It pains me to say anything bad about the Guitar Hero franchise.
BUT...
Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's is a colassal let down. And that opinion is not a factor of comparison to the previous titles. My opinion drops further when I compare the game to previous titles.
My primary issue with the game is poor consistancy in sound quality. As I said in my previous
review of the game, in most of the songs, either the vocals or the band recordings sound muted, flat, and lifeless. So, despite the 80's being a poppy explosion of audio and visual vibrance, the game doesn't carry that feeling through. I actually found myself bored while playing, longing for the setlist to come to an end. But, I wanted to unlock all of the songs so Taks and I could play any of the songs on multiplayer when she got home. When she did get home, she sat down on the couch and for the first time since we started playing Guitar Hero when I asked if she'd like to take a turn... she declined. That says a lot to me.
Now, I would like to qualify my statements by saying this... I was playing on medium. When I moved up to hard, I was distracted by trying to hit all the chords and shifting my hand position on the fret board. So, the failure of the music to excite me wasn't as much of an issue. I'd also like to say though, the songs were so easy on medium that I dread actually sitting through any of the songs on easy.
You'll notice I haven't mentioned the price yet. Well. **shrugs** It's a business writeoff for me so complaining about the ramped up pricetag slapped on a shorter setlist is something I can live with. At least that's what I'm telling myself to try to make it better in my head.
All of that being said the following comment should relay exactly how unimpressed I was. Unless something major happens, there will be NO other Rocks the 80's comics on GU. You'll have to live with the ones that have already been posted.
--- UPDATE ---
I would just like to add that I am enjoying the game much more on Hard as I'm too busy trying to hit the notes to notice any issues with sound and vocals. (Please Note: this was advice I gave in the review.)
In case you didn't know,
ConnectiCon is a once yearly event held at the Hartford (CT) Convention Center. The event itself centers around the notion of bring multi-genre geeks together. That is to say when you walk the halls of the ConnectiCon you will encounter a largely Anime crowd peppered with those who follow webcomics, fantasy, StarWars, gaming, comic books, Magic, tabletop gaming, etc.
Now, for the sake of unity and cohesion, we will consider the beginning of ConnectiCon 2007 to be the moment we started planning for it. As alway I asked to be put on as many panels as possible. That is where I am most comfortable, and because GU has such a relatively small following at the ConnectiCon I'm not left sitting at a table doing nothing. Well, this year, I was assigned to one panel and I would be sharing it with Hawk from
AppleGeeks, and Garth from
Comedity. So, I quickly requested booth space and began collecting those items I figured I'd need for the event. I wasn't overly interested in the idea of having a lot of merchandise as I consider such a small booth (8'x8') to be useful for little more than meeting/greeting fans. So, the original concept was to remove the table and chairs entirely, leaving a small area through which vistors could flow, shake a hand, or laugh at some ridiculous "Con" remark.
I began the booth design with a 7' tall 8' wide, black, velcro-faced popup. Initially the plan was to have a 7x4' banner of the "dead bodies" at the bottom the Ding! Panel wrapped into the concave front and topped with an 8x2' "GUComics.Com" banner. But, the company that produced these banners for us dropped the ball and the quality was terrible. So, we had to return them and make last minute changes to fill the space. What we ended up with was a lot of printed materials, some velcro tabs for placement, and a good deal of merchandise (posters, postcards, stickers) to fill the table that now had to be returned to the design. We had a handful of the new black GU shirts that
ZeStuff produced for us and had shipped to the convention in less than a week. Kudos to Pierre and Simon for getting that squared away for us in such short order. Finally, my favorite piece, a 6' tall corrugate plastic Ted standup. He was supposed to only be 5'10" but what's 2 inches amongst friends?
For the most part everything fit into a rolling case that doubled as a podium. But Ted, becoming the real world pain in my ass that until now he'd only been in the comics, had to be carried onto each plane and stowed in the attendants' closet. Meaning... Ted rode in first class while Taks and I flew coach. And where I'm not 100% certain, I'm fairly positive we flew into Connecticut sitting beside Caitlin Glass
(The voice of Winry in the Full Metal Alchemist anime series) another guest of the convention.
When we arrived at the hotel
(Thanks Larom for picking us up at Bradley), we went immediately to the UPS store in the hotel lobby to check on the state of our popup. We had to pay extra money beyond what we'd been quoted for the store to "handle" the large package. And we found that the entire case had been tweaked to the point that several of the locks/latches had to be untwisted before we could actually open it. The booth went up quickly, without much of a hitch. And where traffic was (expectedly) slow, we still had a good time... despite being molested endlessly by
Hawk w/ rubberbands and Brain
(8-bit Theatre) turning everything at our table upsidedown, backwards, etc.
After the first real night of the Con, Taks, my pal Richard, and I went out for some late dinner with Steve from
Dueling Analogs, and a smattering of guys from the artist alley. They will have to forgive me, I'm terrible with names... and urls apparently.
(Send me an email, I'll get you in the link list here.) With that in mind let me pass out some further Con Linkage. Please hit each of the links and dig through their respective archives:
In the booth to our left was one of my favorite Con attendees, Mookie of
Dominic Deegan. He's a walking ball of Vegan charisma and deserves any compliment we can lay upon him. Beside him was Brian Clevinger of
8-bit Theatre. He's currently working with
Scott Wegener on
Atomic Robo (from Red 5 Comics) which will be hitting shelves next month. Tell your local comic shop to order them or suffer the consequences. Just beyond them was Hawk and Ananth of
Applegeeks, two of our favorite webcomic-ers. Behind them was Brian Wilson of
Hookie Dookie Panic. To his left was Chris Malone of
Blue and Blond who reminds us every year that GU helped start him down the path of webcomic production. And out somewhere in the dealer's room was Garth Graham from
Comedity, who, as far as I can tell, could use some help with basic Mac use.
Nothing personal anyone that's left out, this spot is just reserved for those I got to speak with.
Attendance at the Con seemed to be up again this year. Which, as you probably know, makes me very happy. Matt, Brianna, and their staff treat us very well.
(Thanks Chris for getting us back to the airport safely.) It's the primary reason we return every year. And hope that GU will continue to be invited for years to come. And hopefully more of you will come out to meet and hang out with us next year. Mark it on your calendars, schedule the time off, and start saving up now.
By the way, the one panel (Advanced Photoshop Techniques) I did with Hawk and Garth, except for a
dime throwing incident, went over pretty well. The room was full and attentive. I apologize to the gentleman who won the 6x8 Intuos giveaway (donated by
Wacom).
After the comic was done today, we had to rush off for an appointment with the sonographer. The short and simple of it is that it's a boy. Please hold your congratulations, we went through all that when the baby was first announced. Where I appreciate your intentions, we already know how you feel. To answer some of the other innevitable questions:
No, there will not be a lot of sonograph pictures posted showing the kids doodle. He's entitled to his privacy.
No, we have not picked a name yet. Suggestions of "Ted" have already been dismissed. Real life and the comic has to have a points of disconnect. This is one of them. (Name suggestions will be deleted.)
Yes, we will eventually have a baby registry and will probably have a virtual baby shower. To include all of those who are interested. No, we haven't set a date for that yet.
Finally... please don't offer unsolicited pregnancy advice. We're pretty smart, educated people. There's very little that could be suggested that we or our immediate families do not know or have not already discussed. (Unsolicited advice will be deleted.)
Thanks again for hopes, wishes, and initial kind words. I promise to keep you all updated.
