Rock Guitar Band Hero
I got today "off" of work - well, half of it off, at least. The half after 4:00 AM. I spent most of the rest of the morning sleeping. Sorry for the delay in posting today.

With the hours I've been keeping this week, I never got around to picking up Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. And... I probably won't be. This'll be the first Guitar Hero game I won't be buying. Maybe I'll rent it at some point. And I don't think I'll be getting Guitar Hero World Tour this winter.

It's not that I'm uninterested in the songs or anything. But the boss-battles were a big turn-off for me with Guitar Hero III, I've got plenty to keep me occupied with Rock Band and the previous GH games (hey, I'm still nowhere near finishing any of the games on Expert). And then Rock Band II was announced for this fall with the magical words, "Backwards Compatability for Downloadable Content." Since I'll probably be near $100 spent on downloadable music for Rock Band, it'll be nice not to have to swap discs. And Guitar Hero World Tour sounds like... dare I say it... a Rock Band Wannabe. I might bite if the Rock Band controllers were compatible with GHWT, but I suspect this will not be the case. The compatibility issues right now are bad enough amongst the guitars without the space-consuming drum sets.

And if that wasn't enough to sate my musician poseur thirst and hunger for opportunity to crank up the hard rock, there's the upcoming "Guitar Rising" game from independent game development studio Game Tank, for which I already have a decent controller. I have high hopes for this one.

So... I guess this means "the king is dead, long live the king." The Guitar Hero franchise was absolutely amazing for a couple of years. But I guess the time has come to part ways. It's been fun!

Labels: Guitar Hero, Mainstream Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 11:49 AM (Permalink) 5 comments links to this post

 
Guitar Rising Q&A
This game has far more of my interest than the next Guitar Hero installment:

Guitar Rising Q&A on RPGVault

An excerpt:

Jake Parks: Guitar Hero brings the enjoyment of making music to the masses through the simplification of making music. Guitar Rising attempts to do the same thing, but with a real guitar. By breaking down the complexity of the guitar into a rhythm game, we want to appeal to guitar players and non-guitarists alike.

For the former, this could be possibly the fastest and most enjoyable way to learn a song that you don't already know. For the latter, it is simply playing a game, and by virtue of doing so, you are learning a little bit about how actually to play a guitar.

Nice to know I won't have to shell out for yet another controller... I happen to have two of 'em handy already...

Labels: Guitar Hero, music

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 1:25 PM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
How Much Do I Spend On Rock Band?
Rock Band, Harmonix's newest game and possible successor to the Guitar Hero throne, cost me about $170 initially. Money well spent. While I think Guitar Hero III might be a better solo game if you prefer being an air-guitar star, Rock Band is probably the best party game videogame I've ever played. It's the perfect size for our family of four, everyone can play cooperatively on different skill levels, and when friends come by, Rock Band comes out.

I don't buy all of the downloadable songs that come out for it. Though I found myself buying a couple that I'd originally skipped after playing them at a friends' place. Last night, downloading the Grateful Dead pack, I realized that I've probably spent narly $40 on extra music for the game.

And you know what? It didn't bother me.

Rock Band shipped with a reasonable number of songs (most of the expense of the game is due to the guitar, drum set, and microphone controllers that shipped with it). True, when starting out in world tour mode, it seems like it takes forever to escape the first couple of batches of "beginner" songs, but eventually all 58 songs become available and it feels reasonable.

Now the number is around 78. It feels like a great game has just been made better, and it's becoming customized to my tastes. Sure, it would be better if there was an option to remove the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" completely from the list, and if the downloaded songs were swapped in as stand-alone songs on different venues rather than only appearing in random or custom set lists. But hey - I've got three songs by Rush, "Gimme Three Steps" by Lynard Skynard, and songs by Blink 182, the Pretenders, Weezer, and CCR with my game.

And I've been getting introduced to music that had always been under my radar. And some of the artists (and iTunes) have profited.

Nevermind the fact that Rock Band has sold something like 3 million of these downloadable songs by now. Or am I underestimating?

If I were a music studio executive right now, or an agent for an indie band, I'd be lining up with an attractive licensing deal for MTV / Harmonix - or Activision / RedOctane - or whoever else might be working on the next big music game (Hmmm.... a licensing deal for Steam's indie hit Audiosurf?) - right now. In fact, I am guessing they already are.

As GLaDOS would say, "Huge Success."

UPDATE: Wow, can I call it or can I call it?

Labels: Biz, Guitar Hero, music, rock band

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:31 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
XBox 360 Ate My Rock Band
I'm so very disappointed. Apparently, there's a risk if you have your XBox 360 positioned vertically (how we have the dev boxes set up at work), there's a chance that even a minor jostle will cause it to scratch a nasty little ring on your disc and ruin it.

