I got Guitar Hero

[Zeus]

Finished all 47 songs on Expert. Woot.

Only 8 are 5 star performances. I mean to improve on that.

I haven't gotten into the bonus songs that much as of yet - played through a few of them before I went to see that GH show (Cheat on the Church was really freaking hard), instead I've been working more on improving my Expert scores. Got the first two tiers 5 starred and the next two tiers 4 starred...will be moving on to try to 4 star tier 5 and possibly the first two or three songs in tier 6 before moving back down and trying to 5 star tiers 3 & 4.

Don't know when I'll bother butting heads with CfH and BatM again - the lack of a practice mode (for slowing down the song, repeating sections, etc.) means that my only way to learn those songs well enough to 4/5 star them is to record them on my VCR and analyze the tape, but even so, the only way to get any sort of game-recognized practice in on them is to take them on at full speed. Which is not really that much fun - yet.

Or you could just keep playing through them until you learn it properly :-)

[KluYa]

We had a poker game last Saturday night and anyone who got knocked out (no limit hold 'em) was playing that game.

If you ever want another player I'd love to get in on some of those poker games.

Heh, I'll let ya know. We generally only play for $5 a game (no limit elimination only) to ensure that we keep it fun to hang out and not get too serious. But the guys are always talking about making it a little more serious and playing a few $20 games a night. We can always use another play, so I'll message ya here when we do it next

Word. I'm not really serious about it either so any $$ amount is cool with me.

As for Guitar Hero, all I know about it comes from this thread

http://www.ddrcanada.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2176

meaning it seems to be a very fun game that could've used more songs and the ones that are unlockable are pretty bad. I haven't tried GH yet but I want to seeing as I'm a guitarist for one and two I love playing Amplitude. Maybe I'll get it for Christmas...

[Zeus]

If you ever want another player I'd love to get in on some of those poker games.

Heh, I'll let ya know. We generally only play for $5 a game (no limit elimination only) to ensure that we keep it fun to hang out and not get too serious. But the guys are always talking about making it a little more serious and playing a few $20 games a night. We can always use another play, so I'll message ya here when we do it next

Word. I'm not really serious about it either so any $$ amount is cool with me.

As for Guitar Hero, all I know about it comes from this thread

http://www.ddrcanada.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2176

meaning it seems to be a very fun game that could've used more songs and the ones that are unlockable are pretty bad. I haven't tried GH yet but I want to seeing as I'm a guitarist for one and two I love playing Amplitude. Maybe I'll get it for Christmas...

As a guitarist, you should be able to get the hammer-ons and pull-offs no prob and follow the music pretty good. It kinda like following tab except there's only one fret per string. And hitting the strum bar is a little different than a string and there's only one instead of five.

The real secret to the game is being able to follow the beats well. THat's where my previous musical background came into play. It's allowed me to get to the last song on Hard without knowing how to properly do the hammer ons and pull offs.

Needless to say, you'll probably destroy the game in no time. I only really played the original 30 songs (you unlock 17) and they're fun enough. Well worth the coin alone.

[KluYa]

Is it anything like Guitar Freaks? I assume it doesn't matter that I'm left handed.

Yeah, I'm certainly rhythmically inclinded... I'm flying to Las Vegas for the ITG north american finals next month where I am going to get destroyed of course but just qualifying for the tournament at eastern Canada's regionals is still pretty good.

Looks like I will get either Guitar Hero for x-mas or ITG with a DDR pad for PS2 but I have to choose. Tough call. Leaning toward ITG but maybe I should rent GH first and check it out.

[Kupek]

I'm curious to see if someone who can actually play guitar well would still like the game. When a friend of mine got bored, he used to put on some music he liked and play along with his guitar. That's basically Guitar Hero, just minus the pretty graphical feedback. If you can actually play the songs, why settle for a simulation?

