Oh hell yes.

Damn GlitchSpot..

Oh hell yes. I've finally bit the bullet (erm..two weeks ago but I haven't been on ;P) and bought the only (over here at the moment anyway) guitar rhythm game on the video game market, Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock on the Playstation 3. I've wanted it ever since I was lucky enough to spot it idling away in Dixons about a year or so back (well, GHII for the Xbox 360) which I had a blast with, playing away there forgetting what I actually went in for in the first place. But why all this time? The price of course..£60 for a game (and in the case of the PS3 version, £70) was always a massive stumbling block and I just never took a chance with the first three iterations...

Silly me. All this time I'd been playing all of these racing games, LocoRoco and Grand Theft Auto I could've been rocking away like a demon! I suppose the only up-side to the argument would be that I've started with a better version in terms of refinements through the series, and of course with the addition of Online battles! But history is history and we don't live to regret so here's my little report of how I got on in the infancy of my Rock God Quest on the PS3!

Week One:
Oh boy, first song nerves were jangling and I was getting used to fiddling with a different shaped controller to the Sixaxis and trying to work out what all of the little bits and bobs actually do! And of course pretending to know what these terms are, examples being fret buttons, strumming, whammy bar, star power and riffs. (and I note: I still don't really have a clue about half of that stuff!) The first song was "Slowride" which I recognised from the San Andreas soundtrack and even on the easiest difficulty I was struggling to hit all the notes in tune. Okay, I wasn't exactly expecting to be the next virtual Slash but how could I really be this bad?!? Sadness ensued and a measly three star rating for the PS3 riffing (hmm, sounds about right?!) debut. Things never got better for Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" either (possibly worse), with another three star rating. I needed practise, and I needed it badly. After finally completing the first tier I was slowly getting used to my wireless (plastic) guitar and cometh the second tier and a pleasant surprise in the form of "School's Out", which I did well thanks in large to the masses of long, long notes scattered within it. Four stars!?! One away from five-stardom! After beating the bloke I'd never heard of in what is, in my opinion, a bit rubbish boss battle feature I got towards the Killers title: "When You Were Young". I'd never heard it before, which was a surprise after I've always listened to and thought highly of their other album, "Hot Fuss"..and I really began to love it. I loved the song and I pretty much aced it apart from a few solitary notes here and there. Five stars. Yep, one, two, three, four, FIVE. Plus the same day I got the aforementioned track done 100% (my first 100%, and last at the moment!) and after getting a few more 5 stars it was almost time to move up a gear...

Week Two:
I beat Slash. I beat SLASH. Yes, me. Easy, easy, easy..almost too easy (well, it was on easy). And cue the timeless encore (with Slash himself I might add) of "Welcome to the Jungle", one of the most well known tracks in history and I got five stars all over again. Que I mastered easy (silly) brag etc, and DanC1989 rocks. So I did start the second difficulty career mode and what can I say..things just got a bit more difficult with the introduction of the fourth fret button and a faster pace. And oh does it feel more satisfying to pull off tricky looking solos on a harder level than easy! I can only wonder how I'll ever get past it and onto the hard level (I won't even breathe a word called 'expert') but it's still a hoot at the lower levels anyway so everyone's happy. And finally, my up to date position is the seventh tier on easy and I've just defeated Tom Morello (the bloke I'd never heard of) after a good few attempts. My first online foray lead to a 2 track to nil win against someone playing on medium (I was on easy) and he must've thought that I was a wuss as I was using my newly unlocked Slash character so I couldn't have been that bad. And I got my first five star Medium, albeit on an incredibly easy track (might've been the Morello Rage Against the Machine encore). Updates to come!

All in all I'm glad that I finally purchased a Guitar Hero game and it shall only divert my free time for many months to come one would hope. However, I thought as I'm here I'd ask for a couple of pointers because I know a few people who've been playing the series ten times longer than I have and I'm sure you'd be more than happy to share your gems of (fake toy guitar) rocking wisdom..;P

Number one is simple, I'm having a problem with the medium difficulty level mostly because of one or two little things. Mainly, I can't seem to play those closely spaced single note repetitions (think the start of Heart's "Barracuda") without messing it up. Frustratingly I can manage it when it's three or four but when it hits eight, nine and higher in a row I always mess up! There must be a simple solution?!? Other than that I've adapted to the fourth fret button well (apart from the red/blue chords) and all being well I should be able to finish the medium career too. Before the close down...special mention goes to the urgh enducing Knights of Cydonia! What a song, but oh my it's a toughie. Guess I haven't played Dragonforce or anything yet! ^_^

Phew, that's your guitar lot for now. Yes, if you couldn't tell by now I'm rocking like mad at the moment and I'm loving it. And I must try and stop around more...my profile (and board, I bet) is becoming a ghost town. And hey you all...watch out because I'm currently at 39,981 posts (and have been for more than a week;P) so 40k is just around the corner. Don't think I'll have an OT party as I haven't been there in ages but I'll be sure to do something. If I ever get there. Thanks for the read, stay safe and happy riffing/strumming and whatever those other rocky words damn well are. Punk.

