Guitar Hero

[Dustallica]

Hey Guys,

Has anyone besides me come across this gem from the creators of Frequency and Amplitude? Being a guitarist myself im surprised at how this game flew under my radar. Anyways, the game comes with a guitar controller (runs about $70 for game and controller) and is easily one of the most fun times ive had with my PS2.

If you like guitars, or rock music in general, I highly recommend this game. Its a blast and the song list is incredible.

[sadistikdreams]

Oh man, I heard about this on the radio.

It sounds pretty good, but are the simulated guitar "controls" anything like playing a real guitar, or is it like DDR is to really dancing?

[Wingless]

I heard about it on TV the day before it came out. Considering it came from the makers of Amplitude/Frequency and the controller is made by RedOctane. I'd like to try it out, but I'm not ready to pony up $70 as of yet...

(sidenote: I almost typed "RedCoctane". Eww.)

[BAMF]

it will probably be one of the few games that go up in price with time.

[RedCometChar]

Even if that wasn't true (and it will be), it's totally worth $70. I've been playing it non-stop for two weeks now. Excellent song list- I know they couldn't possibly fit every legendary band in there, but there's a damn fine sampling. The extra tracks aren't too bad either- "Caveman Rejoice" especially kicks some ass.

[FngKestrel]

Coworker brought it in with 2 controllers and we jammed to it. Pretty fun. And like RedComet said, excellent song list. We were rocking out pretty good to it. I especially like the way you activate the star power by rotating your guitar so that it's vertical.

[thephuse]

I dont play the guitar.. and im not particularly a rock music fan.. but when one of my roommates got this for our room, I dont think the PS2 turned off for about a week straight!

We've been trying to get through all the songs on the difficulties.. but the expert is hard.. and we cant get Bark at the Moon on Hard.. fun fun fun tho!

[~Lucian~]

goddamn you in the states!... there isn't a hope in hell that we'll get this in new zealand.. when'd it come out? I'm a guitarist and it sounds like a fucking awesome game!

[TheJig]

I got a chance to play Guitar Hero at a party last weekend, and everyone loved it. It was pretty hard for the people who had never picked up a guitar, but they were still fighting for their turn.

Hopefully this game will make alot of money and encourage other developers to create more innovative games like this. The price is a little steep because of the controller, but it seriously made me feel like I was actually playing the song.

My real guitar hasn't made me feel like that yet.

[Kodega]

I bought this game as soon as I could find it. (For awhile it was sold out everywhere, even the Red Octane website was backlogged and not taking any new orders.) I love it. I'm currently on the 5 tier expert. Most songs are great but some seem wierdly out of place (Sum 41 comes to mind).

[ratbastid]

I've now played this a couple times at a buddy's house. He and I are both guitarists (he's WAY better than me--we play jazz with him on guitar and me on piano), so it was fun to rock out in head-to-head.

I'll say this: at higher levels, the game REALLY captures the feeling of playing guitar. SRV's "Texas Flood" on Hard was a serious challenge (with about half an hour of playtime under my belt), but when you nailed a pattern, it felt a lot like playing it on an actual guitar.

One thing I noticed while sitting out a tune--the drummer who plays behind you has his animation synced with the actual drums in the song. It's a very nice touch.

[CyCo PL]

I just got done with a hardcore session of guitar hero... I've gone through all of the songs on hard (not the unlockable bonus songs though), and I must say, it is HARD. Bark at the Moon nearly made me throw the guitar across the room. Crossroads drove me nuts for a few hours, but it also forced me to get better at the game and now I don't have much of a problem with it.

I play guitar, so a lot of the finger positioning came natural to me, but it still gets really hard on the later songs on the hard difficulty, lots of complicated guitar solos and hammer-on/pull-offs to do. Sometimes it feels like playing a real guitar is a lot easier because you already know what to play, rather than having to follow scrolling notes on a screen. It's an awesome party game though, we spent hours today passing the guitar between five or six different people taking turns playing different songs... It's even fun to watch other people play because it's really funny when they screw up notes, especially the sustained notes.

My pinky hurts really bad right now from playing, though.

[Troublebot]

Bought this on Friday and took it over to a friends house where we played for many hours. After the new years party, we came back to his house around 1 and didn't stop till 6am, which is weird for an old fogey like me.

Know how, if you screw up, the "rock meter" goes down and the crowd starts booing? One of the guys I was playing with was going through "More Than a Feeling" (a crowd favorite with us) and screwed up a really good part. Man, we turned on him so hard and fast it shook him and he couldn't finish the song.

Respect the song dude!

I guess what I'm trying to say is I really love this game.

[Slayer]

I finally got the game with two guitar today, I ordered from redoctane.com 15 days ago!! I can't play the game yet, gotta study for the make up exam tomorrow morning. Dame you MTA strike!! Damn you to hell!!

