Guitar Hero 4

There are many improvements in Guitar Hero World Tour. I found the missing excitement. Surprisingly.

Two years ago, Guitar Hero 2 introduced a new entertaining world to me. It reshaped my impression of video games. I was not a gamer at that time. Yet, the excitement transformed me. I could stay up late just for it. For what I would sacrifice my sleep? Not for many things. Guitar Hero 2 has given me many good memories. One year ago, when I knew Guitar Hero 3 was coming, I was so eager to try it. But this game did not give me the same excitement as its previous version did. Guitar Hero 3 was more like an incomplete work. It misses some touches that are essential to video game successes. I could not retain my interest in it. Rock Band's drums took the chance and my mind since then has been engaged in the Rock Band drums. I think I was looking forward to seeing some improvements in the guitar part in Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band. Yet, neither Rock Band nor Guitar Hero advances or improves the guitar part in a major manner.

When someone told me Guitar Hero 4 and Rock Band 2 were coming, I was just casually nod my head to show the acknowledgement. I was not that enthusiastic any more. Because I did not expect to see any great excitement. For some reasons this attitude is excellent. I was amazed by Rock Band 2 last Sunday. And two days ago, Guitar Hero World Tour did the same thing to me. I saw something that has been absent for a while. I found the excitement. In guitar. And beyond my expectation, the drum parts in the new Guitar Hero are very fun. Perhaps not designed in the same way as in Rock Band. It provides another perspective. I am super happy.

Activision announces a new Guitar Hero

Activision is hot these days due to Guitar Hero and Call of Duty. It just annouced that a new Guitar Hero will be released in the future. Not only that, this new version will be delicated to one of my favorite bands: Aerosmith. To celebrate this good news, fans of Guitar Hero can download free Aerosmith songs online. This celebration will be only valid for three days - Feb 16 to Feb 18. So, plug your cable into X box, PS, and Wii.

Guitar Hero 2 - Freebird

Band: Lynrd Skynrd

My all time favorite. I post this in memory of yesterday, the day Totof passed Freebird in expert. I don't have the picture to show his success. So, I went to YouTube to find a similar match.

The best gadget in Consumer Electronics Show - IV

Imagine you can rock your songs any time, any where. How awesome does it sound? I am a Rock Band and Guitar Hero fan (you can tell from my posts). In the video games, you can buy air guitar for your characters. But, you physically have a guitar when you play the game. If I can have an air guitar, then I can rock like a star whenever I want to have some fun.

Source: Consumer Electronics Show

Guitar Hero 3 - Cities on Flame with Rock n Roll

Band: Blue Öyster Cult

The hammer-ons and pull-offs parts are quite fun in this song. This song is also a good choice in Co-op. If you have Guitar Hero 3 and have not tried this song. Don't miss it.

Rock Band - Welcome Home

Band: Coheed and Cambria

This song has quite a variety. I came across this song when my band came to London. (my hometown is San Francisco) I did not know Coheed and Cambria. I did not know this song either. I tried it. And, I liked it. The music was the kind used for movie themes (the war movie).

Another use for this song is for study. It is a good background music for biology.

This clip is from YouTube. Someone has five golden stars. Amazing.

Rock Band - Green Grass and High Tides (cont.)

This song is in Stockholm for my band

Why did I need to be so insistent in passing this song? I had no choices. In Rock Band solo mode, if you do not finish all the songs in one city, you cannot move on to other cities.

I saw Green Grass and High Tides in my play list when I was in Stockholm. Suddenly some memory came back. Once when we had an October night at Totof's place, we came across this song. This song totally killed all of us. All instruments were insane. Many climax parts for sure. This song was strenuous. All band members needed to concentrate on notes with 100% attention. You can tell how tiring and exhausting this song can be.

The wost part came when your band stuck in this song. It happened to us. We tried at least 5 times. Each attempt we managed to get some progress. We tried different strategies. But, not enough to foster the band go all over the song. So, you can tell how intimidating Green Grass and High Tides to me.

Also, you can tell how proud I was when I passed the song.

Rock Band - Green Grass and High Tides

Band: Outlaws

Yesterday I was stuck in this song. I played solo drum. This song is insanely long. With various sections. With quite a variety. The first 5 min part was fine. After that, the song suddenly became so hard. I needed to drum fast but orderly. Wow. The song killed me.

My first attempt was finished in 65%. I was exhausted even though just the half way through the song. I rested and tried again. Second time went to 81%. Then third try went to 91%. I was so confident.

