My fingers hurt, but it is totally okay, and I wish I was in Iceland.
I know I'm a little behind the curve, but I got my copy of Guitar Hero 3 from Amazon on Wednesday and I have to say, even though it isn't from Harmonix, the game is still a ball to play. I beat it on medium (yeah, yeah, I know, no big deal) just a few minutes ago and finished playing through Dragonforce's Through the Fire and Flames, which was probably the most eagerly anticipated track for a lot of the people on RPGnet prior to release. It is a long ass-song, but I have to say I actually really like it, especially the "So Far Away" part, despite the fact that, as CK says "it's just like Return of the King -- it has 17 different endings."
Other definite highlights from the soundtrack? Well, we have "Barracuda", for my sweet 80s awesomeness (yes, I know it came out in 1977, but so did I), The Stones' Paint It Black, which was a master track and has the lovely 60s tinniness you probably didn't expect, a rerecorded master track by the remaining Sex Pistols of Anarchy in the UK, Pearl Jam's Evenflow (high school memories and a fun song to play), Holiday in Cambodia, Black Magic Woman (beautiful to play, really), Cult of Personality rerecorded by Living Colour, and, my personal favorite, the song with the best video ever made, Muse's Knights of Cydonia. That last one as the only song I actually failed on my first try though, and that's okay, because it is freakin' awesome to play (even if it is not quite as awesome as the video -- seriously, check it out).
Low points? Well, I'll definitely say I'm disappointed there's no co-op "quick play" mode like in the last ones; the co-op career mode is pretty neat, but it would be nice to be able to play all the songs in co-op, instead of just most of them. The addition of songs you can only unlock in co-op is kind of neat for me, since I definitely think playing Guitar Hero as a social game is quite possibly my favorite way to play it, but for someone who likes to play on their own, I can definitely see that being an issue. Far and away the biggest annoyance though are the three "battles" you need to fight in the game. When I read about this before it came out, it sounded okay, as long as I didn't have to do them -- I like just "playing," which is often hard enough for me as it is, without the additional pain in the butt of the battle stuff. Unfortunately, you have to play three different battles during the course of the game, and the last one is a true pain in the ass, especially because the final song is hard enough as it is. CK, who can play most of the tracks on Expert without too much trouble, still hasn't beaten the game on Hard because of this. I really wish this was an optional feature, and not a requirement.
On another note, today was the last day of the Eve Fanfest, being carried live from Reykjavik by Eve TV. The broadcast is over now (even if, I suspect, the festivities are not), but I tried to catch as much of it during the day as I could; Oveur and Hellmar's presentations, the panel discussion, and the various interviews were all really neat to see, especially since those of us who can't hop across the pond on a whim miss out on this stuff. The new pictures from the Trinity graphics update, beta footage of the "ambulation" stuff going in next year, and the plans for Eve to use MPI and other supercomputing technologies in the cluster was definitely interesting to see and hear about.
I am disappointed that they didn't have footage from the corporation and alliance discussions that went on earlier in the week, with various alliance representatives giving Q&As on their alliances, but I'm hoping that will be provided in the wrap up Spiraljunkie says is coming in a week or two. One of these days, I'd love to make it out there -- I hear Iceland is gorgeous, and meeting other Eve players and especially the devs would be great; I got a very tiny taste of that at GenCon this year, but CCP didn't have much of a presence there (and I'm still bitter I missed the CCP/White Wolf party). We'll see, I guess. Judging from the player response, Fanfest isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
Other definite highlights from the soundtrack? Well, we have "Barracuda", for my sweet 80s awesomeness (yes, I know it came out in 1977, but so did I), The Stones' Paint It Black, which was a master track and has the lovely 60s tinniness you probably didn't expect, a rerecorded master track by the remaining Sex Pistols of Anarchy in the UK, Pearl Jam's Evenflow (high school memories and a fun song to play), Holiday in Cambodia, Black Magic Woman (beautiful to play, really), Cult of Personality rerecorded by Living Colour, and, my personal favorite, the song with the best video ever made, Muse's Knights of Cydonia. That last one as the only song I actually failed on my first try though, and that's okay, because it is freakin' awesome to play (even if it is not quite as awesome as the video -- seriously, check it out).
Low points? Well, I'll definitely say I'm disappointed there's no co-op "quick play" mode like in the last ones; the co-op career mode is pretty neat, but it would be nice to be able to play all the songs in co-op, instead of just most of them. The addition of songs you can only unlock in co-op is kind of neat for me, since I definitely think playing Guitar Hero as a social game is quite possibly my favorite way to play it, but for someone who likes to play on their own, I can definitely see that being an issue. Far and away the biggest annoyance though are the three "battles" you need to fight in the game. When I read about this before it came out, it sounded okay, as long as I didn't have to do them -- I like just "playing," which is often hard enough for me as it is, without the additional pain in the butt of the battle stuff. Unfortunately, you have to play three different battles during the course of the game, and the last one is a true pain in the ass, especially because the final song is hard enough as it is. CK, who can play most of the tracks on Expert without too much trouble, still hasn't beaten the game on Hard because of this. I really wish this was an optional feature, and not a requirement.
On another note, today was the last day of the Eve Fanfest, being carried live from Reykjavik by Eve TV. The broadcast is over now (even if, I suspect, the festivities are not), but I tried to catch as much of it during the day as I could; Oveur and Hellmar's presentations, the panel discussion, and the various interviews were all really neat to see, especially since those of us who can't hop across the pond on a whim miss out on this stuff. The new pictures from the Trinity graphics update, beta footage of the "ambulation" stuff going in next year, and the plans for Eve to use MPI and other supercomputing technologies in the cluster was definitely interesting to see and hear about.
I am disappointed that they didn't have footage from the corporation and alliance discussions that went on earlier in the week, with various alliance representatives giving Q&As on their alliances, but I'm hoping that will be provided in the wrap up Spiraljunkie says is coming in a week or two. One of these days, I'd love to make it out there -- I hear Iceland is gorgeous, and meeting other Eve players and especially the devs would be great; I got a very tiny taste of that at GenCon this year, but CCP didn't have much of a presence there (and I'm still bitter I missed the CCP/White Wolf party). We'll see, I guess. Judging from the player response, Fanfest isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
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