Emperor Pan I
Respected Member
For the most part I have been pretty complacent, despite what limited internet activity I have been able to muster in the grueling period of my life in a house without the basics to survive. So I really haven't had anything to be mad about, until Rockband was delayed in Canada until the 14th of December. That coupled with Assassin's creed coming in February to my PC, I have been what some might call irritated.
I used to go to Gamespot and IGN and read their reviews on games, until I read the Halo III review, and came to the conclusion their staff is clinically retarded. Therefore I have taken it upon myself to compare the two games myself, since it is clear these game sites hire monkeys with missing chromosomes. Luckily we have internet access and being university students, were smart enough to figure out how useful havening a modded Xbox 360 is.
Chances are you know of guitar hero, unless you have been living in a cave for the past few years. If you don't know about it, it boils down to playing awesome songs on a plastic guitar attached to a console. Rockband takes the same formula and adds a Mic and Drums. for the most part I'm going to reference Guitar Hero II for the rest of this, as I consider it the apex of the franchise and about as good as you are going to get in a rhythm based game.
With introductions out of the way, lets get to the ****tiness. Guitar Hero III and Rockband have a lot in common, for the most part Harmonix Developed Guitar heroes up until right before Guitar Hero III and broke away to make Rockband. Guitar Hero III by sharp contrast is now developed by combo mashing fanatics Neversoft, and if you have ever played a Tony hawk game, you'll know what I'm talking about.
Guitar Hero II's difficulty ranged from insultingly easy to murderously hard, and that is both in terms of difficulty level and song selection. If you stuck around the first few tiers and played "Cherry pie" or "Heart Shaped Box" the game was pretty easy, but if you were one of those freaks who memorized the Freebird Solo, or could complete "Jordan" and not fail, than the game was fairly challenging, but not challenging enough. Clearly Neversoft felt we all fell into the latter category and figured the game needed to be scaled up a bit.
That isn't to say it is a bad thing, since you can enjoy yourself even if you have never plalyed the series before. However if you don't have the time to invest in practice, don't expect to be able to play songs on Hard or Expert. Don't expect to be able to complete "Through the fire and the Flames". In guitar Hero II whenever someone moved up a difficulty, they would always ran into the brick wall that was "Woman", and spend a multitude of hours trying to complete it. To say it was misplaced as such an early song is an understatement, but guitar Hero III doesn't have that one Brick wall, it has 3. Tom Morello and Slash are both guitarists who have written songs and play against you in them and for the most part along with the final boss these sections are the equivalent of playing a real guitar Drunk. Without hands.
In comparison Harmonix took a stab at the same thing Guitar Hero III did, by making a game with a band. Where Guitar Hero III turned the difficulty up to 11 from Guitar hero II, Rockband scaled it back so far I think they broke the knob. You can pretty much hit all the notes, never miss any star power sections and there is lacking some good solos. To compare I have spent the last week trying to finish Guitar Hero III on Hard, and on jumping into rockband I'm completing whole songs on Expert mode with 5 star ratings. Maybe Rockband is holding back on the really hard songs, because I can't seem to find them. Bass has never been fun in real life or in guitar hero, and Rock band carries that tradition by making it monotonous and repetitive. Unfortunately I can't get a drum set or mic without going to the states (which I'm not going to do) so I pretty much have only played half the game. However if you are betting on the game to be better based solely on the drums, it has already failed. Additionaly, no one wants to play the Mic, if the publics disdain for Karaoke Revolution is any indication.
Neversoft decided that they agreed with me and figured Guitar Hero II was the best it is ever going to get, so the sequel looks a hellovalot like it. Sure it looks slightly better, and there are subtle differences, but if you strip away all the new flashy stuff "Hanger 18" might as well be "The Number of the Beast". With that we come to song selection. Guitar Hero III has some of the best music to ever come in a game. It's nearly balls tight perfect soundtrack has barely any songs you begrudgingly have to play just to advance to the better ones. That being said, it isn't perfect, and anyone who thought it would be a good idea to include AFI on the main setlist needs to be shot and stabbed. Repeatedly. Some might ponder why Tenacious D is included in a game whose subtitle is "Legends of Rock", and those people also need to be removed the privilege of thinking. Guitar Hero III's soundtrack is almost perfect, and someone was smart enough to include the ****ty songs in the Bonus section, the same section I don't intend to visit much.