DanC

Well here I am. Yep, my first visit here of the new year...and I wish you all an incredibly belated New Year and I hope you all had a great time in whatever you did to celebrate the coming of 2008. Me? A few drinks with a few mates and a good laugh, I've never been particuarly bothered about the whole she-bang. Same goes for Chrimbo too though. :P Bah, humbug. And that's it. I wanted you all to know that I am still alive and well...and mah blawgs (and replies to the ones I've gone and missed) should be up and running again at some point later on this week. Peace. :) DanC

Thought I'd just sneak this lil' one in just before the day itself! Christmas is finally here, the one day of the year that as a child you could be truly excited about and even struggle to get any sleep. It's not quite the same when you're a teenager, or older...and to be honest I've lost most of the enthusiasm I used to have about celebrating Christmas...but please, don't call me a humbug. It's just dinner that costs ten times the usual amount (mines actually £35!), then back to a spread of party food and alcohol...then come 1am I'm back home and it's not Christmas anymore. It all goes by in the blink of an eye usually too....v_v But still, I've got a game to 'open' tommorow apparently (ie. it probably won't be wrapped;P)...and I asked for Uncharted seeing as I haven't had a game since I got Fifa 08 off of ebay. And if I was totally loaded and wanted a sack full of video games come tommorow morn', what would I want? Rock Band Hell yeah, last time I saw it going for £150+ on ebay, and one seller had the cheek to add £55 P+P to that already audacious amount... GH3 It's only £60 or £65 but I still can't part with that much cash for a game...:( COD4 Hated COD3 of course, so I just won't risk fourty notes on this even though it's supposed to be like, totally awesome. Uncharted Yes please, Naughty Dog can do no wrong. Ratchet and Clank The demo was okay (but too bloody easy!) and it's lurking for £34ish on amazon so this would be high on the list. The Orange Box Shame it's been hashed by EA else I might've got this already. No chance nao.>_> Folklore Quite simply beautiful, yet risky at the same time... And there's many more I'd love to mention such as Oblivion and LSW Complete Sage but I just won't. I'd like to take this opportunity (less than an hour to go for us GMT'ers!) to wish all of ye a Merry Christmas and a happy new year to go with that...and I hope you get everything you asked Santa for. Well, if you've been good anyway... DanC

No, not the Guns n' Roses smash hit....this is more Criterion's smash hit over the past few years. Welcome to Paradise City, the home of Burnout Paradise, the true next-gen Burnout which will be hitting stores sometime late next January on both the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360.

I thought of this blog because I've got a few queries about this game, bits that just don't add up. In the previous iterations you're restricted to a menu map, a World Tour of events that you were supposed to complete to progress throughout the game...but this time it's different. Very different. It's a similar version of gameplay, but they've done what a lot of franchises seem to do (Need for Speed being one) and they've gone the way of GTA, free-roam. Burnout...free-roam? How the hell? Imagine it, it could be chaos! Sending passing traffic flying everywhere as you please...watching the hapless indivduals disintegrate piece by piece thanks to the new physics and body kit models put into play by the devs...

I wrote the above a few months ago, and now finally thanks to yesterdays demo release (well, mine was that slow I had to quit and continue it early this morning :P) has given all 360 and PS3 owners a taste of what's to come in next months Burnout Paradise... but the first impressions were just simply, wow. Finally a company gets it right and a demo is a great showcase of the full game without certain compromises that we've had to get used to (such as time limits and poor early builds) and it even lets us have a look at the online modes! Burnout I can safely say is finally making it's rubbery mark on next-generation consoles, and for good me thinks.

I'm sooooo cute. :oops:

Gameplay:
It feels slightly familiar Burnout with a next-gen tweaks, the handling is tight and easy to get into plus that traffic attack nonsense from Revenge has been completely discarded so the skill factor is back! (ie You could drive on the right side of the road bashing cars all day long making it rather easy for the most part).

