Hide and Geek

There are few subjects that I feel strongly about enough that I can rant about them for a good hour by furiously typing myself into a midly depressive state before forcing myself into a caffeine high, and one of these is plastic guitars.

Earlier this year I complained about my Guitar Hero III guitars generally being a pain in the arse, and, rather unsurprisingly, here I am again ready to repeat the same shit all over again in the false hope that somebody at Activision might actually start caring.

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Consider the opening paragraph of this article you’re reading now as a demo for the article as a whole. Yes, you may get a taste for the article, it’s general theme and stance on the matter - but you’ll miss it’s overall point and won’t experience the full article as it’s intended. Surely the articles conclusion and underlying point is the most important thing here? Of course this example is flawed in the fact that you don’t have to pay to read the full article, but it does illustrate a point. Hopefully this ‘demo’ article has grabbed your attention enough to stay with me though.

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There are many reasons why 95% of my gaming is now done on consoles, as opposed to the contrary about four years ago. Mostly it’s because there are very few games that I want to play on my PC, and the one’s that I do are often on Xbox 360 as well anyway, and the latter option gives me achievements so it’s a simple decision.

But there have been a few games in recent years that I have wanted to buy on PC, for whatever reason, but didn’t. It wasn’t because the 8800GT, 2 gigs of PC6400 and Core 2 Duo 6600 under the hood couldn’t handle it, It wasn’t because I didn’t feel like playing games at my desk and it wasn’t because keyboards scare me.

The reason I didn’t by the three games I have in mind is because they came with an added bonus, an absolutely free gift from the publisher, guaranteed to screw you over if you dared to install it too many times. I am of course ranting about digital rights management.

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Here at Hide and Geek, we don’t like stress, it’s an element of our hectic lives we could really do with without. Our solution comes in the form of our weekly rant. It’s been proven that bitching is a great method of releiving stress levels and we’re keen to put that to the test. This week, purely as a stress relieving excercise, Jamin takes a look at the character stereotypes which are giving heroes a bad name.

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Yes, it’s a day late. Build a bridge. Get over it. This is worth the wait. After putting himself through 7 gruelling hours of  Too Human, Jamin has formed enough of an opinion to share with you, our beloved reader. Venting his anger in written form, Jamin explores the problems facing Silicon Knight’s Too Human.

If you don’t know anything about Too Human, chances are you’ve had your head buried in the sand for a very long time. Initially announced as a PSone title, Too Human has had more than long enough to drum up riduculous amounts of hype, much to it’s detriment. Too Human is another game that has become the victim of it’s own hype, unable to sustain it, Too Human has become one of the biggest let downs in gaming history.

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Welcome back to Hide And Geek’s Rant of the Week, our regular column in which we unleash our white hot boiling rage upon a topic in gaming. Like a Quentin Taratino monologue gone wrong, we fire out angry words peppered with cultural references whilst cool music plays in the background (Ed: Cool music entirely optional and supplied by the reader. Hide And Geek is not responsible for readers’ awful taste in music).

This week, Grey tackles the subject of SKUs…

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This week Hide and Geek dons its police uniform, revealing gameplay crimes that can ruin even the best of games. Shoddy design is often overlooked by gamers blinded by their loyalty to a franchise. Looking objectively at game design, regardless of the games name and pedigree, Chief Inspector Jamin names and shames bad gameplay mechanics and their worst offenders…

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As many of you will know, I play Guitar Hero… a lot. My Guitar Hero II ‘Xplorer’ guitar is working fine and has done since I got it last Spring, despite hundreds of hours of thrashing mad metal. Hugely anticipating the day when I would have the new “improved” Les Paul bestowed unto me by Red Octane, this day did not disappoint. However, the next day did, when my shredding was interrupted by the lack of a functional green fret button. I take the guitar back to the shop, get a replacement, happens again a few months later when the damn thing is out of warranty.

At this point I send some nasty letters to Activision, including such memorable phrases as:

“After returning my first copy of Guitar Hero 3 for Xbox 360 to the shop I bought it from, I had hoped that the replacement would not suffer from the inherently flawed design of the controller.

Rather unsurprisingly, it has, and I can no longer play the game with this guitar.”

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Rant of the Week returns! Like that irritating bloke down the pub, this week Grey forces his opinions upon you whilst smelling as if he’s downed two large bottles of Smirnoff…

“I saw on the TV the other night, who was it, Rosie O’ Donnell, and she made some comment, ‘Speaking as a mother, I know nothing about Afghanistan. But I know it’s full of terrorists’. What? What is this speaking as a mother thing? Is that a euphemism for ‘Well, talking out of my arse’?” – Bill Bailey on the war on terror.

The Daily Mail is a truly fantastic newspaper. You can use it to wrap your chips in, to provide bedding for tramps, as kindling for a small fire, as a makeshift shelter from the rain, the list of uses it can be put towards is practically never ending. However, don’t ever make the mistake of assuming that, because there are words sprawled across its pages, you should attempt to read your makeshift umbrella. Therein lies madness. (more…)

Every Wednesday hence forth, Hide and Geek will present it’s Rant of the Week, an opportunity for the HnG team to vent their anger on the weeks gaming related annoyances. Agree or disagree, make sure you let us know your opinion on the matter by using the comment facilities.

This week Jamin tackles; Wiimotes, sensor bars and annoying children.

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