One of the best games ever! I must admit, that I've only played GH2 (on the PS2)... but eventually I'd like to get GH1 as well, although I've heard the 80s compilation leaves a lot to be desired. So, for those of you love it, what's your favorite song? What's the hardest level you've finished? Favorite moments?

I've only finished it on medium, and have yet to finish it on hard (let alone expert)! Favorite song is Jessica by the Allman Brothers, although there are a lot of cool songs other than Jessica of course Favorite character: Judy Nails, although I haven't played them all yet. Favorite guitar: I rather like the fish, not sure why, but it's kinda neat (of course, I haven't unlocked most of the others)...

Looking forward to the next installment!

cheers,

-avatar!

I've played some of it. I don't care for the music but the game itself is quite a bit of fun... although I'm not very good at it.

I think people would need to practice for years just to finish expert difficulty.

Right here!

I started out curious about it, then I got to play it (and I found out there was quite a competitive scene for it in my area...at Otakon, there were about 5 stations with it and there was a massive line at each one) and now I'm working diligently on boosting scores, clearing hard and expert, looking at tracklists for GH3 (Talk Dirty to Me, She Builds Quick Machines, Rain in Blood, Welcome to the Jungle and Number of the Beast...YES! Rock Band would look far more attractive, but it's got shit for a tracklist ATM), watching Jordan videos on Youtube (lol) and all that fun stuff. It's an amazing game and exactly the type of pick-up-and-play arcade game I was looking for, since fighters are on long-term hiatus at the moment. Something like this could go a long way in actually reviving arcades.

I always use Pandora with the double-neck Gibson (forgot the exact name of it), but I'll be switching to Slash/Les Paul for GH3 once I get him unlocked.

The one thing I hated about it is the jump from Medium to Hard. Adding more gems, a speed increase, added chords and the orange fret all at once is too much (Shout at the Devil on Hard is way harder than Freebird or Jordan on Medium). There should have been something between the two to lessen the jump - add the orange fret and added notes without the speed increase. I've gotten used to it (medium moves at a snail's pace now), but it was jarring at first. Playing medium with mostly just my index and middle finger and double-strumming was good practice, as opposed to playing with fingers locked in place/single strums.

Generally good song selection too...It's great being able to play Sweet Child/Shout at the Devil/Wayward Son (among others) and I actually bought a couple albums as a direct result of GH2 exposure (Danzig, Wolfmother, Friedman-era Megadeth), but a fair number I'm happy to just take my three/four stars and not see again (f--- you, Heart Shaped Box! Jordan aside, I don't plan on spending too much time on the bonus tracks.)

^ Not a Nirvana fan, huh?

I am not addicted to the game, but I really should be if I ever want to get anywhere in Hard mode.

I like them about as much as I adore Sakimoto.

Even that aside, HSB is just a boring song to play. It's not even hard on Hard...Just repetitive and too long. I like the song "Message in a Bottle", but I feel the same way about actually playing it.

Yes, Message in a Bottle just won't stop.

First things first: avatar!, if you do pick up the first GH, be prepared for a noticable change in control. The notes aren't as easy to hammer-on and pull-off, so you may miss some notes if you play the same way that you play GHII. You'll have to strum more to make sure you hit all of the notes. I remember going back to GH after GHII and I was getting heated because I kept missing notes! Then I realized that the control was different. It's not unmanageable, I just wanted you to be aware of it.

I still play the first Guitar Hero regularly. Guitar Hero II has better play control (the hammer-ons and pull-offs work awesome), but I didn't find the overall game as fun or as "monumental" as the first. I wrote a review (that is surprisingly neutral) for it here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/review/R107099.html. I played Rocks the 80's at a friend's house last week, and I wasn't impressed. Most of the songs suffered from "Heart Shaped Box-itis".

... that about sums up how I feel about most of GHII and GH 80's.

But, to me, the first GH is gold. I don't know if it's because it is the first game in the series that I played, or if the song list just fits me better, or what, but I can't pull myself away from it. I usually play on Expert (and have finished the Career Mode on Expert), but if I just want to relax and have some fun I'll play on Hard. My favorite song to play is "No One Knows" by Queens of the Stone age on Expert... that power chord part in the middle gets me every time. There's a good mix of single note riffs, crazy finger-movement parts and good ol' fashioned rockin' to keep me interested. I also love playing Bark at the Moon on Expert, but I've yet to 5-star that one. I need more practice on the solo and end riff. I can hammer out most of the song without missing a note now, but once things get crazy my meter goes in the red.

