FwD GS and GH5

So I finally got GS on Flirtin' with Disaster after many many tries. It felt really good especially because I got 91% on the solo which is one of the harder ones in the game.

I also got Guitar Hero 5 and so far I like it. While it is missing many features (because its PS2) that are available on the other systems, I still feel it's a good game and probably the best since GH2 (Metallica might be a little better though). The setlist includes a wide variety of genres which I like but could be a turn off for some other people. Overall, though, I've liked all the songs I've played so far.

Difficulty-wise the game is probably similar to RB2. The charts are better than in past GH games and the hammerons are a little more strict than the previous iterations of the game as well (a good thing I believe).

I would recommend the game to everyone, especially if you own a 360, PS3, or Wii.

13 Million!

Okay so this is probably my last post because I'm heading back to school and won't have as much time to play Rock Band and Guitar Hero anymore. Fortunately, it ends on a good note.

So if anyone remembers the goals I set when I first started this blog my two main ones were to reach 9,000,000 career points in RB1 and 13,000,000 in RB2 for expert guitar. Well I haven't made it to 9 mil and quite possibly never will (I am at 8,932,877), but I finally reached 13,000,000 points in Rock Band 2.

I got to the 13 mil with improvements on many songs including Rob the Prez-O-Dent, The Trees (Vault Edition), Let There Be Rock, Down with the Sickness, Teenage Riot, Psycho Killer, A Jagged Gorgeous Winter, and an overstrum FC of Spirit in the Sky. So, yeah, it took a lot but I finally did it so I'm pretty damn happy. Next I want to improve my scores on the songs in the final 2 tiers but we'll see when I get to that.

Also, while I didn't get to my other goal in RB1, I have been getting closer and closer to GS on Flirtin' With Disaster which would be sweet. Hopefully I can get that soon. I also reached a new high for Highway Star which is nice because that solo is awesome.

In Rock Band 2 hard drums I finally beat Panic Attack after failing at 98 and 99% the previous two runs (and way before that in all my others haha) so I'm pumped about that. I may attempt the ESL 2 on hard now before I go back if I feel like it but probably won't because I'd rather not spend 8 of my last 72 hours at home playing Rock Band (crazy, I know).

But yeah, that's about it. Thank you everyone who followed this blog -- I know it wasn't too entertaining but I liked keeping track of my progress and seeing my improvements. I may return one day with an update (maybe when 0and1 and I beat the ESL2 of Winter break or something). I also want to thank 0and1 for encouraging me to make this in this first place.

Rock on everyone!

Rock Band Scores for 8/26

RB1 Guitar
Total: 8,932,877

RB2 Guitar
Total: 13,000,304

RB2 Drums (Hard)

Country Track Pack and Other Stuff

Recently, I started to get tired of playing the same on-disc Rock Band songs over and over again and since I can't download any I decided I was going to buy another Track Pack. I ended up choosing between the AC/DC Track Pack and the Country Track Pack. I have never really been interested in country music but I really liked Sin Wagon when it came out as DLC a couple of months ago (just by watching videos) and many people recommended the pack and said it was the best one released so far. So, even though I do enjoy AC/DC, I chose to buy the Country Track Pack and so far have not been disappointed.

I've only played the songs on guitar so far, but almost all of them have really fun note charts and a lot of them are catchy. My favorite song so far is Good Times by Alan Jackson but Sin Wagon and I Told You So are also really good. I recorded a sightread video of Sin Wagon (meaning it's my first run through it, although I have seen the chart in videos) and another of my current best run of Good Time. Both videos are posted below.

Besides buying the Country Track Pack, a lot has happened in the past 2 weeks since I wrote about my scores. My biggest accomplishment has been my FC of half of Rock Band 1 (29 out of 58 songs). I also broke 300k on Green Grass and High Tides, got new scores for Cherub Rock, Won't Get Fooled Again, Can't Let Go, Run to the Hills, Paranoid, a some others. Paranoid was really really frustrating because I FC'd the whole song and then missed the notes after the Big Rock Ending, I was pretty pissed. Some of the recent FC's I got are Reptilia, Detroit Rock City, Suffragette City, and Should I stay or Should I Go. I will post some pics I took.
below. Also, with all my recent successes I broke the Top 100 on Scorehero for RB1 PS2 which I'm really proud about.