EGM/1up has a <a href="http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3146438">feature</a> where they talk to one of the guys behind GH. One of the things he says is that a lot of the bands either didn't get back to them, or didn't relinquish the rights to their songs.

[Nev]

I'm curious to see if someone who can actually play guitar well would still like the game. When a friend of mine got bored, he used to put on some music he liked and play along with his guitar. That's basically Guitar Hero, just minus the pretty graphical feedback. If you can actually play the songs, why settle for a simulation?

To be able to *actually* play all of the songs in Guitar Hero the way they sound in the game is a job for a virtuouso guitarist, Kup. There are a lot of songs, in a lot of different styles. Professional band guitarists could do it, maybe.

But even with that, it would require a fair amount of equipment, as well, as I understand it. My guess is a lot of the songs were recorded with different amps, guitars, all sorts of different equipment, most of which is quite expensive.

There's also the graphical goodness, and the unlocking system...rewards, etc...we humans seem to like these things...

I mean, yes, if you can really play each one of those songs as well as the lead guitarist...and happen to have a backing band that's as good as the original band...I guess the game might not compare. Seems like a lot of guitar players might easily like it, though, to me.

[Zeus]

I'm curious to see if someone who can actually play guitar well would still like the game. When a friend of mine got bored, he used to put on some music he liked and play along with his guitar. That's basically Guitar Hero, just minus the pretty graphical feedback. If you can actually play the songs, why settle for a simulation?

Just another excuse to play some music, I guess. I had a friend who bought Taiko and was a drummer and he destroyed the game once he got used to it. But he still had fun doing it. And Guitar Hero does a spectacular job of making you feel like you're actually playing the song, even though it's a lot harder than that. That's the big appeal of it. It's also hard enough that it's a sense of accomplishment when you actually get through it

[Flip]

Alright, i'm defenitely ordering this thing from Amazon now, looks like too much fun to ignore any longer.

[Lox]

Alright, i'm defenitely ordering this thing from Amazon now, looks like too much fun to ignore any longer.

I'd have ordered it already if my blasted PS2 didn't get a disc read error all the time. Grr!

[Agent 57]

I'm curious to see if someone who can actually play guitar well would still like the game. When a friend of mine got bored, he used to put on some music he liked and play along with his guitar. That's basically Guitar Hero, just minus the pretty graphical feedback. If you can actually play the songs, why settle for a simulation?

Well, I've been a regular visitor to the official GH forum for the past month, and I've seen poster after poster come up and say something like "I've been playing guitar for X years and I love this game!"

As far as your second question...maybe it's the scoring, maybe it's the added strategy of the star power, or maybe it's the unique difficulty of the play mechanic (there are guys posting who can play the songs for real yet can't beat them in the game on Expert). My personal opinion is just that the game is incredibly fun!


Flip, don't order GH from Amazon, order it directly from RedOctane themselves instead - you'll probably get it a lot faster, and they have a nifty $4 Super Saver shipping option that's reasonably fast (took a week to go from CA to MA when I ordered from them).

[Agent 57]

Is it anything like Guitar Freaks? I assume it doesn't matter that I'm left handed.

Klu, from what I understand about GF, the play mechanic is reasonably similar but there are several differences - I don't believe GF features hammer-ons/pull-offs, the GH SG has five buttons instead of three, it seems that GF puts a premium on finger speed while GH focuses a bit more on emulating realistic guitar technique, GH features predominately Western music as opposed to GF's J-pop, and I've also heard that the SG controller is vastly superior to any of the home controllers for GF that have been made available.

As far as being left handed, you can go about that two ways: you can either turn the guitar over and enable the "lefty flip" option in the game settings to put the green (lowest) note on the right of the in-game fretboard instead of the left, although some have complained that with the way the controller is built, the strap and whammy bar get in the way; or you can do what I do, which is be lefty and play GH righty. In fact, from a GH standpoint, since your right hand is only there for rhythm purposes, one could claim that lefties have an advantage playing righty, as our more dextrous hand is doing all the heavy lifting (as opposed to a real guitar, where experienced players have said that picking is harder than fretting - though there are plenty of lefties who play guitar righty anyway).

