Early Guitar Hero 3 review...

At this point, I've beaten GH3 on "medium." In fact, I beat it without failing once. It's interesting, but I'm also fairly disappointed with the game itself.

Here is the good:

• There are a few good songs... i.e. "Welcome To The Jungle," "Baracuda," "Cherub Rock," "Even Flow," and "Mississippi Queen"... that are genuinely fun to play.
• There are some improvements to game play.
  
• Battle mode is pretty fun and it's good that they worked it into the general gameplay.
• This doesn't have anything to do with GH3, but it is fun to play it on Xbox with the potential of landing some Gamerscore.
  
• A few new characters to buy at the store.
• The downloadable content looks cool... when I finally get Xbox Live up and rolling later on.
  

Here's the bad:

• While there are some songs that are fun to play, most of the good songs are on the front part of the playlist and there are many songs that are lame and not fun to play at all... i.e. "Sticken," "The Seeker," "Monsters," "The Metal," and "3's and 7's." It almost seems like they are running out of songs to play... which I know they aren't because "Rock Band" is going strong.
  
• They tried to add a story line to it... but it's lame and a waste of load time.
  
• The songs are consistent across the board on a particular playlist. For instance, you have to complete 3 of 4 songs... but one or two of the songs will be way tougher (and not always the last one) than the others.
  
• Many of the same lame characters from GH and GH2... might be time to dump a couple of them and add in some new ones.
  

Overall at this point, I'm not that impressed. But I'll probably finish it and work on the hard and maybe expert levels to pick up the gamerscore stuff for it. Plus, I'm still working on my skills for when I land a copy of "Rock Band" of my own!!

Jim

Guitar Hero good for you???

I like the sound of THIS...

There seem to be some who are beginning to discover that Guitar Hero... and I'm assuming Rock Band because they use the same motions... are beginning to show up as having a medical purpose. Now, it seems to be in the area of physical therapy.

Here's a bit of the story: "We'd been doing a lot with range of motion, but he was still lacking in pronation and supination in his forearm," Colwell informed Shacknews. Pronation and supination refer to the twisting and flexing motions of limbs. "Guitar Hero really helped out a lot with that, especially the supination because he had to hold that pose."

Apart from a patient's increased willingness to participate in therapy, other possible benefits of Guitar Hero noted by Colwell include improved abdominal, lower back, and wrist strength, sitting balance, fine motor skills, and general endurance."

At any rate... any excuse I can have for playing more Guitar Hero or Rock Band is a good thing!!! Right???

Jim

Guitar Hero III - Legends of Rock playlist...

I stumbled on THIS website today that had a listing of the GHIII songs that are confirmed. Looks like a pretty cool list.







The new tracks are:

1. Same Old Song and Dance (by Aerosmith)
   
2. Helicopter (by Bloc Party)
   
3. Stricken (by Disturbed)
   
4. Monsters (by Matchbook Romance)
   
5. Before I Forget (by Slipknot)
   
6. Kool Thing (by Sonic Youth)
   
7. When You Were Young (by The Killers)
   
8. Devil Went Down to Georgia (as made famous by Charlie Daniels Band)
   
9. Sunshine of Your Love (as made famous by Cream)
   
10. Holiday in Cambodia (as made famous by Dead Kennedys)
    
11. Cliffs of Dover (as made famous by Eric Johnson)
    
12. Hit Me with Your Best Shot (as made famous by Pat Benetar)
    
13. Black Magic Woman (as made famous by Santana)
    
14. Story of My Life (as made famous by Social Distortion)
    
15. Pride and Joy (as made famous by Stevie Ray Vaughn)
    
16. The Seeker (as made famous by The Who)
    
17. Black Sunshine (as made famous by White Zombie)"

Looks pretty cool that a little "Charlie Daniels Band" made the list. That will be a fun one!!!

Jim

Guitar Hero 3 on MAC!!!???

This looks pretty sweet. It seems that they are working on a portable... if you have a laptop... version of Guitar Hero 3 for Mac and PC. That means... Guitar Hero anywhere... and playing anyone online anywhere...

Rock on!!!

Check out the story HERE:
"Rocking out with a big plastic guitar will soon no longer be purely the privilege of the console owning masses, as Aspyr announces an exclusive deal with Activision to develop and publish Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the PC and Mac platforms this fall. Not only does this open up the game to a whole new segment of players, but if you've got a nice gaming laptop it essentially makes this the first portable version of Guitar Hero. On top of all of the regular features of the game, Aspyr's version will allow PC and Mac users to battle against each other in online multiplayer, perhaps allowing us to settle the Mac versus PC debate once and for all in glorious rock combat! Bring it on!"

Looks sweet!!!


