Be Excellent To Each Other

Jealousy now I feel.

Halvsies?

The songs are long. So very, very long.

The character creator is massive fun. Every time I go back to it I stumble on something else that inspires me to change complete look. I'm currently rocking a ruffled pirate shirt and eyepatch combined with an enormous Eighties bouffant mullet and bandana, plus an Earl Hickey moustache. AND IN THE GAME.

i wish there was a bit more concentration on the face so that you could make one look a little more like yourself.

My guy looked like Crono. He was cool.

Nottingham and London are a mite too far apart for this to work, methinks.

Well my plan was to basically just make you pay for half of it and to keep it at my house. Still up for it?

Mimi: do you always look like you're concentrating hard then?

You know what I meant

I caved in and downloaded a song.

What's more I downloaded a Sting/Police song.

Beat me up, people, if just to knock some sense into me.

I wanted to download the Bowie pack, but realised that only one of the three Bowie tracks to download actually features his vocal, which is a bit of a bummer. I'll giveteh previews a listen to make sure that they sound good but will almost certainly get those and Oasis too. I hate Oasis, but I reckon they are great tunes to have on this game.

Also, where the blinkin' hell are Queen in this game of Rock and flamboyance? Huh? Huh?

*Flies a plane into mimi*

I feel like this too.

So far I have done 19 songs on the solo drums tour on Medium. I've never drummed in my life, so my leg hurts. I'm starting to find them more difficult now. For a laugh I also tried I Think I'm Paranoid on Hard -- I made it through the song but only just barely.

my leg hurts today, ouchy, anyone know how you return things to play.com?

I have the game now but just the GH guitar and headset mic. I really REALLY want them drums - I ordered from Tesco Extra last night but may go out on a hunt although I reckon I'll get stung for full retail.

So far the Medium guitar seems really easy - I've 100% about 80% of the songs I've tried so far. The singing is proving difficult and is not helped by the fact that my 2 year old screams at me "NO DADDY NO" the minute I start. Does wonders for your self confidence that does.

Something that bothers me in the Medium difficulty is the way you are punished for playing the song correctly, when the notes aren't there. A minor gripe, like.

The NIN pack is worth having if you fancy a challenge, 'March of the Pigs' is a bastard difficult 7/4 beat in whichever difficulty, and the solo in 'The Perfect Drug' is almost as much fun as being on a real kit. The At The Gates song is insane on Expert, you have to match Erlandsson exactly

Some chums were over last night, and four-player Radiohead is possibly the most fun I've had on a game of late.

Fucking hell.

I was playing guitar on Easy, but we got the maximum fans for that level, so I thought I'd step up to Medium.

That was fine for a few songs, but then we got to Enter Sandman, which I just can't do. And my wife can't save me because I die minutes before the vocals start.

Ugh.

Well, that's those sticks broken.

You broke the sticks? How? They are solid wood!

How hard were you drumming?

He drums hard. I can hear the drumming quite clearly two rooms away!

Hard To Handle and Are You Gonna Be My Girl? are the family faves at the moment. We've got about four bands on the go, largely dependant on who gets to play drums. Everyone wants to play drums.

Oh, do you two love together? I did not know!

I have just the one band, Rodafowa, made up of all Mimis. We don't have a Mimi on guitar yet, because it is still unwrapped (thought I'd save something for later!) I'm enjoying the drumming and singing muchly, though

We're just good friends - I hope that was a typo

But yes, we are housemates.

Have you seen the video to 'No-one Knows' by QOTSA? Like that. The sticks that come with it are really, really light, I much prefer a pair of proper trees. I'll be picking up some of the lovely Vater sticks with the shock absorbers in, I think.

Oh yes, I meant to type 'live',

I don't think I could break the drumsticks if I repeatedly hit them against the wall as hard as I could, with a hammer.

Davyyd Grimm, yesterday:

My feyonce has had this theory about rhythm games for some time -- that in a perverse way they can get easier as you move up the difficulties, because you actually start to play a song and not a game.

I was going to ask what, as a drummer, you thought of the whole experience. Clearly it's a much closer simulation of drumming than it is of guitars.

Good grief. I was vaguely worried I was drumming a bit on the hard side -- I've left marks in the pad rubber, and I have some small dents in the rims of the pads from, ahem, blatant misses. But clearly I'm nowhere near too hard.

People on the Rock Band forums were talking up some rubber tipped sticks, based on the fact that there is no rebound in the pad like you would have from a real skin so it helps to have bouncy stick tips. Dunno if there's anything to that but I thought I might give them a go.