In the Rock Band Track Pack Vol. 2 I finally five-starred Rio giving me a full game 5-star. I also GS Indestructible, got a better score on Just What I Needed, and FC'd It Hurts and Call Me.

For RB2 guitar, nothing too interesting since I talked about new scores in my last post about BNS. I did do better on Girl's Not Grey, though. I also beat Painkiller and Battery on Hard drums which is cool.

Sin Wagon Sightread Video
Good Times Video

Rock Band Scores for 8/7

Rock Band 1 Guitar
(Country songs are further down page)
Total: 8,902,983

Rock Band 2 Guitar
Total: 12,948,208

Breakneck Speed

A little while ago 0and1 and I decided to try playing Rock Band 2 with Breakneck Speed, or BNS, enabled. BNS is very similar to Hyperspeed from Guitar Hero series but is a considered game modifier rather than a cheat (no code is needed to use BNS, it is available as an option from the start). Basically what is does is it speeds up the fret board a lot, making the notes easier to see because they are more spread apart. Think of it as putting the normal fretboard under a magnifying glass. However, 0and1 and I found out that having BNS on was not worth it because it made it so hard to see the notes because they moved so fast.

Yesterday, though, I decided to give BNS another shot in single player to see if it could help me with some of the tougher songs. To my surprise, it helped a ton, spreading out the notes during the really quick HO/PO sections helped me out quite a bit. With BNS I was able to 5-star Shoulder to the Plow, GS Carry on Wayward Son, and drastically improve my scores on Master Exploder, Panic Attack, Painkiller, Visions, and Souls of Black.

However, there has always been a pretty big debate over whether or not using BNS is cheating. I for one, don't feel like it is due to the fact that it's an option available in the game from the beginning. Also, it doesn't make the notes any easier to hit, just easier to see. Furthermore, Scorehero doesn't differentiate between scores using BNS and those that do not. 0and1 agrees with this as well and believes that it's really just a matter of preference and just a different way of playing.

Other people, though, feel that using BNS is not the way the game is meant to be played and they feel that it does make it easier. Therefore, these people view scores obtained using BNS shouldn't count or that the people using the modifier as less skilled than those who don't.

I'm going to continue to use BNS for the harder and higher-tiered songs because it makes them more playable for me and therefore more fun. I am not solely going to use it, though, because I don't want to be stuck on that mode or, in other words, be only able to play with it on. I will transition back and forth between the fast and slower moving fretboard because I know when I play with more people who are less familiar with the game, using BNS would be too much.

The debate about BNS will continue as long as it is a part of the game. As of now I view it as just a modifier but maybe my opinion will change, who knows. Right not I'm just happy it allows me to have more fun while playing the more difficult songs.

For more specific, visible information about BNS, here are two videos of the same song one using BNS and the other not: BNS, Normal


This is Part 2 of my Rock Band Debate series (drum FC the was last one). Stay tuned for more if I can think of more hot topics in the RB world.

Drum Visions FC's

In the past week one of the most amazing Rock Band accomplishments occurred - an FC of Visions on Expert drums. By many Visions in considered the hardest drum song in the game so obviously this was a big deal. However, there was a bunch of controversy surrouding this phenomenal feat by I-jeff-I due to his use of Overdrive or OD (the thing like Star Power in Guitar Hero for those who don't know). To give background info, on drums once half a bar of OD is gained (either by hitting two OD note sequences or getting a Unison Bonus in co-op play) every 4 measures or so a portion of the song is cut out and a Fill is put in in which you can hit any notes and then hit the crash symbol at the end of it to use it. However, if you don't hit the last note in the Fill you will keep the OD and that Fill section will keep reappearing every 4 measures until it is used.