That being said, I'm not too hyped about GH3 or Rock Band. I'll check them out at a friend's house or something, but I won't be investing in them myself. I am very weary after GHII and 80's, as well as the split to Activision and the inclusion of boss battles.

Rock Band is a travesty to anyone who is a serious drummer.  I can't see them taking that seriously.

Not that I know anything about learning drums, but how is Rock Band's set-up so bad? Other than the fact you're beating on a game peripheral with a real set of drumsticks...That's bad news waiting to happen (and another reason I'm waiting, other than lack of a 360 and the tracklist). I think it's a real draw if it can teach aspects of learning drums, considering it's primarily a game and not an actual simulator. It's supposed to make you FEEL like Tommy Lee, not MAKE you Tommy Lee (and if it does...hey, more power to you!)

At this point, I think of it more of an engine than a set of games and it's dependent on what songs get fed into it. HSB/Message in a Bottle were just awful choices, being five minutes apiece and full of the same handcramping/boring riffs. Shout at the Devil and Trippin On a Hole in a Paper Heart aren't radically different riffwise from them, but their brevity is a plus and I think they're a lot more fun to play as a result. My main thing would be, encores and entertaining stuff like Hangar 18 (11 guitar solos!) aside, cap stuff at four minutes. At most.

If Neversoft is smart, they'll just leave things as is and work on building the songlist and gem placement. The core game can't get any simpler...If these guys can keep pumping out Tony Hawk sequels for close to 10 years without the series totally dying off due to stagnation, I think they should be able to handle setting gems on five columns in tune to popular music.

As for boss battles...I hope they leave the Mario Kart stuff as an option to the side for 2P modes, but considering there's only going to be 3 in GH3's 1P mode, that's acceptable...At least it's different from "beat 4 songs, encore, rinse and repeat". I'm not enthusiastic about them, but I think I'll just play them to get it done and that will be that...

Edit: Another guest star announced recently...Bret Michaels of Poison will "sing" in the game. Guess that means either "Talk Dirty to Me" or the Bret Michaels Band song will be an encore...

Note that Rock Band is being made by Harmonix, so it should be as monumental as Guitar Hero I was.
Neversoft is handling Guitar Hero III.

From what I've seen of the drum setup, it looks like they have no specific pads for high-hats or cymbals (wtf?).  It looks like a snare drum, bass drum, and 3 toms.  That's fine and dandy if you want to learn rhythm, but I can't see much in the aspect of improvisation and expansion.  Maybe it just irks me because I am a drummer and no one really panders to our needs.

That's the line from wiki.

I know that in DrumMania, you can plug a Yamaha DTXpress drum set right into your PS2 (through the USB connection) and play on that.  If you are a serious drummer, it might be worth looking into.  Is there similar compatibility in Rock Band?

I file Guitar Hero in the same pile as Smash Bros. and Halo which is to say that I respect it, but I don't particularly like it.  I mean, it looks fun and I can totally understand why people love it, but it just doesn't do a whole lot for me.

Loads of new announcements, songwise...They're up to 46 now. Lots of bands I haven't even heard of...and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" <3. That'll make a nice opening lick. Still not too late to include "Eruption" or more Megadeth/Anthrax. No Pandora though (her "features" were combined into Judy's apparently)...That sucks, but at least Midori will pick up some of the slack...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_Her … ds_of_Rock

The more they get into customization with this game, the better it's going to get. I just got Rock the 80's a few days ago and while it's more of the same, I'm really enjoying playing a lot of the songs...probably because I like a lot of the songs to begin with. When they start giving people more choices about what to play, it'll really take off.

