Welcome to the Home of Game Strategies and Stories


Talk Strategy

27 Jan 06

It's late and I'm tired. I hope everyone had a good week. I'll be doing some work on the site this weekend. You might notice some of it. I'll go through the input on the Game of the Year so look for the poll. Please vote, but one vote only Vasili.

I finally got my Xbox 360 today. I've got it hooked up, but haven't had a chance to do much beyond that. I can say it's cool. It looks good. It's hot. Sometimes it's loud. The controllers feel great. The wireless response is great as well. I'll report back once I run it through its paces. Have a great weekend.

Jason
Read/Post Comments

26 Jan 06

I've decided to write up some impressions of Guitar Hero for the Playstation 2. Amazingly, news of this game has even reached the ears of cloistered PC gamers. There's something iconic about the concept. Like playing cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, kids play at performing on the big stage. I don't think that ever leaves us. So Guitar Hero calls us back to that time. Doesn't Karaoke Revolution do the same thing? No, you still have your voice there which for most people fails to sound like a rock hero. Guitar Hero, on the other hand, when played well sounds like ripping guitar play.

I've only had Guitar Hero for a week. In that time I've played through easy mode and the first set of medium. By play through I mean complete the songs without getting booed off the stage. You need to complete a number of songs in a set to move on to the next set. Hitting the right notes at the right time improves your performance meter. Missing notes or wrong notes drop your performance. If you drop low enough, the song will end forcing you to start over. You can also get a big performance boost by activating your star power and hitting notes. Star power is a special timer filled up by correctly performing highlighted sequences of notes.

Guitar Hero could have just been Dance Dance Revolution for your fingers, but the end product is much more than that. I think there are two reasons for that. The first is clever transposition of the music. The modes are well broken down so that medium feels like a significant step up from easy without being impossible. The patterns are similar between modes, but each step seems to take you closer to the difficulty of actually playing the songs. For instance, easy uses only three fret buttons and limited chords. Medium uses four buttons and many more chords. The real brilliance come in teaching the skills you need to advance at a pace that keeps things fun. While the fingering is clearly linked to sound of the music, different songs emphasize different skills. Since most people will find different skills easier or harder, a very hard song will often be followed by something that seems easier encouraging you to keep going. By the time you reach the end of easy, you've worked on all the skills you need to start medium several times. If you go back and try to max out each song on easy (getting a five star performance), you'll have a significant head start going into medium.

The transposition is good, but the heartbeat of the game is the perfect connection of the player to the song. If that was just a little bit off, Guitar Hero wouldn't be an instant classic; it would have been a brief, fun diversion. Fortunately, Red Octane and Harmonix nailed it. What do I mean by that? When playing Guitar Hero, it's shockingly easy to find yourself lost in the music. Your foot's tapping the beat, you see the notes, but play them without thinking about them. All the while the sound is reacting perfectly to your playing. You cut a note short, and that's what you hear. You get on a run, the song flows through and around you while the virtual crowd goes wild. It's exciting, chaotic, pressure filled fun. It's just like you imagined it as a kid. At the other end of the spectrum, when you fail a song, you feel a twinge of guilt as though you let your band and audience down. All games strive for that level of connection. Guitar Hero succeeds.

I could write more, but there's no substitute for experiencing Guitar Hero. Find a store with it on display and try it out. You'll know if you connect with it very quickly. In case you're wondering, it is worth the money to buy a PS2 and this game for the experience, if you have that kind of money to spare and you connect with the game or have just always had the dream of being a Guitar Hero. Highly Recommended.

Jason
Read/Post Comments

25 Jan 06

Still quiet on the feedback. I hope the voting goes better. Maybe this is why most sites just get their team together and vote. Perhaps you are just procrastinating.

I'm still trying to figure out Microsoft. It's been known for a while that the XBox 1's production days were numbered after Microsoft stopped ordering chips from Nvidia. Nothing too shocking there. Then Kotaku reports one of their sources stating that the day has arrived and no new Xbox's will be coming. There are still plenty on shelves and in the supply chain, but somehow people read that as Microsoft is cutting off all support for the Xbox and no new games are forthcoming. Since Microsoft gets a cut of every game sold, and the only upcoming games are third party without financial risk to Microsoft. Ending support would be stupid. Nevertheless, they had to rush out a statement that they'll continue supporting the Xbox at least through the end of the year.

