The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer
Crap, now I have to rebuy it and two controllers.
Yo, Jason, if you’re listening- can you guys figure out why the new controllers trigger Star Power off of a light breeze? For those of us forced to cheese our way through the hardest solos, it makes beating the game pretty much impossible.
All of you can stop sending me the story about the Major League Baseball player who was rocking too hard playing Guitar Hero, and got tendonitis. Here it is.
I’ll note that my wife also got tendonitis, a mere three days after GHII’s launch. She’s suspicious about causality, but I don’t think she was rocking sufficiently hard enough.
Wall Street Journal, of all places, has a pretty good story about real-life rock stars who are addicted to Guitar Hero. This amuses me. Guitar Hero is the greatest game ever, because it is so good at wish fulfillment – no other game in history captures the feeling that you’re living your fantasy. So what does it say when real life rock stars find that fantasy so compelling? (Reading the article, what it says is that ‘drummers wish they could be attention-whoring guitarists)
Anyway, amusing Friday quote from the article:
Michael Einziger, the 30-year-old guitarist for the hard-rock band Incubus, says he was “shocked at how hard it was” to play the videogame’s version of his song “Stellar.” He admits he was handily beaten by his then-14-year-old sister, Ruby Aldridge, when the two of them squared off earlier this year. “It doesn’t have anything to do with playing guitar,” Mr. Einziger says. “It’s all rhythmic.”
Sara and I spent the evening watching the election results. Right now, the Senate is tied 49-49 with two votes to go. That’s close enough to guaruntee at least gridlock. Good enough me.
We also spent time playing the new Guitar Hero II. Yeah, yeah, I couldn’t wait. First impressions is that … some of the song covers are really bad. In particular, the songs with distinctive lead singers really were jarring: Rage Against the Machine is the worst, with Nirvana, Aerosmith, and Alice in Chains all coming out pretty bad as well. I really don’t remember having this reaction to the first one.
Still having a blast, though. More to come.
See, here the message is how microtransactions provide better and more gameplay to the customer.
Guitar Hero II is going to be rocking a new stage! RedOctane announced today that the Guitar Hero crew will bring their award-winning tour to the Xbox 360 “The tour will continue the rockin’ gameplay Guitar Hero fans have come to enjoy, and will now include expanded Xbox 360 capabilities,” said Kai Huang, president of RedOctane. “With Guitar Hero II for Xbox 360 rock rhythm, lead, or bass guitar tracks with downloadable content and the new X-Plorer controller, designed specifically for the Xbox 360.”
Everyone knows what a Guitar Hero advocate I am. I’ve been so much of an advocate of the game here on my blog that… well, that *I* think I should have gotten a copy of their beta.
At any rate, Harmonix’ hard work has paid off – they’ve sold the company for $175 Million dollars to MTV. Congratulations to everyone over there. It’s great to see a little company triumph based on good design, innovative implementation and truth to their core vision.
Forgive yet another Guitar Hero story: A Friend of Zen sent in this link to me: Freetar, a freeware (open-source?) Guitar Hero project in development, complete with an editor allowing you to mark up your own songs.
So, is this the coolest open-source app ever or is it stealing bread from the mouths of Harmonix? I got a ton of email from my last Guitar Hero update, most complaining that they too had to buy second controllers because the original controller becomes defective in a stiff breeze. That being the case, I suspect that most people will feel it makes things about even.
So every now and then, I have a few people over to my place for gaming, drinking and various shenanigans. I try to do it every month or so, and lately, Guitar Hero’s been the big hit. The problem is, my guitar controller’s been kinda finicky lately. It occasionally thinks it’s disconnected when it’s not, and the only solution seems to be random jiggling, which while fun when involving hot women on trampolines, is somewhat distracting when one is in the process of appeasing the rock gods. Continue reading
Here’s the real measure of the success of Guitar Hero – bands have started giving Harmonix the real tracks to make the game from (previously, Harmonix used soundalike cover bands). From, of all people, Wil Wheaton:
Well, it turns out that Les Claypool, bass player and lead singer for Primus, is a huge Guitar Hero fan. When he found out they were doing Guitar Hero 2, he gave the team permission to include Primus’ first single John the Fisherman in the game. He also gave them the master tracks as recorded for their album Fizzle Fry, so when you play John the Fisherman in Guitar Hero 2, you’ll be playing along with Les, Larry “Ler” Lamond, and Tim “Herb” Alexander, just like you were with them in the studio in 1989.
Coooool.
These are the things that make Mondays tolerable: RedOctane says we could be seeing ‘five or six’ titles by mid-07.
“We are working on Guitar Hero 2, which will have 40-plus new tracks,” Sumner told MCV. He also confirmed that genre spin-offs including Country Rock for the US and a Metal edition are on the cards. He even pointed to further possibilities for the peripheral, adding, “you could absolutely do a plug and play version”.
Clearly, I can go on living now.
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