2009-06-25 02:11:38

Yeeaah, I'm noticing that too. A lot of the western things they put in make no god damn sense from a rhythm point of view. I'm sure going HEEY, DIXIE CHICKS! on the cover is a nice thing from a sales perspective (or is it? I'm kinda out of tune) but once you play the game you want to at least be semi-dancing to the music.. not... trampling to it.

Some of the lower tier pop songs feel like you're stepping on ants that come crawling across the floor. Rhythm barely factors into it.

There's one... mush!.... There, two more.... mush mush.

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http://modeseven.blogspot.com | Dominic and Simon - dyanamic games blog duo!

2009-06-25 02:19:31

I remember the good old days when all you needed was stepmania and bemanistyle, free steps and songs rated by the community. Always fresh songs and plenty of good steps quality wise. I even remember trying to make steps for "De Lykliga Kompisarna - Gul Skateboard".

And since you are a wii-type of guy i think you should keep an eye out for pop'n wii. Pop'n music is the freaking god of bemani games. The wii version looks a bit fishy though.

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2009-08-04 22:53:28

BWOOIZZZE FWOM YOO GWAAAWEZ! and so forth.

Yeah so, half steps in DDR. You know how when you play on the basic difficulty there's like at the maximum one step per distinguishable "main beat". If they're closer together it's a simultanious thing where you're meant to hit both at the same time, but always at a main beat.

When you bump it up to "difficult", half steps are introduced, which is basically where you touch a step moving from one step to another. From what I can tell it always seems like they want you to use the same leg for all three steps, so it's like main beat, backbeat, main beat, O o O.

It's hard to explain in text, but I'd love some pointers on how to do them. Do you sorta "brush" the middle one? Do you use both feet somehow? I just kinda freeze up when they come because I just have no clue.

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http://modeseven.blogspot.com | Dominic and Simon - dyanamic games blog duo!

2009-08-04 22:59:47

Basically the steps come in eight-notes in stead of quarter notes? I think that's what you mean. Well, the only tip i can give you as i never ahd any problem with that is that you jsut have to get a feel for the songs and get attuned to reacting quickly to the steps. One important factor for me is that i don't really try to line up the step markers and then step, i just go with the music. I see the pattern in the steps as they fall down and i understand what part of the music each step represents, that way it gets easier for me.

The short and cheap answer is bar rape, though i have a feeling that's not an option for you :)

Maybe you are still in the stage where you feel you need to step back to teh middle square all the time as well? It's hard to give any pointers when i don't know how you play. Also i'm no god at DDR...maybe a bit better than the average joe but i don't exactly AAA legend of max on the worst difficulty ^^

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2009-08-04 23:04:46

Oh I'm sure I could go to a bar and get raped, I'd just wear my slutty shorts.

But yeah what you're saying makes complete sense as it's sort of something that has always come naturally to me in Beatmania, Ouendan, SC5, GH, Rock Band, Amplitude, et cetera et cetera.. In this game though like you say I spend a lot of time watching the arrows and syncing with the graphics on the screen. I'm not really sure why that is.

One answer could be that the songs in this are all shit in terms of giving you a proper sense of where steps will be placed, and another is that on lower difficulties in all rhythm games there are just too few "markers" of whatever kind to really become a clear pattern. The crux here though is that when I bump the difficulty up, it just floods the screen with arrows. :)

I'll have to keep practicing.

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http://modeseven.blogspot.com | Dominic and Simon - dyanamic games blog duo!

2009-08-04 23:10:06

Just speed up the markers then, i don't remember how to do it but you can (ibn all versions i've tried) speed mod. Like make the arrows fall 2x or 4x faster. That way the thickest parts of a song become distinguishable. Bar rape is when you lean back on the bar that is there on the arcade cabinets, disapproved of by some, as it makes much faster movement possible.

Yes, my experience with the European versions of the DDR games (or dancing stage) is that they are complete shite. Even the first euromix arcade game is totally unplayable because of crap steps and lack of sync.

In all honesty i started playing DDR with Step Mania on my school laptop, so i got the hang of nailing shitloads of dropping arrows before i even tried to do it with my feet.

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2009-08-04 23:19:17

Yeah I watched some youtube videos a while ago where the term bar rape pretty much popped into my mind even though I've never heard of it. :)

But yeah, spreading the arrows some would help lots, because the way it is now it can be hard to even kinda make out what comes first in the heat of.. dancing.