I was too tired to concentrate on quick drumming. The following attempts I did not do them well. They finished before 88%. I decided to change my attention. I relaxed myself with some bonus songs. Bonus songs were easy like a piece of cake compared to Green Grass and High Tides. Green Grass and High Tides was such an evil song.

After dinner, I tried Highway Star first with quick play mode. It went well. I got myself some confidence back. I went to solo mode and chose the evil song - Green Grass and High Tides. After 10 min extreme concentration, I passed it. Felt so good.

I found something from YouTube. At least you can see how crazy this song is.

The Legend of Zelda - Isle of Ember & Temple of Fire

A meet with the oracle and the fight in Fire dungeon

From the previous post, I talked about Lineback. Lineback looked different from what I expected. Lineback did not look like a captain. Lineback looked like an alcoholic (he has such dark eye circles). Lineback was reluctant to join me to save Tetra. At a sudden, the Grand Pa appeared (how could he be so fast?) After some reasoning, Lineback agreed to help. We boarded our boat and took off.

The sailing on the ocean was easy to manage. I could look up, down, left, and right. I could change route any time I wanted to. I could jump. Lineback and I went to the oracle island (where the oracle was). We landed. I saw monsters and slayed them. As usual, only myself went on the island. Lineback stayed with the boat. I arrived at the oracle's house but did not find her in the first floor. I went to the basement and suddenly heard her voice. She confined herself in a small room in order to prevent monsters from attacking her. So, my first big task was to defeat these ugly looking monsters. I managed to do so but the oracle did not go out at this time. She wanted me to take a look at the chart on the wall. She said if I could mark three torches in right locations then the door would open and she could go out. The oracle opened a gate on the east part of the island so that I could enter the dungeon (the Temple of Fire). To find the locations, she told me to see Karl. He was the apprentice of the oracle.

I wandered and entered to another house. I saw a note from Karl. It seemed like he was killed or captured (did not know at that time). I took off to the east side of the island. This island was filled with monsters. Some monsters were small and easy to kill. I was happy to slay them to get some treasure or energy. Other monsters like spiders moved quickly and were hard to defeat. I sometimes lost some energy during the fight. I accidentally went to the remote island on the east part. I saw a ghost. It was Karl. He was killed. He told me some secrets about the torches. I thanked him and departed to find a torch.

Time to adventure. I went to the Temple of Fire. Not easy to go there since so many monsters and fire lava drops here and there. I was stuck around the entrance. A tablet said "to enter I need to blow off the candles". But how? I leave this pleasure to you.

The Temple of Fire was filled with fires. I could have been flamed if I did not pay attentions on my steps. I knew there must be some treasures in this dungeon. The question was how to find them. The design of Zelda was sophisticated. You need to look around and don't overlook your surroundings. Sometimes, the prize of the overlook was a power gem, wisdom gem, or energy gem. These gems were precious. But at the time in Temple of Fire I did not know these gems' purposes.

I circled around to ensure I got every treasure. The adventure was linear which meant if I missed a thing previously I would have a trouble getting through the rest of the adventure. So I would know I needed to go back to previous place (room or floor). The adventure was fun. The fighting was done with stylus (wonderful). At that time I had not acquired any Zelda tools (you will see them). I only had my sword and shield. My energy level at that time was only 4 hearts which meant I could die quite fast if I was negligent.
The dungeon took me some days. The adventure was entertaining. My little fairy always gave me reminder or suggestion at the right time. I gradually got used to this linear type adventure. I got the famous boomerang from a treasure box (see the photo). In the last stage of the adventure I needed to get a boss key. With this boss key, I could go to the boss floor where the mean boss monster resided. Boss key took me some time to acquire. The most difficult part was fighting with the boss. Unlike other monsters, the boss required special skills to defeat. The defeat was not going to happen at one shot. The defeat incorporated boomerang. (good design) The fight was breathtaking.

Accidental Power Grid night

A hearty meal is perfect for a game night

Last Friday, some friends and I had dinner at Tofu House. 7 people could not be fit to a small table. So the waiters kept us waiting for at least 30 min just for a big table. We wondered why? Since the waiters could have put two small tables (one small table has four seats) to solve the issue. It did not make sense for Tofu House to come to this decision.

Warm tofu soup tasted so good in cold weather. These days the bay area turns cold pretty fast. The temperature gap between noon and night (or early morning) becomes bigger. A hearty meal was a good idea for the winter time (almost winter time). We 7 people were quite noisy. Fun conversations were here and there. I had not seen Chun-Chun and John for ages. It was nice to see them. Chun-Chun was having some eye issues. Hope she will be fine soon.

