Let's talk about a game that's not an adventure game...

Guitar Hero seems to most definitely be the most popular video game around my university. Nearly every time I'm doing security rounds through the dorms, I see students playing it. Whenever there are community programs that involve console games, it's almost always Guitar Hero.

I've only played it a few times. I like it, but apparently I haven't gotten addicted to it. Of course, it seems to take an awful lot to get me addicted to any video/computer games these days.

My #3 son has Guitar Hero and Rock Band and loves them! Our nephew has GH and plays it alot. It looks like fun, but not my cup of tea. It's hard enough to string people along let alone play a guitar. (Ooooh, bad pun.)

You string people along? Well, it's the 1st of april, but... still...

Also, you RANK your sons?? :p

J/K. I love Guitar Hero, though I've only played the 3rd one for the PS3. I love it, and I'm on hard mode down to... that sillily stupid Aerosmith song, I can't quite get past it yet. I also found some new music thanks to the game. I discovered Social Distortion was a sweet band!

Otherwise I consider myself quite an okay Guitar Heroer

Might have to try Rock Band at some point though. Seems fun!

-Fred

My wife and son both love that game... I can't stand it... If you sit there and watch it for about a minute and then look at something else like your computer screen it will look like it is scrolling... Very scary... lol I worry about the game possibly causing eye damage that isn't discovered right away...

Don't be silly. That's just an optical illusion caused by looking at a constant movement. Nothing harmful about it, but it can be weird the first few times.

Also, it's not a spectator game

-Fred

Fred Buer wrote: Also, it's not a spectator game

I beg to differ, it's great at parties, and to watch 2 pro's going at it!

I have had the game for about 6 months now (Guitar Hero 3) and absolutely love it! Am half way through the expert mode, but some songs are damn near impossible!

I did manage to get 70% on Dragonforce's 'Through fire and Flames' on Expert though... but I may have developed RSI

My fav song from the thirda game is Cliffs of Dover. Say if anyone else has a Wii verion of GT3, care to play online?

-Cub. =o)

I shall refine my previous statement. What I meant is this - it is not a spectator game in that it is not for the uninitiated to watch as entertainment. You need to have given it a go, to understand how it feels to play, how it feels to accomplish a song.

Otherwise it's just watching someone do buttonmashing, and buttonmashing ain't fun to watch.

Was what I meant.

-Fred

edit: Also, for those of you who've been here long, you will remember I used to work at EB Games (now GameStop). I was visiting the ol' workplace not long ago, and they had the 360 version of GH3 on display, and this kid was having a go at Dragonforce on Hard (I'm pretty sure it wasn't expert)

Anyways, this kid is going through one of the solo-parts of the song, then turns his head, watches me, and does NOT MISS A STEP! FOR AT LEAST FIFTEEN SECONDS! Either he was autistic (he was pretty glazed in the eyes) or he was a lifeless teenage zombie with nothing else to do but play videogames (he was pretty glazed in the eyes) or he was the uncrowned king of Guitar Hero. Damndest thing I ever did see.

Dude, didn't realize they had EB or GameStop in Norway. Suspicious. Thought they were all about Spaceworld and Elkjop... Hmmm...are you really who you say you are??

Bests, Rockefeller, P.I.

Fred Buer wrote: Anyways, this kid is going through one of the solo-parts of the song, then turns his head, watches me, and does NOT MISS A STEP! FOR AT LEAST FIFTEEN SECONDS! Either he was autistic (he was pretty glazed in the eyes) or he was a lifeless teenage zombie with nothing else to do but play videogames (he was pretty glazed in the eyes) or he was the uncrowned king of Guitar Hero. Damndest thing I ever did see.

I vote that he was a Lifeless Teenage Zombie... In today's world, kids don't know how to go outside and have fun anymore...

I loved GH 1 and 2 to death! I played them so much (probably due to the fact that i've played the guitar for a decade and am really not that good so was amused by being able to finally play good songs)

GH3 though seems they have sucked the fun out of the franchise. I reckon it has a little to do with Harmonix no longer being behind it, but yeah, haven't been impressed.

I'm waiting for Rock Band!

(cause it still hasn't been released down here) ><

I'd send you one, but the systems probably aren't compatible... I've already said NO to the Drum Set for Playstation... I told my Wife that our son isn't getting that until I get my Own House...

The joke is on me, she brought home that magazine of listed properties the other day after shopping...