Rockband suffers mostly from having a decent enough songlist, but a infuriatingly stupid system of playing them. While guitar Hero has a basic tier of songs you play through in order to the end, Rockband decided to remove this and opt for a "world tour", and before you all jiz yourselves over the awesome premise, I should remind you it is a premise. On the drawing board this is quite literally the greatest thing one could add to this type of gaming, but having it so poorly executed makes one wonder how the hell Harmonix Pulled off Guitar Hero II in the first place. Now My band the "Ridiculously Obscure"(yeah we are awesome) have found out we get to play "In Bloom" and "should I stay or should I go". which is great because these songs are awesome. Unfortunately the game has decided that we get to play these songs a second time in under a few minutes, and now we get to play the same group of songs multiple times. If I hear "Ok Go" one more time I'm going to throw myself off a bridge. There is something to be said for the tiered groupings of songs, and that is I only had to play the ****ty songs once to advance and never had to play them again.
The song lists in the two games are a good way to compare the two games, And the perfect example of this is in the selection of Metallica Songs. Rockband has the overrated ****fest "enter sandman" and all the screaming **** who love the black album will masturbate each other for this game. Guitar Hero III has "One" which without a shadow of a doubt is one of the greatest songs Metallica has ever produced, and is a staple of pure artistic genius in a sea of grimy piss that is "Metal". Unfortunately Neither rockband nor guitar Hero III has the same sort of selection Guitar Hero II had, which was a mixture of catchy tunes with some hand crampingly excruciating hard rock/metal. Maybe I'm just fundamently bias against a game that has R.E.M. and Fall out boy on it's main set list, but Rockband has been a major disappointment in terms of good music, whereas Guitar Hero III has incredible music from the word go, but still lacks that "stuck in your head" song.
The only way to one up Guitar hero II was to add the only thing it lacked, online. Online is fun, it is basically like every other game online, you pick a game, you play whoever is better wins. There is no "World Tour" online for Rockband, so that big steamy monkey fest doesn't infect the rest of the world. In truth it is an awesome feature for both sides (with the exception of the PS3 which fails at online in general), and spending time talking about it is wasteful, because me praising a game isn't any fun, and I still want to blow off my anger somewhere else.
So lets talk about download able content. If you ever played Guitar Hero II you know what I'm talking about when I say that the DLC might as well be **** in a box shipped right to your door. Sure you might be able to find a good song you want to play, but you are going to pay out your ass to get it in a package with two other really bad songs. Selling songs in groups, and usually only one of them being good defeats the purpose of buying songs online. If they aren't going to do it properly, they are going to lose out to the solid foundation of custom song works. Paying more to play a song on guitar hero than it is to get the song off itunes isn't a fair trade off, and they might as well be giving you the finger while taking your money and nailing your girlfriend. But I guess I'm more so pissed that Aspyr media's piss poor job at porting the game to the PC has failed at making any content available at all.
in conclusion, guitar Hero III is largely a game for those fanatics who weren't happy enough getting perfect on all the songs in Guitar Hero II. For those with a life, and who don't want arthritis at the age of 19, won't be able to get to Expert difficulty and expect to finish a lot of songs. That's fine you know, the game revolves around playing good music, and doing so at a lower difficulty shouldn't detract from anyones opinions.