Which is apparently what happened to Rock Band. And I got to play it so briefly...

I imagine EA will get around to fulfulling my warranty sometime within the next 6-8 months... Too bad I bought the thing from Amazon.com. Wal*Mart would have been simpler to do an exchange... except the ones here don't have any copies in stock (last time I checked).

Major bummer.

At least I got to beat Guitar Hero III (on Medium). The boss battles suck worse than I expected, but not as badly as I feared. But of course, that's on "medium" where I regularly 5-star everything just to unlock the songs. For a difficulty level that actually challenges me in the first place, I may be screaming obscenities at Neversoft.

Oh, and that "Through Fire and Flames" song... uh, yeah. That one's a challenge on medium. Holy cow!

Labels: Guitar Hero

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 11:27 AM (Permalink) 6 comments links to this post

 
Activision and Harmonix / MTV Coming To Blows?
So... Harmonix and RedOctane - now owned by MTV and Activision Respectively. Once happy partners in one of the best franchises of the decade. Now... well, you know how "Ex-es" can be.

According the GamaSutra, they are now squabbling over a patch that would allow the Guitar Hero III controller to work properly with Rock Band on the PS3. Is this a bit of viciousness from Activision to try and stop the original Guitar Hero developer from eroding their sales during the critical Christmas sales? Activision claims that it is Harmonix that "declined Activision’s offer to reach an agreement that would allow the use of Guitar Hero guitar controllers with Rock Band." So Harmonix's statement could have been smokescreen to try and encourage customers to buy Rock Band in spite of the incompatibility, in expectation of a patch that is already working but (implied: temporarily) blocked.

What's the real story? It very well could be both. Synthesizing the two statements - Harmonix has a patch. Activision will agree to the patch only under certain conditions (concessions?) from Harmonix. Harmonix didn't agree to the terms (which could have been reasonable or entirely unreasonable, as far as we know). So Activision put pressure on Sony to block the patch.

So like squabbling divorced parents trying to win their kids' favor, they are painting each other as a bad guy. Am I getting warm here?

Labels: Biz, Guitar Hero

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:11 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
How Guitar Hero Was Designed...
There's a partial interview up on GamaSutra with Rob Kay of Harmonix, the studio responsible for Guitar Hero I and II, and now Rock Band. It basically covers the genesis of the original Guitar Hero - what went into the design, how their processes evolved, and so forth.

Interestingly enough, it was not expected to be a "big" game at all - which explains why it was impossible to find a copy of the game the first couple of months. Publisher RedOctane was simply wanting to make more peripherals like the Dance Dance Revolution pad, had wanted to create a guitar controller, but had learned that the one guitar game out there - Guitar Freaks - had not yet been released in the U.S.

So they came to Harmonix and asked them to create a guitar game - basically it was a game just to sell a peripheral. An excerpt:

"I don't think RedOctane had any particularly grand ambitions other than needing a game. Relatively speaking, it was a pretty low-budget game -- about a million dollars, which is pretty tiny as a game budget.

"We had a team that had just been freed up, as we'd just finished AntiGrav. This seemed like an awesome project. Everyone here was really psyched to work on a rock guitar game; it really fitted in with people's interests here. No one had any notions about it being a massive success; we all just thought it would be fun to do."

I'd say that worked out pretty well...

Interview: Rob Kay on Designing Guitar Hero

Labels: Guitar Hero, Mainstream Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:20 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
I Rocked Out Too Hard...
And broke my Guitar Hero controller...

It is a day of much sadness. The wheel under the whammy bar made a snapping sound after I'd gone back to play some GH1 (Still haven't 4-starred Bark at the Moon on Hard yet) and then it stopped. Looks like I broke a spring inside of it - or the plastic that was attached to it.

I still have one controller (my oldest one) which functions, but Guitar Hero just ain't nearly as fun without two players. So a visit to the store today is probably in order.

I don't THINK I rock out as hard as some of these other players (I mean, I'm still playing on Hard, not Expert). Maybe playing the whammy down so close to its mount point overdoes it on the spring?

Labels: Guitar Hero

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 2:14 PM (Permalink) 6 comments links to this post

 
The Rampant Coyote Rocks the 80's
Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's (still an incredibly stupid name) was released yesterday, so I snagged myself a copy and was even able to rock out a little on my lunch hour. All-in-all, it took me maybe 2 hours to 5-star everything on medium so that all the songs are available in two-player mode (I even got two "gold star" 100% sets on my first try). And I got the Viking and Coffin guitars. Medium isn't much fun for me anymore, but the songs were great.

