Guitar Hero II woes

Well, I give up. I’ve been having a problem with Guitar Hero II ever since I bought it: at multiple points during gameplay, the fret board (i.e., the notes you need to play) and song will freeze up — but not the screen itself, funny enough: the band characters still rock out like they’re playin’ something — and when play resumes, the fret board, and the guitar audio track behind it, will be out-of-sync with the vocal, bass and drums tracks (to ear-curdling effect, as you can imagine).

It seems to be a widely reported problem, and indeed, some persons clearly have it worse than I do: mine usually doesn’t freeze up more than a dozen times per song. Others have suggested that it might be specific shipments (i.e., a bad press or two). I bought the two-disc Guitar Hero & Guitar Hero II package today — I didn’t have the first one, and, frankly, it may have the best track list of the lot — and while Guitar Hero worked perfectly, the new copy of Guitar Hero II has the same problems as the old one (outlined above).

I too tried playing GH2 with all the various permutations of widescreen mode and progressive scan being on and off, to no avail. Oddly enough, when I played Guitar Hero III (for Playstation 2, as all these other titles are, obviously) with both widescreen mode and progressive scan on, it worked like a charm; just the slightest of skips every now and then, and all the tracks were still in sync afterward (which is worst part of the GH2 problem, by far).

What finally led me to giving up on GH2, however, was the discovery that practice mode doesn’t suffer from this problem: basically I just wanna play the songs — Wayward Son is AWESOME! — and now I know I can, so long as I make it through the game once in the skippy-crappy version (to unlock all the tracks for practice). I’m reasonably happy with that; especially since the world seems to have moved on to Guitar Hero World Tour et al.

So I’ll return the two-disc package tomorrow, buy myself a copy of Guitar Hero and cut my losses, as it were. Unless they come out with their own “track packs” of the GH and GH2 tracks for the Wii (the system I started playing GH3 on); then I’ll be dippin’ in my wallet again.

The Menagerie

An excellent use of otherwise-wasted pilot footage. I wish they’d made more two-part episodes! Ah well; my notes:

• My interest was piqued as soon as they said the name Capt. Pike. :-)
• My first thought, as Pike was slowly turning around, was that his chair looked a bit like Davros’ (from the 70s Doctor Who Daleks); then all thoughts were blown away by that horrifying make-up.
• Spock’s actions were very intriguing, particularly in their thoroughness re the speech he’d recorded earlier.
• I sure was surprised to hear McCoy defend Spock! Unexpected! :-)
• Could only imagine how pissed Kirk was as they pulled in tight for the message that the Enterprise had left without him.
• They set up the pilot footage perfectly: you could believe that that was a younger Spock, and the one possible confusion of Majel’s presence was covered by her darker hair, worn in a style different from Chapel’s.
• I liked the old doctor’s comment about how bartenders and doctors both see two kinds of customers: the living and the dying.
• Capt. Pike says “Engage!” too! And that was quickly followed by his reference to his “Number 1″ — more indications of just how far back these Picard-isms (as I knew them) go.
• Spock seems to have a pronounced limp in that first shot of the away mission. It’s less obvious in later shots, but it struck me as strange.
• I knew the timelines were off, but I couldn’t shake the resemblance I noticed between the Keeper and Diana Muldaur (who played Doctor Pulaski on TNG).
• I got to liking that old doctor more and more as the second part of the episode continued: strange hair-style, but I liked his lines, and I felt they were really delivered with feeling.
• I really liked that incongruous argument between Pike and the Keeper, when he discovered the power of primitive thoughts, and the Talosian steadfastly stuck to its story about the crash survivor. It’s a technique you often see, but it’s rarely used to such effect: normally it descends into a general cacophony, and while Pike’s frustration was clear in this case, you could always discern both lines of dialogue.
• Sometimes Jeffrey Hunter (playing Pike) would get this look in his eye — particularly when he was feeding that horse — that reminded me of Chuck Connors in the opening of The Rifleman. :-)
• The slag that was left of the entrance to the underground was a nice touch.
• I wonder how they got that final footage of Jeffrey Hunter going back underground with Vina? Was it extra footage shot as Vina’s illusion of how the pilot ended? Or maybe an alternate ending? Interesting.

Space Seed

An excellent episode; although, I have say, I think I built it up a bit in my mind: this was my first time seeing it, and I’ve seen The Wrath of Khan a few times now; it’s tough to not expect something epic. And I guess that manifests itself most in my thoughts about Khan’s attempt to take-over the Enterprise: with a bigger budget and more time — that wouldn’t be a feature-length film that you’re talkin’ about now, would it? ;-) — the take-over could’ve included more of Khan’s crew, and been more thorough; then something along the lines of Scotty’s intimate knowledge of the ship could’ve got them back on top (maybe even starting from the inferior position of being cast adrift on the ancient Botany Bay).

Anyway, that’s only idle speculation on my part. And I don’t mean to say that I didn’t enjoy the episode, because I really did; as per usual, I made some notes:

• A war in the 1990s, eh? Another war would certainly seem logical in ‘66; my only question would be why set it that far in the future? Particularly when you’re hinting at a “dark age” followed by nacelle (or at least non-nuclear) technology some two decades later (2018, according to McGivers); it seems a bit compressed. Then again, I have no idea how all this fits with the Zefram Cochrane timeline(s).
• Speaking of McGivers, I was certain I heard MacGyvers, to which my immediate response was, “Damn, she should be on every away mission! You just never know!” ;-)
• The Botany Bay set reminded me of a Tom Baker-era Doctor Who set: there were more whites and silvers on that one, but the feel, with the chambers, etc., was very much the same, as I recall.
• I laughed at the use of “oriental”.
• The formal dress was great. There was an unusual feel to the entire episode that was highlighted in moments like this one. (Of course, I can’t be certain that I’m not imposing that import on it, knowing what followed.)
• The scene in Khan’s room onboard the Enterprise was a tough sale, and I felt that both Montalban and Rhue pulled it off unimaginably well: Khan never let up, and McGivers managed enough strength under his onslaught to hint at her training (which, of course, came to the fore later in the episode — and all that made for a believable ending).
• The banter regarding admiring one’s enemies was fantastic: loved Spock’s, “Illogical!”
• Spock’s speculation, while much farther out than it, certainly hints at the movie.

And now it’s time to get ready for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan at the Mayfair Theatre in Ottawa; very exciting!