[grendel]

was gonna start a thread about this great game, but i see one's already here... it just needs some lovin'.

anyway, i've been playing GH since february, and it rocks! me and another guy at work have managed to get another 4 or 5 folks hooked on the game, so now there's all kinds of GH talk going on at the office. comparing scores, favorite songs, etc.

btw, if you haven't seen it yet, there's a cool scorekeeping site here:

ScoreHero

if you don't have folks to compete against regularly, or just need a reason to play Ziggy Stardust for the 11 millionth time, check out that site. you can enter your scores and see how they compare against the other folks registered on that site. i'm progfanxyz there.

looking forward to GHII in november!!!

[crow_daw]

Oh man we played this AND Donkey Konga in my Music Psych class (the best class of all time, btw) and they were both freaking awesome. I know Donkey Konga sounds a bit odd, but if you like GH, you definitely need to give it a shot. It is so much freakin fun.

[hulk]

Word to that. It's even more suited to drunkeness. Bongo drums rock!

[Xiangsu]

I have been playing the game for the last few days. I have done one song so far on expert, but I have finished easy and normal. I thought bark at the moon and crossroads was hard on normal I can only imagine hard.

[sapiens]

After reading so much from Wil Wheaton writing about this game, I'm very tempted to buy the console, guitar, and game.

[grendel]

sapiens, that's exactly what i did. played it at a friend's house and within a week i owned a used PS2 and a brand new GH bundle (game + guitar).

[Toaster126]

I had never done anything guitar related, but I played this with a friend and really enjoyed myself. I picked an Incubus song, so it wasn't hard.

[MSD]

At the beginning of last semester, I had the choice of spending $80 on Guitar Hero, or the textbook for one of my politics classes. I am confident that I made the right choice, especially after hooking it in the auditorium and playing on the big sound system and 20' screen.

I even skipped a few exam reviews to play this game.

[Seer666]

This game is like digtal crack. I haven't played in a while, cause I'm waitin for my fingers to stop feeling like they are bleeding.

[captobvious]

I'm hooked on this game right now. It inspired me to buy a real guitar too, so now my fingers really hurt.

[saut]

there's an open source computer based guitar hero game that's pretty cool here: http://frets.freenerd.org/

[Siege]

I just got this game yesterday. And I have to say that I love it. My hands are really sore from playing it too much. The main thing is that my hands are tiny, and as such, any notes I play with the pinky are a pain in the ass.

It also doesn't help that i'm not very good. I know that I can beat all the normal songs. But once I hit hard, I know it's going to take a while.

[nohitters]

I love this game. its even better if you play a real guitar. the only thing i don't like about this game is that there is no way to get updates for new songs. If this was a pc game and the guitar was a usb controller, it would be just that much better

[MexicanOnABike]

for everyone interested, guitar hero 2 is comming out soon. includes new songs and better graphics.
http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpage...=guitar%20hero

[Siege]

For those of us who can understand Japanese, you can also purchase the Guitar Freaks games. Unfortunately, they are imports.

[End User]

Originally Posted by Siege

For those of us who can understand Japanese, you can also purchase the Guitar Freaks games. Unfortunately, they are imports.

The Guitar Freaks games are not compatible with the Guitar Hero controller and vice versa.

[Siege]

Originally Posted by End User

The Guitar Freaks games are not compatible with the Guitar Hero controller and vice versa.

You can still play guitar freaks with the guitar hero controller

What you do is go to options, change the controller layout to "type c"

After that, to strum the red key, you hold down the red button. To hit the green key, you hit the blue button, an to hit the blue key, you hit the orange button. There's an annoying 1 key gap, but the game is still very playable.

[MiSo]

guitar hero is always in the ps2 at my buddies place.
i'm fairly good, my other friends are freakin bad ass. they pretty much have 5 stars for almost all the songs.

[lukethebandgeek]

This game is great!

It makes parties more fun, especially if you have 2 guitars.

[lindalove]

Guitar Hero II

Full set list per joystiq including bonus tracks

The Las Vegas - Raw Dog
Drist - Arterial Black
Anarchy Club - Collide
That Handsome Devil - Elephant Bones
Valient Thorr - Fall of Pangea
VAGIANT - FTK
Brian Kahanek - Gemini
Bang Camaro - Push Push (Lady Lightning)
The Acrobrats - Laughtrack
Freezepop - Less Talk More Rokk
Buckethead - Jordan
The Amazing Royal Crowns - Mr. Fix-It
Every Time I Die - The New Black
Artillery - One For the Road
The Neighborhoods - Parasite
Count Zero - Radium Eyes
MEGASUS - Red Lottery
All That Remains - Six
Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives - Soy Bomb
Shadows Fall - The Light That Blinds
DETHKLOK - Thunder Horse
Strong Bad - Trogdor
Voivod - X-Stream
Made in Mexico - Yes We Can

1. Opening Licks
Motley Crue - Shout at the Devil
Danzig - Mother
Cheap Trick - Surrender
Wolfmother - Woman
Spinal Tap - Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight

