Guitar Hero Rocks the Nineteen Hundred and Eighties
I don't know how many of you picked this thing up on yesterday, but it's out and nobody here seems to be talking about it? Here's a mini-review
Very First Impression: Why is this game costing fifty dollars?
Actual Play Time: Oh boy, 30 new songs! Oh wow some of these are the bee's knees! Whee!
A Few Hours Later: Why the hell did this game cost fifty dollars?
So either we got a huge price break on the first two games, and now we're paying them back for their trouble, or the licenses in this game were SO VERY HUGE, or maybe Activision just knows that there are plenty of us who will shell out full price for a mod. Or I guess there could be a $10 surcharge for any Harmonix game that doesn't feature Freezepop.
I feel kind of bad complaining about the price, since the game is pretty much what I had expected, and I went ahead and bought it anyway. And it's not like it's not fun or anything, the price is really the only thing that's wrong with the whole package. Oh well.
8 comments:
As much as I like playing Guitar Hero, I can't get myself to shell out the ridiculous amount of money required for it.
So, I agree with the premise, why is this game $50?
My cynicism says it's because Activision smells our money and knows that they can have it if they just ask.
It's not $50 because of all the new venues they had to design. There are zero new ones. In fact, there's one less than before (no Stonehenge). It's not because of the new characters. There are only 6 in this game. Sure they have new skins, and that doesn't just magically happen, but one of the characters is exactly like he was in GH2, but now he has 3D glasses and an alarm clock necklace right out of Public Enemy (classy, sure, but not fifty dollars classy).
It's like how they're charging way too much for the Xbox 360 song packs, and I think that's just how this is going to work.677777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
Sorry, kitty sat on the keyboard.
That was the thing I've been hearing and been fearing..
is it true that they ...... yeah... there it is in the comments, below my screen..
no real new content, outside of new songs/tracks, and mild cosmetic shifts. Hrmn.. Does my 80's love supercede this?
I know not.
Well, to my knowledge, MA17 and I are the only ones who have the means available to play 80s edition without having to buy something in addition to 80s edition. He bought it. I did not.
Right now I don't think the game is worth $50. The only time I play Guitar Hero anymore is when other people play as well and I don't see many opportunites in the immediate future to have a Guitar Hero party.
I also don't care about the songs. I played Heat of the Moment and Syncronicity II on Wal-Marts demo station, and Heat of the Moment was the only song I really wanted to play on this version.
I was happy to buy a PS2 and GH1 so I could play GH1, because it was freaking GH1. I was happy to buy GH2 bundled with the Guitar because it was another GH game. But I really don't want to pay $50 for a disk full of songs I don't want to play and probably won't play except when other people are around.
I'll probably pick it up used if I can find it used for $30 or less. Or maybe if I get really bored / drunk at some point in the future I will pick it up. But right now I'm reading Harry Potter and I have no fear of being unable to obtain this game in the future.
I wish there were some way to recapture the magic of the first game. At the beginning I felt a sense of "I am using my hands to conjure up rock from thin air and it is awesome". There was a direct link between what I was doing and what I was hearing, and it felt really good. Score and accuracy were virtually meaningless compared to the fun of pretending to be an awesome guitarist.
Then all that fell away and it became a press a button at the prompt exercise, which is almost exactly as exciting as navigating an automated answering service with a touch tone phone while listening to Unsung. Well, maybe not quite like that, but the old and awesome feeling had given way to "I am pressing buttons to get a high score and to continue hearing this song". The illusion of rock stardom that the simulation had provided had pretty much completely gone.
So now it's a few games later and it's all pretty mechanical. I mean, basically you're paying a guy to let you hit RED, GREEN, YELLOW instead of RED, GREEN, BLUE. I may not have done every theoretically possible thing with the Guitar Hero controller, but I've played enough with it enough times that the particular song has almost become background decor with as much importance as the character I'm playing or the guitar he's holding.
I kind of wish GH3 would be just more of the same old formula so I could simply not buy it and believe that I was making a wise decision. But then they make these different things like the multi-player that's actually a game in the sense that you're interacting with the other player, and not just standing near him. That's hard for me to ignore.
Maybe I'll just play someone else's copy.
RENTALS!
apropro of prompted button mashing?
There is a game at the Lake Village Pizza hut. That appears to be a Capcom version of Ikaruga.
I shit thee not.
It appears to work on something similar to bullet eater mode.. but.. I couldn't make out a flipping mechanic.. and power ups actually give your ship "experience".. which just looks like upgraded guns...
but... it looked a little like a bullet hell... and... you know.. Capcom.... Rockin' the obscure cabinets.
Mars Matrix or something along that line.. I'll be looking into it later this weekend or so.
Every game is button pushing in various sequences
IPhone!!
Gh3 with its battle mode may change things, but it is still button pushing
IPhone!!!!!!!!!
Mmm mac stores
@Roscoe
Capcom...Ikaruga? From Capcom? Wild.
@J
"Every game is button pushing in various sequences"
>> Well yeah, but generally button pushing is a means to play the game and not the game itself. I may have overstated the button pressing point, but the bottom line is I think I'm somewhat tired of that particular brand of rhythm game.
IPhone!!
>> Damn you!
Gh3 with its battle mode may change things, but it is still button pushing
>> Yes, and the foundation of the game seems to be in tact, but the powerups and whatnot add another layer to the game which I think could make it fun again. The current multiplayer is essentially single player but another guy can play too. It's like if you had Mario Kart with no weapons or powerups and the two players were on the same track but couldn't even touch eachother. GH3 battle mode looks like it gives you a blue shell and lets you ram into people.
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