Aesthetics:
Very, very nice...finally a dev has got to grips with the Playstation 3's apparently complex development kits and produced a game that's (smashingly) beautiful in its own right. Infact, here's a little proof!

As you can tell the cars get squashed, battered, crumpled, scratched and any other damage you could possibly think of barring complete and utter desecration. The crash slow-mo's are awesome too, easily on a par or better with those found in that other dirty racer, MotorStorm and if you haven't played the latter...you should like to know that that's no mean feat.

Modes n' Stuff:
There are at least two types of races to compete in on the demo, one being the original race mode that all Burnout fans know the format of by now, racing from A to B in the quickest time whilst attempting to obliterate any opponents that happen to cross your path. The second is the so called 'Stunt Run' whereby you have to rack up points for drifting, jumping (air time), boosting and just creating utter mayhem within the confines of the little corner you've been given in Paradise City. And there's the online modes which let you and three (you and seven in the final game) other players cruise around, race and compete in challenges to try and get to the top of the mini leaderboard which is on throughout the online enabled sections of the demo. It's good news for PS3 owners too because the friend lists are integrated (like they damn well should be!) and theoretically you could play against seven of your friends which I'm sure could be a great online experience. (not sure if voice is supported on the PS3 version of the game, but cameras such as the PSEye are where you can see your rivals mugshot after you take them down :P)

There are more modes in the final game and I'm pretty sure that the latest GameSpot preview detailed at least a couple of those so get over there for a more professional working over of the retail version (which is basically complete, apparently).

Thanks for reading and if you've got LIVE or a network enabled Playstation 3, try this demo out now...if you couldn't tell from the above paragraphs I wholesomely recommend it and my fourty notes are ready and primed for January 25th 2008! Stay safe and I'll see you around.

DanC

Edit: Sorry about the images...they don't seem to want to play ball today for some reason. GlitchSpot..

One man has recently taken a bow away from this site to the dismay of a lot of people... But it maybe isn't quite what who think it is....forget JeffG. Where's JakeB? He's been kidnapped away from his usual daily poasting and hasn't been seen in over a week! My message to his captors, let him go nao. Else the sheer weight of the uprising will most definitely make the 'nets implode.... May that be your last warning. Grrrr....*waits* DanC

Note to self: must get that damn England vs Croatia blawg away from the top of that profile page… Tick tock, tick tock…time flies by so fast and it really is nearly Christmas again. And I'm still alive and well, just…holding on to a virtual life that I started all of those years ago just before the release of the mighty Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. By the skin of my teeth. As you may or may not have noticed I've not been here a great deal in the last few months and I can't truly give one reason why, it's more like a multitude of change and events that have slowly drawn me away from this very site. And for that I apologise, I will try and catch up on the blogs that I've missed in the last few weeks (thankfully I don't have that many rapid bloggers on my friends list) this weekend…seeing as I'm not that busy and the weather is truly horrid at the moment around here. Back to the original topic, I don't see myself 'leaving' here soon (unless everyone around me were to…), and hopefully I'll keep a few blogs going now and then to keep you all entertained and so that I don't lose contact with virtual friends that I know almost as well as some of my real ones. Plus the UCB of course! In the life of DanC recently… Gaming Not much to say really, apart from that game Warhawk. Which is bloody good, you know. And Fifa, which has made me think about trading in Pro Evo 2008 (why do I need two footie games? ;P) which seemed unthinkable last year or even in the run up to this fall season. Lucky to be alive One of the weekends recently a mate came back from Uni to see the Wolves versus Albion derby so we thought we'd at least try to make a decent weekend of it, but it almost turned out to be the weekend from hell! First off, on the way back from having a drink in the (not that early) early hours of Saturday morning me and the aforementioned friend were attacked while walking back to his where he was to put me up for the night. I don't really want to go into a great deal of detail but I will say this, it was completely unprovoked. And you may not be surprised to hear that the idiots (gosh I'm being too nice today..) involved were particularly chavvy. After trying to kick me in, I managed to escape to safer climbs and I was picked up by a plain clothed officer who took me to the local nick before I went to hospital to let them check my injuries out. Thankfully they were only more or less superficial, and after five stitches to my lip I finally got taken home and at 4am the night from hell was nearly over. The next day I had to make a statement and so forth, and of course…I played football. :P Let me tell you one thing though, during my conversation with a local constable he told me that the Close Circuit Tele Vision (CCTV) was present at the scene…and it's one of those ones that rotates every five seconds so that it gets a good look at the area instead of just one particular view. And in the five minutes of the 'scuffle' it got nothing whatsoever. Our police force really couldn't catch a cold. (no laughing matter either) Other stuff>_> Working lots. I now have to pay board, YAY. =D Bang goes my fathers Christmas pressies then;) I hope he gets me Guitar Hero 3 though! Thanks for reading and I shall soon be reading yours if I can get my act together today and clear up that backlog. And maybe I'll treat you all to another blog this weekend if all goes to plan…so keep those eyes peeled. Stay safe. Don't walk anywhere, get a taxi. ;P Etcetera, etcetera. >_> DanC