I'm going to have to agree with the critics, here --- it's being billed as a full-price game, but comparing GH80's with Guitar Hero II really leaves GH80's coming up lacking. While I can forgive the lack of bonus tracks (Were they supposed to hunt down authentic 80's indie music?), the fact that there are 10 fewer main tracks is somewhat painful. No costume changes, fewer characters, and only minor color-scheme changes on the six venues (as opposed to eight). My problem is not that it's just Guitar Hero II with different songs. It's Guitar Hero II with... less of everything. That wouldn't be a problem if it was priced as an expansion, but as a full-priced game? Ouch.

I don't really expect much in the way of new features. Really, feature-wise, Guitar Hero II nailed it. The big addition Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is sporting... the "battle mode" thing... sounds like zero added value to my ears. But would it have killed 'em to have thrown in one extra venue unique to the 80's edition? And a few more songs? Granted, finding popular songs from the 80's that weren't all done with keyboards and a drum machine can be tricky, but I'm sure they could have dug something up. Maybe some Styx, Rush, Van Halen, Queensryche, or even Huey Lewis or the Cars?

All that being said - I AM one of those people who bought the game (and based upon what the dude at Wal*Mart told me, we are legion), so I guess it isn't priced too far beyond the pale. And what songs are on the list are really pretty fun. Maybe a little embarassing to admit that I like them, but I had a blast playing them --- even on medium. For the most part, I love the track list, and I really enjoyed the character costumes.

Some songs might be considered questionable choices, though I think Harmonix made the most of them. Really, the lead guitar still doesn't have much to do in "Radar Love" - even the White Lion version. It'll be a lot of fun doing the bass in coop though, I expect. And those iconic 80's songs, like "I Ran (So Far Away)" have little to do on the guitar but make sound effects with the whammy bar. A couple of the songs I really haven't heard since the 80's. I think "Balls to the Wall" was last played on the airwaves in 1984. While playing "The Warrior," we cracked up when we heard, "Your eyes touch me, physically..." Ew! GRODY to the max! Did we even listen to the lyrics back then?

Some songs are really embarrassing to admit to even listen to, but they are really fun to play. "I Wanna Rock" by Twisted Sister is a perfect example. And dang it if "We Got The Beat" isn't a blast to play!

"Ballroom Blitz," "No One Like You," and Ratt's "Round and Round" were every bit as sweet as I'd hoped. The final selection, "Play With Me," is pure awesomeness and adrenaline. I've loved that song since I first watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

When it comes down to it, it's more Guitar Hero goodness, with more songs, mainly songs I grew up with, so for us 30-somethings who love the GH series its a no-brainer. I just wish they'd been a trifle more generous.

Labels: Guitar Hero, Mainstream Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:00 AM (Permalink) 1 comments links to this post

 
Rock Band Preview / Interview, Guitar Hero News
In case you missed this little nugget of goodness, here's an interview with Alex Rigopulos, CEO of Harmonix, the guys who developed Guitar Hero. They are moving on, and they are definitely thinking BIG with their upcoming game, "Rock Band." I'm also thinking "expensive," but he claims the new controllers will be very reasonably priced.

Rock Band XBox 360 Preview

The cool thing here is that they seem to be planning on it (at this point, at least) being more of a platform than a stand-alone game. With the potential for hundreds (or thousands?) of songs being made available over time. Hmmm... yeah. Sounds like an expensive hobby indeed, depending upon the price of the song downloads...

Moving on, in case you missed the announcement on the final track list for Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80's (still not a huge fan of the name, BTW), here it is. The bad news is that Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy" is out. But the rest of the list is pretty sweet. I haven't heard the song "Balls to the Wall" in over two decades, so it'll be fun. Yes, it may induce flashbacks. Anyway, it'll be hitting the stores on July 24th... a state holiday here in Utah, but not celebrated by my company. So I'll have to pick it up on my lunch hour.

Also, the first tracks for Guitar Hero 3 (now titled, "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock") have been announced. Wikipedia has the full list (so far) compiled, which includes Barracuda by Heart (AWESOMENESS!), Rock and Roll All Nite by KISS, Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones, Rock You Like a Hurricane by the Scorpions (more 80's goodness!), Welcome to the Jungle by Guns 'N Roses, School's Out by Alice Cooper (an anthem that truly deserves to be in a Guitar Hero game...), and Slow Ride by Foghat.

It's all good stuff. I guess I'm gonna have to finally get a current-gen console. I've avoided getting one so far... I work with 'em during the day job, but still play PC games (or PS2 games) at night. But I think I'm gonna have to buckle for Christmas. I don't think I can go without Guitar Hero 3 or Rock Band... :) (And my wife & kids demand Viva Pinata...)

Labels: Guitar Hero

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:46 AM (Permalink) 5 comments links to this post

 
More Guitar Hero 80's Encore Tracks
Joystiq's got the goods!!! More info on Guitar Hero Encore Rocks the 80's (and can I add that this is still a dumb name? Okay... I'm done now)

We got some .38 Special (Hold On Loosely - not my favorite track, but I'm still happy with it), we got Ballroom Blitz (I don't care if its based on the Krokus version and not the original Sweet version, in my mind it'll always be Tia Carrera singing it in Wayne's World), we got some Oingo Boingo (Only a Lad), Scorpions (No One Like You --- PERFECT!), Scandal's The Warrior, The Romantics (What I Like About You), and more.