On Beatmania you hold select and press some buttons if I recall right.. will see if I can work out how to do it here.

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http://modeseven.blogspot.com | Dominic and Simon - dyanamic games blog duo!

2009-08-04 23:21:07

Soooooo...

Has anyone tried DJ Max Technika? I haven't got past being a voyeur @ CTF.. there's just something about a new rhythm game that takes 6 tokens that scares me.

I don't want to pump $1.50 into a cabinet only to fail immediately. It looks soooooo freaking cool though.

2009-08-04 23:27:26

Wow, your prices in teh arcades match what we have here. Never thought i'd see the day ;)

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2009-08-04 23:43:50 In reply to Megido (2009-08-04 23:27:26)

Yeah, all the fancy new cabinets cost an arm and a leg, it's a bit disappointing. Chinatown Fair (NYC) used to be fairly cheap, considering its location, but now it's getting a little ridiculous. I imagine it's thanks largely to the increased overhead cost that the owner is facing with all of these high definition machines. The SF4, KOFXII, and BlazBlue cabinets are all $1.00 too. Tekken 6 is probably up there as well, since it's also got one of those fancy LCD monitors in it.

Oh, and I don't want to derail this thread, but I just wanted to note that it's quite strange that people play Tekken 6 in the arcades with Dual Shocks. What the fuck is with that? (sorry)

2009-08-04 23:55:10

The arc cabinet has DS3 controllers!? I don't know whether i should cry because it's so wrong or if i should rejoice because there will obviously be plenty of easy prey when T6 hits 360 :P

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2009-08-05 00:01:42 In reply to Megido (2009-08-04 23:55:10)

No, it's your traditional sit down happ cabinet complete with an HD screen. And Judging by the care that CTF takes with its hardware, it's probably well maintained too... but it has two Playstation controller ports above the sticks, and there were hordes of people there with their own pads playing. I didn't understand at all. I doubt they're easy prey either, CTF draws a lot of talented players who eat up the local competition. That's why there are still (a few) people playing older fighting games there, or even newer releases like BlazBlue and SF4 despite online enabled console ports.

But yea.. it didn't make sense to me either.

2009-08-05 00:02:26

Prices here have been bonkers since as far back as I can even remember. I went to "Liseberg", a well known amusment park here in sweden, and played Virtua Fighter when I was like.. 11 maybe? that's 15 years ago and one go cost 10sek, which is about $1.50 according to xe.com. That was the standard price for everything and still is I believe. I haven't been to an arcade in yonks.

Years later on a school trip, me and my then-best-mate John (he's a she now and we don't keep in touch :O) wasted absolutely rediculous amounts of money on Time Crisis which we thought was the mutt's god damn nuts. Jurassic Park was another Unicron like gobbler of coins.

The frequency with which I fail at rhythm games starting out I don't see how anyone would want to *get better* one coin at a time. Then again, I paid a small obscenity for a beatmania controller when I thought they were going out of print. :)

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http://modeseven.blogspot.com | Dominic and Simon - dyanamic games blog duo!

2009-08-05 00:06:14

That's perhaps the biggest problem with Technika... it's not really all that conceivable that there will ever be an affordable home equivalent. If you really wanted to own it, chances are that forking over the $9000 for the cabinet is going to be the only possible way for the foreseeable future. It does really look quite fun too.

2009-08-05 00:11:31

Grift: there's just no way to play Tekken as well with a pad as with a stick. I'd be pretty amazed to see someone do a Light Dash or a few consecutive EWGFs in a row. But yeah, i think there will be some good players on there as well. Especially if XBL draws some people, wanting (what i at least consider) the better online support. But enough with the OT i guess. Sorry about that :P

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2009-08-05 00:29:55

I found the speed options and they make a huge difference. Thanks for pointing it out.

It's just so much easier now to make out the patterns and kinda shifting your body accordingly instead of kinda standing straight up like a walking stick and just spazzing your legs to the sides.

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http://modeseven.blogspot.com | Dominic and Simon - dyanamic games blog duo!

2009-11-04 22:27:06

DJ Hero is in my midst. I like it. It's not.. immediately obvious how you would be able to expand on the idea, and the controller itself has some decreasingly annoying quirks as you get used to it, but the way they provide music is very economical in that one song can feature in many mixes and take on a whole new guise. I've also found that not a single mix in the game gets on my tits like some Frequency/Amplitude/Guitar Hero stuff does.

