Burchill's Buddy

 

As you'd expect, Arnold shows up a lot.

I have counted 8 Batman & Robin quotes so far, and I'm about half way through.

A little bit off-topic, but in a moment's nostalgia I bought the entire X Files on DVD and have started watching from the beginning. And fuck me it's really good! Some of the storylines are really dated (oooh computer comes aliiive) but generally it's really well done and the scripts and characters have stood up amazingly well.

 

It's also reminded me how much fun the 90s conspiracy larks were. In those days people were into UFOs, abductions and cool supernatural powers. Now it's all New World Order, the destruction of the World Trade Centre and secret military contractors. Much more sober and less fun.

I started watching them from the beginning again a couple of weeks back, one of the best programmes of the 90's. There's quite a few that I never caught the first couple of times as when I got the DVD box sets I tended to skip a lot of the one-off shows because I was desperately trying to understand the mythology. We should lend the box sets to Stu, they would blow his mind. We'll have 50 threads on here tomorrow with claims of Jersey Devils, ufo sightings and guys that can stretch their body through vents and letterboxes. All with youtube links of course.

 

Extremely childish but it makes me giggle like an idiot. People emailing religious channels with assorted silliness.

 

 

That is truly beautiful, especially the last one where if you listen closely you can hear the producer tell him in his earpiece "thats from the fresh prince of Bel Air"

First time in 4 years that my vote hasnt gone to Sick/Woy, but JLM has been on top, top form this year. He has the ability to be funny either in quick retorts, or by spending 3 hours writing a reply in notepad, citing various sources and references.

Emperor on the otherhand just talks bollocks, gets owned to shit then retorts two months later with more mental, just a dolt but not in a amusing way so he gets my vote.

 

The difference between Seb and many of the other candidates is that Seb is just blatantly fucking stupid. That's why he got my vote too.

He got my vote too, was actually pretty shocked to see he was quite far behind C/W Mark.

That'll do Fred, that'll do.

Not too bad so far. Bell's played some nice shots punctuated by his usual complete lapses in concentration and reasoning but has somehow bundled his way into the 60s. If we can have 250+ on the board by the time Prior and the sloggers come in then we should be alright for 400+.

Beautiful kiss of death there

That Flintoff tribute video made me shed a little tear. God damn you "Con Ti Partiro"

Even more fired up for this now, won the toss, lets get some runs on the board

My SkyPlayer wont seem to let me watch Sky Sports this morning.....anyone else getting the same problem?

Hmm, my SkyPlayer is fixed.....I kind of wish it hadnt now. 42-4

My SkyPlayer wont seem to let me watch Sky Sports this morning.....anyone else getting the same problem?

Mmmmmm, lovely lovely rain.

I knew there was a reason we had added Cardiff to the venues this year, highest annual rainfall of any major UK city. Now just keep raining through tomorrow please.

This is getting embarrasing now. 629-5 and they're really picking up the pace before probably declaring around tea and putting us under massive pressure. We really need some rain to rescue us now.

"More Than A Feeling" is the most perfect Guitar Hero song ever. See why, here.

 

Spoilered here for non-clickers:

 

<-- click on 'spoiler' to show/hide the spoiler

 

More Than a Feeling

by Kieron Gillen, 18 Apr 2006 1:00 pm

Filed under: kieron gillen, 2006 april 18, boston, can a game make you cry, control schemes, emotions and games, feature, guitar hero, harmonix, issue_41, kieron gillen, music game

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You hit an unexpected realization: Boston was probably one of the top ten videogame level designers of all time.

 

Problem being, they weren't aware they were designing a level. If you told them of this undeniable fact when they were doing it, Tom Scholz and his group of Massachusetts-based musos would have looked at you strangely before returning to the important business of recording double-tracked guitar solos and working out how to get the hand-clap machine working. They would have had no conception what a level designer was. One who designed levels? But levels of what? It was the mid-'70s, where conventions like "levels" were the far-off fancy of the loopiest of lunatics.

 

They had a pop career to take care of, and that they did. If you wanted to be factual, you'll note their debut album sold 17 million records - certainly enough to keep a man in plectrums for quite some time. If you want to be mean, you'd argue they were instrumental in the power ballad's creation, so they should be crushed with enormous rocks. If you want to give them a bit more credit, you'll note that with "More Than a Feeling," they invented marrying an insistent circular chord progression with a tiny-tiny-BIG-BIG-repeat! structure, which the Pixies cheerily stole for "Debaser," which Nirvana stole for "Smells Like Teen Spirit," which everyone else stole to invent '90s rock. And if you want to be me, you'll note their real import in history is designing the best level in Guitar Hero.

 

Fellow Massachusettsians Harmonix clearly understood what they had in Boston's design when they imported this piece of carefully crafted aural-terrain into the world of Guitar Hero. Some credit must go to the developers: While the level was clearly Boston's genius, the game design itself was Harmonix's. This small developer's aim is to "create new ways for non-musicians to experience the unique joy that comes from making music." It's a noble one. Guitar Hero is the closest they've come to achieving their goals.