Now, I also have a little bit of a concern about using White Lion's cover of Radar Love... that version was NEVER as famous as the original by Golden Earring. But I guess White Lion's version has more active guitar work. And the original song (like Ballroom Blitz) was a 70's tune, so the use of a cover band's version allows them to sneak it in under the 80's theme. But the real fun in that song is going to be on the bass in coop mode, no matter what they do with it.

I can't wait! Next month, if all goes well! More Guitar Hero Goodness!!!!

Labels: Guitar Hero

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:56 PM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
More Guitar Hero 80's Edition News
According to GameSpot and 1Up, the new title of this summer's Guitar Hero game is Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's.

The updated track list known so far:

• "Lonely Is the Night" (Billy Squier)
  
• "Synchronicity II" (Police)
  
• "18 and Life" (Skid Row)
• "Bathroom Wall" (Faster Pussycat)
• "Nothing But a Good Time" (Poison)
• "Shakin'" (Eddie Money)
• "Play With Me" (Extreme)
  
• "Metal Health" (Quiet Riot)
  
• "Heat of the Moment" (Asia)
• "I Wanna Rock" (Twisted Sister)
• "Holy Diver" (Dio)
  
• "I Ran" (Flock of Seagulls)
• "Round and Round" (Ratt)
• "I Want Candy" (Bow Wow Wow)

The speculation from this title is that this might be part of a "Spin-Off" series called "Guitar Hero Encore." At one point RedOctane (or was it Harmonix) suggested all kinds of Guitar Hero spin-offs, including a Country & Western version for the U.S. (which I'd probably skip...), a pure "Heavy Metal" version, and an 80's version.

Man... I could imagine a "Guitar Hero Encore: Woodstock Edition" with music from the Vietnam War era that would be killer. Okay, sure, I wasn't born when some of those songs came out, but still.... Would be nice to get some more Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, CCR action...

Very cool potential here. Can't wait for the game to be released. It looks like it might be a mid-July thing.

Read and Post Comments In the Forums...

Labels: Guitar Hero

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:02 AM (Permalink) links to this post

 
Guitar Hero Rocks the 80's
Man.... I can feel my hair getting bigger just thinking about this...

The Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80's expansion is coming, exclusively for the Playstation 2.... The track-list so far....

• "Metal Health" (Quiet Riot)
  
• "Heat of the Moment" (Asia)
• "I Wanna Rock" (Twisted Sister)
• "Holy Diver" (Dio)
  
• "I Ran" (Flock of Seagulls)
• "Round and Round" (Ratt)
• "I Want Candy" (Bow Wow Wow)

Man, oh man.... child of the 80's as I am.... I can't tell you how much I am THERE. I am imagining some serious Violent Femmes, Pat Benatar, Foreigner, The Clash, Scorpions (if there's no "Rock You Like a Hurricane" I'm going to be severely dissapointed), Huey Lewis, Bon Jovi, Dire Straits, Yes, Def Leppard, Poison...

Oh, wait, I guess that would also include Rick Springfield and Loverboy. Or something. Just please no Culture Club, by all that's holy. Hopefully - like too much of 80's music (dang, no Berlin) it's pretty keyboard-heavy and wouldn't make a good candidate. Though I don't really think of the guitar part on Asia's included song either.

Some of that music is kinda of embarassing. I mean, it's not exactly like anybody over the age of 13 actually admitted to liking Twisted Sister back in the day, either, but it'd make for a really fun song to air-guitar in Guitar Hero.

Color me there. Big time. Do I still have that Members Only jacket anywhere?

Laugh At My 80's Wardrobe in the Forums!

Labels: Guitar Hero

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:34 AM (Permalink) links to this post

 
Guitar Hero to Rock Band
Well, I guess we now know why Harmonix wasn't too wrapped around the axle about no longer spearheading the Guitar Hero franchise. They are evolving to the next obvious thing.

Guitar Hero gave you the experience of the lead guitarist.

Guitar Hero II let two people play with an option to let the second player play rhythm or bass guitar.

Their next step - Rock Band - adds a vocalist and drummer to the mix. Too bad a keyboard controller might be too complicated of a pinout.

This has every possibility of being awesome. Too bad I don't (yet) own either of the consoles for which the game will be released. Gonna have to remedy that sooner or later, I guess... I don't think the office will let me take out the company XBox 360 on perma-loan.

