Most Likely To Succeed...

I love me some Guitar Hero, even though I'm not all that great at it.  I can get about 6 tiers into the "Hard" difficulty level before completely loosing it - my mind has a hard time wrapping itself around that cursed Orange Button.  Anyway, come hell or high water I was going to get that "Most Likely To Succeed Award" achievement (5 Star All the songs on Medium Difficulty) at some point before part III hit, but three of those songs always gave me problems.  I had everything pretty much 5-Starred after two or three play throughs, except "Carry Me Home", "Institutionalized", and "Psychobilly Freakout".  Oddly enough, I never had any issues with "Free Bird" or "Hangar 18", but something about those three songs gave me tons of grief for some reason.  So, I resolved to finally plow through it this weekend, and after playing "Psychobilly Freakout" about 20 f'ing times, I did it.  No a big deal to you guys out there who play on Expert for fun, but for a "Medium" guy like me, this was a nice accomplishment.   I think that was the most work I've ever put in for a 30 point achievement.  Now I've just gotta try to get through those last two tiers on Hard...

I also spent a little bit of time this weekend with a game that's going to get buried in the Halo 3 onslaught - Eternal Sonata.  Yeah I know, different audiences and all that, but it still might have stood a better chance had it been released two months ago.  I used to love JRPGs when I was younger and had more free time, but I've just lost most of my patience for them now.  Most of them have those random encounters that drive me bat shit crazy when trying to explore an area.  I used to have patience for that sort of thing, but now I've got less free time and more great games demanding attention for that time.  That's why I'm really digging Eternal Sonata.  It looks beautiful (and colorful, which is a nice change of pace from the earth tones you see in most "next gen" games), has a decent (if unusual) story, and best of all, has a great battle system.  No random encounters - you can see all the enemies out in the world and can avoid most of them - and it has a pretty action packed take on turn based battles.  It works like a more advanced version of the battle system used in the Super Mario RPGs for the Gameboy Advance/DS - your character has a timed meter which you can use to position them on the battlefield, a real time attack button, a special attack, and the ability to block attacks with timed guard button presses.  There is also another dynamic, light and dark areas on the battlefield, which define what type of special attack you can use depending on where you currently are standing.  All this makes this JRPG a lot more interactive, fast paced, and action oriented than most games of this type, and it's good to have a game like this on the 360.  Two complaints - there are no area maps and it's pretty skimpy on the achievements (you only get about 150 on your first play through, the rest you get from a bonus dungeon and collecting items in a second playthrough that were initially inaccessible).  I've also heard that it's relatively short for a game like this (about 18 to 20 hours, although to be honest, getting rid of random encounters probably trims out a lot of the fat), so maybe this will be the first one I'll be able to finish in years.  But with Halo 3 coming out next week, it might be weeks (or months) before I finish it.

Speaking of the Halo 3, as many of you already know, the press embargo has lifted and it seems to be reviewing pretty well.  No such luck in trying to resist the call to finish the fight...