What is this "Frets on Fire", you ask?
It's
basically a delicious clone of "Guitar Hero". That's why we all love
the copyright-free world of the internet: if any one greasy nerd has
enough time on his hands, he can replicate/steal/crack anything for us
all to enjoy.
When you first download the game, it comes with only 3 songs for
you to play around with. But the kicker is that you can get hundreds more RIGHT HERE:
THE PIRATE BAY ( REQUIRES BITORRENT )
or
KEYBOARDS ON FIRE COMMUNITY ( LIMITED SELECTION, BUT DIRECT DOWNLOADS )
Since the frets are all user-generated and the people who have time to
generate web-content are usually tasteless, talentless teenagers,
you'll find your good share of terrible nu-metal/ death metal crap and
also a decent amount of really badly-fretted songs that will make you
want to smash your keyboard to bits. Oh, and for some reason, a
lot of spanish power metal. But mostly, they're well-done and enjoyable.
And you can also get every song from Guitar Hero 1 and 2!
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BUT BEWARE, READ THIS BEFORE PLAYING THE GAME:
=== Go
in the "options" menu, then "game settings" and enable the "tappable
keys" options, this will let you simply press down on a full note ( if
you're hit another one before it ) to "hit" it, otherise the game is
impossible in many parts.

Once gain in case you're slow:
In this game, you have to press both which ever key comes up AND enter
AT THE SAME TIME. But when you have notes with a little dot in them,
you don't need to hit ENTER! But you do need to lift your finger and
HIT THE NOTE.
===
You can also reconfigure your keyboard!! You don't have to hold
it like a guitar if you have a shitty weirdo-space-age-dildo keyboard
like I have. Just set the frets like so :
fret 1 == z
fret 2 == x
fret 3 == c
fret 4 == v
fret 5 == b
OR YOU CAN PLAY THE CLASSIC WAY
=== Some
keyboards don't allow certain key combinations, and this will PISS YOU
OFF ENDLESSLY, for instance, some songs will require you to press "
fret 1 + fret 4" but maybe your keyboard doesn't register " z + v +
enter " so you're fucked. Buy another keyboard. With mine, I can hold
down all 5 notes and press enter, and it still works.
=== You can play the game like so :
fret 1 == you have to press ONLY z
fret 2 == you CAN press Z + X and it still works !
and so on :
fret 1 ( green ) = Z
fret 2 ( red ) = ZX
fret 3 ( yellow ) = ZCX
fret 4 (blue) = ZXCV
fret 5 ( pink )= ZXCVB
But this doesn't work the other way around!!
Also, note that this works for power chords, i.e. pressing two keys at
once. In Guitar Hero, when you have FRET 1 + FRET 4, you have to hit
ONLY those two, but in this game, you can hit FRETS 1-4 and it still
works. BUT ONLY IF YOUR KEYBOARD ALLOWS YOU TO PRESS DOWN THAT MANY BUTTONS!!!
This makes the game much easier ( which is of course the point). And
note that some songs require you to hold down 3 buttons at once, and a
lot of keyboards have a limit of 2, so you'll hate the assholes who
fretted those songs if you happen to have a bronze-age keyboard. |
NOW GO WATCH PEOPLE PLAY THE GAME ON YOUTUBE
Metallica : Whiskey in the Jar
Contra: Jungle Level
Megadeth: Hanger 18
Btw if you're wondering why their version of the game looks weird, it's
because they have special mods on, up to you to find out how to get
them!
WHAT SUCKS ABOUT THE GAME:
======== Sometimes, for no reason, some notes are un-hitable. They are quite rare in the game, but due
to some bug, you can't hit those notes, no matter what you do, so you miss every time you get to that part of the song.
======== In certain songs, the full notes require you to press enter for some reason ( like "Guns n' Roses:
My Michelle").
======== In some songs, you have a full and an empty note side-by-side, which the computer doesn't get,
so you lose.
======== BUT WORST OF ALL: The game operates on some weird "borrow a note" system that enables you to miss a note and yet recover if you press "enter" fast enough. This makes it possible to get rapid streaks of single frets
( where you have to just press "enter" a lot and really fast ). If the
timing was too precise, you'd lose it every time. You still have to
press enter the correct amount of time, but you have a little freedom.
BUT this also works AGAINST you in the parts where you have to hit rapid combos of crescendos and decrescendos. When you miss one note, for some reason, you can't re-start unless you press ENTER TWICE on the next one. This is IMPOSSIBLY frustrating and
annoying. I can only assume this is due to their " you can borrow a
note" deal. Whenever the game gets a little fast and mixes full
and empty notes, this will FRUSTRATE THE FUCKING HELL OUT OF YOU.
HAVE FUN!!
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