Darren and Sophy brought a friend. The friend turned out being my junior in Elementary school (he was John's junior as well). I was happy to meet Fu-Shing people in the States. Janice was always a lovely conversation starter. We had a good 2 and a half hours meal time. After the dinner, 4 people came to my apartment for a game. Solomon called during the dinner time to apologize for missing the dinner. He was tied down by the work but he would join us directly for the game.

Sophy, Darren, and his friend were thinking to play the Settlers. When we were assembling tiles, we realized some tiles were missing. Maybe Totof put some tiles in the Cities and Knights box. So, we opened the Power Grid box and I started to explain the rules. We chose France map since it looked easy. (would it be really easy? you will see) At this time, Solomon had not showed up. So, we took time to explain the rules. If you want to know more on the rules, please see this post. Everyone was smart, so it just took me 10 min to go over the rules (my guests picked up the rules fast, proud of them).

Darren and Sophy were experienced. I recall Darren brought a black hurricane last time when we played United States map. This time, Darren picked up the black color again. It seemed like black was his color. After 10 min, Solomon showed up. He had not eaten yet. So he was sitting at the same table watching us play and eating his dinner. I could tell he wanted to try the game. So I offered him my seat after his meal. He picked up the knowledge fast. Power Grid was fun when the pace was not too slow. If a player played too slowly (by considering the consequences too long at a turn), the fun of the game would get cut dramatically. But, it was hard to balance the pace especially some beginners were involved. I saw my guests' learning curves. My guests were trying different strategies. Bidding part was easy to catch up. Deploying part was ok to catch up fast. But the budgeting part was sophisticated. The beauty of Power Grid was about budgeting and balancing your in and out capital. You learned practical strategies as the game moved on.

During the game, I saw my guests slowed down in order not to reach step 2. I saw Darren's friend and Sophy switched to clean energy power plants. I saw Solomon and Sophy competed for high efficiency power plants. This time the game played conservatively. The rival did not get bloody. In the game, everyone seemed to have a promising future. Hard to predict the winner. In the end, Sophy got the trophy. It was an impressive turnout. She planned well since step 2 from an observer's point of view. She told everyone the victory was a luck thing. Sophy was modest.

This time, we tried to control the play time. So, we ended the game around 12:40 am. A three hour game. Not bad.

3's and 7's

Compare Rock Band side by side with Guitar Hero 3

You see the merits of each game right away from this demo. Don't know if it is fair to give out any comments. At least, the target of Rock Band differs from that of Guitar Hero 3.

Band: Queens of the Stone Age

Rock Band Trailer with Deep Purple's Highway Star

For those who have not seen Rock Band's intro

For me, a game intro is important. The intro shows the spirit of the game. So, I like to spend some time on appreciating a game's intro. We got both Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band recently. As far as I can say, Rock Band's intro is more aesthetic. I attached Rock Band's intro here. Take a look at it. It is an animation. Isn't it cool?

October night

Saturday night was a Rock Band night

Rock Band is more fun when you have a team (a band).
Four people were in the band: Antoine, Alex, and us. We rotated roles so that everyone could be the guitarist, the drummer, the vocalist, or the bassist. At the beginning stage, we did not try the world tour. We were warming ourselves up by the local match. I played the drum since neither Antoine nor Alex had the experience before. I was so glad to show them drums. After two songs, I asked them if anyone wanted to try drums. Everyone gave me a positive answer. Indeed, the drumming part looked challengingly fun.

Alex played the drums after me. He asked me if I could suggest some easy songs. I said "try Bon Jovi's Wanted dead or alive". The drumming part in this song is entertaining. Also, it helps you get familiar with the foot petal. (I think the foot part requires skills) If you want to know how this song looks like, try my previous post. After 30 min, someone said "How about try the world tour?" Great idea. So we went to the world tour mode. Antoine and Alex created their own characters. Alex created a drummer called "Gordon". Gordon looked so manly. (White shirt with big muscles) Antoine created a guitarist called Melissa. Melissa has long hair and petite figure. Melissa looked cute and sexy (with mini skirt and stocking). If you put Melissa and my figure, Ana, together, you will feel like you see a twin.
We had four members. The largest band for October ever (our band is called October).

