I managed to finally, after some wrangling around, get a copy of Guitar Hero 3 for PC. What do I have to report? For one, the XBox 360 controller works perfectly fine with the game - yes, this includes the new GH3 wireless one.

Problems? I’ve finally come to see what all the reviews that complain talk about. The lag. Not really so much the lag, more the unstable frame rate. The game doesn’t actually lag, but the frame rate is unstable. Why? Because the camera moves around so much. When you are at a spot with little bling-bling to render, it plays real smooth (exactly like the console versions). When the camera zooms out, then suddenly the frame rate lowers a little - and your notes start going slightly out of sync.

If the only version you’ve played is the PC version, then there’s a very high likelihood you won’t notice. On my dated computer, it took me a while to actually pinpoint the problem. The frame rate is unstable - and the video lag calibration doesn’t help. When I do a video lag calibration on the PC, I get 40-70ms, of which the correct correction is zero - which points out to me, the frame rate is somehow unstable - even on the calibration screen. When I do a similar calibration on the XBox 360, it will always return me 0ms. (I use a computer monitor as my HD display, so no surprise there.)

And if you’ve played the console version, you’ll find yourself missing some strange notes at different times in random places. That being said, once you get used to it, it’s not really a problem - it still is Guitar Hero. Of course, if you plan on hitting all of those hammer-on sequences in Through the Fire and Flames, then it’s probably time to get a new computer.

The only way I can think of that Aspyr can fix it, is to add an option to fix the viewpoint. Sure, it’ll be boring, but it’ll get rid of the annoying unstable frame rate that can really screw with your eyes.

Since I have no way to be sure whether or not it runs smoothly on a newer far more powerful computer, I’d have to recommend against buying it, and sticking to one of the numerous console versions. If you don’t have a console, then chances are, you shouldn’t be playing Guitar Hero anyway.

For those who have been keeping up with the casual gaming trend, you’ll know that Guitar Hero III is out. I’ve acquired it (thanks to a nice promotion and Big W), and I’ve been playing it over the past week very heavily.

For those who aren’t so familiar, it’s a guitar-sim game where you have this guitar controller and pretend to play a guitar. LOL.

I don’t really have much to say about the game. The new wireless controller is good. It has a good weight to it, a detachable neck and overall solid feel. Since I have the XBox 360 version, I can also say that it works well with the Wireless Gaming Receiver and you can enjoy a good game of Frets on Fire with it. My only real complaint with the controller is that it consumes batteries rather quickly. I’ve had to recharge a pair of batteries every two days, and I play about 5-6 hours every day. The removable faceplate is kinda good, since I can take it off for cleaning (it’s a real fingerprint and dust magnet).

The game itself has gone through some graphics overhaul, with the new Star Power meter, combo counter and of course, being on a powerful console, looks really nice. I like the new art style and the guitar battles - which are plenty of fun.

I’m the most satisfied with the song selection this time round. (I wasn’t too happy with Guitar Hero 2’s song selection.) Plenty of good tracks - and of course, the best part is that a greater amount of the songs are now masters (recordings by the original artist) and those that are covers sound pretty good too.

I don’t know if I’m right, but I have reason to believe that the difficulty for the game has increased by a noticeable amount for every single one of the difficulty levels. I found Easy to be more demanding than it was in the previous games, and the same goes for Medium level note charts. While the 3 buttons and 4 buttons limit is still in place for the two difficulty levels, they have become technically more difficult to play.

I’m certain Hard is harder than it used to be technically - but that might be actually due to the songs themselves - a lot of which are I believe more difficult to play in real life to begin with than some of the earlier songs. I’ve only recently been able to play Hard difficulty songs in Guitar Hero 3 (just today, actually - most of the solos that are made to be trivial in Medium are really difficult in Hard). Why am I sure it’s harder? Because I don’t remember quite so many green-to-red-to-yellow-to-blue-to-orange (and practically in reverse immediately) sequences when I tried playing Hard on previous Guitar Hero instalments. That being said, those probably helped me a lot. Playing on that difficulty level helped considerably with my memory of where my hand was on the fret buttons.

Since I can’t play on the Expert difficulty yet, I won’t comment, but I’m certain it’s gotten more difficult too - which is a good thing.

