All right, I have heard that people didn’t like the Metallica Guitar Hero, but I was making a concerted effort to try as many Guitar Hero games as possible while I was with GameFly. I have discovered a few things: Guitar Hero improved considerably since its first inception, I really like GH2 and 80s as well as GH3, Guitar Hero Metallica is AWESOME!
Yes, you heard me. I really like Guitar Hero Metallica for PS2…. except the fact that it doesn’t recognise my songstar microphones.
Note: Once again it took me too long to post, so this post is going up as is… as if anyone cares anymore.
In my last NYAF post I went on and on about cosplay, costuming, the sales floor and halls. There is more to the festival than just costumes, sales and displays.
In the back of the hall, in the most open area of the festival, was a live performance stage dubbed the Apple Kissa Stage. On stage throughout the festival various acts vied for the attention of the self-entertaining folk of the fest. Unfortunately for me, I missed almost every performance due to scheduling, wandering and demos. However, I have seen nearly all the acts numerous times at various venues. The one act I did chance to have time to catch was the IchigoPantsu Dansu (IchiP) dancers Para Para dance class. The group of cosplay dancers arrived on stage and many fans of Para Para dancing ranked themselves around the stage and learned moves for a couple songs.
Para Para Dancing, for those of you who are wondering, is basically a Japanese dance club group dance similar to line dancing where each move is precise and everyone does the same movements. Watching it done with only a few people such as when the IchiP Dancers put on their performances, is a wonderful sight to see and it looks and feels energetic. Watching a whole group of people doing the same movements is simply astounding. I don’t have any pictures of this phenomenon, but they can be seen across the internet. Here is a video of IchiP on the Apple Kissa stage:
You can see more of IchiP’s dance moves on their YouTube channel: IchiPDansu
In addition to IchiP, there were also performances of ‘test cutting’ from the Byakokan Dojo, comedy by Uncle Ho, a skit elaborating on Vampire Knight by Alone Together NYC, dancing maids… a LOT of dancing maids, zombie survival class, a concert by AKB48 and a Neo-Victorian Fashion show.
I didn’t catch the shows, but I did happen to cross the stage area near the end of several of these events. Regretfully, I watched the endings or just watched the stage as I hurried past on my way to some other event or panel.
First of all, I didn’t spend a lot for this muffler game. It was a discounted used item from GameFly.com [PLUG If you join for a few months, you can give me discounts on my rentals. Check out everything at GameFly.com, please use the link in the sidebar of my blog. /PLUG] So between this game and the microphones I bought from GameStop for them, I spent less than $20. Not a bad price for this in total.
In High School Musical Sing It! there are songs from High School Musical and High School Musical 2. The object of the game is to sing in tune, pitch and timing with the song flying by on the screen. There is a multitude of characters from the movies to unlock and clothing and styles for all. Personally, I am not that fond of unlocking clothing. Its strange. Didn’t like it in Guitar Hero either… much. Anyway.
There are several modes of play: Quick Play, Story Mode and Party Mode. Quick Play and Party Mode are what you would expect. You get to choose the song to sing, the stage and the character. The difference between the two modes is that in Party Mode, up to 8 people can compete against each other one at a time. Story Mode tells the story of High School Musical told by Kelsey, the one who wrote the play everyone is auditioning for. I am not very happy with this mode as it ends where the original movie ends and does not continue to the sequel. However, playing the same songs in Quick Play will unlock more songs to sing. It was quite interesting to hear one of the songs about the fish, I had forgotten that cheezy/cute song.
My favorite thing about the game is the options regarding parts. You can duet with a buddy, or sing by yourself, choosing one part or the other, or you can choose Mix and sing almost the way you would sing when singing along with the musical numbers covering the prominent parts.
My least favorite thing. In total grade at the end of the song, I never scored lower than B… so either I am a better singer than I thought [HAH!] or the game is screwy. Ok… I know I sing ok… but to be able to get a grade of A on song you’ve never sung before is a little weird.
The technology doesn’t know what the words are that you are singing. The important part is hitting the pitches for each section for the correct duration. Until they get a song that will recognise that the words are wrong, though, this ability to score high on these games will be there for good long time.
I added a couple new games to my inventory. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and High School Musical Sing It! Which means I had to buy microphones finally. Luckily, my local GameStop had one full set available at the very decent price of $10. Yes! I didn’t have to spend $50 to buy a Song Star! package like I wanted to so long ago. Now I can rent from GameFly such games as Karaoke Revolution and Song Star!Country.
I want to add such games as Fullmetal Alchemist: The Angel with the Broken Wing, and Final Fantasy X, but I am going to have to wait a bit for those.
My favorite XBOX game to play for while now has been Burnout 3: Takedown! I don’t know why, but watching Initial D the anime made me a better racer. It was an interesting development. When I am not playing the racing game, I turn over to Halo 2, the original reason for my ownership of the xbox.
At some point I acquired a NintendoDS and I have to say I really like the system, I just wish there was more games that I like to play on it. Right now my favorite all-time game for the DS is MyJapaneseCoach. It helps with a lot of Japanese learning. But there are issues and problems with the game, I really don’t think I would’ve gotten as far as I did if I hadn’t been taking Japanese language lessons at the time.
I miss having my brother to compete against. When I finally move, I am definitely getting the online deals.
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