[Tortolia]

Been a while since I've updated, but I've steadily been improving.

I've gotten 5 stars on 21 of the 47 tracks on Expert.

Awesome.

[Zeus]

Been a while since I've updated, but I've steadily been improving.

I've gotten 5 stars on 21 of the 47 tracks on Expert.

Awesome.

Dear Lord, man. I've gotten 4 stars only twice on the 24 that I've beaten on Expert. Everything else is three stars.

Beat Crossroads yesterday. I'm stuck on No One Knows right now. Those crazy chords are killing me....

[Shellie]

I wish Best Buy would hurry and get this back in stock! We have a big gift card for there..so we're waiting for it to be in stock to get Guitar Hero

[Tortolia]

Honestly, once you've beaten all the songs on expert (regardless of star rating) you've probably picked up enough incidental skills to five-star the first half of the licensed tracks.

The only one I haven't five-starred in the first three sets is Symphony of Destruction, since the first-second-first note hammer-on/pull-off combo always fucks me up.

When your skills are at the point where you can get through difficult (not insane, but difficult) solos without having to use star power to make it through, you can use it on the easier sections and earn some nice 8x points.

[Tortolia]

24 of 47 five starred.

[Flip]

Wow, i said back in December that i would get the game, but just got it two days ago.

GH is a ton of fun and i'm already doing really well on medium, i can 5 star the first two sets, but for I Wanna Be Sedated. I'm playing through it slowly, though, so my wife can help unlock stuff. Yesterday, for example, i had off but she worked all day so i just played songs in quick play instead of moving on.

[Julius Seeker]

Heh, this weekend at the Confederation Day festival I demolished everyone in the Guitar Hero and DDR tents =P

Of course, like 75% of the players were under the age of 12, and on expert settings some people just stared at the screen and did absolutely nothing. Despite that, there were some really good players there. I did get second a few times in DDR =)

[Blotus]

So hey, I've got it now too. Not much I can say that you all haven't already said. I'm barely managing 4-star rating on the songs on the medium setting, but it's still fun as hell. I wish they'd programmed this for the Xbox or 360 so downloadable songs would be an option. I reckon I'm going to get a little tired of playing through each of these songs a dozen times (well, mostly the shitty ones. Fat Lip has some good guitar, but I hate Sum 41's singer).

[Zeus]

They're all covers, BTW....

Medium gets you a bit in the beginning, especially if you're not used to using the pinky to hit the fourth fret, which HAS to become second nature before moving on to Hard and Expert. Once you get to the upper difficulties, you get to see what the game really is all about. Medium is just a stepping stone

[Blotus]

I realize they're covers, but didn't think at the time I wrote that. The fact that somebody masterfully duplicates that douchebag's voice is just as irritating to hear.

I'm 5-starring in some of the mediums now, but I can't do pull-offs/hammer-downs well at all. Practice practice practice.

[Zeus]

I'm 5-starring in some of the mediums now, but I can't do pull-offs/hammer-downs well at all. Practice practice practice.

I still can't do hammer-ons and pull-offs and I beat the game on Expert with 5 stars on about 8 of them....... (I don't count the bonus tracks)

[Shellie]

I havent played much in a while...I LOVE Guitar Hero though!!

I do well on Mediums..I cant do Hard at all. The 5th fret is killin me, and I cant get those hammer ons and pull offs. Or even if I dont strum, I still cant get the finger movements down.

I know it takes practice...but I have to compete for PS2 time with Sine hehe

We are having a poker party Friday though, and we will have a guy bringing a second guitar to play as well. Should be fun.

[Zeus]

Multi rules. The multi in the second will be even better as you can have each with a different difficulty level and there'll be different parts to play (rhythm and bass guitar)

[Shellie]

Yep, cant wait