Guitar Hero Update

It’s been a while since I posted about Guitar Hero. In fact, it’s been a while since I posted at all. Therefore, I feel it is appropriate to take a moment to brag about how my skills have improved. The last time I posted about Guitar Hero, I was talking about how I got 5 stars on “Number of the Beast” on Expert. This was, in fact, a big deal to me at the time, as it was extremely hard for me to do. Since then, I have gotten over 500,000 points on that very same song. I have also achieved 5 stars on all Guitar Hero 3 Career Mode songs, and also gotten the achievement for scoring 200k on “Cult of Personality” without using Star Power.

I have purchased and played through Guitar Hero: World Tour. I enjoyed the enhanced gameplay, especially the feature that allows notes to be played while a sustain is continuously held. The slider notes are great as well, as I’m a fan of the Hammer-ons and Pull-offs, and slider notes take that one step further, getting rid of strumming altogether :) World Tour fails, however, to amp up the difficulty until the last couple sets of songs. The only one I have yet to beat is “Satch Boogie,” thanks to its section of extremely fast slider notes. I have also yet to achieve 5 stars on “Trapped in Ice” by Metallica. The other songs, however, I found easy to master. I do appreciate the track list, especially “Hotel California,” a song I had not heard before playing it, but now greatly enjoy.

I bought Guitar Hero: Smash Hits last Wednesday and beat it on Thursday. I beat “Through the Fire and the Flames” for the first time on Thursday, and achieved 4 stars on Friday. Today, I achieved 5 stars on “Psychobilly Freakout,” and 5 stars on “Play With Me.” Now, I am only two stars short of a 5star full game, having 238/240 stars. The ones I’m missing are one from “Raining Blood” and of course, one from “Through the Fire and the Flames.” These are all on the Expert difficulty.

I loved Smash Hits, because it has many songs from the original Guitar Hero, which is not available for the Xbox 360, and I’ve never played it. The re-frets of the GH2 songs are excellent as well. Guitar Hero: Smash hits adds the function of seeing your progress on how many stars you’ve while you’re still playing the song, much like Rock Band does.

ZOMG! OMGOMGOMGYES! 5 STARS ON NOTB!

That’s right! I JUST got 5 stars on Number of the Beast on EXPERT! I got 395,191 points and 95% of the notes! Today I had been busting some of my high scores on songs like “Cult of Personality,” “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” and “The Metal.” While I was on a “roll” I figured I should try NOTB. On my first try, I busted my old high score by about 20,000 points (I got 359,939 points) but still only had 4 stars. I tried it again and was doing GREAT but my dad interrupted me towards the end and I screwed up. I guess third time’s the charm because I nailed it on that third try. I freaked out and forced my brother to come and witness the score so my friends couldn’t tell me I cheated or let someone else beat it :P Now I only have one more song to go (Raining Blood) until I have gotten 5 stars on every Expert career song.

GH: World Tour

I haven’t gotten to play World Tour much, but I like what I see. My friend got GH:WT for Christmas, but only has the Guitar, so I stopped by his house to play it for about an hour. They’ve got a [i]big[/i] selection of songs to play and all of them are great. The slide bar is hard to master and I haven’t gotten the hang of it. I like the new feature where sometimes there is a sustained note with other notes you have to play while keeping the first sustained, as well as the fact that GH followed Rock Band with the ability to gain Star Power while you already have Star Power activated. Expert has moved up a notch on many songs, thanks to the addition of the slidebar, and I think it will be quite a while before a large majority of players have very many 5 star performances on the harder songs! I can’t wait to play it more and would love to try out the drum set.

Guitar Hero: On Tour

The latest installment in the Guitar Hero series has gone portable. Guitar Hero: On Tour is for the Nintendo DS, and consists of a DS cartridge, a guitar grip that plugs into the Gameboy Advance slot, a pick-stylus, two sheets of stickers, and an adapter for the original DS. The guitar grip has 4 buttons, green, red, yellow, and blue, but that doesn’t mean Hard and Expert difficulties will be a breeze. They throw in plenty of chords, and it’s hard to strum accurately at fast speeds, since there’s no actual strum bar. Instead, players strum by moving the pick-stylus across the touch screen. Star Power is achieved in the same way as previous Guitar Hero games, but to activate it, you need to yell or blow into the microphone, or press one of the buttons on the DS. Every song in Career mode is also available in “Guitar Duel” mode. This is similar to Guitar Battles, but you can only activate 1 attack at a time, and you can choose which one by tapping it on the screen. There are various battle items, most which damage your opponent, but a couple (The “shield” and the “difficulty down” items) assist you directly. Overall, the gameplay is pretty fun, though of course it’s nothing compared to the actual console games, but for a portable, it’s quite decent. Activision has already announced a sequel, Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades. Not much has been said about it, but the title hints that the music will span several decades, and Activision has said that players can “sample” On Tour Decades songs with their original On Tour if a friend has the sequel.

Crankin it up on Hard: Guitar Hero II

I recently got GH2 for the X-Box 360. I breezed through Expert, finishing up the career with 5 stars on 31/48 songs. I went through on Hard, and I got 5 stars on all the career mode songs (Though it took me about 7 tries to get 5 stars on Psychobilly Freakout. I’m not working on Easy and Medium, getting 100% Gold Star rating on all of the songs, then I’ll return to Expert to attempt getting as many 5 star ratings as possible (I want to unlock that log guitar!). I heard from a friend that a Guitar Hero player is considered “Pro” when he can get a 5 star rating on over half of the songs on Expert, and since 31 is definately more than half (24), I guess I’m pro… Lol. However, I can’t confirm that as a fact, although it makes sense to me. Anyways, I’ll continue honing my skills and hopefully, I’ll one day master the only song on GH2 that I can’t beat on Expert…: Jordan!

Practicing TTFATF

I’ve been practicing Through the Fire and the Flames on Expert lately on GHIII on my X-Box 360. I’m still having alot of trouble getting the intro nailed down, my fingers just can’t seem to move fast enough. Once, I taped down the green button and made it through the intro only to fail 89% of the way through the song… <.< I know the tape is cheating but I’d like to be able to complete it at least once :P