I was surfing job sites within the industry and in order to be a Guitar Hero tester for Activision, it's REQUIRED that you be able to play and pass Raining Blood on expert. That's just unfair.

Oh good, I can't wait to not have fun playing this game.

We've been breaking Captain Obvious out a lot lately.

I actually busted the strum bar on my old X-Plorer controller after playing Through the Fire and Flames. I only played the song three times, as well.

But fuck Guitar Hero. If I can pass expert on Rock Band (Green Grass and High Tides is the only thing holding me back :( ) then I should be able to easily pass hard on Guitar Hero, but it's stupidly difficult.

Y'know.. I honestly do prefer RB to GH, but..

They ARE games. I don't see any problem with catering to a gamer mentality. They are not realistic music-playing simulators.

Also, the songs aren't fucking impossible. They're just impossible if you suck. Plenty of people can beat these songs on expert.

So exactly who's fault is it that there comes a point when you get good enough at something that in order to continue to be challenged, you need to face insurmountable odds to continue to find enjoyment in being challenged?

There's hardcore and there's softcore. If you can't get off on the softcore anymore, that's why hardcore is there.

With all due respect, Mr. Rigopulos, me and all my friends who have grown into the rhythm game genre playing your Guitar Hero creations are now purposefully not buying downloadable Rock Band content when it's anything less than a Tier 6 song. Too boring is just as much of a problem as too hard, you know.

This unnecessarily difficult gameplay on GH3 led me to abandon the series. Activision and Harmonix can all stand around touting their wares on shared and exclusive tracks, but it all boils down to me as what's fun to play. GH3 was not fun. Was it challenging? Yeah, but it wasn't a fun challenge. It was a "what did they do to this game to make it so fucking hard?" challenge. So I stopped. Got Rock Band, and while the charts are easier than GH's legacy games, it's more fun to play, especially with friends.

I've been saying this since RB came out. GH seems to add notes that aren't even in the song.

To Vanilla Gorilla... I dunno how you could just do that. I download songs because of what I like and have more fun playing with friends than what's the hardest songs to play.

@ Vanilla Gorilla

There's a difference between challenging the hard core audience and giving them a challenge that is all together ridiculous to expect from people.

@ Vanilla Gorilla

Congrats, you're part of the problem. How does it feel to be the kind of fan Activision caters to by raping the GH series?

Rock Band FTW.

Rock Band is far greater precisely for this reason. Guitar Hero is catering to the very specific uber-hardcore niche; the same assholes who posts on boards about how they can FC Raining Blood on their first try or how anyone who can't beat Through the Fire and Flames suck. Rock Band songs can still be hard...hell, the Metallica pack still kicks my ass, namely Ride the Lightning.

Like an ugly chick that pads her braw to get attention... Guitar Hero pads their guitar riffs... saying "LOOK at me! ive got thousands of notes"

@Vanilla Gorilla

The majority of my rockband time is spent inebriated with friends. And because of this, no song over 3stars is allowed.. ROOOOOOXXXXAANNNNNEE!!!!!!

Vanilla Gorilla, are you referring to full band tier 6 or would you play a song with an individual instrument above tier 6?

@Vanilla Gorilla

Ultimately, that's the big difference between Rock Band and Guitar Hero - Guitar Hero caters to players who are looking for challenges, while Rock Band caters to players who are looking for performances. It's not a "hardcore vs casual" difference, it's just that different players enjoy different experiences.

That's why I quit playing Guitar Hero. I listen to alot of bands that are also in Guitar Hero, and as soon as they started throwing in extra notes and chords (GH3), I get thrown off.

Besides, I can't forgive them for making my girl Judy Nails into a slutty Bratz figure.

Rock Band is like karaoke while Guitar Hero is more like a game of pool.

Sorry, I had a craving for a bar metaphor.

And this, friends, is one of the reasons that we now have WiiMusic. Why can't people understand that there IS a happy middle-ground? Guitar Hero III is ridiculously difficult, to the point where it's not that fun. I had thought that they were correcting that for GH: Aeroshit and World Tour? Did they change their minds?

Also, Rock Band rules.

I actually wish Guitar Hero would continue to be ass hard. Keep the people who like being reamed over on that game, so those of us on Rock Band done have to be tortured by bullshit metal songs as much.

This is completely unrelated to the post but i was wondering if there was anything behind the quote on the picture for this post. There is a radio station near where i live that has a morning show and one of the sound clips they use is someone saying F---ing thing sucks! Cause if there are other people in this community that listen to Preston and Steve I would shit bricks. On that note there is hard and then there is we love to torture our players w/ things that are almost infeasible w/ a normal human body.

@pyrofreak421
The guy's name is Bill O'Reily. You might have heard of him. The soundbite comes from a recently leaked, but very old, video of him freaking out when taping an episode of Inside Nation. Just search for it on youtube, you'll have no problem finding it.

Lately whenever a dev says the game will be easier for begginers, its means its going to be ten times as hard the last one.

