You did state Neversoft “adds” extra notes in artificially increase the game’s difficulty, so by that rationale Raining Blood on GH had “extra” notes and if the song were to be on RB, those extra notes wouldn’t exist and that with coupled with the increased accuracy requirements may make the song about the same difficulty-wise. But it’s a moot point really at this point. Its funny you mention the Smashing Pumpkins song’s triple note sections. I by no means know that much about real guitar playing, so I can’t argue either way that those same notes on real guitar would or wouldn’t require three frets being held down. Actually, from my limited knowledge, holding down three frets on chords is pretty common. But, again, I’m no expert, I play for fun here and there. I like the triple notes, they’re pretty hard and fun, and I also like the single hammer on transition notes in between cords, its fun, don’t know if its accurate when compared to real guitar playing. We should limit the “realistic” portion of the argument considering we’re playing on single string with only 5 frets (or 5 simulated strings).

Well, Activision has done an ok job. Sure, the GH brand name is huge, but I do think they’re trying. They even said they are going to work on the hammer-ons and pull-offs and make them less “mushy”. Not quite sure what that means, but that may be addressing one of your concerns. Also, we don’t know if they are going to tamper with the accuracy, it’ll be interesting to see if they make the timing window smaller. I’m sure there are some hard core GH2 players on RB, but I’m sure some of them are on GH3. Judging by the amount of people on the leaderboards, there’s still quite a few people. I have no problem with both of the games co-existing, if you enjoy either one, more power to you.

Well, they are a new developer. They don’t have to make GH3, GH4 EXACTLY like GH2, maybe they wanted to take it in a different direction. You don’t have to just mimic what Harmonix did. If they did that, people would just accuse them of resting on the laurals and not trying to improve on the game. I can’t fault neversoft, it seems they are trying. It also seems they are genuinely trying in GHWT as well. They can’t please everyone. I’m sure tool will be fun on GHWT. I had fun with the songs in GH3 that were big bands that I liked a lot. Whether it was an accurate representation of how you’d play the song in real life I don’t know, and I don’t care really cause playing on a toy guitar no matter how accurate or “fun” the game is, it won’t be like the real thing, so I can’t use that as a judgement on the fun aspect of the song. If I want accurate, I’ll bust out my real guitar.

I agree DLC is the future, and I think GHWT will fully embrace that, give it a chance. Well, both games have songs I can’t stand, but that’s why I’m excited for full online support for career, and DLC for both games. I didn’t say I wouldn’t love a game releasing a lot of DLC. The music wasn’t the problem as much as the limited online play. I’ll be downloading as much stuff as the next guy.

I am more interested in the professional work, too. But as you mentioned, there will be some people out there who will make some really high quality stuff, so if I lot of people get on that, it could have a huge impact and make a lot of good quality DLC (for free!). No, they will not be as good as the originals, but if those originals are not available at all, than I’ll be glad to take a decent cover as opposed to nothing, and again, for free.

Well, I’m not trying to overrate it, but it was the last song I beat on expert. And you’re right mosh is the hardest part, but the solo toward the end is pretty tough, too. I easily beat the song now that I got the sweeps down pretty well. I’m 4 starring it now and only need to 5 star that to get the expert 5 star achievement. I use that song as an example because it was the hardest song for me to get by, and that was a long time ago. You can check my achievements and you’ll see it was quite a while ago I did that, since then I’ve gotten a lot better. Green Grass was like the only song on that game that felt like a GH song, it was like a tease. That solo section toward the end kicked my ass, I finally beat that shit though after I don’t know how many tries. It totally caught me off guard. I hadn’t died once in that game and was just cruising, then all of this sudden I got destroyed. Talk about steep learning curve for someone who wasn’t quite up to speed on guitar. Go from moderately challenging songs to a hard as fuck one for the final song. Maybe Harmonix intentionally lowered the difficulty a bit when going to RB because of the potential social aspect of the game??? They made up for it in DLC, but not online features.

I don’t have a whole lot to add to the discussion. I’ll enjoy both games. The feel of the games really just comes down to personal preference. Yes GH’s notes are a little easier to hit, and RB’s songs are a bit easier to play (for the most part) but in the end I think it comes down to selection, and if they both are offering extensive DLC, then its really a win win for consumers no matter which one they pick. Cause c’mon, they aren’t really THAT different from each other.

Look forward to seeing you online, we can throw in a little pro face off (or whatever its called in Rock Band) to see how I hold up with the increased accuracy requirements against a RB vet. I’m borrowing RB from a buddy today to download my tracks, if you’re up for a match, shoot me an invite.

Hey, shoot me an invite if you want to play some RB2/GHWT (c'mon, you know you're going to buy it). My gamertag is O1 (the letter O follwed by the number 1) no zero or i.