I finally beat 'Through the Fire and Flames' (TTFAF) today on Expert, obtaining the 'Inhuman Achievement'. This is for Guitar Hero III (GH3) on the XBOX 360. I have a tip for anyone trying their first pass, but here's some background...
When I first got GH3 I played the solo tour, beating it on hard, then worked my way through Expert. I had tried TTFAF before but like most fail at the intro (developing a latent fear of it). I saw videos of people playing it, and although I felt confident I could learn how to play it, it looked like it would take a *LOT* of practice so I just avoided it as long as possible. :)
Well, after playing Rock Band and those fast solos in Green Grass and High Tides, I decided to give TTFAF another shot. I used the 2-hand 'tapping' method for the intro using my elbow to hit the first strum. Surprisingly this didn't take long at all and I was off and running. And like most people on their first pass of the intro, failed around 78%.
There are a group of solos pretty much back to back that are really tough. It was pretty easy to get full star power though and my plan was to make it as far into the solos as possible then activate to get through the rest. The goal is to get pass the 'Twin Solo' part, after that it is mostly smooth sailing to finish.
The problem though, is to save star power that long, you pretty much need to hold out until into section called 'What The...?'. And staying alive until then is really REALLY challenging. You basically have to have your hands blazingly around. I tried a few times and was getting closer and closer but kept falling short. I could activate star power and get into the 81+ percent range but would fail at the 'Twin Solo'. I felt I could keep practicing and get lucky but it was really frustrating.
In one of my runs, I messed up and had to use star power early. I figured I was doomed, but kept playing. I eventually failed but noticed something very important (at least for a first pass run). You can use star power at the start of the series of solos, and still have a chance to regain star power. This gets you deep into the solos with your rock meter in the Green, then if you can snag another star power before the Twin Solo, you can make it home.
That was my new plan. After failing the intro about 5 times (tough to consistently strum with your elbow and get the tapping started), I was off. I activated star power and the right time, got into the solos great, hit the next star power (awesome!) and now just needed to hit the other one. But (crap) I missed it. I was thinking I was doomed but then RIGHT before the twin solo triplets there is one last star power (a bunch of double notes). I nailed that to my amazement and quickly activated star power which got me into final sections of the song. Of course my heart was racing, who knows how much more practice it would take me to get back to this spot.
Fortunately they give you a couple of parts you can build your meter back to green though. I had walked through the ending in practice mode so at least knew what was coming, there was still a big finale that people have gotten stuck at (a lot of people fail at 98%, I feel for them). When that solo hit, I just strummed in rhythm and hit the notes as fast as I could. I could steadily see my meter going from green to yellow to red, but got passed it and combo'd the remaining notes for the win! I let out a 'YEAH!' even though I was the only one in the house at the time. It wasn't an impressive score (~270k) so I only got 3-stars with my first run, but I am completely content with that. If I do it again, I can be more liberal with star power and just practice the easy parts for good combos.
So my tip is, don't try to save your star power until the 'What The...?' section. Use it right at the end of the 'Climatic Build-up' (just before the 2 ascending strings of 4 notes that make a 'pacman' noise when you play them). A full star power meter will run out just in time to pick up another star power.
With the new playing confidence, I went back and 5-starred all the songs on Hard and got the 'Shredder' achievement. Raining Blood started to feel easy on Hard, I got a x4 in Mosh 1.
My XBox live ID is 'Skick'
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Rock Band - Expert Solo Tour finished
I've had the Guitar Solo Expert tour on Rock Band at 60/61 finished for a while but kept dying on the solo in 'Green Grass and High Tides'. I finally committed myself to finishing that tonight and made it! What a relief! For anyone playing that song on Expert, you know what parts I'm talking about. There is a long solo sequence, most of which is straight forward to anyone who can play Expert in general, but there's a couple of long parts with nothing but super-fast triplets. If you get off just a bit, you're toast.
I was trying to use my GH3 guitar which I usually play better with. But for the solos in this song, I opt'd to use the Rock Band guitar (the one with the little buttons designed for these kind of solos). When the solos came at me, I switched to the little buttons which don't require strumming and used my right-hand to fire the triplet sequences. Worked like a charm.
I was trying to use my GH3 guitar which I usually play better with. But for the solos in this song, I opt'd to use the Rock Band guitar (the one with the little buttons designed for these kind of solos). When the solos came at me, I switched to the little buttons which don't require strumming and used my right-hand to fire the triplet sequences. Worked like a charm.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Final Destination
Another Crump movie review. This movie has been around a while but I never saw it. After hearing a co-worker make a reference to it, my curiosity was peaked enough to pick it up for a watch.