We tried London first (our home town is San Francisco). There are three venues in London. We picked the first venue. This venue was not easy. But we made it. Then, we switched to the second venue. We tried Aerosmith's "Train Kept a Rollin". Apparently it was not a good idea. This song was too hard for first time drummer. We failed and lost fans. But, this failure did not stop October. We moved to our home town and rocked them all. Alex sang Garbage's "I think I am paranoid". This was fun since the song was not for guys. So we heard Alex tried hard to mimic Garbage's female voice. How nice. He also tried the Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go". Entertaining. Antoine sang Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" (see my post for the music). Classic. Totof sang Foo Fighters' "Learn to Fly". He failed once and he tried to find some excuses so that no one could make fun of him on this.

We continued to try many nice songs. For instance, the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" and R.E.M.'s "Orange Crush". We liked Radiohead's "Creep" and Hole's "Celebrity Skin" (see my post). Faith no more's "Epic" was a hard one but we succeeded. The Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" and Nirvana's "In Bloom" were fun. Metallica's "Enter Sandman" was insanely hard (see my post and you will know why). We tried several times and lost tons of fans. But still efforts went to void. We then encountered another tough song - Boston's "Foreplay/Long Time". This time we managed to finish it thanks to the teamwork. The hives' "Main Offender" gave us a nice break. The Killers' "When You Were Young" relaxed us. OK GO's "Here It Goes Again" was fun. The Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop" was unexpectedly good. Of course we did not miss the chance of performing the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" and Deep Purple's "Highway Star" (see my post). The most frustrating song would be "Green Grass or High Tides". I forgot who the band was. The whole song was so painful. We tried at least five times with different tricks. But none of the tricks worked. We lost a lot of fans. Just doomed ourselves. At that point, all of us were tired. We had kept playing for more than 4 hours. So, we decided to let the band take a big break. October will come back with the same members in a week.

Rock Band - Enter Sandman

Band: Metallica

These people are crazily good. Saturday night we tried this song (Guitar: Totof, Bass: Antoine, Drum: me). We did not pass this song. This song was insane. What can you expect from Metallica?



Compared this song to Metallica's another hit - One, which one you like better?

We got Rock Band

Super excited

Yesterday was Rock Band launch day. Totof went to Best Buy and got one home. I could not wait. We opened boxes after boxes to get all elements out. The packaging was quite sophisticated. By all means manufacturing requires good amount of knowledge. We removed all protections and assembled elements with extreme care. The bass was not hard to be assembled. But the drums were not easy at all. Parts were all over. We took the instruction and put elements in order. We followed the instruction and connected the drums to X box 360. But somehow, the drums did not get connected. We tried to do trouble shootings by ourselves. It turned out the USB hub came with the Rock Band package needed to be charged. After 10 min, everything was ready. We put the disk inside and wow. We were all standing up to appreciate the introduction of Rock Band. The intro and the menu and the background were aesthetic. Absolutely prettier than Guitar Hero. (Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero = 1:0)

In Rock Band, you can create your own characters. A similar way to Wii. Quite fun. (Rock band vs. Guitar Hero = 2:0) Just one thing to complain. The name entry part is not intuitive and not easy-of-use. Totof, myself, and Fabien created our own characters. We all looked cool.

Good thing is that the Guitar Hero guitars are compatible in Rock Band. We got our instruments and started our worldwide tour: Totof played guitar, myself played drums, and Fabien played bass. We chose San Francisco as our hometown. We started our tour from a small pub. We were thrilled to know we got fans and gigs after our performance. So, here is a major difference between Guitar Hero and Rock Band. In Guitar Hero, you perform and gain money and advance your band. In Rock Band, you perform and gain three things depending on your performance: money, fans, and gigs. It was entertaining to see the number of fans increased. (Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero = 3:0)

The drums were not easy to perform. We spent some time to understand the coordination. We should have consulted the manual but we did not. We realized the orange horizontal line was for the foot part after several songs (we failed many times). Rock Band is totally about team work. If a member fails, other members need to save him/her by using star power. Every member has three chances to fail. If a member is permanently failed, then the team will be in danger. The team will fail quite soon. It is like reality. Your band cannot survive if the drum or the guitar member fails her/his duty. Your fans will get annoyed or upset.

Another difference is that if you give up trying a song in Rock Band, you will get penalty by losing some numbers of fans (oh, no). It hurt when we abandoned a song.

We also tried the vocal part. I can tell you Rock Band will bring us tons of fun.

Guitar Hero 3 - Even Flow

Pearl Jam's Even Flow

The more I play this song, the more I appreciate it. I did not know Pearl Jam until I came across their song in Guitar Hero 2. On Guitar Hero 3 song list, I recognized this name right away. Even flow is a good song. Very Guitar Hero. If you are a Guitar Hero fan, don't miss to try it out whenever you can. You will say to yourself "I was thinking to do something else. Luckily I did not"

The Legend of Zelda - Mercay island

The first adventure in Phantom Hourglass

Mercay island was where your character was saved. I would use "you" instead of "your character" in the rest of the post.