 

It's easy to bracket Guitar Hero with other abstract party games in the PS2's armory - rest it alongside your Dance Dance Revolutions and Singstars (what we do in Europe instead of Harmonix's Karaoke Revolution), and snootily dismiss it as just a giggle. Guitar Hero's more than that. While Singstar and DDR sit slightly to one side from the main thrust of videogame design, Guitar Hero engages us with one of its secret magics. It probably has a special game designer name, but for the sake of our argument, we're going to call it the "input fallacy"; one, that's basically what it does; and two, it's got that sort of ring of polysyllabic seriousness which implies I know what I'm talking about, instead of just desperately bluffing.

 

Which always helps.

 

Games trick you into thinking you're doing something more difficult and interesting than you actually are. In Prince of Persia, you may just be pressing a single button, you're rewarded with a powerful leap from the lead character. The fallacy is your brain connects your action to the animation - that it was you that did that, thus you should feel the rush of reward. Your actions created that reaction. In a real way, many of the best games are based around this, and games which fail to make you feel as if your on-controller actions connect to your onscreen actions are dismissed out of hand. This is why - say - Dragon's Lair connected with gamers less than the similar period's Defender, despite the spectacular difference in the visuals. In Dragon's Lair, there was no real sense that you were controlling Dirk the Daring. In Defender, your slightest twitch was magnified spectacularly on screen. In one, you watch the hero. In the other, you are the hero.

 

It's this phenomenon around which Guitar Hero is based, and it's this which raises it above its peers. In DDR, there's no sense of your actions creating anything. The game merely judges your actions. DDR isn't about tricking you into thinking you're dancing - to actually succeed with DDR, you are dancing. There is no magic here, just you following orders. Similarly with Singstar and Karaoke Revolution: To do well in them isn't to be tricked into thinking you're a good singer - but it's to actually be a good singer. All the games may give you a little flash of the joy of performing with their feedback telling you how you're the greatest dancer or whatever, but that's a different thing from the flash of joy of performing the act itself.

 

Guitar Hero differs. Guitar Hero is about tricking you into thinking you're playing guitar. You press the buttons and strum with the flipper... and the appropriate noises appear. The power of Harmonix's system is how - even at the basic levels - they've judged the correct number of inputs to make you feel as if what you're doing has some connection to the music that's emitting from the speakers. That by waggling your fingers in a certain way, that riff screams out. You stop waggling your fingers... it stops. You're playing the music.

 

You know you're not. But you certainly feel like it.

 

What separates Guitar Hero from Harmonix's other offerings is its choice of peripheral. Playing on a controller creates a level of abstraction through the input method. Noises are appearing, but in a way which you know bears no relation to how they're really produced. With that plastic guitar hanging around your neck, that leap of faith is a lot easier to make. And this is where Guitar Hero achieves Harmonix's stated aim - to give a little of the absolute thrill of creating noise, feeling connected to this wave of pure sensation. You want to know what it feels like to play guitar? It's like the state of zen-tranquility in motion chased by surfers, samurai and shoot-em up addicts. It's a little like realizing you're the breath of God. Guitar Hero takes you into the neighborhood and shows you the view.

 

And as my ex put it after blasting through The Queens of the Stone Age's "No One Knows," "I deny anyone can be in the same room as Guitar Hero and be unhappy."

 

It's not a game. It's a pharmacological miracle.

 

And, returning to the point in question, Boston are level designers par excellence because their song shows off Harmonix's mechanics to their best effects. Other songs do various aspects of the performance better. Others are much more challenging. But none manage to express, in the topography of their guitar line, the varied and absolute pleasures of playing Guitar Hero.

 

It's more than just Guitar Hero, though. In its simplified - distilled - echo of real guitar playing, it teaches you a little of why guitarists play certain songs. Before playing Guitar Hero, I had something of an old punk's puritanical disgust for over-technical guitar players destroying records with their unwanted virtuosity. Now, I can see why the pleasure overwhelms them and they want to do so. The breathless rush after you fall off the end of a guitar solo into a hard, extended note makes you see this... it's addictive. So, they're addicted to it and can't help themselves. I don't really blame them. It's a feeling worth chasing.

 

It also teaches you that the best, the very best guitar-led songs manage to hit these sensations while still serving the song, because there's more than the act of guitar playing being taught. It's also engages with your understanding of the song itself. Guitar Hero, in some ways, is an active form of music criticism, opening the songs' guts to a layperson so you can see how it's working, like Natural Scientists trying to understand the universe's design in a daisy. For example, I know "Ziggy Stardust" is a great song, but by the game walking you through Mick Ronson's lyrical and witty guitar line, I understand it all the better: How it flicks between the hard and the soft and the counterpoint to Bowie's lines; how it's really good.

 

Even artists I've got less time for are shown in a better light. Take Franz Ferdinand's reheated, post-punk art-pop, represented by "Take Me Out." Coming from an entirely different tradition to the majority of the songs Guitar Hero offers, its oblique rhythms provide off-kilter challenge, and playing them shows you how imaginative, how ballsy, and how, through odd ingredients, its momentum is created. Playing the Chili's cover of Stevie's Wonder's "Higher Ground" and Sum 41's "Fat Lip" have led to similar grudging respect, against my previously developed critical (and terribly snobby) faculties.

