Effector

It's not that they think mp3 is dumb, it's that AAC is technically a better format. It's the format that Apple uses for everything, it has better quality on lower bitrates. Hell, Sony has adopted it for the PS3. You really can't equate MIDI to AAC here. Not sure where you got the idea that Nintendo uses MIDIs for everything - we've been saying that these dojo music updates sound like MIDIs, but I'd be very, very surprised if they actually were. Yes, AAC is still not as common as MP3, but it's the MP3 successor, and there are tons of converters out there. I would take the time to convert the few songs I would use in Smash if Nintendo used AAC for Smash - a proposition I think would be unlikely. Excite Truck used MP3s, IIRC, so our one precedent here doesn't even have the issue you're talking about. Still... not a likely feature for Nintendo. Even so, if you had said they were gonna put a stage editor in, I would've said that would've been unlikely, so we'll see how it goes.

This is one thing I've actually agreed with you on, Atma. I liked that feature in Excite Truck (mostly because the music got grating - it was never wonderful to begin with, by any stretch of the imagination) and I wish I could see it in more games. Granted, I wouldn't see myself using it in a Smash Bros. game all that much, with the copious good music going in (and the ability to choose frequency of specific tunes), but still. The more games that allow me to customize - music, controls, things of that nature - the better.

I played it last night. For twelve hours, nearly straight. I started out on drums (on easy nearly the whole time), then moved off and swapped between guitar and bass the rest of the night, since I'm the second best GH player in our group. Unfortunately, our best guitarist found that he was also the best drummer (which was a position more sorely lacking in skill), so I ended up taking guitar most of the time and doing a mediocre job. Things I've learned about Rock Band: most everyone sucks at drums deleting the band accidentally makes for some great band drama singing is more forgiving than you'll expect knowing the lyrics is just as (if not more) important than knowing how to sing Bon Jovi is a blast to play how to use a bass drum pedal (if anyone is hurting their ankle, try leaving it depressed when not playing, but just doing a quick up and down for hits) This game can and will steal your life if you let it I have only two sticking points: 1.) band/member management sucks ass. Having to use four weirdly operated controllers to navigate the most convoluted profile system ever gave me a headache when we were touring. Band profiles are tied to 360 profiles, which each contain band members. It doesn't make sense sometimes. Case in point: Having a blast, we needed to pack up and move locations. We piled into cars, each carrying undersized plastic instruments (which must have looked odd to a passerby), and set up shop again. However, after logging in four people on four 360 profiles (a chore in itself), it appeared that some of our characters were missing. Either the game had decided to ignore seven hours of the character's life, or there was some sort of profile mix-up. Either way, in the hubbub, I accidentally deleted the band leader, making our band poof away. Band drama followed. 2.) Rock Band will make you play the same songs. A lot. If you're planning on doing the main full-band multiplayer career (which is what you should be getting the game for), be prepared to see a lot of the same songs. I must've played Say It Ain't So and In Bloom half a million times. Not sure what the deal was, but it got grating. The upside is that you'll probably see these songs from the perspective of four different instruments, so there's a a lot more replay value here than in GHs of yore. Also, minor quibble: RB rewards you with money, fans, and stars. "Fans" is the most frustrating component of the equation. The band can only get a check of the lowest difficulty setting of a member of the band, and caps on fans are introduced depending on the difficulty. In essence, this means if you have one merely okay or poor player (it will most likely be your drummer, since most people I played with couldn't survive on medium), they'll be holding you back - without enough fans, you can't play bigger venues and progress. I guess it's meant to force you to get better, but it just seemed unfair when I was playing. That said, while it might seem like I'm spouting nothing but negatives, there's so much more to it. The feeling of rocking out that you got in GHs previous is multiplied by a million here. Those negatives are just minor annoyances, and once you get in the groove, they just disappear. Play this game, you'll see. UGH, hueg post is hueg. Sorry for the thesis paper guys, but this is what I've been mulling over all day.

Does anyone know if you can access the Live Leaderboards for this (or any 360 game) without a 360? I'm trying to find a kid's ranking (Otakujack, or something similar) on GH3... I believe at one time he was ranked in the single digits, which is wild. Weird having someone that insane live less than a mile from you. More on topic, his five-starring of TTFAF makes me cry. I think his trick to beat the intro is tie a string around the green fret (since it's a part of all the chords there) and knock it off the button once the crazy intro is done. That may not really work, but it's what I heard, secondhand, so I don't know if that would work (conceptually, with all the HOs and POs).

Might help if you fixed the link in that thread. :3 I was looking forward to listening to that, but I got 404'd. Don't tempt a man like that. EDIT: I guess it fixed itself? No complaints.

Bumping this - I would really appreciate some help.

Has anyone heard anything about 360 video outputs going out? My 360 is giving me fits right now - when I turn it on, I get audio, and it obviously is working (drive spins, I can hear menu navigation, etc) but nothing shows up on the screen. It's not the cords, I have two and neither works. No RRoD, nothing else unusual. I used it two days ago and left it in my room and nothing has touched it since. Done some quick searches on Google, found nothing, so I don't think this is exactly a common problem. Has this ever happened to you before (any console) and if so, how did you fix it? Any help would be appreciated, thanks. EDIT: The 360 is just over a year old - but the seal's broken, so the new-extended-three-year warranty helps me none.

