Category Archives: Guitar Hero

Rock Band Guitar Issues

Well, my first Rock Band guitar has already been replaced by Activision. The exchange was super fast (got the new guitar in three days) and the new one seems to be working much better. The flaw == a broken strummer. And it wasn’t just me!

The lame thing of the day is that I fired up Guitar Hero 3 on the XBOX and was surprised to see that I cannot use my Rock Band controller with GH3. So no multiplayer GH3 without another GH3 controller. That, IMHO, is completely lame. Patch that crap and make it all work together nicely. What a load of crap.

Other than that, the family loves Rock Band. We had some younger family members (under 18) over tonight and they all had a blast with all four parts being represented. I was glad to provide some entertainment while they entertained me (failing on easy? puh-leeez!).

And for what it’s worth, I’m completely screwed trying to finish Vaseline on Hard in Rock Band — yeah, I guess I suck that badly.

Rock Band In The House

After my last post where I mentioned that I got to play Rock Band at the Tulsa InstallFest, I joked about an XBOX 360 being in my near future. Well, I guess I wasn’t joking after all. At first I thought I would have no problem waiting until after Christmas. Most of the places I checked were out of stock and it looked like the must have video game for 2007 was out of reach. Then I called my buddy Jason at GameSpot and was told that they had a couple of them left.

It was a bit sad trading in my only PS2 games for Rock Band. As I laid my games out on the counter, Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero Encore: 80′s, and Guitar Hero III, I felt a sadness in my heart. I had spent hours upon hours working hard to finish all those songs. Numerous parties where we laughed at each other after failing at an attempt to finish Freebird on Expert. Ah, good times.

Then there was the real issue — I didn’t own an XBOX 360. But I wanted to play the game. Thanks to that good old “no preset spending limit” on the American Express, I ended up taking one of those home as well. I guess I knew the cost going in, but didn’t really think it would go that far. Oh well, such is the life of a video game junkie. Having won a cool new Bluetooth mouse and a 4GB Zune at the InstallFest, I was feeling the need for frugality.

But Rock Band is really that good. Having played Guitar Hero for nearly two years, the guitar parts on Rock Band aren’t too different and don’t seem to hard. But the drums are in another league. I have never been a drummer and I find the added coordination of feet and hands to be intense. It’s going to take some time before I can get past easy on drums. I don’t even want to mention my first attempt at singing vocals but getting an okay on the first song in each (Hey, Ho, Let’s Go) really doesn’t give me much hope of ever being a vocalist.

I had just finished Guitar Hero III on medium this past weekend, so I was a bit bummed that I would have to play all those songs again once I pick it up for the 360. But given the enormous collection of online downloads that are available, I think I’ll get over it. The PS2 was so limited when it came to downloadable content that it didn’t hurt too bad to bid it farewell. When I think about it, it’s probably the oldest piece of technology in my house next to the clock in our microwave oven.

My Gamertag in XBOX Live is ChrisFromTulsa if you want to play online sometime!

Guitar Hero ]I[ Rocks the House

I traded in some old games to get the new Guitar Hero 3 today. So far I just got a sampling of the songs, but I had a battle with some dude I’ve never heard of and won, and played Rage Against the Machine’s Bulls on Parade perfectly! Keep on rockin’!

Bulls on Parade 100%

Guitar Hero Encore Rocks the 80′s

The new Guitar Hero installment arrived today!

I fired up the new game, got a chuckle at the CGA color scheme, and jumped into career mode at medium difficulty. Knocked out enough songs on each tier to unlock the encore and next level, got 5 stars on almost every song I played, and finished out medium in just over two hours!

So is the game over? Not even close. Once I finish out the remaining songs on medium that I skipped (you only need 3 out of 4 tracks for each level except the last one), I’ll make sure they’re all 5-star and unlock some extra guitar (I already unlocked the coffin and PRO Face-Off Mode).

Then it’s down to business, hard in Career mode. I knocked out a few tracks on Hard, and the songs play a lot faster than they do in medium, so they changed the song tempo between medium and hard in this installment of the game. Very tricky indeed. Some of the riffs are really fast, so it’s going to take some time to complete hard mode I’m sure.

Overall, the game is a great addition of new songs that should keep me busy until:

  • Guitar Hero III
  • BioShock
  • Unreal Tournament 3
  • Team Fortress 2 (part of HL2: Orange Box)
  • Quake Wars
  • Gears of War for Windows

Why does it seem like the PC gaming market completely exploded this year compared to the non-stop barrage of Call of Duty, Battlefield, and other war simulations? E307 was insane for Windows games this year, and the XBOX Live to Windows Games tie in is going to be a sweet deal as well.