In I-jeff-I's FC of Visions once he got OD he held onto it until the very end of the song. By doing this, though, a bunch of the song was skipped with the OD Fill sections. He did FC every part of the song he did play, though, including the blast beats and other really hard parts thereby technically getting 100%. There are some people calling this a Bootlegged run because he avoided playing so much of the song but I would consider it legit. He chose to hoard the OD in order to get the FC but while doing so lost a ton of points - he wasn't close to getting GS and only 5-starred the song in the last 10 seconds or so.

Luckily, this discussion was helped out by another FC of Visions soon after (same day possibly) by Mrallen95, this time with a different OD path which included more of the song. Mrallen95 not only FC'd the song but also GS it which is also extremely impressive. Still, this brings up the debate which is more important the percent of notes hit or the final score? Also, should the way drums use OD be changed so as not to miss any of the song? I've heard that in The Beatles Rock Band this has been addressed a little but we'll see. Jeff's FC raised some controversy in the Rock Band world this past week but I still would like to congratulate him on being the first person to accomplish this, with the right path or not.

Yay Bass

So it's been about a week since I last posted. Nothing too important has happened but there have been some cool improvements and stuff. I haven't been able to make a vid recently, though. Hopefully I can get another one soon.

For guitar in Rock Band 2 I got better scores on Ramblin' Man and Pretend we're Dead, had a -1 run of Shooting Star, finally 5-starred Master Exploder, and also, after many chokes, FC'd Everlong bringing my total number of full combos to 28 or 1/3 of RB2 which is cool.

I have been playing a lot of bass recently and just finished all 84 songs in RB2. While many of the note charts are more boring than the ones for guitar, bass is a nice diversion and sometimes is more fun. Almost every run was a sightread and I ended up with 26 FC's and 55 GS. I'm definitely going to work on my scores often because I know most of them can be improved. For now, I'll post them below.

As mentioned 2 posts ago, I finally received my kick pedal and decided to try drumming a bit. I have never been too good at RB drums, usually sticking to Medium difficulty but I wanted to get better. I decided to go into the Drum Trainer and do the Beat workout thing and I feel that helped quite a bit. While I'm still not all that good, I have moved on to Hard and have begun playing some of the easier songs on that difficulty. Hopefully with guitar and bass going I'll still find time to practice the drums because it is definitely really fun.

In Rock Band 1 I got some new scores for Wanted Dead or Alive, Train Kept a Rollin', Reptilia, and Foreplay/Long Time. I think I found a better way to play Train so hopefully I can GS that soon because that would be awesome. Maybe I'll also start the bass and drums careers in RB1 if I feel like it.

RB Scores for 7/23

RB2 Guitar
Total: 12,826,754

RB2 Bass
Total: 10,991,558

RB2 Drums (Hard)

RB1 Guitar
Total: 8,793,652

Mentos Freshmakers

Mentos Freshmakers is a band consisting of 2 to 4 members playing on Expert difficulty. The band always contains stealthman and 0and1 on guitar and drums respectively and at times is accompanied by Mythical You on bass and DantheMan on vocals. The band has been together on and off since Winter of 2008.

As mentioned in my last post, recently the band has been trying to put some videos together. We have tried unsuccessfully a couple of times in the past few days but finally had a good run last night. The camera crew messed up some of the previous attempts by missing the TV completely or covering only half of it while in other cases there was too much talking. Last night, though, everything went well and we were able to get in a good Gold Star run of Rock Band 2's Supreme Girl on film. The video is posted below. The only issue is the sound because at times the instruments drain out the song, but hopefully we will fix this in the future. Any requests are welcome and keep checking our YouTube channel for more videos to come in the near future.

Supreme Girl GS

Update

So I recorded another video recently, this time it's of Green Grass and High Tides, the hardest song in Rock Band 1. I managed to get a high score and 5 stars which was nice to catch on film. If you watch the vid, though, the song doesn't actually start until 53 seconds in because I had to adjust the camera and restart once.

I also tested out Visions on bass and it wasn't as bad as I had heard. Some people say it's harder on bass than it is on guitar but I think guitar is much more difficult.