The pads are somewhat unforgiving, but given how hard I hit them rubber tips would probably mean my arm flying off! I reckon they may help, though, for people who don't attack their kit.

It is a pretty good approximation of drumming, and the expert mode seems to want some physically impossible stuff like the double kick bits in the Coheed and Cambria track. An issue I have is the pad arrangement; I'd like the yellow pad to be the snare instead of the red, but hey.

does anyone know how to get the regular 360 headset mic to work, so I can play either mic or drums and singalong at the same time?

I dont have a mic stand at my house (the supplied USB mic works fine, but distorts a lot, shame) so want to try the headset.

thanks

JEALOUSLY I GASE AT YOUR WONDERS IN DESPAIR

IS THIS HOW THE GOD OF THE LAND TREATS HIS FLOCK?

VERILY!

Plug in a controller, plug the headset into that, and use the controller as Player 1. Go into multiplayer, and use the controller to pick the mic difficulty. Turn down the sensitivity on the USB mic, that helps.

I'm getting well into doing bass and vocals, if anyone fancies a jam

I was just about to do this myself.

I think you just plug it into the normal controller and use it like that, but to use both instruments at once you will have to form a band, sign the singer into the band using the headset and controller and the drummer/guitarist in as a separate person (even though you are both people, if you understand what I mean).

Hmmm... Just tried it and the second of your split personalities needs to sign in under a separate gamertag, which is just pants.

I shall have to make a new account to do it, which is a bit of a pain in the backside (

Whoooo!

I made a new profile for my second Mimi (I names my band 'The Mimis' and was going to fill it with a whole bunch of me copies, but the name has been taken already. If I want to take my band online i have to change it first. Poo). It work fine with the headset and drums, and I played a quick song and got 99% on each at the same time. I AM Phil Collins!

Me, yesterday:

oh my god, the stuff of marmitemares. and I LOVE the marmite.

cant help but feel the guitar is soooo easy on this compared to guitar hero, pretty gutting

the drums are tough tho, even on medium for me right now!

havent tried bass, but I can play things on hard /expert on gh3 on bass as its typically easy, so im not fussed to play it (yet).

vocals seems fun, will have to have a proper mess.


incidentally I took advantage of the HMV first 55 buyers get 2100 live points
already downloaded the 'scene' and 'oasis' packs. dont especially like oasis, but its damn fine karaoke fayre.

oh its way easier on guitar, proof speaking, I did hard on guitar and I got 5 stars except on 3 songs where I got 4 stars on first times on every song. I cant see why I cant get 5 stars on the 3 I got 4 stars on either on a second go, whereas any previous guitar hero Id have no chance at all to do that.

I guess that validates my mega splurge - I was considering just getting the software and playing the guitar parts, but its quite easy, albeit still fun.

Wish they hadnt wussed out on the chord charts though, even GH2 is harder...


one other thing - how do you actually get to play all the songs in quick mode or quick band tour ?

do I have to do all the actual solo tours to do this?

right now the stock selection isnt amazing....

Yeah, the guitar is much, much easier than any of the GH games (even though Deep Purple hate bassists). I'm not that upset, though, it just gives me the incentive to finally make the jump to Hard.

Sorry to whoever invited me to play yesterday - the request came through after I'd buggered off upstairs, so my wife and daughter were playing as a weird experimental drum-vocal two-piece.

I have not tried the guitar yet. I'm so hooked on the drumming, then the singing - now drumming and singing. I wish I could play guitar with my feet

what about 'The Mimettes' ?

Oooh, Maybe - I'll have to sort that out a bit later. I am trying to abstain. Abstain from drumming. And singing. And especially drumming and singing.

She's a witch! Burn her!

'The Justified Ancients of Mimi'

'Miminem'

MIM

Most excellent!

'Mimi first and the mimi mimis'
(Sorry)

The Smimiths.

Destmimi's Child

Mi first and the mimi mimis.

You lose! And now you can't delete it!

Pah!

M.I.M.I.A

KMIMIFDM

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Mimi

My late-arriving Play copy of Rock Band is now on its way back to them. So my Friday afternoon and evening of plastic-instrument based family japery has set me back a grand total of £3.50. I can live with that.

Enter Sandman is a bastard to play on the bass if your vocalist doesn't know the words properly and so is singing them half a beat behind the track in a "singing a hymn in assembly that you everyone knows but you" stylee.