Yep, you guessed it. After another rollercoaster ride of a England international football game and after all is said and done...the England national team will not be at the 2008 European Championships. The worst case scenario is here, we failed to capitalise on the unbelievably massive favour that Israel paid us at the weekend and now surely, heads must roll somewhere along the line. With so many injuries we had reason to worry about the outcome of the game...but surely after Saturday's let off we couldn't let another opportunity pass us by to get on the plane to Switzerland (and Austria) next summer. Here's how I was proved oh so wrong...

8 Mins: A mid-range effort from Kranjcar is incredibly fluffed by the young keeper Scott Carson. Hell no, not again. What is it with England and goalkeepers?England 0-1 Croatia

14 Mins: Would you believe it...Ivica Olic beats the offside trap (thanks to Lescott?) and slots it in for another Croatia goal. England 0-2 Croatia

56 Mins: A cross and handbags at dawn, a tug at the shirt and Joe Cole wins England a rather dubious penalty to keep them with a shout. Suprisingly Frank lampard is as cool as a cucumber and he slams it home! England 1-2 Croatia

65 Mins: After IMO the best England move of the game, Beckham supplies an inch perfect cross to the chest of the 6'7" (twiggy!) behemoth Peter Crouch who takes it perfectly to volley the ball right into the bottom corner. Que millions upon millions of England fans breathing a slight sigh of relief with only a draw needed....England 2-2 Croatia

77 Mins: Another twist in the tale, the substitute Petric fires in from 25 yards after some awful defending on the part of Sol Campbell and Joleon Lescott. Back to square two! England 2-3 Croatia

And that was the final twist in the deadly tale of England versus Croatia on the 21st of Nov 2007, the day that English football goes into a coma for at least a year. But to be fair, we didn't deserve to win and all credit to what is a good technical Croatian side. Specifically our defending was schoolboy-like at times and we certainly lacked ideas up front for the most part of the 90 minutes. So there. McLaren out, quickly. Rant over. and I'm sorry for my depressing 2nd footie blog of the last few days...but I wouldn't have had to make it if it weren't for the most inept England performance I've really ever seen. Good luck to every other team in next summer's competition, I really hope it's a good free-flowing tournament. Now we can feel what it's like to be Scottish...but the only way is up. Thanks for reading once again people (#103 for that matter!) and I'll see you all around I bet.>_>

DanC

Warning: UKCentric again, this time football. This blog was meant to be a full on scathing rant at the FA, the English football team and of course the puppet master himself, Steve McLaren. Before yesterday our destiny was well out of our hands, we were a long way away from next summers EURO 2008 finals in Austria and Switzerland and today we've got it back. Thankfully Isreal defeated Russia yesterday and if that wasn't enough, the group leaders Croatia lost too. So all we have to do is draw on Wednesday night against Croatia (at Wembley) and we're there. Dang, I was looking forward to the rant too.:( I've been thinking about how it would feel for our national team not to be there, and it's like the USA not being in a World competition for their "football". That might sound a little arrogant but we've got the players to do well, never mind fail to qualify from a distinctly mediocre group but the overpaid slackers clearly aren't living up to their billing and this is incredibly worrying for any England fan. Even worse, the second choice gaffer Mclaren doesn't really know what he's doing IMO. I still reckon we should get Jose in though (for Mclaren!), no matter what happens on Wednesday ^_^ Or Sven?:P Thanks for reading, and good luck to England on Wednesday. And I've now got Fifa 08 on the PS3 (cheap off ebay!) so hopefully I can gather the courage to compare the two giants of the interactive footballing world. 'Till next time, stay safe. DanC

