"Fight" Update

We refer to Urban Reign affectionately as "Fight." This is of course because the game is a pure fighting experience, with very little else in it. I reviewed this game earlier, and would now like give you an update now that I've had more time with it.

I've now put in over 60 or 70 hours on multiplayer with Ben; we do both challenge mode and 2v2 fights where each of us has a computer partner. The 2v2 fights are absolutely vicious. He plays Alex and Jake, whom are both wrestlers with a lot of health. I play Shun Ying and Glen, so I have some agility and some power. Shun Ying takes a sledgehammer. >:) She can turn blue, for a period of time, which gives her automatic grapple-counters. Jake and Alex hate this, as their best moves are grabs. It even goes so far as to auto-counter counters that are grapples. Hehehe. But since Shun Ying's health is low, it doesn't take much for her to get knocked out.

We are still having a great time with this game. It just doesn't seem to get old or boring. It's very fast, exciting and brutal. After two weeks of Guitar Hero, it took a few games to warm up into it again.

When people at work see it, they say, "Didn't that get bad reviews?" They watch a bit, and decide they need to try it. Most people who have tried it like it.

After quite a bit of experience with the game, I stand by my initial assertion that the critics got it wrong. Unfortunately, it hasn't sold well in the US. I hope sales in Japan make up for this, so we can get a sequel. We refer to this unannounced hoped-for game as "More Fight." :)

Guitar Hero... (dare I say it) Rocks!

I've had Guitar Hero for PS2 since Dec 6th now, when it was first available here in Quebec. I saw Guitar Freaks in the excellent movie "Lost in Translation". I said to myself, "If that ever hits the PS2, that's an automatic pre-order!" Then I saw one in the arcade, and got to play it (only once due to a CD Error). It was fun! Later still, I was checking the Harmonix site to see if they had announced another game yet, and there was Guitar Hero!

I was fortunate enough to pre-order GH a month before release, so I got one on the day it came out. Other people were less fortunate, as the game sold out everywhere within the first week. :)

There are many good reviews of GH online, so I will cover the important parts that I feel distinguish it without covering all the details of gameplay again.

The game is loads of fun. You use a plastic guitar controller to play the guitar part in real music. There are 5 buttons on the neck, a flip-switch for strumming, and a whammy bar for pitch bending. Colored circles scroll toward you on the screen. You hold the corresponding button (buttons for chords) then flip the strum bar when the note is on the target bar. If you get it right, the guitar part of the music turns on. When you mess up, you get a "plink" and the guitar part turns off. What's great is that in no-time (about 5 minutes) you're able to sound like real guitar gods.

Many of you out there may think you couldn't play it because you have no sense of music, or couldn't handle the controller, or whatever. This is most likely incorrect. Easy mode keeps the speed of the notes onscreen slow, and only requires the use of 3 buttons, and there are very few (if any) chords where you use more than one button at a time. The first track, "I Love Rock 'n' Roll," is very easy to pick up because of its simple rhythms. I've had several people who thought they couldn't handle it try that track. They inevitably miss the first couple notes. After about 30 seconds, they get the hang of it, and complete the song with no trouble. I've seen a few fail once, then complete it. I've only seen one person fail twice, but he was in a hurry to leave anyway.

Harmonix REALLY got the difficulty curve right. I jumped right in at Medium, and blew through it without failing once. But it taught me how to play, so I was ready for Hard. Other people (who haven't finshed Amplitude) have started on Easy, and felt ready for Medium after finishing it.

What makes the game truly great is the feeling you get of actually playing the music. Since there are 5 buttons, you can't keep your hand in the same place and hit the buttons easily. So you end up sliding your hand up and down the neck to hit different notes and chords, as on a real guitar.

Fans of Amplitude will wonder about the game's difficulty. Amplitude's higher levels were incredibly hard. Guitar Hero is much more forgiving, as it rates you a per-note basis, rather than on a per-phrase basis as in Amplitude. Because of this, just completing the songs successfully is much easier than in Amplitude. But on Expert mode, hitting 95% or more of the notes is VERY hard, particularly on the last 10 tracks. So it's easier to "complete" than Amplitude, but "mastering" the game will take a long time and a lot of practice. I would prefer if Expert were less forgiving (leave the other settings as they are), but I'm a hardcore bastard. :)

The song list is excellent. I'm not a fan of standard guitar rock, but the tracks they've chosen contain a wide variety of styles. The songs are all covers of the originals, but they are done very well.

The controller is well-made, and feels very comfortable. The buttons have rounded edges, so it's easy to slide your fingers along them.

The presentation is very nice, with a band shown playing the songs in an arena that responds to the quality of your performance. The guitarist even does very life-like fingering on the guitar, including "finger-wobble" on the strings to get vibrato.

Inevitably, this game needs to be compared to Guitar Freaks. Here's my comparison:

GF only has 3 buttons, and feels much more like a game because of this. Real guitar players slide their hand along the neck, and GF doesn't require this. GH's star-power mode adds a nice bit a strategy to it. The music in GF is 1:30 tracks that aren't necessarily guitar music; many of them are electronic or light J-pop songs. Because of this GF has a larger variety of music, but GH's music is more satisfying because the songs are complete 5 minute rock tracks. GH's graphics and presentation are far superior.

It's been said before, but I know people who intend to buy a PS2 now, just for this game! It's that good. A most excellent game; ignore its price and buy it.

Recommended. 5 stars out of 5.