I think on average, 80's is easier than GH2, but it still throws in plenty of tricky spots (seemingly at weird times...I had a perfect going on Bang Your Head my first time -hard mode-, then two weird solos at the end messed me up after I made it past the "main" solo) and Expert seems to have a lot more triples than I remember from 2 (not that I tear ass on expert yet, but I can hold my own for right now). Money well spent, but I probably wouldn't buy "Encore 90's: Rocks Seattle". Encore: Neoclassical Shredfest might be more tempting. Although I think I dislike "Holy Diver" far more than I did "Heart-Shaped Box" (both the song and the pattern)

And in other news..."Highway Star" for Rock Band. Fun! That, "Paranoid" and "Enter Sandman" are the only songs I care about on that one so far. Harmonix better have some aces up their sleeves on that one...

Seems Game Informer got in an early review...They said this is the hardest GH so far, but the main thing was the timing for hitting the notes was made easier. That's odd...I think it's pretty lenient as is. It got an 8.75 and 9. Kind of odd, since at least 22 songs are still unknown (they didn't mention any songs by name, so I wager they just reviewed an early burn without all of the songs implemented to beat everyone else to print...Sneaky bastards!).

On a secondary note, they scored Dracula X 7/7.25 because they felt the walking speed was too slow and got tired of endlessly dying. Ah, Game Informer, how I love you guys...

ScoreHero had posted an apparent leak of the final tracklisting earlier this month.  73 songs, including the co-op encores:

Tier 1:
Foghat- Slow Ride
Poison- Talk Dirty to Me
Pat Benatar- Hit Me With Your Best Shot
Social Distortion- Story of My Life

Encore: Kiss- Rock and Roll All Nite
Co-op Encore: Beastie Boys- Sabotage

Tier 2:
Mountain- Mississippi Queen
Alice Cooper- School’s Out
Cream- Sunshine of Your Life
Heart- Barracuda

Boss: Tom Morello- Guitar Battle
Encore: Rage Against the Machine- Bull’s on Parade
Co-op Encore: The Strokes- Reptilia

Tier 3:
The Killers- When You Were Young
AFI- Miss Murder
The Who- The Seeker
Priestess- Lay Down

Encore: Rolling Stones- Paint It Black
Co-op Encore: Red Hot Chili Peppers- Suck My Kiss

Tier 4:
Black Sabbath- Paranoid
The Sex Pistols- Anarchy in the UK
Sonic Youth- Kool Thing
Weezer- My Name Is Jonas

Encore: Pearl Jam- Evenflow
Co-op Encore: Blue Oyster Cult- Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll

Tier 5:
The Dead Kennedy’s- Holiday in Cambodia
Scorpions- Rock You Like a Hurricane
Aerosmith- Same Old Song and Dance
ZZ Top- La Grange

Boss: Slash- Guitar Battle
Encore: Guns N Roses- Welcome to the Jungle
Co-op Encore: Bloc Party- Helicopter

Tier 6:
Santana- Black Magic Woman
Smashing Pumpkins- Cherub Rock
White Zombie- Black Sunshine
Tenacious D- The Metal

Encore: Stevie Ray Vaughn- Pride and Joy
Co-op Encore: Matchbook Romance- Monsters

Tier 7:
Slipknot- Before I Forget
Disturbed- Stricken
Queens of the Stone Age- 3’s and 7’s
Muse- Knights of Cydonia

Encore: Living Colour- Cult of Personality

Tier 8:
Slayer- Raining Blood
Eric Johnson- Cliffs of Dover
Iron Maiden- Number of the Beast
Metallica- One

Boss: Lou- Guitar Battle
Encore: The Devil Went Down to Georgia

Bonus Tracks:
An Endless Sporadic- Impulse
Backyard Babies- Minus Celsius
Bret Michaels Band- Go That Far
Die Toten Hosen- Hier Kommit Alex
Dragonforce- Through the Fire and the Flames
Fall of Troy- FCP Remix
Gallows- In the Belly of a Shark
The Hellacopters- I’m in the Band
Heroes del Silencio- Avalancha
In Flames- Take This Life
Kaiser Chiefs- Ruby
Killswitch Engage- My Curse
LA Slum Lords- Down N Dirty
Lacuna Coil- Closer
Lions- Metal Heavy Lady
NAAST- Mauvis Garcon
Prototype- The Way It Ends
Revolverhead- Generation Rock
Rise Against- Prayer of the Refugee
Scouts of St. Sebastian- In Love
Senses Fail- Can’t Be Saved
The Sleeping- Don’t Hold Back
The Stone Roses- She Bangs the Drums
Superbus- Radio Song

Thanks...Apparently, they know more than the people who regularly update the wiki. I don't see either of the two Velvet Revolver songs that are supposed to be in there though and Atreyu is supposed to have one as well.

