Guitar Hero is one hell of a game to master.
I mean seriously, to be able to beat the highest difficulty level, Expert and play it consistently takes a lot of practise and dedication to the game. While I am yet to experience it personally, I can only imagine the satisfaction one would gain from finally beating the difficulty level.
It seems somewhat ironic, then, that the majority of the people who play the game will probably only beat the Medium difficulty level during their entire playing time with the games. I guess that's the beauty of Guitar Hero though; Not only is it one of the most accessible games out there, or even the most appealing, it also happens to be a gamer's game in the sense that it takes utmost skill and dedication to master the game, play it consistently on the highest difficulty and break out those high scores.
Many games in the past have had this similar approach to design - easy to get into but extremely difficult to master - and it's something long term gamers have been frustrated with yet have loved for ages. As I said before, the satisfaction of being able to master a game and achieve a high score is second to none and it's a feeling that is unique to the gaming medium. The fact that games like Guitar Hero, which appeal to almost anyone thanks to its idea of pretending to be a rockstar, can open up these types of games to new audiences and therefore allow the potential for these people to experience this feeling unique to the medium is definitely a good thing.
That's a subject for another day though. As someone who has been playing games for years and as one who is experienced with mastering various games to achieve a high and successful outcome, I only seem to feel disappointment whenever I think about the current progress I have made with Guitar Hero so far.
As a completionist, my goal with the game was to be able to beat it on the highest difficulty, Expert and then perhaps slightly improve my skills after that so I could work on some high scores and perhaps 5-star every song. The latter isn't important and has more to do with my desire to obtain as many achievements as possible, but the former goal of beating the highest difficulty is one I am determined to meet one day and at the moment, it seems like an eternity away.
Currently, I can play Medium consistently. If I don't 100% a song on medium, then I will come damn close hitting anywhere between the 93-99% range each and every time. From what I can gather from other people's experiences with the game, once you can play consistently like that within a difficulty then it is time for you to move up to the next one and become consistent in that. So naturally, I am now trying to play on the Hard difficulty and wow, it's just a whole new ball game. The first and obvious hurdle is the introduction of the fifth and final fret, the orange. Playing Guitar Hero seems to be about training (and strengthening) your fingers for various tasks at the the varying difficulties. Going from Easy to Medium, it's about training yourself to use your pinky finger to press the fourth fret (blue) after being used to only using three fingers before it (index, middle and ring). Going from Medium to Hard means that you then have to teach yourself to either stretch your pinky out and alternate between pressing the blue or orange frets depending on what notes are coming at that time, move your fingers down one note and learn how to alternate your index finger between the first and second (green and red) frets, or move your fingers up and down the fret board dependent on how the note patterns are during the song.
Using the latter, you would have to train your fingers to press the buttons they are already used to as well as the others depending on where your fingers were at the time, as well as teach your brain to recognise the colours and notes on screen and to then use the right finger at the right time again depending on where your fingers were at the time. Using one of the other methods, it would be about strengthening your choice of finger (index or pinky) until you could stretch it to play the extra note you need to. Stretching one of your fingers sounds a lot easier than the complicated learning process of moving your hand up and down all the time, but believe it or not I'm finding it easier to move my hand up and down so that's the method I am using. Too bad I'm not consistent with it yet and I'm still learning how to do it.
Other hurdles to be encountered in the Hard difficulty is a ramp up in speed for the notes, meaning that not only do you have to get used to using a new fret and seeing a new note appear on the fretboard on screen, but you have to play them at a faster speed to what you would be used to in Medium. There also is a lot more chords and Hammer-Ons/Pull-Offs to play on Hard, which when combined with the added speed and learning process of the new fret certainly makes for a big challenge.
I am finding it difficult to wrap my head around it at the moment and as a result, it is rather frustrating. It's my own fault in a way as for a month or two, I played the Guitar Hero games with just the 360 controller and I can play Hard using that quite well actually (although the ending of One in Guitar Hero III is physically impossible to pass using the controller). Had I not played with the controller for a while, perhaps I'd be past the learning stages of Hard using the guitar and perhaps I'd even be getting into Expert by now. That's something I won't ever know so for now I'm stuck with learning how to play Hard.