Rockband on the other hand is a game for those people with friends. It loses it's appeal when all you have are guitars and the bewildering realization they haven't mapped any of the drum functions to the controller. despite that if you have friends who come over far to often, it might be a good thing to have around you can pick up and play, though it isn't a lot of fun getting perfect on songs all the time with no effort. That coupled with the high price tag should make you think hard on how much you want it. The only thing they seem to have gotten right is the atmosphere, arguing amongst yourselves, throwing beer bottles, and getting drunk are what a band is all about
I used to go to Gamespot and IGN and read their reviews on games, until I read the Halo III review, and came to the conclusion their staff is clinically retarded. Therefore I have taken it upon myself to compare the two games myself, since it is clear these game sites hire monkeys with missing chromosomes. Luckily we have internet access and being university students, were smart enough to figure out how useful havening a modded Xbox 360 is.
Chances are you know of guitar hero, unless you have been living in a cave for the past few years. If you don't know about it, it boils down to playing awesome songs on a plastic guitar attached to a console. Rockband takes the same formula and adds a Mic and Drums. for the most part I'm going to reference Guitar Hero II for the rest of this, as I consider it the apex of the franchise and about as good as you are going to get in a rhythm based game.
With introductions out of the way, lets get to the ****tiness. Guitar Hero III and Rockband have a lot in common, for the most part Harmonix Developed Guitar heroes up until right before Guitar Hero III and broke away to make Rockband. Guitar Hero III by sharp contrast is now developed by combo mashing fanatics Neversoft, and if you have ever played a Tony hawk game, you'll know what I'm talking about.
Guitar Hero II's difficulty ranged from insultingly easy to murderously hard, and that is both in terms of difficulty level and song selection. If you stuck around the first few tiers and played "Cherry pie" or "Heart Shaped Box" the game was pretty easy, but if you were one of those freaks who memorized the Freebird Solo, or could complete "Jordan" and not fail, than the game was fairly challenging, but not challenging enough. Clearly Neversoft felt we all fell into the latter category and figured the game needed to be scaled up a bit.
That isn't to say it is a bad thing, since you can enjoy yourself even if you have never plalyed the series before. However if you don't have the time to invest in practice, don't expect to be able to play songs on Hard or Expert. Don't expect to be able to complete "Through the fire and the Flames". In guitar Hero II whenever someone moved up a difficulty, they would always ran into the brick wall that was "Woman", and spend a multitude of hours trying to complete it. To say it was misplaced as such an early song is an understatement, but guitar Hero III doesn't have that one Brick wall, it has 3. Tom Morello and Slash are both guitarists who have written songs and play against you in them and for the most part along with the final boss these sections are the equivalent of playing a real guitar Drunk. Without hands.
In comparison Harmonix took a stab at the same thing Guitar Hero III did, by making a game with a band. Where Guitar Hero III turned the difficulty up to 11 from Guitar hero II, Rockband scaled it back so far I think they broke the knob. You can pretty much hit all the notes, never miss any star power sections and there is lacking some good solos. To compare I have spent the last week trying to finish Guitar Hero III on Hard, and on jumping into rockband I'm completing whole songs on Expert mode with 5 star ratings. Maybe Rockband is holding back on the really hard songs, because I can't seem to find them. Bass has never been fun in real life or in guitar hero, and Rock band carries that tradition by making it monotonous and repetitive. Unfortunately I can't get a drum set or mic without going to the states (which I'm not going to do) so I pretty much have only played half the game. However if you are betting on the game to be better based solely on the drums, it has already failed. Additionaly, no one wants to play the Mic, if the publics disdain for Karaoke Revolution is any indication.
Neversoft decided that they agreed with me and figured Guitar Hero II was the best it is ever going to get, so the sequel looks a hellovalot like it. Sure it looks slightly better, and there are subtle differences, but if you strip away all the new flashy stuff "Hanger 18" might as well be "The Number of the Beast". With that we come to song selection. Guitar Hero III has some of the best music to ever come in a game. It's nearly balls tight perfect soundtrack has barely any songs you begrudgingly have to play just to advance to the better ones. That being said, it isn't perfect, and anyone who thought it would be a good idea to include AFI on the main setlist needs to be shot and stabbed. Repeatedly. Some might ponder why Tenacious D is included in a game whose subtitle is "Legends of Rock", and those people also need to be removed the privilege of thinking. Guitar Hero III's soundtrack is almost perfect, and someone was smart enough to include the ****ty songs in the Bonus section, the same section I don't intend to visit much.