Jim

Guitar Hero Encore (Rocks the 80s): Review

Greetings.

Last night, I finally finished Guitar Hero Encore on PS2 in "Medium" mode and moved briefly into "Hard" mode. But I wanted to provide a review of GH Encore.

I was mistaken in thinking that this was "Guitar Hero 3." I have since learned that GH3 is supposed to be out in the fall. I didn't find this out until after purchasing GH Encore.

But here's what I thought.
First, realize that my review is coming from the PS2 platform. If you are playing it on Ps3 or XBox, your experience may be different than mine. So, realize that disclaimer up front.

First, the Good.
1. There are some extremely fun songs to play on this edition of GH. Songs like "Radar Love," "Hold On Loosely," "I Wanna Rock," "What I Like about You," "Heat of the Moment," "Round and Round," "I Ran (which I actually downloaded for my iPod as a result of this game)," "18 and Life" and "No One Like You" are generally fun songs to play. They are memorable songs that are enjoyable to rock through. In fact, as I was playing one night I found myself singing along to "The Warrior" by Scandal.

2. There are some really fun bands with great tunes to play. Bands like "The Police," "Ratt" and "Poison."

3. The Grim Reaper has some 3D shades... after you unlock him for game play.

But that's about it for the good.
The Neutral:
I'm going to call this section "Neutral" because it could be either good or bad... but its not necessarily both.
1. The Game Play on GH Encore (graphics, maps, characters, venues, etc) are exactly the same as GH2. GH2 was a big difference from GH1. And that was what I was expecting. But that is not however the way that the PS2 version was. As the band travels from venue to venue (which are the same as in GH2), the band travels along the map of the US (which is the same as in GH2).
This could be both good and bad. It could be good in that it is comfortable. Having played GH2 extensively, I felt right at home. I knew what to expect. I knew where we were going and everything. It just felt like I had a new crop of songs to play along the way.
But it's bad in that there isn't anything new. Some of the loading graphic one-liners are different, but it's the same o' same o'. No new graphics... no new maps... no surprises. And at this point in my play through "hard" there aren't any new venues.

Now for the Bad... which is actually more than I wish it were.
1. There are less characters to buy and unlock. At this point, I have completed "Medium" through, even nailing a couple of 100% on the way, but there is only one character to unlock with money earned. And there don't even seem to be shadows available of other character to unlock. I have played one set list on "Hard" and there don't seem to be any more to play. My hope was that there would be some more on "Hard"... but there aren't... and I haven't worked up to "Expert" yet. So that may be the one hopefully item in this "bad."

2. There isn't a single song to purchase. Not on "Medium" which I played entirely through. And at this point, not one on "Hard" either. I have played one set, so my hope is that some will unlock as I play. But it doesn't even give you an option in the "Store" to buy more songs. To me, that's a waste.

With #1 and #2 in mind, I almost find short changed... but there is more.

3. There are of course a crop of songs that I have never heard and are not at all familiar with. This is bound to happen... but I still find myself thinking, "Why in the world is this song "Only a Lad" on here. The song stinks. It's almost like they got a great group of songs together, but it was 10 songs short so they threw on some more to round it out.

4. Some of the songs have that annoying 80s rock "fade." Where the song isn't really done, but the volume slowly begins to fade out as the song wraps up. One would have thought that they could have re-recorded them or something. I have never been to a single concert where the band ended a song with a slow fade of the music.


That's my humble opinion. I'm a huge GH fan... I've logged hundreds of hours on the end of a GH controller. My hope is that this version of Guitar Hero will get better and maybe I'll be surprised by some songs, more characters and what-not. But having played a bit of "hard," I'm not optimistic.

My rating for Guitar Hero Encore (Rocks the 80s): C-

Jim

Coming tomorrow: Guitar Hero III: Encore "Rocks In 80s" review

I'm currently working on wrapping up a run through Guitar Hero III Encore: Rocks N 80s.

I am hoping to have a full evaluation up tomorrow or Wednesday. Check back for a full review.

Jim

Guitar Hero III - Legends of Rock...

After a couple of weeks of speculation that Guitar Hero III... which I am eagerly waiting for with gift card in hand to purchase... wasn't coming out on PS 2 (which I still play). It would seem that GH3 will be coming out on PS 2 after all.

Here is a bit of the story:
"First of all, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is the full, silly title for the third installment of the popular franchise. We won't be mad if you just refer to the game as Guitar Hero III and forget the Legends of Rock bit, because we already have.

Activision have also announced their exclusive partnership with Gibson Guitar Corp. today, and have revealed images of their new, wireless axe controller designs for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii."

Check out the rest HERE.

As for me... I'm ready to ROCK!
Jim