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Guitar Hero II (360) -- April 3rd

Since reaching hard a month or so ago, I feel like my skills have plateaued. While I've five starred the first two tiers, beyond that I can't manage more than three stars, even on tracks I've played 30+ times, like YYZ.

That said, medium is now boring in comparison, and nowhere as near as fun as hard.
 
I've got the last 2 sets to 5* on expert.... I know I'm no where near the best, but it feels damn good to get this good at a game. When I hop on the leader boards and see that I rank in the top 5,000 out of nearly 600,000 my gaming penis grows an inch.

I can not ****ing wait for Rock Band.
 
New content is great but they should be clear now if we're gonna get double dipped for the same songs on Guitar Hero 3. Honestly at $6.25 for a hit and miss 3 pack of songs if the pricing stays the same I'll just put that money to both GH3 and Rock Band and not support downloads at all, it's better spent there.

However that brings up an interesting point, especially given that Harmonix owns the GH1 and GH2 songs. Were they the reason for the high prices for the GH2 downloads? I mean you got Harmonix who gets a bigger piece cause they own the content I would imagine, throw in online song licensing, labels, artists, Microsoft's cut, the old publisher Red Octane, and the new publisher Activision who just paid the big bucks for the franchise. Just saying that's a lot of people wanting to get paid but they sold 200,000 downloads and said it wasn't a bad start.

I wonder if Harmonix would get any revenue from new downloads for GH2, if that's the case we'll never see them.
 
Outdoor Miner said:
Here's what I think is happening:

Harmonix owns the rights to all the songs found in GH1, GH2, and 80's xpac. Right?

Well they are NOT going to release a single thing now that they are detached from this franchise. Seeing as how their current project will be in direct competition with the GH series, they will not do anything to strengthen said brand at this point in time. Releasing any DLC at this point only helps Activision/RedOctane.

So if we're going to have any DLC for GHII, it's going to be ONLY new songs.

As for Harmonix's backlog of GH tracks? You'll be able to say hi to them in Rock Band.
I'm guessing that's why the downloadable song packs were so expensive as Activision had to cover their selves as well as Harmonix's costs.
D3VI0US said:
New content is great but they should be clear now if we're gonna get double dipped for the same songs on Guitar Hero 3. Honestly at $6.25 for a hit and miss 3 pack of songs if the pricing stays the same I'll just put that money to both GH3 and Rock Band and not support downloads at all, it's better spent there.

However that brings up an interesting point, especially given that Harmonix owns the GH1 and GH2 songs. Were they the reason for the high prices for the GH2 downloads? I mean you got Harmonix who gets a bigger piece cause they own the content I would imagine, throw in online song licensing, labels, artists, Microsoft's cut, the old publisher Red Octane, and the new publisher Activision who just paid the big bucks for the franchise. Just saying that's a lot of people wanting to get paid but they sold 200,000 downloads and said it wasn't a bad start.

I wonder if Harmonix would get any revenue from new downloads for GH2, if that's the case we'll never see them.
if only I had read the whole thread first...:lol I guess that's what I get for staying up late.
 
ZootedGranny said:
Since reaching hard a month or so ago, I feel like my skills have plateaued. While I've five starred the first two tiers, beyond that I can't manage more than three stars, even on tracks I've played 30+ times, like YYZ.
If you beat all the songs on hard, go to expert. You'll improve without realizing it. When you come back to the songs on hard level, you'll do way better then you were trying the song over and over again. Trust me.

Oh, and I've now 5 starred every song, including Six and Jordan! Yay!
 
LakeEarth said:
If you beat all the songs on hard, go to expert. You'll improve without realizing it. When you come back to the songs on hard level, you'll do way better then you were trying the song over and over again. Trust me.

Oh, and I've now 5 starred every song, including Six and Jordan! Yay!

Yeah, I skipped Easy, beat Medium in two days and I didn't five star everything. I hardly got 4 stars on all the songs.

Despite that, I played some quick play songs on medium and then moved up to Hard and got better without even realizing it. I went down to medium and it's so freaking slow and easy to do the songs.