The part I don't get is the half heartedness of their support. They don't deny ending hardware production. They're not releasing backwards compatibility updates quickly. Backward compatibility isn't working smoothly for all games. They're releasing no more games as a first party producer. They seem to be trying to literally cannibalize their whole market, but the supply isn't there. It won't be worth it to game producers to produce games for the Xbox. EA was recently complaining they gave up on the PS1 too soon. They won't have an option with the Xbox. My main concern is that I don't want to see this backfire in Microsoft's face. Gamers need the competitive market.

It's confusion like that that makes you want to blow things up. This week's game will help you with that. It's Defcon (official site) from Introversion Software. The creators of Darwinia have something more destructive in mind this time. You play a superpower in a death spiral with your opponents. The goal is mostly not to be obliterated. You can craft alliances, balance your attack and defense while trying to maintain information superiority. Violent options open up as the Defcon counts down to doomsday. Defcon supports both single and multiplayer. It even includes a real time office mode where a game can take all day and be instantly minimized if your perimeter is breached. Look for Defcon this April.

Jason
Read/Post Comments

24 Jan 06

Ok. I'll watch the tumbleweeds. Not much discussion going on. A lot of people did stop by today. I'd almost consider opening up anonymous comments again, but I remember what happened last time. Trust me, you don't want me make the cuts by myself without guidance.

I don't have too much for you tonight as I was busy do a bunch of behind the scenes stuff (read goofing off, ok, not all the time). I did get some more screenshots up for you in the image gallery. I also added a Ghost Recon 3 movie to the downloads section. If you recall, you have to be logged in to access the download section. It helps keep download speed up and is just another perk for actually registering.

Speaking of perks, I often have high resolution versions of screenshots for games. I also have or can get some movies. Make sure you let me know which games you'd like to see this content for so I can get it and get it posted. Perhaps some of you artistic types could make some nice wallpapers from high resolution screenies.

Finally, I wanted to post an interesting link from Stardock. Hopefully, we'll have our interview up soon. Until then, you might want to read this article on improving AI in GalCiv II. It's interesting both for its insight into the game, but also into the development process. It seems they've also posted a follow up article Here.

Jason
Read/Post Comments

23 Jan 06

Alright, it's discussion time. For once, I sincerely hope I'm not talking to myself. The only addition to the list was Space Rangers 2. I'd like to get the final list pared down to ten or so. Then we can begin the official voting. I'll give you my top five of the nominees (in alphabetical order so don't read anything into that):

Battlefield 2
Civilization 4
SWAT 4
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Winter Assault

Just a reminder that we are discussing the best game of the year. This is one of the few times we don't take stories into account. Even a poor game can occasionally generate a great story. If you recall, Rome: Total War won last year, but we haven't been flooded with stories. Best is subjective so you don't have to defend your opinions if you don't want. Just make sure they're known. There's the topic in the forum, comments here or email.

I'll try to answer questions or respond to your thoughts as appropriate. May the best games make the cut. Voting will begin next week.

Jason
Read/Post Comments

20 Jan 06

You probably noticed the big news today that Medieval: Total War 2 was announced. I added the handful of screenshots to the gallery. Speaking of the gallery, I added two new Sins of a Solar Empire exclusive screenshots plus a high resolution gallery. Give the big images some time to load.

My last birthday present arrived today. It's a copy of Guitar Hero. I guess that means that I'm officially among those about to rock. I'll keep you posted.

The thing I regret most (site related) about last year was the lack of community growth. I'd love to see the forum alive and stories being submitted all the time. Heck I'd settle for a few good multiplayer matches being set up and a game discussion or two. Despite that, last year was a good growth year for Talk Strategy. We went from around 35,000 visitors the year before to over 80,000 in 2005. We went from 95,000 page views to a quarter million. Sure, in internet terms that's still a small site, but to me it's amazing. Something to consider, the surprising number of page views in the Games section means that despite all the effort I put into the news section, people actually seem to enjoy reading the stories the most. That makes me happy. There's a reason this place is called Talk Strategy instead of Another Generic Strategy Gaming Site. Once the community reaches critical mass, I'll be a very happy web guy. Thanks to everyone for their support.

Don't forget to get your additions to the Talk Strategy Game of the Year nominations list. Have a great weekend.

Jason
Read/Post Comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return to Archive List

 


Unlimited Game Rentals Delivered - Free Trial



Buy at GameStop.com

Thank You for supporting
Talk Strategy


GoGamer - Home of 48 Hour Madness!!



EBHoliday120x90





Free Shipping 2003

Free Shipping

For the Collector in You. Entertainment Earth.

button

Funagain Games

Super Savings Only From Overstock.com!

GoDaddy.com $3.99 Domain Name Sale

 

 

 

 1and1 hosting ad

© Talk Strategy 2004-2006