Labels: Guitar Hero

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:24 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Guitar Hero for the Commodore 64!
Just all kinds of retroish-news goodness today. Old-school adventure games, the return of Wing Commander, and now...

Guitar Hero for the Commodore 64!

Labels: Guitar Hero, retro

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 11:31 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
What Are The Best Multiplayer Games of All Time?
GamaSutra asked the question, "What are the most important multiplayer games of all time (excluding MMOs)?" Unfortunately, there was apparently no good answer, so instead they simply posted some of the highlights from the reader survey. Most were predictable. The highlights include Bomberman, Quake III Arena, Quake I, Battlefield: 1942, Tribes, Wii Sports (I wonder how much of that is hype and newness... though having played it I agree it's a lot of fun), Goldeneye 007, Double Dragon II, Ikari Warriors (yay for the old school arcade games!), and Pokemon.

I would question some of the choices (I always thought Quake III Arena was eclipsed by both Unreal Tournament and Team Fortress), but that's a pretty solid list.

Now, as for *me*, what games would I put on the list? Well, I don't know if I'd call them the most important, but as to my favorite (and most significant in my life) non-MMO Multiplayer Games of all time, I'd say:

* Joust - This was perhaps the most brilliantly-designed multiplayer arcade game of its time. Some waves rewarded you for cooperating - some encouraged you to battle each other. The game is still amazingly fun, over two decades later.

* Gauntlet - This was the first real cooperative multiplayer videogame I ever played, and I remember the experience fondly. We dumped so many quarters into the machine one night at the pizzaria... and didn't regret one cent.

* Doom - The game that launched a thousand LAN parties. And it allowed cooperative play, which was even cooler. Ah, back in the day where you could get away with locking the framerate to the network update speed, and ignore standards to use port 666...

* Mechwarrior II - It was never intended to be played over the Internet, but we used Kali to do it. The game had a great following, and people invented meta-games to layer on top of it to keep it fresh. Such was the love the fans had for the game.

* Twisted Metal - Is it vain to me to say this? One of the coolest things working on Twisted Metal is that its creators were also its biggest fans. We had an awesome time playing this game, even if we were paid to do it (though sometimes I think we ended up playing it far beyond what we needed to in order to test changes...) It was Street Fighter in cars and 3D environments, and we just had a blast with it. Jet Moto was almost as much fun to play as we built it, too, but I'll leave it at only one SingleTrac game :)

* ATF Gold: Playable over the Internet, this game had a pretty large following for a while. A hack allowed people to fly every one of the 80 or so aircraft in the game. The game wasn't the most realistic sim of all time, but it captured the essence well enough, and unlike most other flight sims of the era, it was very stable online. We played it a ton at work. And, like Mechwarrior II, the fans were legion and created meta-games around it.

* Rainbow Six / Rogue Spear - The "Thinking Man's First-Person Shooter." We mostly played it as a LAN game... the first game had some real lag problems over the Internet. But both coop and competitive, we'd have an awesome time, every time. We'd rarely use hostages in our coop games - it was all us versus insta-death potential. Especially when George would use his SAW to shoot out all the windows on our approach... he says he just couldn't help it.

* Void War - More vanity. Like Twisted Metal, it's my baby. I suspect there have been very few online matches of 6 or more players at a time, but it is just phenominally fun. Asteroids in 3D multiplayer. My favorite trick (which works against the AI, too) is to fly the Nighthawk directly at an obstacle while my opponent is chasing me, and then hyperspace out at the last second. If I'm lucky, my opponent is still alive after crashing, but with depleted shields and armor so I can easily pick him off when I get back.

* Unreal Tournament 2004 - I'm not a big First-Person-Shooter fan. But UT2004 took everything that was awesome about the original and UT2003, fixed whatever it was they screwed up it UT2003, made it more awesome, and added more game types. And they brought back assault mode!

* Starcraft - I wasn't quite so fond of the game in single-player, but the fact of the matter is it's phenominal in multiplayer. And I mean "phenominal" - the thing is still selling nearly 10 years later, and it was a legitimate phenomina in Korea. That's not just a good game, there.

* The IL-2 Series - This includes IL-2 Sturmovik, Forgotten Battles, Pacific Fighters, and several expansions (I'm anxiously awaiting IL-2: 1946, which is supposedly going to be out in the U.S. any day now, but I think I may have to order an import from Canada or the UK). While ATF: Gold was impressive for having over 80 flyable aircraft with a hack, the IL-2 series (with all of the products joined together into one mega-pack) features over 220 flyable aircraft, and over 300 total aircraft, all modeled with painstaking realism. It's simply the ultimate World War II flight sim. And it's rock-solid in multiplayer. Granted, many of the flyable aircraft are variants of each other, but the game is so well modeled that the difference of a bubble canopy, more horsepower, and slightly bigger cannons makes a huge difference. If you are a hardcore flight sim enthusiast, you probably already have these games.