 

Going further, and showing it isn't just that Guitar Hero makes all songs great, the array of B-level filler mostly just sits dead on the disc, taking up space. Guitar Hero's explanation only works when there's something worth explaining. Flipping it around, obviously enough, songs you already love have their greatness re-affirmed. "Ace of Spades" is nothing less than the sound of the universe's atria slamming shut during the world's sexiest coronary, and captured perfectly here while (on higher difficulties) sitting on the absolute immaculate boundary being too hard to play and impossibly satisfying when you do. Equally, the Queens of the Stone Age's "No One Knows," whose dense rhythms can stun the unwary fledgling even on Easy.

 

"More Than a Feeling" isn't that hard - only on Expert does it start to really take your fingers apart, one knuckle at a time. This is part of its majesty as a level, gently walking you through everything great about Guitar Hero. Delicate movements of the fingers across the plastic fret board during its idyllic opening, before it releases the Searing Guitar Sound

I've got this real urge to play "Cliffs of Dover" now that I've been thinking about Guitar Hero....

Probably the most fun song in any of the Guitar Hero games

2 games, 2 quotes . I'm surprised at the GH3 hate - it dropped out of my list at the very last minute (alongside Lemmings, funnily enough). I think y'all are right - it was my cherry popping into GH and therefore has a place in my heart.

 

Majik

Perhaps I was being unfair, I dont really HATE it, I still spent countless hours with it and some of the songs (Cliffs of Dover, Stricken and Bulls On Parade especially) were great fun to play....I think you just got a sense when Neversoft took over that it was being made for quick cash rather than Harmonix's games which you can tell are made by people who love the genre.

Amazed at GH3 being picked. The worst of the series in my opinion. GH2 was far superior as a game.

 

As Black2 mentioned, GH3 suffered from poor note alignment, shitty shitty boss battles, and worst of all for me, catered strictly to the elite GH players where furious button mashing was considered fun. Trying to get through "Reign In Blood" on expert was a truly miserable experience for me.

I reckon GH1 or 2 might still be to come (I'd be pretty shocked if GH3 got more votes) I'm with you on Reign in Blood on Expert. A painful chore rather than a song. Same goes for Knights of Cydonia which would have been the best song on there had they not ballsed up the note chart.

I've had 2 in so far with Lemmings and COD4. I was going to go with ISS 98 (where I first fell in love with the series) but plumped for a newer version in the end.

Fallout was the game of last year for me. Absolutely incredible world. Don't rush to level up. You'll hit the ceiling and won't have anywhere for your character to advance.

 

If you're stuck - and don't you dare venture there until you are - go to fallout.wikia.com for infinite resources.

Easily game of last year for me too, I'm still playing it thanks to the fantastic DLC and it's increase of the level cap. Looking forward to getting Point Lookout at the end of the month too.

I forgot about Jake Roberts, met him a few years ago and he was high as a kite!

I seem to be the only person who has met Jake at a show where he wasnt fucked off his face. Or maybe he was just hiding it better that day.

I hate being stuck between 2 games......I'm a massive Rock Band fan, bought the full band pack last year and have since probably downloaded another 30 or 40 tracks.....the RB2 setlist looks fantastic and having DLC and RB1 songs transfer over is a stroke of genius........

 

but GH:WT has some fantastic tracks on it....and some damn good DLC coming out (Smashing Pumpkins pack and full Oasis album for example). If only the tracks you downloaded were cross platform like the instruments are. They might as well be seeing as they're essentially the same game, and split the tracks up in the same way.

 

 

I've opted for World Tour... I was motivated by:

 

- great tracklisting (there are a couple on Rock Band that I'd love to play, but overall I think WT's is better)

- Free bass

- Metallica Death Magnetic which I downloaded for GHIII is forward compatible

Ah I didnt realise GH3 downloads were forwards compatible, I take it this is the same for all GH3 DLC (aside from being guitar only obviously) I have the Muse track pack and the Foo's one I believe.

I hate being stuck between 2 games......I'm a massive Rock Band fan, bought the full band pack last year and have since probably downloaded another 30 or 40 tracks.....the RB2 setlist looks fantastic and having DLC and RB1 songs transfer over is a stroke of genius........

but GH:WT has some fantastic tracks on it....and some damn good DLC coming out (Smashing Pumpkins pack and full Oasis album for example). If only the tracks you downloaded were cross platform like the instruments are. They might as well be seeing as they're essentially the same game, and split the tracks up in the same way.

I'm not enjoying Lego Batman as much as the other games in the Lego series, sadly

PES demo out on Live & PSN tomorrow

The men involved have relaunched their website, and it looks like what websites look like in movies from 1999.

Well, Moj wont need as much money as he would for a normal show either, most of the shitarses would likely work for free anyway.But it would make an interesting turn of events, rather than a show pushed as being awesome with crap on it... the show would be drawing through being advertised as "the worst in UK pro wrestling, come see a bunch of no-hopers humiliate themselves for your pleasure!"