In RB2 I got better scores on Uncontrollable Urge (I really should FC this), Colony of Birchmen (probably my favorite Impossible Tier song), Shoulder to the Plow, and I FC'd PDA. I also reached the 12,800,000 mark for total career score which is pretty cool. Now I'm only 200,000 points away from my original goal.

For Rock Band 1 I pulled off a -1 run of Main Offender and improved my score for Timmy & the Lords of the Underworld (now it doesn't seem as hard as last year) and Green Grass and High Tides which can be seen above.

Besides Visions, nothing new on bass and I haven't tested out vocals again either which is probably for the best. I am getting my kick pedal back soon though so hopefully I can try drumming soon (medium difficulty ftw).

Mentos Freshmakers is also trying to record some videos so hopefully those will happen soon and come up in the next couple of days. If there are any video requests for either Mentos Freshmakers or myself, let me know, it should be fun.

RB Scores for 7/15

RB2 Guitar
Total: 12,806,996

RB1 Guitar
Total: 8,778,872

I did it! Yes!

Oh my god, I can't believe I finally 5-starred Bodhisattva. It felt so good, like the first time I beat Green Grass or if I ever were to FC Constant Motion haha. I also Gold Starred Creep which I had never been able to do because I couldn't keep a combo on the fast alt strumming part. I managed to hold a streak this time, though, and destroyed my old score.


All in all today was probably my best Rock Band day since beating the Endless Setlist 2 back in January. Maybe even better than that. The Bodhisattva pic is above obviously and I also caught it on video; however, the very ending gets cut off because my memory card filled up. Fortunately, the whole song is there just miss the end screen. I hit a lot of parts I normally don't and missed a lot of riffs I usually nail so it evens out I guess. I don't dislike the song as much anymore either :).

Bodhisattva and other stuff

Okay, I don't really like this song. For some reason I have a lot of trouble with it and that 5th Star keeps evading me. I've tried many many times but have not been able to get it. But! I will not lose hope! And I will get that star soon, I know it -- right now it's my main goal. With my most recent run, though, I believe I am less than 6,000 points away so I know it's coming.

In other Rock Band news I have furthered my bass career in RB2 and have now completed 49 out of the 84 songs. Almost every run I have down is a sightread so some of the scores aren't too good but bass is kinda boring so it's fine. I will post the scores at the end of the blog and will hopefully have scores for every bass song in RB2 soon.

Moving on to guitar, I did not accomplish too much in RB2 besides getting beating my score in Bodhisattva. However, I did post better scores again for Battery and Spoonman.

RB1 is a different story, though. I finally 5-starred Snow ((Hey Oh)) and also improved my score for Message in a Bottle on Rb Track Pack Vol. 2. Now the only song I have remaining to 5-star is Rio which is a really frustrating song to play. On the main set list I posted 2 really good scores for Dead on Arrival and Suffragette City, almost FC'ing both. I also tried to Gold Star Creep but I can't keep a combo for my life on the fast strumming part. We'll see though, maybe I'll pull it off soon. I did FC 2 new songs which is nice: 29 Fingers and Go with the Flow. I actually got the Go with the Flow FC on vid. I suck with electronics so it's not good quality and you can't really hear anything but I'll post it below anyway.



Lastly, I started the vocal career in RB2 (yes, haha). For those who don't know, I suck at singing. Once I was playing with my friends and one of them said, "Man, your voice sure does suck but Rock Band loves it!" Well, my voice is pretty bad and RB doesn't always like it...maybe I shouldn't have gone straight to Expert, oh well.You can check out my scores below.

More poker tonight too with 0and1. Will post results if they are worth it.

RB scores for 7/12

RB2 Guitar
RB2 Bass
RB2 Vocals

RB1 Guitar

Same Old Song And Dance

So basically more poker tonight. Finished 1395 out of 2400 in Omaha Hi so a little better but I still prefer Texas Hold'em. I'll edit post when the next tourney finishes. Edit: Okay, bad finish again, 1329 out of 2700. Not a good night I guess but I'll be back.

Rock Band wise, Mentos Freshmakers played a couple of more songs and played better than the other day even with 0and1 going back and forth between drumming and poker playing. We are considering recording a video one time which would be interesting.

