Welcome to Thunderdome

Posted: **Wed Nov 28, 2007 12:30 am**

Anyone else think that this shit'll be the worst thing to happen to music since disco?

Posted: **Wed Nov 28, 2007 12:12 pm**

My friend works for Dell, and they just picked up the support contract for that game from EA. He says the calls are easy. Usually people just wondering why stuff that they didn't plug in or turn on doesn't work.

Posted: **Wed Nov 28, 2007 1:30 pm**

I thought the South Park episode about Guitar Hero was brilliant.

There's no denying that Guitar Hero (and probably Rock Band) are fun, but they're also really fucking stupid to invest any time in.

Posted: **Wed Nov 28, 2007 1:38 pm**

Fun with other people.... but I could never see myself sitting alone and practicing it so I could be BETTER when I play with other people.

Posted: **Wed Nov 28, 2007 4:04 pm**

GORDON wrote:Fun with other people.... but I could never see myself sitting alone and practicing it so I could be BETTER when I play with other people.

Unlike sex.

Posted: **Wed Nov 28, 2007 4:23 pm**

They already got reality shows where they put a band together. How long before there's one where they put together four folks for the ultimate Rock Band band? I mean shit, toy versions of things fool people all the time. Look at Scientology.

Posted: **Wed Nov 28, 2007 5:33 pm**

Is there reason to play any game alone and get good at it, then?

Posted: **Wed Nov 28, 2007 7:48 pm**

TheCatt wrote:Is there reason to play any game alone and get good at it, then?

It simply concerns me cos when one plays shit like Super Mario Brothers, one does not normally think one is good at throwing fireballs at goombas in reality.

But I can see folks trying to book a gig & claiming a console & the controllers as their "instruments" & calling themselves musicians.

Posted: **Wed Nov 28, 2007 7:58 pm**

TheCatt wrote:Is there reason to play any game alone and get good at it, then?

I just wouldn't be able to justify spending hours of time trying to get good at that game solo when if I spent hours practicing a real guitar I'd ultimately have a lot more fun than if I'd practiced on the fake guitar.

Posted: **Wed Nov 28, 2007 8:04 pm**

I play a pretty mean computer golf game, but I've never thought I was any good at golf. Ditto for Wii Boxing/Baseball/Bowling/Tennis.

Posted: **Wed Nov 28, 2007 8:12 pm**

TheCatt wrote:I play a pretty mean computer golf game, but I've never thought I was any good at golf. Ditto for Wii Boxing/Baseball/Bowling/Tennis.

Yeah, well I know a shitload of people that think mastery of DDR means they can dance.

You ain't in the demographic of folk I'm worried about.

Posted: **Wed Nov 28, 2007 8:34 pm**

South Park's opinion on Guitar Hero.

Posted: **Wed Nov 28, 2007 9:21 pm**

Malcolm wrote:
TheCatt wrote:I play a pretty mean computer golf game, but I've never thought I was any good at golf. Ditto for Wii Boxing/Baseball/Bowling/Tennis.
Yeah, well I know a shitload of people that think mastery of DDR means they can dance.

You ain't in the demographic of folk I'm worried about.

I'll only worry about that demographic when they give me a small fries instead of a large.

Posted: **Thu Nov 29, 2007 12:25 am**

Yeah well, maybe I just know a fucked up cross section of society.

Posted: **Thu Jan 03, 2008 12:41 am**

Got a chance to try this tonight. Guitar & bass is damned near identical to GH. The drums consist of four pads & a single foot pedal. The vox uses some shitty mic w\ a sensor so you can play it like a tambourine. I shit you not. The guitar & bass bring all the troubles of GH. The drums can get insanely nasty if you jack up the difficulty level. The problem w\ the vox is the same problem you got in any karaoke bar. If you don't know the song that well, you're fucked. Unless you've got the tremendous fortune that your drummer & bassist are on & you can hear them both clearly.

Next time, we play to get some kinda way to prop the mic up so I can wail on guitar & vox. I'm looking forward to trying that.

Posted: **Thu Jan 03, 2008 1:05 am**

I found this for $150.... I think I'm just gonna resell it instead of playing.

Posted: **Sat Jan 12, 2008 9:12 am**

We had friends over last night and broke out this game.

The guitar is just like Guitar Hero. Although I think it was a little easier than Guitar Hero at the same difficulty levels.

The drums are harder than guitar. This may be due to 1) having more things to hit/do than the guitar, 2) lack of practice, or 3) lack of rhythm.

The vocals are... hardish. The first few times we got booed off every time cuz of the vocals. Eventually I realized I could just hum, and it would count as long as the pitch changes were more or less correct. Sabotage, by the Beastie Boys, was prolly the most fund, since it's a rap and there's no pitch elements. Just timing.

Bass - We didn't have one. But I've heard if you get GH3 on XBox 360, you can use it for RB. Anyone know if this is true?

One major difference between this game an GH is that there's more game around the playing in Rock Band. GH was fairly linear. Play a few songs, be allowed to play the next few songs. You can complete the entire game on any difficulty level. With Rock Band, you have to move up difficulty levels in order to get to later songs.

Oh, and RB allows for downloadable content. I've already found several songs that would rock to have. (Although, I don't have XBox Live, or marketplace, or whatever hooked up yet since the XBox just got hooked up yesterday).

Overall, for $50 more than GH, RB seems to have more depth and more replayability.

4/5 stars; I'd say 2/5 stars for GH3.

Posted: **Sat Jan 12, 2008 11:34 pm**

Just curious if you played the 'campaign' mode of GH. Or whatever they call it. Might be 'career' mode or something. You play at venues, earn cash, and move from city to city playing and getting paid for gigs. I watch my kid play it. Was curious if that would extend the playability of GH, or if it was the linear play you were talking about.

Posted: **Sun Jan 13, 2008 7:59 am**

Cakedaddy wrote:Just curious if you played the 'campaign' mode of GH. Or whatever they call it. Might be 'career' mode or something. You play at venues, earn cash, and move from city to city playing and getting paid for gigs. I watch my kid play it. Was curious if that would extend the playability of GH, or if it was the linear play you were talking about.

That is exactly the linear play of which I was talking.

The only thing I don't understand about RB, is that there are multi-song sets that appear before you can do something (like get a tour bus so you can go to more cities). But the first few songs on each of those challenges is ALWAYS the same bloody songs. I figured it'd be a bit random.

Posted: **Sun Jan 13, 2008 8:02 am**

Another nice thing about RB is that different skill levels of people can play together. Each player can select their own levels for their instrument.

Later in the game, it does require everyone to play at the harder level to move on to the next level. However, the better players can use their energy to boost the weak ones, and save them (they are allowed 3 chances) if they lose too much energy.