DesiredFX’s Profile

PSN ID: DesiredFX

As of last week, I've got all of it, and I plan to keep up with that until further notice.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

People wonder, sometimes, why I love the Strat so much. This is a blog about why.

Right now, I'm thinking about the fact that I've had the game over a month, played guitar or bass virtually every day and I just got my first Full Combo in an online gig I played two nights ago.

Even though I play a lot, I tend to play very casually--I don't spend much time learning songs, preferring to just play them as they come up and learn as I go.

Occasionally, this ticks people off, like the first time I tried Wanted Dead or Alive on Expert Guitar and botched the beginning--I didn't fail out or anything, but it sounded pretty hoarse.

But since I get the most fun out of playing with others, whether locally or online, I much prefer to learn the songs as I go along.

Which brings us to my first FC, Thursday night. The leader was picking random songs and I was flip-flopping between bass and guitar (a much more friendly way to play, in my experience). Time We Had by The Mother Hips came up and I was planning to play it on Expert Guitar (having aced Hard Guitar in the Bonus Tour). Everyone had selected except the other guitbass player--he had played guitar on the previous song and was sitting on Bass, apparently unwilling to select it. I had already selected Guitar and was "Waiting" for him. After about 30 seconds, I tapped the Green fret button...just as he finally made his selection.

As a result, I ended up selecting Hard instead of Expert. D'oh!

But, as it turns out, it went well for me, as you can guess if you read the first part of this story. So I finally got that first one under my belt, even if it's part of an unrecorded online Band Quickplay session.

Last night, I had a great gig going with a guy who was playing Expert guitbass and had no problems swapping back and forth with me on every song. It's so much better to play that way than with a guy who either a) MUST play guitar on every song or b) knows which songs have the best bass parts and only switches to bass when those songs come up. Aggravating.

To all such people--and I know none of my friends and regular readers will be such people--may I gently say: chill out. The game's only been out for a month and we're gonna be playing it for years! Even with a handful of new DLC songs every week, every one of us will have played the knickers off these songs a thousand times over! Step back, be cool, and let everyone else have fun, too. Take a hint when someone kicks you or leaves your band when you won't surrender your need to play Guitar.

Hm. Actually that was a digression. I was trying to talk about the fun I had playing last night with a very good player who has no problem switching off. His PSN name is desrat2u, if I'm remembering correctly (and if not, I'll come back and edit). If I can find him on here, he's getting a friend invite from me immediately, because in this game, it's impossible to have too many friends who understand the spirit of the game.

Well, last night, Orange Crush rolled up, and while I'm a huge REM fan, it's never been one of my favorites of theirs. This time I ended up on Expert guitar, and having never played it above Hard, I was feeling a bit of a Bon Jovi flashback coming on.

I hacked the song a bit at the beginning--if you've ever played with me, you know that's common: it always takes me a few measures for my fingers to realize the song has started--but very early on in the song, I caught the groove and rode it all the way to the end. Final tally was 99% and 372 note streak...essentially the whole song from the beginning of the first verse on.

When I eventually get around to telling my history with rhythm games (from Amplitude to Rock Band), one thing that's gonna become clear is that Expert Guitar, for me, has always meant "three stars or fail."

I've been acing a whole lot of the songs in RB, not so much because the charts are easier, but because the Fender makes them really, really easy to play. My fingers glide on the fretboard in a way they never did with a GH controller, and I have absolutely no issues with strumming up as well as down (I tend to up-strum playing Bass), and I've even gotten over my GH-instilled alt-strumophobia.

What I'm saying to the folks who hate the Strat is...give it some time. Once your problems with defects are ironed out, be patient with the little differences in the controller. I did, and it's paying off enormously. I'm playing stuff I never even imagined I could play using any of the GH controllers.

Heck, for fun, I've been going through solo tour on Medium using only the minifrets. It's a blast, and has helped a lot when I want to try tap soloing on the higher levels.

Sunday, December 23, 2007