No real new accomplishments in single player. I improved my score on Black Hole Sun in RB1 but I think that's about it. Not worth posting my scores again. Hopefully I'll have an interesting achievement soon, we'll see.

First Tour

Well it's been a couple of days since I last posted and I have played pretty well recently. I finally FC'd Sabotage, Day Late Dollar Short, and Electric Version and got better scores on Run to the Hills and Train Kept A Rollin' -- I really want to Gold Star both of those songs.

In RB2 I got 2 new FCs of White Wedding and Lump giving me a total of 26 FCs out of 84 songs which is pretty good. I also improved my scores on Battery, Visions, and a couple of others. Some new goals for me I've decided are to 4-star Visions (I'm like 15,000 points off) and 5-star Peace Sells and Bodhisattva.

In other news I got my dad and sister to start playing Rock Band. I think I got them both hooked. They each tried drums and guitar and play on Easy and Medium. This also got me more interested in playing the drums but I left my Kick Pedal at school so I can't really do well on any songs. Oh well.

Mentos Freshmakers had practice today too. We played some new DLC (0and1 has a 360 so he can dl songs) such as A Favor House Atlantic, Riad n' the Bedouins, and the Trooper. The latter two were really hard and it's harder for me using other guitars but we still managed to at least 4-star each song. All had good charts which was nice.

0and1 also got me to start playing poker. I had played a couple of times before with friends but I was never that into it. We played Texas Hold 'em and with 0and1 helping me I managed to get about 2,300 out of 2,700 people, yay. Another tournament is starting soon so hopefully I can do better in that one. Edit: it just finished, and I improved, finishing in 1260th place out of 2400 people. It was an Omaha Hi tournament though which I wasn't too familiar with. One more to go coming up in a bit, will post results. Edit: Well with the help of 0and1 and my other friend I managed to play well and get really lucky and finish off 168th out of 2700. I now understand how satisfying and frustrating poker can be at the same time. I do enjoy it, though, and hope to play more in the future (with the help of oand1).



RB scores for 7/6: I think I'm well on my way to my way to the 9,000,000 and 13,000,000 goals
RB1
Total: 8,700,583

RB2
Total: 12,742, 885

Rocker Bio

Hey, I'm Stealthman15 and welcome to my blog. In this blog I will be discussing my progress in Rock Band and Guitar Hero and stuff. Here is a little background info about my history with the games. I started playing GH1 back in Spring of 2006 and have never stopped loving the games. I own GH1, 2, 3, World Tour, Metallica and RB1, and 2 but as of now mainly play RB1, 2, and GH: M. While I do have all the instruments I mainly stick with guitar and sometimes bass. I am also in a band (a RB band and kind of real instrument band) with my friend 0and1 called Mentos Freshmakers. He plays the drums and we have beaten the Endless Setlist 1 and will beat 2 this Summer. Right now off the top of my head my biggest accomplishment is an FC of (Don't Fear) The Reaper. Some of the players I like are Jameslikecoulter, Corporal Gregg, chid0ri, and jprez44.

I played real guitar for about 8 years and also took up piano for around a year but don't play either that much anymore. I stopped mainly because I didn't like to practice and was too lazy and stuff. I do want to get back into real instruments but we'll see about my motivation. I hate people of criticize the GH and RB games by saying "why don't you just play a real instrument instead." These people are really annoying.

Anyway, for this blog I want to record my progress in RB and GH. I will post my scores below (from scorehero). I know I am not the best player but I feel I am above average. I only own a PS2 so no DLC for me which is sucky. Also the Practice Mode in RB on PS2 is bad, oh well. My goal for now is to reach 13,000,000 points in RB2 and 9,000,000 in RB1 by the end of August. I am currently at 12,704,797 and 8,651,191 respectively. I'll consider Metallica goals or RB bass goals along the way if I feel like it. My plan right now is to update the blog once a week with my scores or if something big comes up sooner. If the goals seem to be too easy or too hard, I'll change them around. So...here we go.

July 2nd

RB1 Expert Guitar Scores
RB2 Expert Guitar Scores
GH:M Expert Guitar Scores