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- Guitar Hero 3: A Comedy Of Errors
- Posted 9 months, 2 weeks ago by SoulScreme
[Re-posted from my presonal blog, mashedbuttons.com]
I got Guitar Hero 3 pretty soon after release and must say that so far their online stuff has been epic fail. The base offline gameplay is fantastic. The songs are fun and varied and it's very challenging. However, Activision is really dropping the ball on the online front and not communicating when this will change to the user base. For those who don't follow the game, I'll cover some of the big points.
- No DLC for Wii. I don't know if this is Nintendo's fault or Activision's, but the Wii players on the GH forums are pissed. If it is Nintendo's fault, Activision should speak up.
- Boss battles songs. So, the first two boss battles just have cool jam sessions that aren't that interesting outside of the battle. However, the third has an amazing remake of Devel Went Down To Georgia. Out of the box these songs were not playable outside of the career mode. Activision announced they would be added as DLC. They were, to the 360 version. It's bad enough that not everybody gets DLC, but to make PS3 users wait is silly. Especially since he first two packs were simultaneously released on PS3 and 360 and the boss battle pack was announced at that time. Thanks Activision.
- Online play. Basically, it's broken. Tons of users can't connected to games. It's not isolated to one console either. All of the consoles are experiencing the same issues and Activision hasn't said a word about fixing it.
- Co-op Quickplay Online. Well, most people can't play online. Which sucks. But it particularly sucks since co-op quickplay is not available offline. Activision has said that a patch is in the works for the 360. This leaves Wii and PS3 playes wondering when they will get it.
Activision, this is a cross-platform game. It's really annoying that the 360 is getting more attention than the other consoles. But in the end, 360 players are suffering through the same online play crap as everyone else. This game is half-cocked and the user base deserves something. Personally, I'll be calling Activision soon to see if I can get a partial refund. A large reason I bought this game was to play with my friends in co-op mode. Well, I can't buy a second guitar for my PS3 and I can't go online for co-op. So, I can't play with my roommate or my friends. The lack of the boss battles is also ridiculous. It should have been included from day one. As a PS3 owner I wish I'd know that Activision planned on supporting the 360 more than everyone else as I don't like to give my money to companies who dick over certain platforms. Sadly, the game is opened, played, etc. so I can't just return it.
Activision, get your shit together. You're ruining GH3's good name in the eyes of tons of players. This is not a smart move with Rock Band around the corner.
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Comments
don't buy the download packs, don't buy guitar hero IV [if they make it] and definitely don't but another guitar
matthew, don't have much of a choice seeing as I bought it before knowing these things. They're already got my money.
maybe microsoft is paying them an incentive to get the patch out faster for the 360? either way, the ps3 patch will come sooner or later. don't like it? don't support guitar hero.
what about the poor slack jawed yokales who don't have an internet connection.I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea to just make an expansion disk for each console,but the big companies probably think this wouldn't be cost effective for them.....
They are playing favorite by releasing things for the 360 and not even announcing if and when they will come to PS3. And really, new songs has nothing to do with programming. I mean, the note charts and audio data should be the same for both systems, just run through different engines.
They aren't playing favorites, that's why they spent all that time developing it for the PS3, too. The PS3 is getting a reputation for being hard to develop for, and more people own Wiis and 360s, anyway. IMO things aren't looking good for the PS3 in any light.
So the way they sell more of those units sitting on shelves is to shaft the PS3?
All I'm saying is, if you're going to release it for multiple consoles, don't play favorites.
okay, half agree and half don't about the difficulty of programming for the ps3. have you by chance seen the october sales charts? the PS3s guitar hero III aren't even on the top ten software sales [which the package, guitar + game is considered software sales] while the xbox 360's sitting at 383,000 units sold.
The songs are the battle songs, you can only play them as part of fighting Tom Morello, Slash, and the Devil in the career mode. The DLC is free, but just late for PS3.
Matthew, your point is debatable. See this article I wrote a while back:
http://www.mashedbuttons.com/?view=main&article=139
At the bottom I post links to third party devs, half of whom say it difficult, half of whom disagree.
More over, the "patches" would be needed for all systems and my main gripe is that Activision hasn't even announced an online play fix or if the co-op quickplay offline option will come to anything other than 360. They are ignoring their customers. Go to the forums on guitarhero.com, see how they haven't posted squat.
looks like someone forgot to mention that the PS3 is notoriously hard to program for so expecting delays on patches/fixes is to be expected
In the Wii's defense (and in offense of the Wii), I think it would be hard to have a lot of DLC for games on a the small internal hard drive. As for the Online Issue, they'll probably find a fix for this in time, but I agree that its detrimental not to have it working well right away. I think that a lot of people that got GH III, will get Rock Band anyway, and that if you were not planning on having bought GHIII, that it wouldn't affect your decision to buy Rock Band because it is unique.
Your points 3 and 4 could be condensed into one point, since they're both dependent on online functionality. That wouldn't make it any less important (and it is a doozy, since the song list is debatably worse than GHII and online play was a main selling point of the game.)
Are the songs your talking about unlockable through career mode play? You said they're not available out of the box, and the fact that their DLC seems to mean that you'd have to buy them. It doesn't make sense that they'd be in the game in the first place if you'd have to buy them to play outside of career mode.
Seems like a scam if they aren't.