: WTF La Bamba??
01/12/09
Just the other day i brought the game to my grandma's (family time every week) and we started playing. I was on guitar in hard (i'm still not good enough for expert on many songs) and everyone else in easy (my dad and my cousins) on drums, vocals and bass. None of them ever played guitar hero and we had no problems having fun.
Whenever a part got too hard for them and they started to go on red i just activated the star power so the metter went to green again and they could have more time to recover.
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/12/09
Guitar Hero Rocks the 1740s confirmed...
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/12/09
I agree. The first GH games had ridiculously strict timing even for a hardcore game like Beatmania IIDX or DJ Max - you could nail a note so that it would definitely sound proper, and still get "*plunk*" instead. In spite of that, I just sat down and powered through "hard" mode in one sitting, yet "extreme" mode was so punishing that my hands physically could not do it.
In GH3, the timing windows feel more generous, but the levels are more interesting and packed with notes. In "hard" there are actually hard songs, and a couple I can't beat, while "extreme" is usually too hard, but sometimes quite playable - the difficulty curve seems more curved now instead of going from boring to ok to impossible.
As for music... I think they're all ok up to 3, but not fantastic. My faves tend to end up in the indie tracks anyway, but I did really like some of the normal tracks in GH3.
Reading Kotaku, you'd think it was the biggest flop in the series, while RB walked all over it. RB was alright, but TBH it still feels like the same game to me since I'm most into guitar. (It's also funny how people accuse Guitar Hero of ripping off... Guitar Hero, yet when Harmonix sells the rights to it openly, then makes a one-off, they're still the good guys somehow.)
Ah well, either way, at this point, if GH3 is a failure, then so is Super Mario Bros, haha.
01/12/09
Activision is just lucky Nintendo doesn't release press releases every week telling us how great their sales are.
01/12/09
01/12/09
Wii fit isn't exactly a game... :/
At least I don't consider it to be a game. Aren't games supposed to be fun?
01/12/09
game1 [geym] Show IPA Pronunciation
noun, adjective, gam⋅er, gam⋅est, verb, gamed, gam⋅ing.
-noun
anything resembling a game, as in requiring skill, endurance, or adherence to rules
For your trolling pleasure.
01/12/09
01/12/09
Yes, I'm sure it was just thrilling to beat all the songs on easy.
@xeleion:
I actually disagree with that. I felt that there were quite a large amount of good songs in the game and the charts were perfect to me. Comparing it to RB2 and GHWT, I think GH3 was much funner to play.
01/12/09