4 posts tagged “guitar hero 3”

I have never purchased any videos from the iTunes Store.  All the videos I currently have on my iPod are free offerings that they have offered.  Wait, that's a lie...I did have to do catchup with Heroes Season 1 and picked up a couple of videos.  However, the thought of purchasing a music video made me laugh.  Never would I consider purchasing a music video for my iPod.  Well, on Wednesday I finally did.

So I have spent some time with Guitar Hero 3 completing all the songs on the Hard difficulty and working on the Expert difficulty.  One thing I love about the Guitar Hero series is that they always introduce me to some songs that have flown under the radar.  Muse's Knights of Cydonia is one of those songs.  First time I played it on Hard I laughed.  I thought the song was silly.  Then when I played it on Expert, I realized the fun of the song.

After doing some research, I found the music video for the song and my jaw hit the floor.  The song went from silly to epic.  The video is one of the most amazing videos I have seen in a while.  I loved it so much, I had to buy it and always have it with me on my iPod.  Yeah, I could have done some dastardly downloading and encoded the video for the iPod, but I wanted a quality version of the video.  Now, every time I play this song, I can not help but think of this video and wanting to perform at it's epic standards.

I acquired the demo using the instructions from this post on Dtoid.  I spent some time with it this afternoon trying each of the songs once on Hard then moving to Expert.  Of the five songs included on the demo, the ones that I played most were Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Even Flow, and Rock You Like A Hurricane.  I 5 starred Hit Me and Even Flow on Expert with Like A Hurricane coming in at 4 stars.  The songs are fun, the solos are tough but fun to pull of and the game looks great.  I do have my minor annoyances with the new interface, especially getting a big line of text when you have pulled off a specific number of notes streak.  It was a little distracting.  I also think that Judy Nailz has been working out in the gym more and got a boob job because she was more *ahem* bouncy than before.  I don't the reservations that I had before regarding Neversoft taking the reins on the franchise.  The game is still fun, looks great, and will be a resident of my 360 disk drive (until Rock Band comes out).

Another salvo in the rhythm game war was fired today with more Rock Band tracks being announced today.  I was hoping that I could get away with just buying Rock Band and ignoring the third installment of Guitar Hero but after comparing the set lists, GH3 has a strong offering of tracks.  Instead of listing out all the confirmed tracks, follow these links to see what they are for each game:

• Rock Band Soundtrack
• Guitar Hero III Soundtrack

So looking at Rock Band, I am excited about (in no particular order):

• Cherub Rock
• Creep
• (Don't Fear) The Reaper - I really hope that have the microphone taps correspond to the cowbell in certain parts of the song.
  
• Enter Sandman
• Epic
• Gimme Shelter
• The Hand That Feeds
• Learning To Fly
• Paranoid
• Sabotage
• Should I Stay Or Should I Go
• Tom Sawyer
• Wanted Dead or Alive
• Won't Get Fooled Again
  

Sadly there is no Guns N' Roses on this set list...yet.  If there would be, please please please let it be Paradise City.

Now lets look at what I am excited about for GH3:

• Barracuda - The difficulty of Crazy On You's rhythm was a surprise.  I can only imagine how difficult this one will be
  
• Black Magic Woman
• Cherub Rock
• Cult Of Personality
• Even Flow
• La Grange
• One
• Paint It, Black
• Paranoid
• Rock You Like a Hurricane
• Sabotage
• Slow Ride
• Welcome to the Jungle

That's a mighty set list of things to look forward to.  Many of the songs have been on my Guitar Hero wish list and I am excited to finally get to play them.  However, this is why Guitar Hero III is on double secret probation.  Harmonix is no longer developing the franchise, Neversoft is.  Harmonix is/was the breeding ground for MIT and Berklee School of Music grads.  Now, I can safely say that a majority of their staff are musicians.  What makes the Guitar Hero franchise so great is the fun that you have while playing the song.  I attribute this to the excellent level design/gem placement.  At a Harmonix party that I attended, they said that this was one aspect that they spent the most time.  How do you layout the gems for each level of difficulty without making it too hard and musically make the positioning make some sense.  I think Harmonix has done an outstanding job with the first two Guitar Hero titles (I have yet to check out the 80s edition).  So now, Neversoft, famously known for their excellent Tony Hawk series, is now tasked with designing GH3.  I don't know if they have musicians helping them out with the level design or not, but I think it will show in the final product if they are worthy of the Guitar Hero franchise.  If the level design is not up to par (and Welcome to the Jungle is not a blast to play), I will be closing the books on GH.  It will be interesting to see how different it will be to play those songs that exist on both titles.

Neversoft, good luck.  You have some big shoes to fill.

Yanked from dtoid.

Originals

• Paint It Black - The Rolling Stones
• Cherub Rock - Smashing Pumpkins
• The Metal - Tenacious D
• My Name is Jonas - Weezer
• Cult of Personality - Living Colour

Covers

• Rock and Roll All Nite - Kiss
• School's Out - Alice Cooper
• Slow Ride - Fog Hat
• Barracuda - Heart

I am ecstatic to see the number of original recordings increase.  I would hate to hear what the vocals on Cherub Rock would have sounded like if it was a cover.  I am also pleased with the quality of the set list so far, but in Guitar Hero, its not just the music, but how the track is laid out.  My fingers are crossed that playing these songs will be equally fun.  Also sneaked into the press release was that GH3 will be released for all next gen consoles (yep that means the Wii as well), officially sanctioned wireless guitars for all platforms, and new guitar form factors (ugh) with a PS2 exclusive.  If the 360 guitar that will be released with GH3 is better than the current "hand-cramping-made-for-leprechauns" 360 guitar, I think i foresee myself selling my plastic guitars on eBay.  The wife is already upset with a five Guitar Hero guitars in the house already.  Looks like I need to start looking for a Body Glove bodysuit.