Despite the frustration, I am finding it enjoyable to do. As I said before it is a gamer's game and I really like those and luckily for me I always have that special feeling waiting for me when I do finally manage to succeed. Guitar Hero might take longer than most games to master but as a completionist and achievement whore, I'm willing to put in the dedication required if it means finishing the games more and gaining that feeling of satisfaction that (by then at least) I will deserve.
Showing posts with label Guitar Hero III. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guitar Hero III. Show all posts
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Achievement Unlocked
It has almost been a month since my last Achievement update so it's time for a progress report.
Progress in Mass Effect has slowed quite a lot due to the fact that I'm actually stuck in the game. That is weird for me to say as it implies that I don't know what to do but in this case, I do know what to do I just can't do it. I'm on my third and final (or so I hoped) playthrough of the game and as a result, the difficulty I'm playing on is Insanity. Now Insanity isn't hard as such but due to some mistakes, I think I have gotten myself stuck in a particular section. This section (being vague to avoid spoilers) can't be escaped and must be completed for me to progress and due to having no Medi-Gels left and still being on the lower levels for my characters, I'm finding it extremely hard to get past this point. If I get hurt, I can't heal so I have to be really careful otherwise I will die and due to my low levels my weapons/characters/abilities aren't as strong as they could be and yeah I'm just finding it really difficult. I have two options: keep trying with the hope that I may actually pass it (and have a frustrating experience while I am at it), or, drop the difficulty level down to get past the point and use the playthrough to pick up all remaining achievements except for the Insanity one.
If I take the latter option (which I'm leaning towards) then that will mean I will have to do another playthrough just to get the Insanity achievement. Originally my intentions were to get everything done in three playthroughs, but the idea of a fourth isn't sounding as bad as it could do because really all I would have to do is the main story. So far on this third playthrough though, I have picked up a few of the tech ability achievements so it hasn't been all bad.
I obtained the last two achievements I wanted from the XBLA game Battlestar Galactica and in the end it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. I thought beating Scar without dying was going to be extremely hard but once I learned how he reacted to my moves I worked out a way where I could attack him a fair bit before having to retreat to find health. Once I worked that out it wasn't that hard and I managed to do it within three attempts after that. I also finished playing the 50 matches I needed to for the other achievement so it's nice to finally put this game away and class it as completed. I mean sure I could go for the 5000 kills and really finish it with the 200/200, but honestly I can't be bothered.
On the Guitar Hero side of things I have given up on trying to obtain the achievement you get for completing the career on Hard (or Expert) with the controller which is a shame. Why? Well I came really close to managing it by finishing every song except the very last one, which ironically is called 'One' by Metallica. The majority of the song isn't hard at all and I can hit all of the notes but the end section is another story and is frankly impossible if you ask me. I swear it is physically impossible to press the left trigger button on the controller (the green fret) THAT fast and even with the aid of Star Power, I cannot pass the song. So I have given up and instead begun practising playing on Hard with the guitar which actually ended up being a good thing as I'm definitely a lot better now than what I was. I can't hit all of the notes of a song yet and I'm still confusing my fingers a fair bit, but progress has definitely been made which I am proud of. Continue the progress and hopefully I will reach my goal of being able to finish Expert in both games. I did finish the Guitar Hero II career on Hard actually although that was with the controller...
I have also returned to Rez HD recently and picked up a fair few achievements in that. I have only got two left which are time consuming rather than hard. One is for completing Score Attack 30 times and the other is for finishing a particular version of Direct Assault which doesn't unlock until the other Direct Assaults have been completed (Direct Assault sees you going through the 5 Areas of the game in a row so it's quite a long session each time). The 200/200 is definitely possible for the game though and it is more a case of when rather than if.
Last but not least is of course Grand Theft Auto IV, a game which has given me a fair few achievements. Too many to list here anyway. I think the game's achievements are quite good actually with some easy ones and some more challenging ones. There is the typical collection ones as well for the hidden packages (flying rats) and stunt jumps. I'm sort of annoyed with the idea that there are multiplayer achievements though. I can understand them but the idea of having to rely on other people for achievements seems to misrepresent the idea of the system a little to me but most games have multiplayer achievements so it's something I am used to.