Aw, Talk Dirty To Me getting stuck as an Opening Lick...I had that figured for at least 5th tier.

I'm seriously thinking of picking up GHIII for my PS3...

Hmmm...[Yawn]...Not much exciting to see he...

And so it shall be bought.

Well, it's been officially leaked and it's spilling out into the wasteland known as Youtube. Sorry to say, much of GH2 and 80's look like training compared to some of this stuff...I think they figured out they'll make more money by making songs that break guitar controllers. Hope everyone likes 3-note chords:

One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dm5KMcA2lU

Number of the Beast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e39D8VBQ4sw

Raining Blood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnPsPM5Jw8A

Fire and Flames: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThGwxvoMJRY

Saturday night, midnight launch at Gamestop.

^ This one might be hard as hell, but the very first time I made it to the end of a song on Hard wasn't on GH2 and its various downloadable content of GH1 and new songs---it was from the demo of Guitar Hero 3.  My thanks to you, Pat Benatar... you Hit Me With Your Best Shot, but I hit back!  Now I'll just master playing that song, get used to the five buttons and the speed, and hope to retcon the 'skills' (I use the term loosely because I'm not that good at the game) back to GH2.

I did the same thing...Hard was too fast to jump right into, so I just kept playing "Strutter" in II on hard until I got used to the speed (it only has a couple orange notes...WAY easier than any of the tier 1 songs on hard. "Shout at the Devil" pretty much traumatized me my first time on hard). Then I played awhile on normal mode again without using my pinkie and instead sliding my hand down the frets and I was pretty much set after that (though I still try to avoid relying on my pinkie, it's there solely for the orange fret and I use that and the braille to regain my bearings a lot). My biggest problem now is I overstrum too much and it rapes my multipliers.

But good god...It hurts to WATCH Fire and Flames. And the "One" solo.

Picked up Hero III today, and I'm having a pretty great time.  Just finished off the second tier "Your First Real Gig" on Hard, and already I'm finding the song selection to be monumentally better than GHII's.  I'm enjoying just about every track, and there are some sweet note patterns going on here.  "Mississippi Queen " is my current fave, and proves that straight-on, well placed fingering and a lean playtime length can really make a song.  The overall challenge progresses nicely, too; I really think this is the best GH title to start off with if you're just getting a handle on Hard Mode and the fifth orange fret.

The Tom Morello Guitar Battle threw me for a loop, though; I lost the first time, simply because I wasn't sure what I was doing. My best advice: use every attack power-up that you receive straight away once Tom starts his sections.

The new interface is a nice touch, with things looking sleeker all around.  The venues look great, but the new character modeling took a hit in my opinion; they just look more fugly, and the animation, at least in the PS2 version, becomes a bit herky-jerky at times.  And that damned string pull sound every time a message comes up (like the confirmations during auto-save, for instance) has become nerve-grating.  I simply turned off auto-saving this time, largely because the saves seem to take an unusually long time this time around.

Man, I can't wait to hit the later tiers.  The good songs have only just begun!

The game looks great all-around on the 360, Angela, and I'm guessing it'll look around the same on the PS3.  Since you were getting a PS3 (although I recommend a 360 moreso), you might want to consider picking up GH3 for it, so you can take advantage of DLC.  Regarding auto-save, it seems the same to GH2 to me, but who knows if the 360 GH2 didn't get a sloppy port and so I'm not expecting it to be fast.

I hate the controller being in two pieces, at least mine because it seems to not fit firmly in place, but slides a bit.

The Guitar Battle with Morello took me a second try too.  If you care about unlocking stuff in the store, I found out Easy mode in this one earns you in-game cash.  I don't think it did in GH2.