Rockband suffers mostly from having a decent enough songlist, but a infuriatingly stupid system of playing them. While guitar Hero has a basic tier of songs you play through in order to the end, Rockband decided to remove this and opt for a "world tour", and before you all jiz yourselves over the awesome premise, I should remind you it is a premise. On the drawing board this is quite literally the greatest thing one could add to this type of gaming, but having it so poorly executed makes one wonder how the hell Harmonix Pulled off Guitar Hero II in the first place. Now My band the "Ridiculously Obscure"(yeah we are awesome) have found out we get to play "In Bloom" and "should I stay or should I go". which is great because these songs are awesome. Unfortunately the game has decided that we get to play these songs a second time in under a few minutes, and now we get to play the same group of songs multiple times. If I hear "Ok Go" one more time I'm going to throw myself off a bridge. There is something to be said for the tiered groupings of songs, and that is I only had to play the ****ty songs once to advance and never had to play them again.
The song lists in the two games are a good way to compare the two games, And the perfect example of this is in the selection of Metallica Songs. Rockband has the overrated ****fest "enter sandman" and all the screaming **** who love the black album will masturbate each other for this game. Guitar Hero III has "One" which without a shadow of a doubt is one of the greatest songs Metallica has ever produced, and is a staple of pure artistic genius in a sea of grimy piss that is "Metal". Unfortunately Neither rockband nor guitar Hero III has the same sort of selection Guitar Hero II had, which was a mixture of catchy tunes with some hand crampingly excruciating hard rock/metal. Maybe I'm just fundamently bias against a game that has R.E.M. and Fall out boy on it's main set list, but Rockband has been a major disappointment in terms of good music, whereas Guitar Hero III has incredible music from the word go, but still lacks that "stuck in your head" song.
The only way to one up Guitar hero II was to add the only thing it lacked, online. Online is fun, it is basically like every other game online, you pick a game, you play whoever is better wins. There is no "World Tour" online for Rockband, so that big steamy monkey fest doesn't infect the rest of the world. In truth it is an awesome feature for both sides (with the exception of the PS3 which fails at online in general), and spending time talking about it is wasteful, because me praising a game isn't any fun, and I still want to blow off my anger somewhere else.
So lets talk about download able content. If you ever played Guitar Hero II you know what I'm talking about when I say that the DLC might as well be **** in a box shipped right to your door. Sure you might be able to find a good song you want to play, but you are going to pay out your ass to get it in a package with two other really bad songs. Selling songs in groups, and usually only one of them being good defeats the purpose of buying songs online. If they aren't going to do it properly, they are going to lose out to the solid foundation of custom song works. Paying more to play a song on guitar hero than it is to get the song off itunes isn't a fair trade off, and they might as well be giving you the finger while taking your money and nailing your girlfriend. But I guess I'm more so pissed that Aspyr media's piss poor job at porting the game to the PC has failed at making any content available at all.
in conclusion, guitar Hero III is largely a game for those fanatics who weren't happy enough getting perfect on all the songs in Guitar Hero II. For those with a life, and who don't want arthritis at the age of 19, won't be able to get to Expert difficulty and expect to finish a lot of songs. That's fine you know, the game revolves around playing good music, and doing so at a lower difficulty shouldn't detract from anyones opinions.
Rockband on the other hand is a game for those people with friends. It loses it's appeal when all you have are guitars and the bewildering realization they haven't mapped any of the drum functions to the controller. despite that if you have friends who come over far to often, it might be a good thing to have around you can pick up and play, though it isn't a lot of fun getting perfect on songs all the time with no effort. That coupled with the high price tag should make you think hard on how much you want it. The only thing they seem to have gotten right is the atmosphere, arguing amongst yourselves, throwing beer bottles, and getting drunk are what a band is all about