As you can tell I haven't obtained all that many achievements lately (aside from GTA) and that is mostly because I don't really have any new games to play and therefore to obtain achievements in. Still, I am happy with the progress I have made and I should be able to break the 30k barrier in the near future now that I'm playing GTA to death.
Progress in Mass Effect has slowed quite a lot due to the fact that I'm actually stuck in the game. That is weird for me to say as it implies that I don't know what to do but in this case, I do know what to do I just can't do it. I'm on my third and final (or so I hoped) playthrough of the game and as a result, the difficulty I'm playing on is Insanity. Now Insanity isn't hard as such but due to some mistakes, I think I have gotten myself stuck in a particular section. This section (being vague to avoid spoilers) can't be escaped and must be completed for me to progress and due to having no Medi-Gels left and still being on the lower levels for my characters, I'm finding it extremely hard to get past this point. If I get hurt, I can't heal so I have to be really careful otherwise I will die and due to my low levels my weapons/characters/abilities aren't as strong as they could be and yeah I'm just finding it really difficult. I have two options: keep trying with the hope that I may actually pass it (and have a frustrating experience while I am at it), or, drop the difficulty level down to get past the point and use the playthrough to pick up all remaining achievements except for the Insanity one.
If I take the latter option (which I'm leaning towards) then that will mean I will have to do another playthrough just to get the Insanity achievement. Originally my intentions were to get everything done in three playthroughs, but the idea of a fourth isn't sounding as bad as it could do because really all I would have to do is the main story. So far on this third playthrough though, I have picked up a few of the tech ability achievements so it hasn't been all bad.
I obtained the last two achievements I wanted from the XBLA game Battlestar Galactica and in the end it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. I thought beating Scar without dying was going to be extremely hard but once I learned how he reacted to my moves I worked out a way where I could attack him a fair bit before having to retreat to find health. Once I worked that out it wasn't that hard and I managed to do it within three attempts after that. I also finished playing the 50 matches I needed to for the other achievement so it's nice to finally put this game away and class it as completed. I mean sure I could go for the 5000 kills and really finish it with the 200/200, but honestly I can't be bothered.
On the Guitar Hero side of things I have given up on trying to obtain the achievement you get for completing the career on Hard (or Expert) with the controller which is a shame. Why? Well I came really close to managing it by finishing every song except the very last one, which ironically is called 'One' by Metallica. The majority of the song isn't hard at all and I can hit all of the notes but the end section is another story and is frankly impossible if you ask me. I swear it is physically impossible to press the left trigger button on the controller (the green fret) THAT fast and even with the aid of Star Power, I cannot pass the song. So I have given up and instead begun practising playing on Hard with the guitar which actually ended up being a good thing as I'm definitely a lot better now than what I was. I can't hit all of the notes of a song yet and I'm still confusing my fingers a fair bit, but progress has definitely been made which I am proud of. Continue the progress and hopefully I will reach my goal of being able to finish Expert in both games. I did finish the Guitar Hero II career on Hard actually although that was with the controller...
I have also returned to Rez HD recently and picked up a fair few achievements in that. I have only got two left which are time consuming rather than hard. One is for completing Score Attack 30 times and the other is for finishing a particular version of Direct Assault which doesn't unlock until the other Direct Assaults have been completed (Direct Assault sees you going through the 5 Areas of the game in a row so it's quite a long session each time). The 200/200 is definitely possible for the game though and it is more a case of when rather than if.
Last but not least is of course Grand Theft Auto IV, a game which has given me a fair few achievements. Too many to list here anyway. I think the game's achievements are quite good actually with some easy ones and some more challenging ones. There is the typical collection ones as well for the hidden packages (flying rats) and stunt jumps. I'm sort of annoyed with the idea that there are multiplayer achievements though. I can understand them but the idea of having to rely on other people for achievements seems to misrepresent the idea of the system a little to me but most games have multiplayer achievements so it's something I am used to.
As you can tell I haven't obtained all that many achievements lately (aside from GTA) and that is mostly because I don't really have any new games to play and therefore to obtain achievements in. Still, I am happy with the progress I have made and I should be able to break the 30k barrier in the near future now that I'm playing GTA to death.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Achievement Unlocked
For those that know me (and from a glance of my Gamercard), it is no secret that I am what is now known as an Achievement Whore. The reasons I am one will be explained in the near future but for now, I welcome you to a new series of posts I will be doing here on Raptured Reality.