You were awaken by a white little spirit. She told you to meet the Grand Pa. You used the stylus to move yourself around. You crossed a bridge and saw a house. You entered and saw the Grand Pa. He looked kind and wise. He told you to go to the harbor on the other side of the island to meet a guy called Lineback. You left the house and realized the bridge between the west side and the east side of the island was broken by the earthquake. You did not have the choice. You needed to go to the north part where many monsters presented.

You went there with bare hand. Of course you got yourself killed by the monsters. After a revival, the spirit told you that you should get a sword. (shouldn't she told you earlier?) You followed her suggestion to visit the Grand Pa. He told you to get a sword from a cave next to his house. The sword control was a piece of cake. You became a sword expert in a second. You revisited the north part and defeated all monsters swiftly. You saw an Oing-boing and got a hint stating that a tree on the north side of Mercay would return a treasure. (Oing-boing is a device that is meant to tell you info in Zelda) You entered a cave with scary background music. You knew something must be waiting for you. You explored the cave, and slayed some other monsters. You got through the cave exercise and arrived at a harbor. Lineback was not there. You went to a bar and the bartender told you Lineback went to the Temple of Ocean King.

Then, you went to the north part of Mercay. Before you left, a guy you bumped into told you many scary monsters were on the north side. You prepared yourself and took off. After some time, you arrived the Temple of Ocean King.

Stay tuned

Rock Band - Welcome to the Jungle

Band: Guns N' Roses
Name: Welcome to the Jungle

This song was chosen by both Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band. So, people can see feature and design difference between these two hot games through this Guns N' Roses song. You can have some basic understanding from my previous post on Rock Band. Throught the attached clip, you saw four tracks: three on the bottom and one on the top. The bottom three were for Guitar, Drum, and Bass. The top one was for singing.



The clip will be replaced by another better image quality one if there is any on YouTube.

Rock Band

Another highly anticipated game

Fame sometimes ruins the collaboration. The success of Guitar Hero 2 destroyed the team. Harmonix and RedOctane split. The fights between these two former partners got heated. RedOctane announced to launch Guitar Hero 3 in late October and Harmonix said Rock Band would be released in November.

Good for gamers. It meant there would be two high quality video games on the market soon. Excited.

Totof and I went to Best Buy last week and accidentally saw Rock Band's demo. Wow. It looked super cool. The design was quite aesthetic. We alternated with other customers to try different controllers. Basically, Rock Band had three main controllers: Guitar, Bass, and Drum. You could sing in Rock Band. Since we did not try it, I did not know how the microphone functioned in Rock Band.

We were glad to find out the Guitar Hero guitars were compatible in Rock Band. The Bass looked cool. It had 10 buttons instead of 5 buttons in Guitar Hero. The Drum was crazily difficult but super fun. Go to try Rock Band. It will surely delight you.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Phantom Hourglass is designed for Nintendo DS users

The ease-of-use features of this version attracts me a lot. I am not a shooting game or fighting game fan. So, when Totof told me he was going to get this game, I was not enthusiastic. But, after some trials, it turned out I did not have much difficulty in getting used to Stylus control mechanism. Most importantly, this game was filled with fun.

At the beginning, you thought your ultimate goal was to rescue the princess (Tetra) from the Ghost Ship capture. You were wrong. The game was full of layers. The Tetra part was just one of the touch. I listed all layers here.

1. Intro

You can go back to see my first Zelda post.

2. Mercay Island

Mercay Island was where you were saved. You saw a spirit in front of you. The fun began.

3. Temple of the Ocean King

4. Sea chart (finding uncharted islands and treasure)

5. Isle of Ember

6. Temple of Fire

7. Temple of the Ocean King revisit

8. Cannon Island

9. Molida Island

10. Isle of Gust

11. Temple of Wind

12. Temple of the Ocean King revisit

13. Cannon Island for the Salvage Arm

14. Molida Island

15. Temple of Courage

16. The Ghost Ship

17. Zauz's Island

18. Temple of the Ocean King revisit

19. Goron Island

20. Goron Temple

21. Isle of Frost

22. Temple of Ice

23. Temple of the Ocean King revisit

24. Sea Chart

25. Isle of the Dead

26. Isle of Ruins

27. Mutoh's Temple

28. Zauz's Island revisit

29. Temple of the Ocean King revisit