posted by Chris on November 19, 2007 7:02 PM in Podcast
On this week's Weekly Geek podcast, Grant, Colette, Qais and Chris discuss whether or not Rock Band and Guitar Hero III are actually in competition with each other, gush about Mario Galaxy, lament the lameness of licensed games, discuss the intricacies of installing a George Foreman grill on your Wii, talk about how the Dragonball movie may not actually suck, how Cloverfield may actually suck, and Chris professes his undying love for Zooey Deschanel (Zooey, if you are reading this, call me). Download the podcast here or subscribe to the feed! The feed is what you need. As always, use the jump for show notez.
Guitar Hero is the story of a franchise in the process of being brutally milked for all its worth. It's what they call a phenomenon, reaching official meme status now with its appearance on South Park, and tournaments now being held in Hot Topic stores around the nation. The original two titles in the series were much loved, and then when the third game was announced without stellar developer Harmonix attached, we got a bit worried. Harmonix moved on to bigger and better things (Rock Band being at the very least bigger) and left Activision's Neversoft studios at the reins. Neversoft is better known as the Tony Hawk developer, which caused even more worry. Were they going to water down Guitar Hero and make it as stale as the Tony Hawk series is now? Neversoft even had to remake the game engine since Harmonix owned the rights. Lucky for us, all our fears were completely unfounded: Guitar Hero III is the best in the series, and some of the most fun you can ever have with a fake plastic guitar. The strange pseudo-rivalry going on between Guitar Hero and Rock Band is even starting to feel a bit silly; the games are completely different. They are no longer trodding on the same territory, and the avid gamer can feel good about owning both games, and getting value out of each.
Guitar Hero III, in my opinion, has the best song selection in the series yet. In what I assume was an effort to match the quality of the song list in Rock Band, Activision has really stepped up the licensing to bring tons of master tracks and really high quality songs to Guitar Hero. Not only are tracks like Guns n Roses' Welcome to the Jungle and Muse's Knights of Cydonia completely rad, but all the songs feel more fun to play somehow. It's like they perfected the art of mapping the buttons in a manner that makes you feel more like you are actually influencing the course of the song. Hitting the notes is slightly more forgiving than previous titles in the series as well, with hammer-ons and pull-offs simplified. Don't let that fool you, however. This game is hard. Guitar Hero III has a serious vendetta against your wrists, and after playing a couple songs even on medium difficulty you'll know what I mean.
posted by Qais on September 11, 2007 12:05 PM in Games
When Guitar Hero first arrived on the scene like a squalling, guitar driven infant my first question was, "Are we going to be able to import our own songs?" The answer was inevitably no. Thankfully that didn't detract from game play at all because of the veritable cornucopia of songs available with the game and as downloadable content. A few enterprising eggheads even got together and made a piece of software called Freetar which allowed folks to create, edit, and playback button timings for any song on their computer, which, while lacking the visceral experience of shredding your way through a list of songs on a plastic guitar reminiscent of a Fischer Price toy and embarrassing yourself in the process, was a step in the right direction.
However today news has been spreading around the tubes of Aspyr Media doing what they do best and porting Guitar Hero 3 to the PC and Mac, a fantastic move on the part of those that enjoy bathing in money. Activision has finally spread their marketability net across the spectrum of gamers, ensuring their nefarious plans of sucking the world dry of it's riches will be fulfilled. I'm certain the top execs are wringing their hands evilly as I write this, possibly in an egg shaped chair.
posted by Chris on August 22, 2007 9:07 AM in Games
Posted over on XBox360Achievements .org today (via X3F) is the full Guitar Hero III list of unlockable goodness. Here at The Weekly Geek we tend to be a bit more in the Rock Band camp, but Guitar Hero III is still getting a little anticipation love. Now, I'm big into achievements. I am not so much interested in my gamerscore going up as I am in hearing that little blip and seeing my sort of badge area get filled up. I love having added goals besides just completing a game, it's something I do in games anyway. For me, they promote exploring these worlds the game creators spent so much time on, as opposed to just speeding through to the end credits. In Guitar Hero II for the 360 we saw your basic achievements, beat the game on hard difficulty, beat the game on expert, unlock all the songs, unlock all the guitars - but Guitar Hero III is amping up the craziness with achievements like "Meet Your Maker" which requires you to "Beat one of the creators of Guitar Hero 3 at their own game". What does it mean?! Are you supposed to somehow encounter a GH3 dev on Live and then somehow be better at the game than them? If so, why is it only 20 points and not something like 100?
There are some other fun achievements, like "Tone Deaf" which requires you to play through a song with the in-game volume turned down to zero, and "Whammy Mania" which has you using the whammy bar for every long note in a certain song. Rad. Check out the full list at the site.
posted by Chris on August 14, 2007 6:37 PM in Games
UPDATE: Apparently this is a hoax. Man. Too bad it sounds completely convincing. In a completely unsurprising turn of events today, Metallica felt the need to show their advanced age and sue Harmonix and Red Octane for illegally distributing songs in the upcoming games Guitar Hero III and Rock Band. Hilarity from this article follows:
"The band learned its lesson the hard way with file sharing in the late 90s," counsel for Metallica told reporters in a statement released soon after the filing. "This time they want to do a pre-emptive strike before the music gets out there."
Metallica's attorneys neither confirmed nor denied reports that they had issued subpoenas to major video game retailers asking for lists of customers who had pre-ordered copies of Guitar Hero III and Rock Band. When asked to comment, Gamestop representatives asked reporters if they were looking forward to Halo 3 and if they would like to maybe pre-order a copy to make sure they got one at the release.
Attorneys for the gaming companies named in the lawsuit were bemused by the lawsuit. "Our company paid a licensing fee to feature the track 'One' by Metallica in Guitar Hero III," counsel for Activision/Red Octane told reporters. "We don't understand why Metallica would turn around and sue us, unless they've gone from insane completely batshit insane since 2001, but we're confident that the law and our contracts will be enough to have this thrown out."
I vote for completely batshit insane. How out of touch do you have to be to think that just because a video game is technology, you know like computers and the Internets are that people are going to illegally file share your music. Metallica. No one wants your music. You really do suck. There's no need for all this effort. Just go rub some Ben-Gay on your joints. I know you have had a long, hard day of sucking and need the sweet sweet relief.
Rock Band wasn't on the show floor, but I was able to get a couple of minutes with Guitar Hero 3, the bastard child of the music genre, sitting in the shadow of big daddy Rock Band. GHIII feels a bit like they completely reworked the game's icons and menus because they were afraid of being sued. It's just different enough that it makes you go "huh?". The gameplay is the same ol GH gameplay, the songs are pretty good, but something about it feels hollow. I'm sure it will be loads of fun, but from what I have tried here at E3, I feel like I'll be spending much much more time with Rock Band.
Posted over on 
UPDATE: Apparently this is a hoax. Man. Too bad it sounds completely convincing. In a completely unsurprising turn of events today, Metallica felt the need to show their advanced age and sue Harmonix and Red Octane for illegally distributing songs in the upcoming games Guitar Hero III and Rock Band. Hilarity from this article follows:
Rock Band wasn't on the show floor, but I was able to get a couple of minutes with Guitar Hero 3, the bastard child of the music genre, sitting in the shadow of big daddy Rock Band. GHIII feels a bit like they completely reworked the game's icons and menus because they were afraid of being sued. It's just different enough that it makes you go "huh?". The gameplay is the same ol GH gameplay, the songs are pretty good, but something about it feels hollow. I'm sure it will be loads of fun, but from what I have tried here at E3, I feel like I'll be spending much much more time with Rock Band. 