In 'Achievement Unlocked', I will be talking about the various achievements that I may be trying to obtain, have recently obtained or even what I think on a game's particular achievements as a whole. Basically, it will be a progress report discussing what I have achieved and what I want to achieve and so on. Now that I have explained the series, let's get down to business.
Mass Effect has been taking up the majority of my time lately as I have been working towards all of the achievements for the game. I just recently finished my second playthrough of the game where I picked up the following achievements:
- Asari Ally (finish the majority of the game with Liara)
- Turian Ally (finish majority of the game with Garrus)
- Extreme Power Gamer (level 60)
- Sniper Expert (150 Sniper kills)
- Lift Mastery (Use Lift 75 times)
- Renegade
- Long Service Medal (complete the game twice)
- Distinguished Combat Medal (complete the game on Hardcore)
- Colonial Savior (obtained when finished with the DLC)
I'm now about to start my third and final playthrough of the game where I will be playing through the game on Insanity while working towards the Quarian and Krogan Ally achievements, as well as the many tech achievements that I need. Upon finishing this playthrough the game should be completely finished. I'm pushing 100 hours at the end of my second playthrough so it will be interesting to see how long it does end up taking me.
Another game I have been playing is Battlestar Galactica on the Xbox Live Arcade. I have obtained most of the achievements that I want from the game so now I'm only really working on the one you get for beating Scar. The requirement is to beat him without dying on Medium or Hard difficulty and so far, I have been unsuccessful. It is actually quite hard so I'm not actually sure if I will be able to get it or not just yet but that won't stop me from trying. I have also been slowly playing Team Deathmatch games with a friend to work towards the achievement you get for completing 50 Team Deathmatch games so I should have that soon. One achievement I won't be going for is 5000 kills. That's far too much for an Arcade game I think and I don't think I could play the game for 15 hours or more boosting my kills up until it unlocked.
Last but not least, I'm trying to finish Guitar Hero III's career on the Hard difficulty. I'm actually doing it with the controller (damn chords are a pain in the behind with the controller) so I can also pick up the achievement you get for finishing Hard (or Expert) with it, but as soon as that is done I will start practising Hard using the guitar so that I can finish it with that as well and start 5-starring the songs. Once that is done I will also do the same for Guitar Hero II and then it will be onto Expert...
And that's about it for the moment. Grand Theft Auto IV comes out in a couple of weeks so that game will be added to the list very soon. It will be interesting to see what achievements it has and if it's anything like Crackdown (or indeed the previous GTAs), it will be a game I work on until I get every achievement. I'm fully expecting collectibles to be hidden in Liberty City somewhere and no doubt there will be an achievement for finding them all, so that alone will be quite time consuming. I look forward to it.
In 'Achievement Unlocked', I will be talking about the various achievements that I may be trying to obtain, have recently obtained or even what I think on a game's particular achievements as a whole. Basically, it will be a progress report discussing what I have achieved and what I want to achieve and so on. Now that I have explained the series, let's get down to business.
Mass Effect has been taking up the majority of my time lately as I have been working towards all of the achievements for the game. I just recently finished my second playthrough of the game where I picked up the following achievements:
- Asari Ally (finish the majority of the game with Liara)
- Turian Ally (finish majority of the game with Garrus)
- Extreme Power Gamer (level 60)
- Sniper Expert (150 Sniper kills)
- Lift Mastery (Use Lift 75 times)
- Renegade
- Long Service Medal (complete the game twice)
- Distinguished Combat Medal (complete the game on Hardcore)
- Colonial Savior (obtained when finished with the DLC)
I'm now about to start my third and final playthrough of the game where I will be playing through the game on Insanity while working towards the Quarian and Krogan Ally achievements, as well as the many tech achievements that I need. Upon finishing this playthrough the game should be completely finished. I'm pushing 100 hours at the end of my second playthrough so it will be interesting to see how long it does end up taking me.