Game on!

Guitar Hero Encore July 24th

The official release date for this title is now July 24th. I’ve got my pre-order in at Amazon Prime, and hopefully it will show up on time or close enough to it.

Looking forward to some sweet new songs! So far, the confirmed list includes:

1. Opening Licks

  • “Holy Diver” – Dio
  • “We Got the Beat” – The Go-Go’s
  • “No One Like You” – Scorpions
  • “Metal Health” – Quiet Riot (Encore)

2. Amp Warmers

  • “Nothin’ But a Good Time” – Poison
  • “I Wanna Rock” – Twisted Sister
  • “Turning Japanese” – The Vapors
  • “Hold on Loosely” – 38 Special (Encore)

3. String Snappers

  • “Lonely is the Night” – Billy Squier
  • “Synchronicity II” – The Police
  • “Heat of the Moment” – Asia
  • “Shakin’” – Eddie Money
  • “Bathroom Wall” – Faster Pussycat (Encore)

4. Return of the Shred

  • “Round and Round” – Ratt
  • “Wrathchild” – Iron Maiden
  • “I Ran (So Far Away)” – A Flock of Seagulls
  • “What I Like About You” – The Romantics (Encore)

5. Relentless Riffs

  • “Radar Love” – White Lion
  • “Play With Me” – Extreme
  • “The Warrior” – Scandal
  • “Balls to the Wall” – Accept
  • “Caught in a Mosh” – Anthrax (Encore)

6. Furious Fretwork

  • “Seventeen” – Winger
  • “18 and Life” – Skid Row
  • “Only a Lad” – Oingo Boingo
  • “Ballroom Blitz” – Krokus (Encore)

Looking good so far!

RedOctane Wireless Guitar Hero Controller

My pre-order for the official Red Octane wireless controller for Guitar Hero (and Guitar Hero II) came in yesterday. In short, it works great. The range is excellent and it works with both games (unlike the off-brand controllers that were locked out of GH2 action). It’s a white guitar and the buttons seem to be slightly deeper than the regular unit, but it could just be me. I’m still breaking it in so the action is a bit stiff, but it works great and I never miss a note (well, except that I suck and miss them all the time, but it is not the fault of the controller).

It was only $60 (I got mine at GameStop, next to Wings-To-Go on Riverside) and well worth the investment. Now I have three guitars and have yet to start a multiplayer game! Argh!

Guitar Hero

OMG what a fun game. I would type more about it, but I can’t move my fingers.

Okay, fingers work again. I picked up this game yesterday and could not put it down. I started off on medium (because easy would be for wimps, right?) and cranked through a couple of songs before I realized there had to be more to it. So I ran through the tutorials, which were pretty remedial at this point, so I went back to the songs and tried again. I was starting to get the hang of it, putting some rhythm with the song is really important. Now, once I realized that you cannot play a guitar sitting on the couch, I attached the strap and stood up for some serious rock and roll!

Now, I had previously played the game only once before, and that was at Best Buy in their gamers section. My daughter was with me and having fun watching me. That was when I realized that I was having a little too much fun in the game section and was probably close to ending up on America’s Funniest Home Videos if I kept it up. So, with a slight reluctance, I laid down my plastic axe and went to the next display. But in the back of my mind, I knew that I wanted to just keep “rocking to it.”

So, fast forward to the present and here I am about half way through the medium setting. Now some of the songs I really got hung up on the solos, so I need to work on that a bit. But the gameplay is fun and it’s easy to find yourself reliving those air guitar moments from the 70′s and 80′s. I mean, it’s pretty serious fun, just search YouTube for some videos and you’ll see what I mean. I can’t imagine how a few guys and a few beers combined with this game would result, but I guarantee it would be worth filming and sharing with the world. We’re talking some serious Guys Gone Stupid trying to immitate everyone from Black Sabbath to Incubus on the air stage.

I’ve read that with the next version, Guitar Hero II, you’ll be able to multiplayer different parts of the song: lead, rhythm or bass guitar. That would be awesome. I’m trying to figure out how to get a multiplayer jam going with just two people, but it seems you can’t just buy a second controller, you have to get the whole combo again so that’s probably not going to happen soon. A Guitar Hero LAN Party? I’m not sure I could imagine such a thing by itself, but it sure beats the hell out of Trivial Pursuit for guest entertainment.

So keep on rockin’ me baby… :)