I won’t bother putting photos for a simple reason - they’re everywhere - no point, especially since this is kinda a late review for the game. I believe this game is currently the best in the series, and you can’t go wrong when it comes to simple fun.

(On another note, the Xbox 360 is making my room really really hot, so I can’t play it for too long, otherwise my room becomes a small dry sauna.)

There’s a lot of noise, and while I did mess with the audio track, putting it on Youtube kind of made it even worse. My microphone is kind of messed up, and in addition to making me sound like I articulate badly, I’m practically mumbling.

I did put it together in like 2 hours - and didn’t bother with noise removal and such, and I have no intention of redoing it, so here’s a link to my original script - to hopefully help you make out the horrible YouTube video and audio. I’ll probably redo the review in proper text form when I’m free.

short_script.txt

If you can’t understand what I’m saying, don’t worry - I don’t either.

Here’s my bashing of Final Fantasy XII. (Note the lack of the very important word, review. My bashing is based purely on the first six hours of so of the game. )

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I have quite the extreme hate for Final Fantasy XII. Why the extreme hate you ask? That’s because I believe it is quite possibly the worst Final Fantasy I have ever played, and the only Final Fantasy so far that I have been unable to finish due to my gripes with it.

For one, the storyline sucks. It’s weak and is a far cry from many RPGs. It doesn’t take a genius to tell you what happens. From the first 5 hours, we can tell that chances are Ashe will be reinstated (after the world’s longest journey to retrieve proof of her birthright), Larsa will become Emperor, Vayne will fight some stupid war for some stupid purpose (probably after accelerating the death of the emperor somewhat or the emperor just dies naturally) like world conquest, our dear Vaan will get his own airship, bla bla bla.

Next on the list, the music is hardly nice to listen to. I don’t know about you, but it becomes just about as annoying as the game itself within just 5 hours. In fact, I’ve learnt to block out the music while playing within just 5 hours, so I can’t even hum it. But I’ll be honest, I’ve never liked Hitoshi Sakamoto’s music much. It’s just not up to par in my opinion.

Another gripe I have is with the dungeons. I highly dislike dungeons that look like pieces copied and pasted to form a larger dungeon. Yes, you see these in the first 5 hours of gameplay. I kid you not. First, we have the sewers of Rabanastre. I have never been so desperate to get out of a dungeon out of TEDIOUSNESS, REPETITION and BOREDOM before. And guess what? They repeat it later in some something-Yensa desert where they string together long series of rings with walkways. Yes, they look the same. No, there’s no way besides the map to tell where the bloody hell you are.

That brings me to my next point - overly long and ridiculous names. Rabanastre, Archadia, Ivalice and passable, when you start passing off terms like Urutan-Yensa, manufacted Nethicite, Dynast-King, to support your ALREADY weak storyline. I don’t even know if it was to create interest in the weak storyline that they used such pointless words. That is IN ADDITION to using the words Magick and Technick.

I would find fault with the battle system, but I now understand why people can play the game as it is. Without the gambit system, I’d say FF12 would be doomed. In fact, I think the only reason FF12 is any good is because it’s battle system is a redeeming feature. But, you have to go without it for a good two hours, I think, because you can’t set up gambits until then. And those two hours - are pure torture. Why? You can move around, but you can’t swing your sword with a button press. You’ve gotta wait for the meter to fill up. And how often do you do this? Every time you meet a monster. How often to you meet monsters in your first 2 hours you think? I’d say about every 30 seconds when you’re out in the desert.

With it’s weak storyline and uninspired (and long-winded) dungeons, they might as well call it Final Fantasy Dungeon Crawling (60 hours of dungeon crawling guaranteed!). Which I think probably isn’t too far away, considering how busy Square Enix is milking its cash cows these days. Final Fantasy XII easily has the worst first hour of gameplay of most games. They toss you large amounts of storyline with plenty of words, you start playing as the main character’s brother, and chance upon what must be the ONLY plot twist in the entire damn storyline. I’m sorry, I’m not gonna play what is essentially Final Fantasy Dungeon Crawling with Scriptable Party AI.

Now if you would excuse me, I have .hack//G.U. Vol. 2 to finish.