BalekFekete
Shared on Fri, 04/06/2007 - 06:56Courtesy of 'ol Urban Dictionary:
fanboy
(n) Technocratic zealots; evangelicals of geekery. Characterized by irrational advocacy of a particular OS, console, company, or franchise. Most commonly used to delegitimize contrary opinions in gaming forums.Ex. "What the #$%@? BalekFekete is just a GHII fanboy...don't bother with him."
Yes, I will bow my head and admit I am a Guitar Hero II (GHII) fanboy. Or am I? I’ll throw out some ideas here and let ya’ll decide if the new found love for this particular game is legitimate, or throws me into the pit of fanboyism.
It’s been a week now since I made that fateful run over to Circuit City to pick up the copy of GHII. I caught wind on the net that the street date had been broken, albeit probably not on purpose but instead by a FUBAR’d computer setting, and I was out the door. Hell, I even had the wife’s blessing to do it! An hour later and I was back, unwrapping the game to the glee of the kids and moreso to myself. Having just played the game at the Best Buy kiosks half a dozen times over the past several months, I was anxious to see this bad boy in action on the real TV and on a real sound system. And was I rewarded.
Now it’s been one week and several very, VERY sore fingers later, and I think I have a better grasp over why the game is so damn enjoyable. First off, it’s the music. While most people, myself included, may not recognize the names of the songs on the most recent 360 rendition of the game, when you load them up and hear them for the first time, you catch yourself in a “Ohhhh…THAT song…!” At least I did. So while most of the songs don’t carry the name recognition that, for instance, Back In Black by AC/DC does, they’re songs you’ve heard once or twice and can pick up the tune to fast enough. Then, still on the music, there is the variety. Everything from metal rock in Iron Maiden and Primus to more classic rock with The Police and Cheap Trick to almost cultural rock in Kansas and Lynyrd Skynyrd – it’s all there. That variety keeps it fresh, and makes it so you can play whatever you happen to be in the mood for.
Then there’s the presentation. It’s polished above and beyond what I’ve seen from the PS2 version. From the graphics to the 5.1 sound to the controller – it’s all just what the earlier version had amped up to 11. The game looks awesome in the HD glory, and sounds great with the crowd chanting (or booing) from all corners of the arena … I mean room. And while the controller could use to be a little bigger, it suffices and with the exception of some rare issues with the whammy bar operates as well as you can expect.
Finally, there’s 2o2p. The site seems, at this point, to have embraced the game whole-heartedly. I’ve added a solid 20 or so people it would seem onto the ‘ol Friends List and love pulling up the online Leaderboards to see how I’m faring. The obvious missing aspect is the online XBL co-op play, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed that we see it in a patch down the road before GHIII or Rock Band hits. GHII would make such a great testing and development bed for the technology, no?
Anyways, after its all said and done, and I’ve now had a chance to see if my anticipation was well founded, I can firmly say I couldn’t be more content with the purchase, and have a strong title that will be sitting in the DVD tray for quite some time to come.
- BalekFekete's blog
- Log in or register to post comments
Comments
Submitted by DreadPirate75 on Fri, 04/06/2007 - 07:23
Submitted by CrypticCat on Fri, 04/06/2007 - 07:52