Rust Monster

I took some time out of my busy day, (snicker) to go over to the local electronics store and test drive Guitar Hero III and Rock Band. Here are my reviews for both games.

Guitar Hero III

Ok for those who still haven’t played or at least seen guitar hero, I’m not sure what you’re waiting for. It’s no fluke that Guitar hero is such a big hit. It’s awesome fun. And the third rendition of it is just more and better. Game play is as it’s always been but there’s a new feature. A combat like head to head mode. This plays out like vs. Tetris. Instead of the normal star power up, you get whammies that you send against the other player when you tilt the guitar. These Include: Level Up: This ups the difficulty of the other player for like 10 seconds. Which is pretty cool, especially if the other player is on medium or hard. Many players who are used to playing on medium never use the last orange button. while players used to hard mode are not used to the triple note chords on imposable. I don’t know what it does if you’re already playing on impossible. Amp Overload: this knocks out your whammy bar and makes it stick. To unstuck it you have to wiggle the whammy bar a few times to get it loose. It only gets stuck in the video game, the controller doesn’t lock up. Any notes you try to play while the whammy bar is jammed tend to miss fire. It’s usually pretty easy to get lose of this since your free hand is already sitting on the whammy bar, and it usually doesn’t take more than a couple of seconds to clear this one. Wait till the other guy is in the middle of a power up sequence and use this to disrupt them so they can’t whammy you. Broken String: this one is tough; it is like the whammy bar one except one of your strings breaks. In game that button is unusable until you hit the button a bunch of times to clear it. This one is the most difficult to clear, unless you’re an old woodwind player and have fast fingers on your left hand. This is the one you use to make the other guy go into red. Double Notes: with double notes the other players notes all blink in and out, so every other second they can’t see what the notes are. It’s not really that hard but if you’re on the harder levels in the middle of a fast run on a song you don’t know it can hurt a lot. It tends to mess up the computer more than human players. Speaking of this feature with the computer. When you’re playing in single player campaign mode, to clear each level you have to defeat a legendary rock guitarist in a one on one battle in this mode. If you beat them they join you on stage in a duet on one of their bands songs. When I was playing through the demo at sears, I got bounced by slash from Guns And Roses, after The THUNDA put his foot in dat ass, we jammed together on GNR’s welcome to the jungle! Much fun was had by all. Another cool new feature is that you can now play co-op in campaign mode. That’s pretty cool.

There seem to be a lot more songs in this version than in previous versions. A lot of newer songs compared to the classic ones. I wasn’t’ that enchanted by most of the song list. I’m not really a rock guy so I didn’t know most of the songs on the list. Highlight songs I’ve enjoyed so far include Welcome To The Jungle and Santana’s Black Magic Woman. They have a Tenacious D song in there but it’s not tribute which is the song I wanted on there. The improved graphics and animations are also very cool. The female characters are nice and distracting. All in all it’s a good addition.

ROCK BAND!

This game rocks just like guitar hero but dare I say a bit better in some ways. In many ways it’s the same game as guitar hero. There are some differences though that make it stand out. 1st: it’s a 4 player game. You can play lead guitar, bass guitar, drums or vocals. That’s right Vocals. There’s already a karaoke song out on the market, if you haven’t played pop star you’re missing out. The game can recognize both your pitch and your timber in your voice. It knows rather if your voice waivers rather than if you hit the right note, rather you’re in the right octave. It’s pretty precise. The downside is you actually have to be able to sing. You can’t just cheese it up like you’re doing karaoke. You have to hit the right notes. The guitar plays just like guitar hero. The guitar accessory though is a full sized guitar so it is much easier to handle for adult hands. The controller is also a lot sturdier and heavier than the guitar hero controller. It feels right in your hands. Little kids though will have trouble with the large guitar. I didn’t get a chance to play the bass part. There’s a second set of buttons on the guitar I think may be for the bass player. The drum set is what I really like. It comes with a “Quad” set - four colored electric drum pads and a pair of full sized drum sticks. The drums were really fun. To be honest I actually found it easier to play the drums at higher difficulty levels. At higher difficulty levels you have to play all of the notes, it doesn’t cheat for you. As such there are no phantom note in there to mess you up. I found that much easier than playing on easier levels. So my first time playing I jumped right to advanced level and rocked out with Sound garden.

One cool thing, is the song list is better than guitar hero’s. That’s just a matter of taste though. Then again it’s easy to like songs when you can pick which instrument you are going to play. not every song is awesome for it’s guitar part. Some have a kicking drum beat, others had a bad ass bass line, while for some it’s the vocals.

This game rock. If you liked guitar hero you’ll love Rock Star.

To compare the two head to head, Guitar hero is a much more polished game graphics wise. It’s also far more challenging game play wise. Rock band was actually a bit too easy. The individual parts are actually kinda simple to play, especially compared to Guitar Hero. It’s still fun though and makes an even better party game since it’s 4 player and has options for everyone. Guitar hero will be less investment money wise. if you’ve already been playing the previous versions you don’t have to buy a new guitar. Just pick up the game for $40 bucks and you’re off an running. If you’re completely new to the game you can pick it up along with TWO controllers now for $99.00 to $110.00 bucks depending on where you go. That’s a real steal. Plus all of the newer guitar designs are pretty kick butt. The quality of the guitars hasn’t seemed to go up though. They seem to be held together with silly putty. The pick ups are not always working even with brand new guitars out of the box. You can also pick up 3rd party guitars and the internet is full of custom designers who can recreate a replica of any classic guitar you like. These hand made units tend to be of much higher quality. Rock band will be a bit pricier. To get full use out of it, you’ll need to buy the mic kit, two guitars and the drum set. You’re looking at just over $200 bucks plus supplies are low. They’re even out of stock on the official website. he equipment itself though seems so far to be very study. Both Games have been released for the X-Box 360 and Playstation 3.

http://www.rockband.com/
http://www.guitarherogame.com/gh3/

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