* Neverwinter Nights - We spent about 4 hours a week playing this game multiplayer for a couple of YEARS. That's the most time I've spent in a non-MMO multiplayer game EVER. While far from perfect, the ease in which you could create new modules, and the increadible "DM Mode" resulted in a game that allowed people to literally create the type of game they wanted to play. You had persistent worlds, role-playing oriented games, hack-and-slash action, and more. I haven't tried NWN2 out yet (I'm waiting for the patch situation to work itself out, and for people to give the thumbs-up on multiplayer), but I'm hoping it will offer even better.

* Guitar Hero II - particularly cooperative multiplayer. At the end of a difficult song, you can't help but want to high-five your partner for the both of you helping each other out to pull it off.

Okay, I *know* I've missed a few good ones. And while I loved Diablo and Diablo II, the multiplayer experience for me usually sucked unless I was playing ONLY with friends. So... what are the multiplayer games (non-MMO)


(Vaguely) Related Cheap Thoughts...
* Game Moments #16: Mechwarrior II
* Why Cooperative Multiplayer Is The Best
* Ah, a LAN Party
*
.

Labels: Flight Sims, Guitar Hero, Mainstream Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:35 AM (Permalink) 7 comments links to this post

 
It's Official: Harmonix No Longer Making Guitar Hero
I was hoping it was just a rumor, but it seems that RedOctane has now stated quite plainly that the original creators of Guitar Hero, Harmonix, will no longer be involved in the Guitar Hero franchise, and that development is being transferred to Neversoft.

While this was something of a surprise, the fact that both companies (RedOctane and Neversoft) are now Activision subsidiaries makes the decision pretty obvious.

In the above link, Dusty Welch, head of publishing, explains the rationale and the future of the franchise. He goes into a lot of PR doublespeak to say very little, but basically it boils down to three arguments:

#1) Not having to pay out royalties to a third party is like free money!

#2) Doing a skateboarding game with music in it is almost like making like making music-and-rhythm game, so Neversoft will do just as well as Harmonix.

#3) Please don't bring up the subject of Gun.

Actually, I made up the third point. So it's really only about first two. And if the second point sounds really weak (he only repeats it in various ways about six times to make it sound stronger), see point #1. Again.

He does mention their intention to continue working with WaveGroup sound, who handled the song covers in the first two games. This is definitely good news, as they've done a stellar job. And to be completely honest, I'm actually not that concerned about Neversoft screwing it up. The blueprint is firmly in place, and I expect that the Neversoft dev team will be a competent and respectful of the series.

I'm sure Harmonix will also put a positive spin on the situation, and will publicly make nice with RedOctane and Activision and talk about the exciting new opportunities they are now exploring. But it sounds to me that when all is said and done --- they got shafted. Legally and legitimately. As much as RedOctane contributed to the development of the games (more than just the controller!), it was Harmonix that that made it into the ultra-valuable hit franchise. And now they are being told, "Thank you for making us rich, don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out!"

The moral of the story, kids, is this: He who owns the I.P. rights gets to take home ALL the marbles.

Remember that when signing on the bottom line.



(Vaguely) related bits of fluff:
* The House the Mouse Built
* Original or Licensed IP?
* Guitar Hero Tidbits
* Guitar Hero Mini-Review

.

Labels: Biz, Guitar Hero

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:00 AM (Permalink) 5 comments links to this post

 
Guitar Hero 2 and TROGDOR!!!
Okay, this will be my last mention of Guitar Hero 2 for a while. The game is out, other people are playing, but I am forbidden to purchase ANY games right now until after Christmas. Because if I happen to buy myself something that my wife already got for me as a Christmas present, my funeral will be over long enough beforehand for everyone to enjoy the holidays.

But for anyone who hasn't been paying attention (or doesn't have the game yet) - the best song EVAR is a bonus song not by Rush, or Kansas, or Black Sabbath.... but by STRONGBAD:



Also, this has been making its rounds since last week, but it seems that Guitar Hero is a hit among many actual rock stars. Apparently the illusion is better than the reality, sometimes. Though I guess they get a little annoyed when their kid sister beats them at their own song...

When Being a Fake Rock Star Is Better Than the Reality

Labels: Guitar Hero, Mainstream Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:14 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Guitar Hero 2 Video - Misirlou
Okay, so here's what playing the Dick Dale song, "Misirlou" in Guitar Hero II on "Hard" will be like:




Okay, so it may be a LONG time before I ever finish it on Hard. But dang, it looks like fun trying, huh? I can't wait for this game.