The new song pack is tricksy as well.

i agree, there is only one song which i can't beat on RB, Green Grass and High Tides, and only because of that sustained three note hammer on thing. and the same thing goes for Free Bird from GH2.. i love the song, and i can do that technique on a real guitar, but i can't move my fingers fast enough to do it on the plastic controller..

i am one of the few ppl who got GH3 for the pc and i ended up having to fix that guitar multiple times after smashing it on the floor because of how rediculously hard most of the songs where on expert.

and even with GH: aerosmith, train kept a rollin threw in extra chords and such that i never new existed in the song... the RB version (although it's a cover) is more accurate to what the musician actually plays.

i saw a video today from e3 showcasing Van Halen from GH4. they played Hot For Teacher, which is a good song, but the guitar part had 2-3 extra notes thrown in the verse part and chorus...

GH got me so frustrated simply because i couldn't beat Reigning Blood, everything else in the original setlist i could do..i had to hack the game to get past it to have a shot at failing the lou boss battle, which imo is a crappy metal remake of a good song...

and then we get to Through the Fire and Flames, the most over-done rediculous hard song i have ever seen in my life.. impossible to get passed the first 5 seconds unless you were the flash, and then had one of the hardest solos i've ever seen, coupled with an imposibly hard ending part...

i forget which guitarist from Dragonforce tried it, but he attempted to do the song on hard, and didn't get passed 2%.. that should say something... if the person who wrote the song can't beat it, then it might just be too hard...

sry about the long post.. i had a lot to say about this subject..

RB is infinitely better...

I Don't see how you guys hate GH for having the OPTION to play at a harder difficulty. Just because you can't cut it on expert doesn't mean you have to play it on expert. You say you play rock band because its a bit easier and more true to the songs.

well play Guitar Hero songs on hard and you'll find yourself having fun again.

I for one LOVE GH because it has the OPTION to be amazingly hard. GH has everything Rock Band has difficulty wise and THEN a much harder level for hardcore players. it has options for both people where as Rock Band does not.

@LarkOhiya - the problem is that when i play Stricken on Expert, i love it. Its true to the song; im playing chords when i should be playing chords, etc etc (and i know its more or less right, because i have the tab for it).

Until i get to parts of the solo. When im forced to play around 3 or 4 notes a bar that i know im not hearing.

You can tell me to scale it back to Hard... when most of the songs are blatantly doing the wrong thing to make it easier. Your argument would be well founded if there was a difficulty beyone Expert, Insane perhaps. As it is, i just want to get to the point where i really feel im playing the song; no more, no less. With Guitar Hero as it is, i feel like itd be better just to learn the songs for real(which i do... but im lazy so it takes a while)>

hmm. to that I think rock band should just include one higher level that is just hard for hards sake. Then everyone would be happy.

Rockband is the obvious better game. However, I find both games to have very challenging songs, so I'm not about to give up on Guitar Hero just because a few songs are "impossible". And besides, Guitar Hero will always have a soft spot in me because it was the first to have the awesome take-home guitar hero controller. If I just turn back on the series because Rockband came out, I'll feel like a traitor. lol Either way, I just love both series. GH still has plenty of songs that aren't in Rockband. That's enough of a reason for me to still keep playing it.

I completely disagree with you, Lark. The highest difficulty should accurately represent what it's like to play the actual song, accounting for every single note. Making the highest difficulty hard just to be harder goes against the idea that you are making the music, because adding notes that aren't in the song is just ridiculous. If you want harder songs, then ask for songs that are naturally harder. Real guitar parts aren't hard for the sake of being hard.

Why do the Rock Band kids get so butt-hurt? Seriously, look at the amount of whine in this thread.

The wall at the end of 'Hard' difficulty made my GF give up on trying to get it better :-(

she's just waiting for the Metalica-one now, they said they'd fix it in that one ;-)

I guess I never found any of the GH III songs to be that difficult on expert. Sure, Raining Blood was annoying, but after practice mode for a half hour or so I passed it. And being a musician (a guitarist, to boot) I did notice how much they embellished the songs to the point where they weren't true to the recordings. It was my first GH game, and it was meh. Won't buy again.

I'm a Harmonix believer after I picked up Rock Band this summer. I don't give a shit how tough it is - I can beat Fire and Flames on expert - but I prefer Rock Band. There is plenty of challenge to be had if you look for it, but the game is fun even on some of the easiest songs. The incredible animations, art, and ambient noise and lighting, coupled with a couple of beers and a couple of friends, push this game far and beyond the GH III experience.

Plus you can sing and play at the same time, which is a great party trick. Yeah I go to lame parties.

I played a bit of rock band a while back and I've gota say I was not impressed. After playing GH3 I found Rock Band easy to the point that it wasn't fun. Not only that, the guitar felt cheap and the note timing felt wrong. I think the problem here is that there is some mentality that if something is too hard just don't do it or complain about it until they make it so that you can do it. I can not play Guitar Hero 3 on Expert, I can play it on Hard, does that mean I should complain that expert mode is too hard because I can't do it? It's called a challenge, and it's what makes living fun.