2. Amp-Warmers
Kiss - Strutter
Nirvana - Heart-Shaped Box
Police - Message in a Bottle
Van Halen - You Really Got Me
Kansas - Carry on Wayward Son

3. String-Snappers
Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench
Alice in Chains - Them Bones
Iggy Pop and the Stooges - Search and Destroy
Pretenders - Tattooed Love Boys
Black Sabbath - War Pigs

4. Thrash and Burn
Warrant - Cherry Pie
Butthole Surfers - Who Was in My Room Last Night
Mathew Sweet - Girlfriend
Rolling Stones - Can't You Hear Me Knockin'
Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine

5. Return of the Shred
Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name Of
Primus - John the Fisherman
Sword - Freya
Thin Lizzy - Bad Reputation
Aerosmith - Last Child

6. Relentless Riffs
Heart - Crazy on You
Stone Temple Pilots - Tripping on a Hole in a Paper Heart
Stray Cats - Rock This Town
Allman Brothers - Jessica
Jane's Addiction - Stop

7. Furious Fretwork
Anthrax - Madhouse
Living End - Carry Me Home
Lamb of God - Laid to Rest
Reverend Horton Heat - Psychobilly Freakout
Rush - YYZ

8. Face-Melters
Avenged Sevenfold - Beast and the Harlot
Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized
Dick Dale - Misirlou
Megadeth - Hangar 18
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free Bird

Must.....have....!!!!!

[grendel]

Got my copy of Guitar Hero II today... already having a blast!

A friend just sent me this link (he found it on slashdot) and I thought the folks reading this thread might be interested:

http://tinyurl.com/ymd6v7

When Being a Fake Rock Star Is Better Than the Reality
Guitar Hero, a Videogame, Is a Big Hit With Bands;
Aping That 'Goofy Stance'
By ETHAN SMITH
November 6, 2006; Page A1

On tour with his multiplatinum hard-rock band Korn last summer, Jonathan Davis regularly whipped crowds into a frenzy with classic-rock staples such as "Iron Man," "Smoke on the Water" and "More Than a Feeling." And that was before he even got off the tour bus.

Mr. Davis, Korn's lead singer, is part of an unlikely but growing fraternity: Rock stars who are also avid players of Guitar Hero, an electronic game that lets gamers pretend to be, well, rock stars.

From superstars like Korn to up-and-comers, Guitar Hero has quickly become a fixture on tour buses and in recording studios. Intended for air guitarists who might not be able to play the real instrument, the $70 PlayStation title has also won a following in the music world. Its devotees range from alternative-rocker Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails to country stars Rascal Flatts, whose tour manager, Chris Alderman, says he frequently has trouble tearing the musicians away to conduct preconcert sound checks.

The game involves using a miniature plastic guitar to "play" along with songs associated with the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Boston and the Ramones. Instead of strumming strings, players press color-coded buttons on the neck of the guitar to match "notes" that scroll across the TV screen. At the same time, players "pluck" a little toggle, earning points each time they hit a note successfully, which is then played through the speakers. A virtual crowd cheers harder the more skillfully a song is played.

The higher the degree of difficulty the player selects, the faster the notes come and the more of them there are. The game is one reason Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks recently agreed to pay $175 million to acquire the company that developed its software and hardware, Harmonix Music Systems Inc. A second version is due out this week from publisher RedOctane Inc., a division of Activision Inc.

For many rock musicians, the game's virtual stage would seem to be a pale, unsatisfying facsimile of what they experience every night. The music they're playing along with usually isn't even an original recording. Most of the songs in Guitar Hero have been re-recorded by studio musicians.

Many professional rockers, however, say the game lets them act out a fantasy that their real lives don't quite match. Sometimes, pretending to be a rock star for a few minutes can be more fun than being one.

There's more in the article, but there's a taste...

[Siege]

I'm curious as to how good the musicians are when they play guitar hero. my friends, who play drums, were able to start at a very high level when playing drum mania.

As for me, i'll try to head out and get a copy of it this weekend. Since there are a couple games i want, I figure it's worth the trip.

[Shauk]

love this game, i'm a freaking electronic music nut, not really a fan of rock, but theres just something to this game thats like "holy damn, i'm a freakin rockstar"

[Siege]

So how's everyone doing on GH2? I'm done 30/40 songs on hard.

I've noticed that most of the songs are considerabley longer than the ones in GH1.

And I get the feeling that the tough songs on expert will be an extreme pain in the ass to conquer (if i can do them at all).

[MiSo]

i can beat 39/40 songs on expert.
hanger 18 is pretty tough.


*and i dont even have a playstation/GH


=)

[Wunderbar]

hell yes.. I have Guitar Hero I & II... I love these games.. I even bought the bundle with Guitar Hero II so I'd have 2 guitar controllers. Now anytime anynoe ever comes over I try to coerce them into playing. Some people I've gotten pretty hooked on it.

Then again, most everyone knows I'm a regular music game fanatic at my house. Beatmania, too many damn versions of DDR, Frequency, Amplitude, Guitar Hero I & II, will it never end?