Labels: Guitar Hero, Mainstream Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 11:02 PM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Guitar Hero 2 Official Track List
Many moons ago I posted my fantasy Guitar Hero 2 track list. And a lot of folks posted some GREAT ideas of their own. As of Monday, we now have 11 tracks that have been officially announced so far. I gotta admit, I don't know all of these:

YYZ - Rush (YAY! We've got a Rush song in the mix!)
You Really Got Me - Van Halen (Excellent!)
Shout At The Devil - Motley Crue
Psychobilly Freakout - Reverend Horton Heat
John the Fisherman - Primus (using the original master recordings!)
Who Was In My Room Last Night - Butthole Surfers
Strutter - KISS
War Pigs - Black Sabbath
Arterial Black- Drist (also an original master?)
Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart - Stone Temple Pilots
Madhouse - Anthrax
Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd
Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns 'n Roses
Beast and the Harlot - Avenged Sevenfold
Tattooed Love Boys - The Pretenders
Crazy On You - Heart (YAY!!!!!)
Hangar 18 - Megadeath
Jessica - Allman Brothers (cool!)
Laid To Rest - Lamb of God
Message In A Bottle - The Police
Misirlou - Dick Dale
Last Child - Aerosmith
Surrender - Cheap Trick (I haven't heard this one in years!)
Them Bones - Alice in Chains
Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight - Spinal Tap (HOLY COW! Spinal Tap?!? This oughta be fun...)
Mother - Danzig
Monkey Wrench - Foo Fighters
Woman - Wolfmother
Carry On Wayward Son - Kansas (EXCELLENT! One of my picks!)
Search And Destroy - Stooges
Cherry Pie - Warrant
Girlfriend - Darkness
Can't You Hear Me Knocking - Rolling Stones
Killing in the Name - Rage Against the Machine
Freya - Sword
Crazy On You - Heart (Not Barracuda, but just as good)
Rock This Town - Stray Cats (AWESOME!)
Last Child - Aerosmith
Stop - Jane's Addiction

I think it's interesting that - from what has been reported - they are doing a cover of a Van Halen cover of a song. Wasn't the original by the Kinks, from some time in the 1960's?

Ah, well. So far none of my fantasy picks have made it into the game, though a few of the artists I wanted to see featured are in there. Particularly Rush! And YYZ is a pretty distinct Rush song. And a Canadian song. So our neighbors up in Canada should be happy with the game too. And they'll also know the Morse Code for the Toronto Pearson International Airport. And, according to that Wikipedia entry I just linked to, the YYZ intro riff was used by Primus in their song John the Fisherman, which is ALSO in Guitar Hero II. However, it only appeared in the live recording, not the studio recording, so that little connection may be lost on players.

Heck, it was lost on me until I looked it up. But now I'm very amused by the coincidence.

If you are wanting to read more Guitar Hero fanboi rantings, there's an outstanding article in The Escapist from a few moons ago about just why this game rules all.

I'll try and keep this list updated as I hear more. I'm still holding out hope that some of my wish-list songs from artists not already on the official track list will make it in... like Rhiannon, Crazy Train, Carry On Wayward Son, and La Grange. If you hear more official announcements of tracks, please feel free to point 'em out to me at feedback (- at -) rampantgames dot com.

EDIT: Added a bunch more songs that appeared in EGM.

Labels: Guitar Hero, Mainstream Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 12:15 AM (Permalink) 3 comments links to this post

 
Guitar Hero 2 Track List
So I just built a time machine to jump 10 months into the future to try out Guitar Hero 2, and I'm coming back with a track list.

(NOTE FROM THE FUTURE VIA TIME MACHINE: I've now got at least a partial official track list - as does about every gaming news site in the world - which can be found HERE. )

Okay, so it's a wish list. If I were to create the perfect track list for myself, here are the songs I'd like it to include (I limited it to one song per band - otherwise I could fill the chart with Led Zeppelin and Van Halen songs...) Most of my songs are pre-1995, I'm afraid. I guess it takes about ten years for something to endure before it becomes "classic." At least that's my excuse. Actually, it's more like the stations I listen to now are classic rock, and more modern pop (which doesn't typically have strong guitar parts).

Here they are, in no particular order:

Sultans of Swing - Dire Straits
The Immigrant Song - Led Zeppelin
Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry
Spirit of the Radio - Rush
The Cradle Will Rock - Van Halen
Carry On Wayward Son - Kansas
Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne
Shine - Collective Soul
Wild Thing - The Troggs (an easy 'starter' song)
Rebel Yell - Billy Idol
Black Star - Yngwie Malmsteen
Don't Fear the Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult
Rhiannon - Fleetwood Mac
Owner of a Lonely Heart - Yes
Rock of Ages - Def Leppard
Bad Moon Rising - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Fall of the Peacemakers - Molly Hatchet
Back In Black - AC/DC
I Want You To Want Me - Cheap Trick
Bad to the Bone - George Thorogood & the Destroyers
One Vision - Queen
Any Way You Want It - Journey
Twist and Shout - Beatles
Layla - Eric Clapton
Kryptonite - Three Doors Down
Barracuda - Heart
Sunday, Bloody Sunday - U2
La Grange - ZZ Top
Should I Stay or Should I Go - The Clash

Alternates (If they go 35 pro songs instead of 30):

Wasted Youth - Meat Loaf
Rocking Into the Night - 38 Special
Honkey Tonk Women - Rolling Stones
Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes
All Night - KISS


So there's my picks. There are a couple of more obscure ones on the list (Molly Hatchet & Yngwie Malmsteen), but they are insanely fun. What are yours?