The offer is appreciated Bafitis, but yeah, compatibility issues. I mean, it would work for PS3, but i don't have one yet (later this year i shall).

As for the 360, well i got sick of mine failing and sold it off. Great game library be damned, i'm upgrading my PC and getting a PS3 this year. I'll be able to play most of the great 360 games without problems (and i was in the middle of Mass Effect when it died. My god am i glad that is coming to PC).

Anyways, a little off topic there.

Hmm, speaking of games other than adventure games, who here is an RPG fan? (japanese ones or western ones). I've always found them to be adventure games with the addition of levelling your characters (well at least with the attention to story, character and creating a believable world to play in).

I am a staunch supporter of the crpg scene. At least, the games that really *are* crpgs. Because as we all know, this is a very gray area of gaming. At least it has been, ever since a certain filthy company started mass-producing what they believed was roleplaying games, and which all roleplayers saw as adventure games.

I speak of course, of Bethesda. They made Arena. They made Daggerfall. And they were GREAT!

Also, way back in the day, another company, Interplay's Black Isle studios, made the ultimate within computer roleplaying games, such as Planescape: Torment and Fallout 1 & 2.

Back to Bethesda. They got taken over by... Zenimax, was it? And they started corrupting the Elder Scrolls series. No longer was it roleplaying, because roleplaying would imply that you're playing a game where your character has limits, and you have to play *with* those limits, because it is just that - roleplaying. Your character has strengths and weaknesses, and you get to live through the eyes of your chosen character. No more.
Bethesda screwed the pooch, and hard. Suddenly you have no limits anymore. You can start out as an Assassin, with moderate skills in backstab and dagger-wielding. But if you want to, that character can put on heavy armor at once, wield a battle-axe, and go frontal assault on any monster you find. Successfully. And suddenly you're not roleplaying anymore, what you're doing is buttonmashing first-person hack'n slash adventure game muck-up. Or shooter, if you were to obtain bow and arrow.

And it became worse. Along comes Oblivion, with it's levelscaled enemies. Oh my, suddenly you can start off as a MERCHANT, with NO weapons skills, and beat the game without leveling further than level 2. Because all the enemies are scaled to your level. YES! Way to go Bethesda, make it dumb and simple and trite, so all the Children of the Console can see what beautiful graphics you make! Soil erosion anyone? With a sidedish of Immersion? Please.

Granted, besides it's major flaws, Oblivion was actually a halfway decent adventure game. But I would never, ever call it a roleplaying game. Fallout, however, THAT was a roleplaying game. If you made a character with good perception, medium strength, endurance like a wimpy nerd and a bit of luck, and boosted the right skills, you could have yourself a sniping menace! But try to talk your way out of a situation, and you're suddenly relying on your sidearm when conversation fails. But, sadly, you have no idea which end of the gun is the right way because you don't know your way around handguns. So you end up hitting the ceiling with half a clip and dropping the other clip out of your gun. Then the bad guys get their turn, and you become wall paint.

Or, you could go gung-ho gatling wielding psycho, and run around spraying bullets in all directions and WIN, not unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando (all right, all right, I don't think there was a gatling in that movie, that would be Predator, and Arnold never wielded it in that movie... anyway, shut up!) The point is, when it comes time for talkies, your character doesn't know a soliloquy from a dialogue, and is subsequently convinced that placing his mouth above the barrel of his gun is a good way to improve his shooting and does so. You're playing a character. Your character got tricked. You lose. Start again.

THAT is roleplaying. When you work with a character's limits and strengths, not your own. At the point your own skills become primary, it ceases to be roleplaying and all rules go out the window.

Coming full circle in my viscious rant about Bethesda, they bought the rights for Fallout 3. Because Bethesda claimed they were "fans" of the series and believed they could do the series justice. As opposed to, say, THE ORIGINAL TEAM WHO CREATED THE SERIES IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Yes, there you go. Bethesda's orwellian language merely means "We can make the game sell better by making it a console game for the kiddies. Incidentally that means treating it like a third rate two-bit hooker and squeezing the life force out of it by removing all the great RPG-elements, but the original Fallouts came out over ten years ago, and the people who played that game probably quit playing videogames and grew up a long time ago."

That's my two dollars' worth.

-Fred

Fred Buer wrote: That's my two dollars' worth.

You don't give yourself enough credit, that was worth at least 2.50, if not 2.75...