For truth. It is a highly underrated game - it's one of those games that's very satisfying to master. I really could play it forever. I was so glad to find it in Animal Crossing back in the day.

IIRC, turning the little WiiConnect24 feature on in MP3 was manual, and you couldn't send anyone vouchers unless their name was "lit up" - they had enabled it. But I could be wrong. EDIT: My sister just told me she wants GH3 for Wii. Is it a legitimate expenditure? I know spleen said he wasn't exactly happy he had nearly spent $100 - should I just wait to throw my money at Nintendo once Galaxy and Brawl come out?

That really takes me back - I had totally forgotten.

Quoted for awesome.

... wow. That's quite a fascinating pricing scheme. I had been siding with Coop as I read his posts, but I can't argue with that kind of system - you get exactly what you want, or everything in a package deal (with the corresponding discount for bundle). It's only vaguely similar to Valve and Orange Box with the Steam business model, but that's what sprang to my mind - maybe it's because they're the only ones who have done anything at all in that kind of non-standard model. A shame, if you ask me.

I agree for the most part. Mainly, think about this. If they hadn't added this feature at all, you might think it would be kind of cool to have it, but once they put anything in at all, everyone finds something to complain about. How silly.

How long is this survey going to be up for? More importantly, when are you announcing the random winner? :3

Took it. 'twas a good survey - sadly, I don't play that many MMORPGs or anything like that, so many of my responses were in the negative. Still, interesting ideas.

Wow. Some of you guys need to let up on this. I really wanted to say what DuskyFerret already has, but he did it well, so you can just read that again if you want to know what I think. WD (and plenty of other glitches/bugs/exploits from Melee) will be cut when we get Brawl. But none of those things make a fun game; I played Melee for a good five years off and on with no knowledge of these "tourney-level skills", and enjoyed it immensely. Still do, in fact. The fact we can enjoy a six year old game (and I play it more than games that came out yesterday) says something about it. Besides, whatever they take out, you guys will find another weird thing in the physics engine to screw with. EDIT: QFT.

http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR00105/ I know it's old and it's not the best produced, but damn, it never fails to make me happier.

I actually enjoy this new trend towards the "roller coaster" philosophy concerning game design - HL2 and RE4 come to mind. Quick and deadly moments interspersed with times to catch your breath on. Most critics have lauded both these games for their extraordinary pacing, and I'm inclined to agree. I wouldn't enjoy a constantly-tough-as-nails-throughout game, but that doesn't mean I want a cakewalk right through. Consistency may mean you know what to expect, but when you don't know what's going to be right behind the next door, it fosters an atmosphere of deliberate action, and (for me), it gives a more complete feeling of accomplishment.

I've never really thought about it, but now that you mention it, I come to the same conclusion. SMB3 is the 2D Mario that I killed the most time on (thanks to the GBA). SMW is probably my second-favorite 2D Mario, but I felt like it was too... drifty? slick? I felt like making tight turns and air control involved too much inertia. Same feeling with New SMB. I never played the heck out of SMB1 like I did 3 (and especially not recently), so I don't feel qualified to pass judgment on that one.

Pfft, I don't read posts. D: Sorry, DS. Hm, I'd like to see a fixed sidebar (not sure what web designers call them - they stick to the viewing window, and don't scroll by like the normal page - is that what you guys mean by "permanent"?). RSS feed goes in the sidebar (as a drop-down, as someone suggested - that would be slick). Echoing the built-in ormgas player suggestions. Even better, a ormgas extension that sits in the status bar and runs whatever shoutcast stream they're using. I don't want a separate program/use WMP to listen to it - just a small player that I can run from Firefox. However, if you wanted to be totally ambitious, how about an extension that lets each user customize the sidebar how they want? Whether they want the space dedicated to RSS feed, recently posted-in threads, or links to frequently-used pages... 'twould be ambitious, but quite amazing.

Plugging my favorite thing that happened to this site ever: Stylish extension and Rama's css files. Removes white-blindingliness, and very tweakable if you know any CSS. Browsing OCR without it really confuses me, but eh. Recommended for at least a look. But otherwise, for a site-specific extension, no, we don't have one, as far as I know.

Yeah, I got the sarcasm. But whatever point he was trying to make (that people complain about cartoon-y characters?) really didn't have anything to do with Eulogic's post (that Kirby's moves really do draw from his old-school heritage).

Kirby players may maul me, but I think Cutter and Hammer are annoying as hell. Beam, Sword, and Wheel plz. And Strike, I don't even know why you quoted Eulogic. I can't tell if it was an accident or you missed the point totally.

I'm loving this. Wonderfully hardcore stuff. I should probably make a CD of this stuff to blast at work after we close. Problem is, seven songs isn't quite enough to make a CD. Anyone have any complementary material like this to suggest?

Yeah, I counted it out, it was ten backspaces - just enough to delete "Wii Format". (including the space between)