Warning: UKcentric blawg, may be awfully baffling to anyone not considered to be a British citizen. All hail reality television. It's opened our eyes to new celebrities such as Jade Goody and (loudmouth) Charley plus we've been able to see George Galloway pretending to be a cat and Dean Gaffney squealing under a shower of creepy crawlies. Granted, Big Brother is the undisputed king of the shows but there have been others. Lots of others. Strictly Come Dancing (aka Dancing with the Stars), X-Factor and of course the recently returning "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of here!" It began on ITV this week, and here's my lowdown on the peeps who will (or should!) be eating creepy crawlies just for your sick pleasure. DanC's are they a celeb ratings included, free of charge. Lynne Franks: Apparently she's a PR guru, according to the official site. Does that make you a celebrity these days? She's been arguing with you know who…. 2/10 Marc Bannerman: He was in EastEnders, but I don't remember him and I don't think that many other people do either. 3/10 Jason Brown: One for the ladies, he was in the boyband 5ive and is out looking for love in the jungle. Thumbs down. 6/10 John Race TV cheflol. I've never heard of him. Gordon Ramsay FTW!! 2/10 Janice Dickinson Alert: this female is not for the faint hearted. I don't think I'd be able to sit in the same room with her for five minutes without having the urge to either stick a sock in her, or a few bullets/knives/punches/anything I could lay my hands on. Very argumentative. VERY. Oh, did I mention that she was a 70's model? I'd seen her once before on the Jonathan Ross show, so I was well aware of her nature…. 9/10 Cerys Matthews Hmmmph. Welsh lead singer of indie band Catatonia from a few years ago, seems that her career kinda' vanished for a time and now she's on this. She seems cute, and rather child like…ie it's hard to see yourself being cross with her for too long. 8/10 Gemma Atkinson One for the lads, she's one of the younger ones and is an actress out of the teenish soap, Hollyoaks. And she's always in lads mags. Give her a ten NAO. (nope, Hollyoaks is abysmal, and she isn't that attractive. Just very.) Still, here in Blighty she's a celeb alright… 7/10 Anna Ryder Richardson Oh noes…Anna of DIY show fame. Please go away…I'm sure that Nick Knowles would have been a better choice. But he's probably not desperate enough. 6/10 Katie Hopkins Won (?) the show "The Apprentice" to win the right to work for Sir Alan "you're fired" Sugar. Feels like she has to wear full suits compete with men. Hmmmph. 4/10 Rodney Marsh Rodders! Footballer, and more recently a pundit on Gilette Soccer Saturday here in the UK. He got out of having to bungee jump because of the weather, which I would've been disappointed about but I'm not too sure that he was. 7/10 And some other old dude has entered tonight (or was it last night…damn timezones), never heard of him>_> If you want to see the bunch, here's the official site with much better explanations of who they are and what they do because no doubt a lot of people will be bemused as to who the hell they are in there. Has the US contingent got a version of this show, or is this totally new to you lot over the pond? I only ask because I'd like it if you'd take Janice back. There's a cookie in it for you! Final thought, who would you send into the "I'm a GS user, get me out of here" show? List should be ready to hand into the broadcasters next week purlease. Peace and chicken grease… DanC

Oh look that DanC or whatever his name is has made ninety-nine blogs! Wow, I bet that next one will be amazing thanks to it being his 100th!! Have you been looking at my blog post number recently, thinking that "wow, nearly 100 wOOt"? Didn't think so, but if you did you're in for a big disappointment pal…much like my fiftieth blog oh so long ago this one is another random ramble through the thoughts of yours truly, marking this tremendous occasion. Any Ideas? First off, I could've made a definitive list of who has posted in my past 99 blogs and how awesome the people are who've posted in a lot of them. But I believe that that has been done before, and I have neither the time or the patience to look through them all anyway… Mah Blawg: Posts: 99 Total Comments: 1,206 Average Comments per blog: 12ish Highest amount of comments evar: 35 (Thrifty Thirty, the blog before (and about) my record breaking 30K posts Shindig!) Also, I note that I did have my first twelve blogs pass without a comment, and if you read them you'll know why. They're awesomely awful. Everything picked up when GSUK came around (along with the GS TA subscription and the Gaming Arcade) however and I seemed to be here 24/7. ;P (Apr 2006) Blog Trends: The ever changing comments, celebratory blogs tend to get more comments...or major events (ie the Shindig, PS3 launch etc etc). Otherwise it's slim pickings. (10-15 ;P) And Fishdalf has posted in millions of them, that blogtastic rogue. So in other words, I thank each and every one of you that has read and posted comments in these blogs no matter how awful they've got (and they have really got awful!!) and I hope you continue to do so. Rejoice. PS- I'm slowly getting through a few of the blogs that I've missed lately so keep your blogs peeled. Stay safe. Laters. GO! DanC ^_^