

JamLegend - the browser based Guitar Hero - tbrooks
http://paulstamatiou.com/2008/09/21/first-impressions-jamlegend-it-rocks

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bouncingsoul
_No need to buy any fancy controller, your keyboard will do just fine._

There are lots of Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution clones in Flash, and
while this one seems especially well made I still feel the whole thing is
silly when you're just using your keyboard.

The physicality of playing is what makes these games fun and memorable: it's
tapping your feet forward and left on a DDR pad or hitting sticks on actual
drum pads or raising your guitar controller at a crazy solo.

Whenever I play these Flash versions (or even the Tap Tap iPhone game) I just
think _Hmm, I'm tapping my fingers in a pattern that matches these okay songs
the developers found for free on the internet. And I can't move because my
keyboard has to sit on my desk. This really isn't that fun._

I'm tempted to say the pattern matching mechanic is just an excuse to achieve
the essence of the game, which is making people move. But that's probably not
right because I recall PaRappa the Rapper on the Playstation was just pushing
buttons and it did well.

So I don't know what it is that pushes a game beyond rote pattern matching
into something fun, but to me these Flash clones don't have it.

~~~
asb
One weakness common to all the Flash clones I've seen is that the song you're
playing along to sounds the same whether you hit the notes or not, unlike in
Guitar Hero. Whether the improvement in gameplay would be worth the extra
investment needed I'm not sure.

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rantfoil
JamLegend is SUPER fun. Wow, these guys are in for a great launch when they go
public beta.

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boredguy8
I wonder if anyone's patented "A method for achieving a high score by hitting
a toggle or combination of toggles on one machine when a scrolling icon
reaches a specified point on a second machine."