Yeah, I'm going to have to not hate on GH3 too. Honestly rock band is fun, but not hard enough. I don't have 3 people that will come over and play fake music with me all the time. I play when I have a little bit of time to wait around. I'm not a GH3 pro... I can't beat fire and flames on expert, but I can beat 80-90% of the tracks on expert and it's that extra small percent that I can't do that keeps me coming back. It gives me a challenge and a few embellished solos aren't a turn off to me because for the most part the chart seems to follow the music.

Personally I can't go all the way through GHIII on Hard, let alone Expert. Hard is fun, challenging, and sometimes humiliating for me. So, I don't play on Expert and then go on forums loudly complaining about how Expert is too Hard. If you really want to feel "true to the song", I would humbly suggest that using a keytar might not be the way to go. But if RB gives you that feeling without the frustration, then by all means play RB. I don't understand why everyone gets bent out of shape over stuff like this?

I prefer the "realism" of Rock Band. Hard for the sake of hard is not fun.

Captain Obvious indeed. You know something is up when you can play the song on an actual guitar properly, but not in GH3.

Watch a professional run of One on expert. They'll get 100% in every section except for Fast Solo A. Because Activision had to be a dick and make it impossible to even TAP correctly.

And they decided to notate the SYNTH parts in TTFAF. I'm still astonished someone managed to FC that song. -.-u

@Vanilla - OK, smartguy, if RB is too easy, sing and play at the same time. Oh, that's right. You're probably too hardcore to do something so easy as singing.

"They ARE games. I don't see any problem with catering to a gamer mentality."

Because the whole premise of the game is that you're playing 'x' song. When they start adding notes that aren't there, you're no longer doing that. You're playing notes when there aren't any, and a song just happens to be playing at the same time.

Stop your whining you big soppy pussies - GH3s difficulty isn't THAT bad....hell the window you have to hit a hammer on is fucking twice as long as RockBand.

GH3 ftl! RB FTW! woot! I'm just sad Tool signed up with Craptivision/RedOCTane\Neversnot instead of EA/Harmonix\MTV :( AM SAD!

@Blackhat: Yes.

At least as I see it, music games are designed to give the player the sense of being a musician. When you reach a point that the game goes beyond the music, it is no longer doing this. Yeah it's still sweet; you can hit uber fast streams of colored notes, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're rocking out. I mean I hit uber fast streams of colored things in Geometry Wars all the time, and the music is pretty sweet too.

Also would like to point out while neither GH or RB has a guitar interface that is anything like actually playing guitar, RB drumming is VERY similar to actual drumming. If you can beat expert solo career, by all means you should go pick up a $300 dollar set at pawn shop and make the jump. And singing too, but that goes without saying.

Also, you have to realize one thing:
Neversoft's focus is video games. They focus on making the charts harder level to level.
Harmonix's focus is music and comprised of musicians. They focus on emulating the same movements.

Or, to sum it nicely:
GH3+: Dude, check out this high score!
RB: Dude, check this out! (Attempts to Angus Walk, trips, falls flat on face and fails song)

Although I must admit, there are quite a few songs on GH easier to play on the real guitar. 3s and 7s's rhythm section is power chords, and if you can play Thunderstruck, then TTFAF shouldn't be too daunting.

I would rather have a large variety of songs that I like to play, than songs that are so "challenging" that they takes months to pass.

Fun is lost when you have to play the same song for more than a week straight to progress to the next set list. If GH3 wanted to have super ridiculous note charts that's fine, but they should be in the bonus song or ONLY on expert. I was able to get halfway through expert on GH2 but I can't open the last set list on GH3's hard mode. The whole point of having an EXPERT mode is to challenge to crazy people, hard mode is fucking stupidly hard in GH3.

This may sound weird, but I may have bought the new Guitar Hero if it was JUST Guitar. I don't want two different games with bands to play with. Even though I have Rock Band, I still go back to Guitar Hero 3 quite often because I actually like the guitar parts better.

Suffice to say, I'm not buying GH4.

I actually like both rockband and gh and can thank both games for bringing up good tunes i haven't heard in awhile.. also the new inspiration to play REAL guitar.. which makes me not sit in front of my tv so much but jam out with a real instrument.

I do agree that GH is too hard for the sake of being hard (I gave up on the franchise after II), this argument has become sort of null with the advent of DLC.

I remember playing Guitar Hero and making it through most of the hard mode, then GHII kicking my ass on the first set of hard mode songs. I then let it collect dust.
But as long as they release songs of all difficulties for GH, the "hard for the sake of being hard" statement shouldn't be too much of an issue.

It goes beyond being 'hard' though. Adding notes that aren't there isn't increasing difficulty, it's a fake challenge.

Songs can be difficult to play without playing the fucking accordion, keyboard, lead, bass, and rhythm guitar at the same time. And then adding some notes.

Try adding harder combos to pull off instead of a massive string of random notes that don't exist in the song.

See: Jordan, Guitar Hero II. The main riff is the keyboard I believe, just adding to the fact that they throw random notes in there for added difficulty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMU-paVeoiI

Sounds to me like a killswitch guitar :)