Labels: Guitar Hero, Mainstream Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 3:35 PM (Permalink) 18 comments links to this post

 
Guitar Hero Mini-Review
Okay, so I finally bought Guitar Hero. Actually, I would have purchased it WEEKS ago, but it was sold out everywhere and I didn't feel motivated enough to try and order it direct.

I had heard great things about it, but when I saw some people playing a store demo, I was skeptical. But I had too many recommendations, so I bought it and brought it home. Next my wife was skeptical. We played, and now we're both huge fans. The game is just fun. No, it doesn't really simulate playing a guitar at all... any more than Medal of Honor simulates fighting in World War II. It's just a game - but it's a really good game.

One of the smartest choices they made with the game is to use popular, classic rock songs as their headliner tracks. ZZ Top, Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Boston, Cream, the Ramones, Joan Jett, Jimmy Hendrix, David Bowie, Queen, White Zombie, Judas Priest, and newer tunes --- if guys like ME (thirty-somethings who grew up listening to these tunes) were their target demographic, they nailed it dead-on. The songs are sound-alike covers by WaveGroup Sound, but they did a great job making them sound like the originals. They also include some indie tunes from contest winners and the Boston garage scene that can be "purchased" in-game in career mode. These are a nice change of pace, and the ones I've heard are pretty dang good. Good enough that I may be motivated to see what these guys have available for purchase in the near future. But those aren't what's going to sell the game, so Harmonix / RedOctane wisely put them in as "bonus tracks."

I really liked the manual that comes with the game. The cover is a high-school composition notebook, and it keeps to that theme throughout, complete with doodles in the margins and handwritten verses from some of the songs. It's the whole high-school garage band flavor, and it's nailed. You get a similar flavor in-game, as your band progresses from basement shows and cheap fliers to headlining slick magazines and playing at big concert halls and rock festivals.

The game just OOZES atmosphere and style. There is a good deal of irreverent humor as well - once again reinforcing that this is all a game and you are intended to have fun with it. The high score list is written on a bathroom wall next to a urinal. When you input a new high score, the urinal flushes (flushing the previous fifth place high scorer down?). As you progress to a new venue, among the news quotes is one claiming that your band has just sold out. The "loading" screen is an amplifier with three dials that all crank up to eleven - a nod of course to the movie "This is Spinal Tap." In a more subtle joke, the cash rewards in career mode are in the form of an invoice that shows how nearly everyone - including bribes and lawyers - is getting a bigger portion of the cut than your band is.

The 3D graphics aren't close to what would be considered AAA quality by many publishers these days. You know what? It doesn't matter. Like Dance Dance Revolution, most of the graphics and background action are ignored by the player as he or she concentrates on playing the game. The graphics are mainly for the benefit of spectators. They are stylized, but colorful and fun. The guitarist whips into wild acrobatics with their instrument when the player goes into Star Power mode. He also plays the guitar with some moves that resemble real chords and string-bends. The audience reacts as the player moves between different levels of performance quality. The graphics are just fun, and convey a level of excitement, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of fun.

Ultimately it comes down to how well the game plays, and there's nothing I can really complain about here. The RedOctane controller performs really well, and overall the game makes you feel like you are really playing the song. When you screw up you get sour notes, and missed notes come out as missing guitar segments in the song. At lower level, a single note on the controller might simulate a whole series of notes in the song (not to mention chords), but at higher levels your actions on the controller more closely resemble the music. Beginning level demands very few "chords" (multiple fret buttons pressed at once) and only three fret buttons. Higher levels require you use up to all five buttons, and chords become the rule rather than the exception.

My comment after playing a few times and feeling like I was really rocking out was, "Wow, this game makes you feel a lot more competent than you really are."

This game won awards up the wazoo last year, and from what I can tell, it was all well-deserved. I expect most of the cost from the game went into licensing the music, but it was money well-spent. While it's hard to claim that is is in any way original (it's "yet another" rhythm game, and it's not even the first guitar game for the PS2), Guitar Hero is well-executed with an outstanding mix of music tracks, dead-on style and humor, and good, challenging gameplay that just feels right. It's a winner.

Labels: Guitar Hero, Mainstream Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 12:32 PM (Permalink) 9 comments links to this post