Another game I have been playing is Battlestar Galactica on the Xbox Live Arcade. I have obtained most of the achievements that I want from the game so now I'm only really working on the one you get for beating Scar. The requirement is to beat him without dying on Medium or Hard difficulty and so far, I have been unsuccessful. It is actually quite hard so I'm not actually sure if I will be able to get it or not just yet but that won't stop me from trying. I have also been slowly playing Team Deathmatch games with a friend to work towards the achievement you get for completing 50 Team Deathmatch games so I should have that soon. One achievement I won't be going for is 5000 kills. That's far too much for an Arcade game I think and I don't think I could play the game for 15 hours or more boosting my kills up until it unlocked.
Last but not least, I'm trying to finish Guitar Hero III's career on the Hard difficulty. I'm actually doing it with the controller (damn chords are a pain in the behind with the controller) so I can also pick up the achievement you get for finishing Hard (or Expert) with it, but as soon as that is done I will start practising Hard using the guitar so that I can finish it with that as well and start 5-starring the songs. Once that is done I will also do the same for Guitar Hero II and then it will be onto Expert...
And that's about it for the moment. Grand Theft Auto IV comes out in a couple of weeks so that game will be added to the list very soon. It will be interesting to see what achievements it has and if it's anything like Crackdown (or indeed the previous GTAs), it will be a game I work on until I get every achievement. I'm fully expecting collectibles to be hidden in Liberty City somewhere and no doubt there will be an achievement for finding them all, so that alone will be quite time consuming. I look forward to it.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Welcome To The Jungle
What is with me and Guns N Roses at the moment? Or perhaps that should be, what's with gaming and the Gunners lately? First we visited Paradise City thanks to the awesome Burnout Paradise and now, personally at least, I'm playing Welcome To The Jungle thanks to my recent purchase of Guitar Hero III.
Yes I have finally jumped on the bandwagon and I'm happy to say that it is good to be here. I have been wanting to play the Guitar Hero games ever since the original released a few years ago and while yes I'm horribly late, I'm thankful that I can finally live out my fantasy of being a rock star. Okay, that last part's not entirely true. The reason I wanted to get my hands on Guitar Hero is because let's face it, it is fun as hell playing some classic and rocking tunes in a video game. I have always been a fan of the music rhythm genre, be it through something like Space Channel 5 (Ulala!) or something small like Boom Boom Rocket. I have always enjoyed the games where you press buttons in time with the music to build up your score among other things. To me, they are simple pick up and play games and I think that is definitely one of the reasons why Guitar Hero is so successful.
Pick up and play accessible gaming, that also poses a challenge to those who like to master their games. Not many games these days have that perfect balance between accessibility and skill mastery, so it is definitely nice to see it in Guitar Hero.
Anyway, I picked up both Guitar Hero II and III for $170 in total, which I thought was quite a decent price. Especially when you consider that JB Hi Fi recently raised their price of GH III alone to $170 after having it on sale for $130.
I have to admit though, I was slightly worried when I first started to play. Why? Well I was finding it hard at first to get used to using the Guitar peripheral that comes with the game. I had played the GH III demo to death using the controller (which also feels weird until you get used to it, I might add) so I thought that using the Guitar would be a breeze. And it is, now at least. The first few songs on the other hand? Not so much. I was missing what were arguably very easy notes to hit and various other stupid little mistakes purely because I was finding it hard to essentially train my fingers into pressing the fret buttons. When using a controller you generally use your thumbs and index fingers, while Guitar Hero requires you to use most of your fingers (if not all in the higher difficulties). It definitely took some getting used to but I am now comfortable enough with it that I can play reasonably consistently.
I have already beaten the easy careers in both games and while that sounds like a very easy thing to do, doing it while getting used to the playing style was certainly harder than I anticipated. I'm now about halfway through the Medium career in GH III and will start GH II's Medium career in the next few days. I keep getting distracted with co-op play though, which I have been playing with Civ every night since I got the two games. He is clearly better than me at the game and he has had a lot more experience than I have (obviously), but even he can't deny that I have improved massively within the 4 or so days that I have been playing. I'm quite proud of it actually, despite it being easy for the experienced GH players who can play on Expert. I aim to also be able to play on Expert eventually as Guitar Hero does seem like a game I can master if I keep at it. Once I get my head around using the Hammer-Ons and Pull-Offs a bit more, I can definitely see me being able to at the very least finish the Hard career.