I think it's worth a watch - it was entertaining. It's a horror flick but has at least some kind of interesting plot, arousing thought about things supernatural. There's something about premonition too... It's about cheating death, somethings not successfully. And of course you can't help but laugh at the actor who plays Stiffler in American Pie (he's a semi-main character in the film).
I think it's worth a watch - it was entertaining. It's a horror flick but has at least some kind of interesting plot, arousing thought about things supernatural. There's something about premonition too... It's about cheating death, somethings not successfully. And of course you can't help but laugh at the actor who plays Stiffler in American Pie (he's a semi-main character in the film).
Monday, March 10, 2008
March Update
I haven't been keeping up with my blog! A lot of things going on since my last post.
- UNCC classes are going well. Tedious as it can possibly be, but on track to get As in my English and History classes.
- Work has been pretty challenging recently. It seems like the goals keep changing daily for the project I'm working on, but I've just focused on tackling one thing at a time.
- The family has been having a blast. We recently got back from Walt Disney World in Florida. We went with my sister and her son, my brother and his friend. The wife and kids had a great time, and I think everyone else did also. I'm in the process of making a DVD with all the pictures and videos. The biggest hit was the "La Nouba" circus show. I highly, highly, recommend that one if you go.
- OMG: For the I-don't-know-how-many'eth-time, on the Delta flight there, I was struck in the knee by the drink-cart by a stewardess. It hurt like all get out. I had on my todo list to call Delta and complain, but never got around to it, Disney put me in a better mood. But I sware, any flight I take from here on out, that I sit in an aisle seat, I am wearing a KNEE PAD!!!
- Pool has been going good. I took a good break recently not being on the line-up plan, but played on our 8-ball-express line up last night. I matched up against a 7 for an even 4-4 race for a change (I'm usually giving up games!). I ended up with a 4-1 victory but things could have went either way - I think I caught a break on some uncharacteristic misses by my opponent but I was able to run out when needed. It was a nice revenge match since he beat me by probably the same score not too long ago when he was a 6. :) Our team ended up 2-3 for the night though, not sure we'll make the play-offs - will see...
- On my number theory problem: I've had a few machines running for a while now without finding a solution to 13^n = 36 (mod n). I haven't given up on it yet, but have less focus on that problem now. I'm still putting together a paper with Max Alekseyev on methods of solving such congruences, but we've been taking our time on that - both of us have been busy with other things. Also, I wrote down some probablistic arguments that support infinite solutions to b^n = c (mod n) for c not equal to 1. Max reviewed it and provided some improvements. It's enough to feel confident about the result, but relies on conjecture still (assumes Artin's primitive root conjecture for one, and on certain randomness of discrete logarithms). We might be able to polish that up enough to include in the paper too, but if not I'll post on an HTML page for posterity.
- UNCC classes are going well. Tedious as it can possibly be, but on track to get As in my English and History classes.
- Work has been pretty challenging recently. It seems like the goals keep changing daily for the project I'm working on, but I've just focused on tackling one thing at a time.
- The family has been having a blast. We recently got back from Walt Disney World in Florida. We went with my sister and her son, my brother and his friend. The wife and kids had a great time, and I think everyone else did also. I'm in the process of making a DVD with all the pictures and videos. The biggest hit was the "La Nouba" circus show. I highly, highly, recommend that one if you go.
- OMG: For the I-don't-know-how-many'eth-time, on the Delta flight there, I was struck in the knee by the drink-cart by a stewardess. It hurt like all get out. I had on my todo list to call Delta and complain, but never got around to it, Disney put me in a better mood. But I sware, any flight I take from here on out, that I sit in an aisle seat, I am wearing a KNEE PAD!!!
- Pool has been going good. I took a good break recently not being on the line-up plan, but played on our 8-ball-express line up last night. I matched up against a 7 for an even 4-4 race for a change (I'm usually giving up games!). I ended up with a 4-1 victory but things could have went either way - I think I caught a break on some uncharacteristic misses by my opponent but I was able to run out when needed. It was a nice revenge match since he beat me by probably the same score not too long ago when he was a 6. :) Our team ended up 2-3 for the night though, not sure we'll make the play-offs - will see...
- On my number theory problem: I've had a few machines running for a while now without finding a solution to 13^n = 36 (mod n). I haven't given up on it yet, but have less focus on that problem now. I'm still putting together a paper with Max Alekseyev on methods of solving such congruences, but we've been taking our time on that - both of us have been busy with other things. Also, I wrote down some probablistic arguments that support infinite solutions to b^n = c (mod n) for c not equal to 1. Max reviewed it and provided some improvements. It's enough to feel confident about the result, but relies on conjecture still (assumes Artin's primitive root conjecture for one, and on certain randomness of discrete logarithms). We might be able to polish that up enough to include in the paper too, but if not I'll post on an HTML page for posterity.
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