First time going to a midnight launch. It was a pretty awesome feeling...About 80 people showed up and it ranged from "Yeah, can't wait to do Fire and Flames on Expert with Hyperspeed" to "OMFG, how do you even DO hard mode!?" to "My boyfriend dragged me out here for Halo 3, I'm doing the same for GH" So about an hour of that, they started letting people go in. I was stuck at the back of the line, so it took another good hour to get up and get my copy (PS2 version) Interesting note: Everyone buying a bundle got either the Wii version or (especially) the 360 version. No one got the PS3 bundle.

So far, I've done the obligatory "unlock everything for Quick Play" on medium and I've started hitting some of the ones I was looking forward to on hard, so I'm looking forward to officially getting my hands dirty from here on out. Can't put my finger on the speeds...I know Medium is faster than it used to be, but then "Rock You Like a Hurricane" on hard (a fifth tier song), I had to alt-strum because the notes were coming too fast to single strum, which never happened in GH2 or 80's.

That's about the gist of it. If I get a whammy or string break, I wait for a section where I can screw him up from getting a power-up, but I just dump a difficulty boost or 2X notes as soon as possible because they're not useful VS the CPU. I did the three battles on medium...The final one's a real bitch though. You don't get any power-ups until close to 2 minutes into the match and I don't think there are enough power-ups or notes to kill the final boss without luck. Hopefully that's not the case on hard. And on top of that, "Devil Went Down to Georgia" is not available outside of battle. Overall, I chalk the battles up as an idea that shouldn't have left the planning stages or at least need to be refined quite a bit...Dying from the Death Drain instead of, oh say, looping the song and continuing the battle is really lame. It even looks half-assed when it happens. On the plus side, I really liked Morello's original piece.

The cast looks like it got beat with an ugly stick. Izzy's design (and maybe Lars) is probably the only one that resembles his GH2 design in any tasteful way. And Midori is actually kind of creepy...She looks like a guy in badly designed drag. And less mention of the singer, the better. I think "neanderthal" about covers it. I thought the string-pull sound was someone yelling "shit" off-camera on Youtube and it still sounds like it. Really annoying. And I kind of miss the board shake when I activate star power. It's going to throw me off going back to GH2.

On the plus side, the storyline (especially towards the end) is funny and the venues are pretty cool (and not just minor cosmetic changes, like 80's was).

^ Hm, so overall, what do you think of Neversoft's work compared to Harmonix?  Did they do the Guitar Hero franchise justice or not?

Fine with me...Game still plays like a charm, HOPO's couldn't be easier and the patterns are extremely fresh compared to the pretty stale 80's ones (*stares down 'I Wanna Rock' and 'Holy Diver'*), so it's definitely an improvement there. I think overall, GH3 and GH2 have an equal number of songs I'm going to enjoy replaying and an equal amount I'll remain indifferent to (Barracuda is the only song I've really hated doing thus far), but GH3 hasn't sunk in yet either and there's a lot there I'm not greatly familiar with (a lot of very recent material...2006/2007 stuff). If I could, I'd prefer GH2's interface/design with large gems/star power activations/character designs, but it's nitpicking. The only real fly in the ointment are the battles (and the lack of a non-battle "Devil Went Down to Georgia")and mercifully, there's only three of them. That, and I think this franchise will really take off once they get DLC sorted out...I'd love to toss a lot more 80's/shred stuff into the mix. They got the foundation down good, so I guess the rest boils down to the songlist.

And all I have to say about that is: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE!

Okay, other things I'm finding out:

-Expert kills you extremely fast. I missed a wave and a half of notes at the end of "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and it killed me when I was sitting at close to the green. Ouch! Can't even get to the scream in "Number of the Beast" on expert, but I cleared it my first time on hard (though I was surprised/let-down half the song was nothing but the same 3-note chord).

-Conversely, Expert moves at a different speed than hard. Which, due to the new, more lenient hit detection, is more a blessing than anything. As long as you hit the note before it passes, it's harder to miss it. Several times, I hit a pattern and I look up and I'm shocked to see my streak still alive. I imagine it will be tricky for people who start at GH3 to go back to the previous games. This is, of course, balanced out by the fact there are a lot more notes overall than the other modes. Makes me want to try using Hyper Speed when playing hard.

-"Impulse" is sort of like the new "Jordan"...A multi-faced instrumental beast, composed solely for the game that isn't bad on anything except Expert. Not as intimidating as Jordan, but things get hairy around 67% on expert...I think I blinked and I was staring at a game over screen.