Random notes after 4am:
- Through The Fire and Flames is nuts! Every one knows this but still, what a crazy song even on easy.
- I still get blown away by Rez every time I fire it up. Such a unique and brilliant game.
- Those blog entries I have in my head that I keep referring to? They are coming. I actually have a notepad file saved now with the random ideas that pop in my head so that I don't forget them so yeah, you will be seeing them in the near future.
- Speaking of entries, I have decided that I will no longer do the 'What Am I Playing?' entries and instead write entries similar to this one. That way if one game is taking up the majority of my time (like GH is at the moment), then I can blog about it while it's fresh on my mind and not when I am trying to balance 2 or more games at once.
- I could have written more about my first week with Guitar Hero, but, I have been watching Firefly lately and another episode is calling me so I'm off to watch it. Brilliant show by the way, sucks that it didn't hang around for long.
Yes I have finally jumped on the bandwagon and I'm happy to say that it is good to be here. I have been wanting to play the Guitar Hero games ever since the original released a few years ago and while yes I'm horribly late, I'm thankful that I can finally live out my fantasy of being a rock star. Okay, that last part's not entirely true. The reason I wanted to get my hands on Guitar Hero is because let's face it, it is fun as hell playing some classic and rocking tunes in a video game. I have always been a fan of the music rhythm genre, be it through something like Space Channel 5 (Ulala!) or something small like Boom Boom Rocket. I have always enjoyed the games where you press buttons in time with the music to build up your score among other things. To me, they are simple pick up and play games and I think that is definitely one of the reasons why Guitar Hero is so successful.
Pick up and play accessible gaming, that also poses a challenge to those who like to master their games. Not many games these days have that perfect balance between accessibility and skill mastery, so it is definitely nice to see it in Guitar Hero.
Anyway, I picked up both Guitar Hero II and III for $170 in total, which I thought was quite a decent price. Especially when you consider that JB Hi Fi recently raised their price of GH III alone to $170 after having it on sale for $130.
I have to admit though, I was slightly worried when I first started to play. Why? Well I was finding it hard at first to get used to using the Guitar peripheral that comes with the game. I had played the GH III demo to death using the controller (which also feels weird until you get used to it, I might add) so I thought that using the Guitar would be a breeze. And it is, now at least. The first few songs on the other hand? Not so much. I was missing what were arguably very easy notes to hit and various other stupid little mistakes purely because I was finding it hard to essentially train my fingers into pressing the fret buttons. When using a controller you generally use your thumbs and index fingers, while Guitar Hero requires you to use most of your fingers (if not all in the higher difficulties). It definitely took some getting used to but I am now comfortable enough with it that I can play reasonably consistently.
I have already beaten the easy careers in both games and while that sounds like a very easy thing to do, doing it while getting used to the playing style was certainly harder than I anticipated. I'm now about halfway through the Medium career in GH III and will start GH II's Medium career in the next few days. I keep getting distracted with co-op play though, which I have been playing with Civ every night since I got the two games. He is clearly better than me at the game and he has had a lot more experience than I have (obviously), but even he can't deny that I have improved massively within the 4 or so days that I have been playing. I'm quite proud of it actually, despite it being easy for the experienced GH players who can play on Expert. I aim to also be able to play on Expert eventually as Guitar Hero does seem like a game I can master if I keep at it. Once I get my head around using the Hammer-Ons and Pull-Offs a bit more, I can definitely see me being able to at the very least finish the Hard career.
Random notes after 4am:
- Through The Fire and Flames is nuts! Every one knows this but still, what a crazy song even on easy.
- I still get blown away by Rez every time I fire it up. Such a unique and brilliant game.
- Those blog entries I have in my head that I keep referring to? They are coming. I actually have a notepad file saved now with the random ideas that pop in my head so that I don't forget them so yeah, you will be seeing them in the near future.
- Speaking of entries, I have decided that I will no longer do the 'What Am I Playing?' entries and instead write entries similar to this one. That way if one game is taking up the majority of my time (like GH is at the moment), then I can blog about it while it's fresh on my mind and not when I am trying to balance 2 or more games at once.
- I could have written more about my first week with Guitar Hero, but, I have been watching Firefly lately and another episode is calling me so I'm off to watch it. Brilliant show by the way, sucks that it didn't hang around for long.
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