I've gone through most of the game on medium now and have yet to bump it up to hard or expert, so I've not fully experienced all of its potency, but what I can say is that the music is surprisingly and consistently good and while it may not attract youtube hogs that wanna brag about how fast they can hit buttons - simply because the player imput here is a lot more abstract than that - I reckon it turned out a nice game.

Characters and graphics in general all look like Guitar Hero 2 again though. Plastic dudes with ugly proportions and robotic movement leave much to be improved in upcoming iterations should this prove to be successful.

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http://modeseven.blogspot.com | Dominic and Simon - dyanamic games blog duo!

2009-11-04 22:44:53

i wish amplitude and frequency style games would come back, they where alwasy so much better then the rock bands, and guitar hero's. the fact you actually built the song big by bit in whichever way you wanted always seemed miles more interesting and unique then just playing a glorrified game of simon says.

2009-11-04 22:49:55

Those games were identical to the current de facto standard for rythm games, it's just that with the guitar you mess up the guitar part if you don't play right as opposed to the whole song. They were both made by would be GH developers Harmonix after all.

Rock Band on the PSP even has the "tracks" you select just like Amplitude, and there you do keep the vocals, drums, guitar, etc running. It's all a bit finicky and old feeling by now though.

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http://modeseven.blogspot.com | Dominic and Simon - dyanamic games blog duo!

2009-11-04 22:54:32 In reply to SimonM7 (2009-11-04 22:49:55)

i still prefer it, hell, i go back to both those games on a regular basis wheras guitar hero just collects dust. i just think building a song section by section (guitar, bass, drums, synth, vocals) is a far more unique way to play a game like this then just basically playing simon says. the reason i go back to amplitude and frequency is because each time you play it you can make the song sound significantly different simply by starting on a different element of the song. you cant do that in these new paripheral based games. they just feel rediculously dated to me. like 10 steps back from where they where originally. harmonix where once great, but now? not so much imo. i with they'd go back to the original formula.

2009-11-04 23:10:25

Starting on different sections in those games equals messing up though. There's a very deliberate order you need to play them in to be able to transistion seamlessly between parts and maintain your multiplier.

If you mess up on Guitar Hero it'll sound unique too. :P

But yeah, sure, the games have moved away from gamey, calculated button presses into allowing you to be more engaged by the music, and if that doesn't fit a fancy it's bound to.. not... fit... that fancy.

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http://modeseven.blogspot.com | Dominic and Simon - dyanamic games blog duo!

2009-11-04 23:22:32 In reply to SimonM7 (2009-11-04 23:10:25)

but that isnt the case at all (i should know, i play it enough), you can approach any song however you want and still maintain a multiplier. frequency even more so since it was all contained within a 360 degree tube. but even amplitude let you attack a song how you wanted.

guitar hero on the other hand is just playing along WITH the song, but not really having any effect on it. amp and freq on the other hand did that as well as let you make the song sound unique since you could, for instance start off with just bass and vocals if you so wished and built it up from there. starting garbage - cherry lips with just pure vocals then drums and adding the synth was a very fresh way to hear the song. more then can be said for guitar here which either sounds like the actual song (bar the god awfull cover bands) or just goes dead (when you screw up)

guitar hero games are just inherently limited since they only focus on one element of a song (guitar) and for that reason alone, amp and freq qill always be superiour games in my eyes.

2009-11-04 23:52:05

Yeah it does allow you to do that if you wish to do it, but the way the music slowly builds, you'll get the beat first, then that fills out with comp, then you get lyrics (not always, but for the purposes of this example) and if you want to max your score you can't afford to let one section start without activating that track.

But I do agree about later games being limited from a musical standpoint by concentrating on a single instrument. It's why I've always enjoyed Beatmania more simply thanks to its musical flexibility. I don't know that I'd necessarily say Amplitude and Frequency have an edge in being more dynamic though, I do think they essentially boil down to the same gameplay just without the transistions. The music contained in them however was of a greater variety, and the gameplay system was less reliant on a "real world model" for your role in the music. More abstract, as it were, the way I generally prefer games.

DJ Hero also has a broader gameplay system and you don't find yourself confined to altering a single element of the song, so it might be worth checking out if you fancy the type of music in it.

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http://modeseven.blogspot.com | Dominic and Simon - dyanamic games blog duo!

2009-11-05 00:03:36

Only one i can roughly think of is Rez and i fucking LOVED it.

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