Right now I have to go to easy and get my Easy Tour Achievement and 5 star all songs on easy achievement, so simple. :lol

You beat Jordan. . .on expert?????? :O
 
The trick to surviving Jordan is to hit the 'string' nearly Misrolou speed. Before I was always trying to do the hammer on/pulloffs and hit the string when I missed, but you end up missing so many notes that way. So just keep trying to play the song as fast as you can trying to hit every note, you'll make errors but the rock meter won't fly down as fast.
 
What an awesome game, this is my first experience with a Guitar Hero (or a rhythm game for that matter) and it's been a blast. It's funny to think two months ago I was struggling on Medium with a rank around 300,000, but now I'm around 4500. Cant wait for Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band.

Btw, does anybody have any tips for double strumming? I suck at it and I cant get a good rhythm with it.
 
I took a break for a week or so, then sat down last night and tried Misirlou about 5 times. The result:

0ICLiGJhbC9DCBsBGl5TVkU3L2FjaC8wLzI3AAAAAOfn5-8sOK8=.jpg



I freaked myself out, because I had 200K coming out of the 3 note chords at the end, and thought I needed 205K to 5* it. I ended up flubbing one of those notes, but was wrong about the cutoff (I had 201500 or so). The trick was to be less frentic than usual, my standard strumming speed was slightly too fast.

Now it's on to Jordan....
 
You guys are too good at this game. :( I'm currently struggling with clearing Jessica on Hard. Any tips for the string of guitar solos in the middle? I can get about 70-75% of the way through it, then I tend to crash and burn.
 
Cornballer said:
You guys are too good at this game. :( I'm currently struggling with clearing Jessica on Hard. Any tips for the string of guitar solos in the middle? I can get about 70-75% of the way through it, then I tend to crash and burn.

Practice mode is your friend. Do the segment you struggle with a few times in practice mode (rather than playing through the whole song to get to that point) until you can hit a good percentage of the notes. If you need to, start at a slower speed and work your way up.

Also, save your star power if you can :).
 
14CLiGJhbC9HCBsBGl5TVkU3L2FjaC8wLzIzAAAAAOfn5-iv2uM=.jpg


I nearly messed up after the BNOF. I botched one of the star power segments and a couple notes shortly after, bringing my meter back down to flashing red.

I'm down to one single player achievement, 500K song (I'm up to 463K on Killing in the Name), so I won't be bumping this thread much more!
 
TheGreatDave said:
Any tips other than practice?

Nothing too impressive, but I'll try:

-Practice
-Use practice mode, and learn complicated parts at a slower speed
-Learn to use hammer-ons and pull-offs and to alternate strum
-If you get stuck on a song, go back and 5* some songs on an easier difficulty
-Be smart with star power (save it for the really hard parts to pass a song, check out scorehero.com for the best path to 5* a song)
-Practice
-Jordan is really tough, but it took less time than 5*ing Misirlou on expert and 5*ing The Trooper my first time on hard
 
Jesiatha said:
Nothing too impressive, but I'll try:

-Practice
-Use practice mode, and learn complicated parts at a slower speed
-Learn to use hammer-ons and pull-offs and to alternate strum
-If you get stuck on a song, go back and 5* some songs on an easier difficulty
-Be smart with star power (save it for the really hard parts to pass a song, check out scorehero.com for the best path to 5* a song)
-Practice
-Jordan is really tough, but it took less time than 5*ing Misirlou on expert and 5*ing The Trooper my first time on hard

Jordan is like the big song I don't think I'll ever overcome. I've beat everything on Expert minus it and Six, and my brain just can't cope with the solo. Did you try and learn the patten or just get really good at the game to the point where you could handle it?
 
TheGreatDave said:
Jordan is like the big song I don't think I'll ever overcome. I've beat everything on Expert minus it and Six, and my brain just can't cope with the solo. Did you try and learn the patten or just get really good at the game to the point where you could handle it?