-Overall, I like the bonus songs a lot more than I did the majority of GH2's. Favorites so far are "She Bangs the Drums" (awesome pattern), "Impulse" and "Radio Song". Need to explore them closer though, but they sounded good for the most part.

Slash took me out seven times on Hard before I was able to nail him, all times with that dreaded Death Drain.  I think I got lucky the fifth time when I knew when his final solo was coming up, and I laid waste with the three power-ups I had on him.  I ain't looking forward to Lou. o_O 

But yeah, Welcome To The Jungle is EPIC.  It's not as difficult as I thought it was going to be on Hard, and I was able to get a perfect note streak on my second time through the song - but it feels absolutely awesome to play, and is one of the golden reasons why everyone should experience this series.  The musical journey up to Tier 5 was quite fun, too.  I rather like Barracuda's "Bonanza"-esque bass line, and Paranoid is enjoyable if somewhat repetitive in its note pattern -- but at least it's one of those tolerable time length pieces.... god, I'm still sore with Story of My Life.  Rock You Like A Hurricane is an instant guilty-pleasure, and.... I'd likely be in the minority for saying this, but I thought Vanessa Carlton's more rockin' version of Paint It Black would've made for a much better fit here.

I'm about to polish off Hard Mode, and then I plan to co-mingle with Medium and Expert.  Of the bonus songs, I only tried Radio Song and She Bangs The Drums, both of which are excellent.

I finally picked up an axe last weekend, along with rocks the 80s to start with.  (Had only played GHII twice before on demos.)

Breezed through Medium Tour with mostly 85 percents and 4 stars, but then switched to Hard and barely hung on and started getting my ass kicked big time.

Medium is great because it's still loads of fun, without all the aches and carpeltunel in the wrists that you start feeling on hard.

I think I'll stick with the fun-factor on these titles without worrying about completist 100%s or mastering insane fretwork.

That's been the most common complaint by just about everyone I've talked to...The jump from medium to hard. Between the orange fret, added notes/chords and speed increase, it can be painful. For me, it's been gradual...I had to get used to the speed (mostly by playing "Strutter" in II), then sliding my four fingers along the five frets and it took awhile before it felt natural and I could reliably even clear hard songs. Hard is probably right about where my skill level is, but I'm also not beating myself up to get 100% or jump into expert on the higher level songs. Although, getting to the point where I'm not really playing for survival and playing more for a higher score was when the game really started to click...Medium drives me nuts now because there's not enough notes to use the star power on and it's significantly slower than hard/expert.

For Rock the 80's, try "I Wanna Rock" on hard a few times...The solo aside, it's nothing but straightforward chords (really nice if you're just getting a feel for hitting tons of chords) and it doesn't even change much on expert (though the solo gets nasty). It'd probably be a tier 1 song on any of the other GH games (it's probably about the same as "Metal Health", difficulty-wise). Overall, Rock the 80's is probably the easiest game in the series and a good place to start out. At least until you hit "Electric Eye" and "Seventeen".

I still can't find a copy of the PS3 bundle for GHIII in Edmonton.... kinda irkin me, because my friend found a 360 copy easily last Sunday.  but I still have Zelda Phantom Hourglass to finish and PW3 to play thru also so I got plenty to do heh.

Okay, not exactly Guitar Hero, but close...DLC announced for Rock Band with pricing:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6182927.ht … ws;title;0

They won some points from me for adding "Ballroom Blitz" (but NOT the awesome Krokus cover in Rock the 80's...damn!), "Flirtin' With Disaster" and "Run to the Hills" to the main set when I wasn't looking, but I'd say that Metallica pack is looking pretty sweet right about now. Vocals, guitars AND drums to play...on "Ride the Lightning" and "Justice for All"!? Very nice. And I desperately look forward to watching Youtube idiots belting out "Joker and the Thief".

Not ready to drop the money on it yet, but I'm definitely interested in what they announce as far as more DLC.

"So, who's addicted to Guitar Hero?"  This guy, it would seem - enough to nail 100% on Expert "Through The Fires And Flames":

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/07/gui … o-cha.html

I am not worthy.