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Posts with tag GuitarHero

Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

Guitar Hero meets typing tutor - Today's Time Waster

Up Beat
We need to start off this post with a quick warning. Please look away if you have something important to do today. If you continue reading you will get nothing productive done for the next few hours.

Up Beat is an addictive Flash-based game in the vein of Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero. Except instead of a dance pad or a guitar, you play with your keyboard. If you can't figure out the rules from the screenshot, little bars shoot their way toward you at high speeds. You have to hit the corresponding key at just the moment the little bar arrives. The fact that the action is timed to annoying techno music either makes the game a lot harder, or a lot easier to play, depending on your perspective.

There are three levels of difficulty, and 9 songs to choose from. To be honest, they all sound kind of the same, but that doesn't make the game any less fun to play.

[via Random Good Stuff]

Filed under: Audio, Fun, Windows, Open Source

Piano Hero: Learn to play piano, have fun?

Piano Hero
I took piano lessons for a couple years when I was a kid. I never became a virtuoso, but maybe if I had had Piano Hero I could have. It's an open source edutainer in the mold of Guitar Hero and the like, except with a piano instead of a guitar. It's a bit rough around the edges and definitely doesn't have the eye candy appeal of its console brethren, but if you want to improve your real piano skills (rather than your fake guitar skills), it might be right up your alley. Piano Hero works with any MIDI music file you throw at it, but currently it doesn't sync up to a MIDI keyboard--that feature will come with the 0.5.0 release promised later this month. Until then you'll just have to play along and pretend.

The Piano Hero web site seems to be sputtering a bit just now, but you can download the program for Windows from SourceForge.

Filed under: Audio, Fun, Games, Windows, Linux, Freeware, Time-Wasters

Frets on Fire - Todays Time Waster

Frets on FireHave you noticed the seemingly unending buzz around the PlayStation 2 game Guitar Hero? If you don't have a PlayStation, but are curious about that type of game, you might like to check out Frets on Fire, a free guitar-themed music game for Windows and Linux. Although it doesn't feature the licensed popular music that the commercial name-brand game contains, it still has some pretty hot tracks and frantic gameplay.

The game has some serious attitude, the likes of which you won't see in most (but not all) retail games. It's not graphic, but the language in the game could be considered somewhat colorful or offensive to some. I realize that's not really a big deal for most, but it's worth mentioning. You can view a video demo of Frets on Fire after the jump (note, as the game does, the demo includes a couple of potentially offensive words).

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Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

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