My strategy:
-I'm able to play everything up through solo A about 98% accurate
-On solo B I strum really fast and alternate between the 3 frets currently in use as quickly as possible
-I made it about 3 measures past the short pause in solo B before having to activate star power
-I continue to flail randomly as quickly as possible, slowing down a little bit on solo C
-Once I hit the blue note of freedom, I resumed playing with about 98% accuracy


So no, I didn't learn the pattern, nor did I get particularly good at solos B or C. Just good enough to pass. Maybe if I had used hyperspeed I would have been able to understand the solo better. At full speed it is almost impossible to tell the order of the notes, and I don't think I would have been able to hit them all anyway.
 
I've been trying to get 500k for so long now. I can get up to 420k on Free Bird/Hard, and I've gotten 470k on X-Stream/Expert. I've probably played X-Stream twenty times tonight. I just always make one little mistake and it usually comes right before a set of chords or during my collection of star power. It's not that the song is too hard... I just always slip up and miss a single note at an important section.

And I can't do Killing in the Name because of the "noise buildup" section.

@ anyone that's gotten 500k - any tips?
 
I just did X-Stream. Figure out the best star power path and keep at it till you don't screw up. Improve your skills by improving other song scores. Seriously, all I've been doing since I got all the single player achievements is improve my scores on songs and I know I'm still getting better, skillwise.
 
Jesiatha said:
Practice mode is your friend. Do the segment you struggle with a few times in practice mode (rather than playing through the whole song to get to that point) until you can hit a good percentage of the notes. If you need to, start at a slower speed and work your way up.

Also, save your star power if you can :).
Thanks! I finally got it. I used the star power to bail me out during the multiple solos and then just slogged through the rest of it.
 
My Chemical Romance Track Pack 4; 500 MS Points; On XBLM.

Songs:

-"Teenagers,"
-"Famous Last Words"
-"This is How I Disappear"

All as performed by My Chemical Romance

I don't listen to rock, I just like Guitar Hero II, so I wouldn't know how bad or how good of a band MCR is.
 
Wow, I must say I am honestly surprised.

I'm not really a MCR fan but I really enjoy playing Dead! so I'll have to listen to those songs and see if I like it before I decide to buy anything. I am desperate for new content.
 
Woo, exclusive content!
God damn it, My Chemical Romance!

Just got it on 360, going through career mode: nearly done with it on Medium, but have been dabbing in hard and expert. I've played it casually before, but now I'm starting to get decent and have been learning to use HO/PO, which are pretty cool. I'm also in the credits, so that makes me happy.
 
The songs are pretty fun. Teenagers is the standout for me, the verses are really fun to play.

Famous Last Words seems like it will be really easy to get the 500k achievement, I got 415,000 on my first play with a few missed star powers. Cool song.

This is How I Disappear is alright, somewhat repetitive. But there is definitely some fun stuff in there to play. Some fairly difficult solo stuff.

Although none of the songs are as fun to play as Dead!(one of my favorite GH songs) I'd say as long as you're a Guitar Hero fan and you know what you're getting into with MCR, I'd recommend picking it up. The songs are pretty good additions to the line-up.

Also word on the street is that these note charts were made by Neversoft not Harmonix, so this could be a taste of the quality to expect in GH3. I don't know if this is true or not though.
 
Stormwatch said:
Yay exclusive content...Boo My Chemical Romance...
yeah, if dead! wasn't one of the most fun songs in GH2 i'd have agreed with you... don't like their music, but dead! is so fun. i'm so getting these.
 
plagiarize said:
yeah, if dead! wasn't one of the most fun songs in GH2 i'd have agreed with you... don't like their music, but dead! is so fun. i'm so getting these.
just played through the three new tracks, dead! still reigns supreme. famous last words comes close...teenagers, the first time i played it, i finally unlocked the perfectionist achievement.

i should probably note that guitar hero constitues the whole of my experience with my chemical romance.
 
Hate to bump an old thread but three new songs came out for GH2 last week, including one of my favorite bands The Dropkick Murphys. I was wondering if anyone downloaded it and their general thoughts on it?
 
GH3 was sold out everywhere, and I wanted a guitar for this weekend for Rock Band, so I picked this up.

I can 5 star everything on medium for the first two tiers, but hard just completely owns me. I don't think I'll ever be able to play on hard, nor do I want to practice to try. Medium is almost too boring for me.

I thought the X-Plorer was wireless, too. :(
 
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