OMG Nintendo

I've really not noticed a problem with the sound being in mono on Guitar Hero III, mainly because I, like many gamers, simply use my TV speakers. I can rock out at half volume just fine, and I don't really feel like I need to hear channel separation, unless I was wearing headphones or something.

This comment might have been better suited for the lawsuit post, but either way, I don't think the problem is all that bad. The game not booting up every time and the guitar controller randomly not working are the things I'm more hindered by.

Imagine playing Mario Galaxy in black & white. Yeah, sure, the music and sfx are still there and you can see things well enough to beat the game... and it'd be obvious it was still a great game. Wouldn't there be this nagging feeling you were missing something important in the experience, though? It'd feel even worse if the box your game came in showed color graphics, too...

I... don't think that's quite the same. Video games are a largely visual thing, and yeah it's a music game, but that makes the unavailability of stereo sound even less noticeable, because you're just listening to songs from your TV speakers. If you hear a guitar part coming out of both speakers evenly instead of being slightly panned to the right, I don't think it's the same as playing Mario Galaxy in black and white.

I can imagine this being a problem if you've got a nice surround sound set and you want those mistake "chinks" to come out loud and clear, but I live in an apartment and don't have that luxury. Hence, I am just fine with my bugged out Guitar Hero 3, but will probably request a new copy if it's available, because I might want to play through headphones at some point.

Most basic TVs have had pretty good two-channel sound output for decades, so I think it's kinda goofy to say most people couldn't notice this playing on a TV at home. People might not pay attention to it, but that doesn't have anything to do with their electronics. I can tell the difference between mono and basic stereo on my piece-of-crap laptop speakers. So on my TV's much better built-in speakers the difference is hideously noticeable, and GH3 isn't played on the Wii in my house.

Regarding giant 5.1 sound systems... it depends on how they're configured. If you set it up right, you'd find it hideously noticeable if only because you'd only be getting output from your center channel. That would result in abnormally low volume and make songs hard to hear. Of course, most people who get them don't learn how to set them up correctly, and so may be less likely to notice than just someone who had a pretty good pair of built-in TV speakers!

Weirdly enough, the "chinks" you mention seem to work correctly in stereo in GH3. It's the song mixes that are "damaged". Parts of songs are literally missing or muffled because the game doesn't output the sound channel that contains that sound data. This may not be personally bothersome, but it totally screws rhythm gamers used to using the song structure to help them anticipate what's coming next. It's that sense of "something missing" I was trying to get at with the Mario Galaxy example. If you do use the music to play the game (and in rhythm games you should), sound data being missing from your songs is at the least really irritating.

I guess it would be goofy if I said that most people couldn't notice that GH3 is in mono, thankfully I didn't actually say that. I will say, particularly given that I've been a musician for 13 years, that I can notice the difference in mono and stereo (that much is pretty easy) but to consider the difference in this particular game as "hideous" has not been my experience at all. I think the game sounds fine, if not a bit flawed. I really don't think that's enough to warrant a lawsuit or even dismiss the game altogether. There have been much worse crimes perpetrated in video games, and it's not like anyone got hurt, so why fuss?

Also I know that the "chinks" sound loud and clear when you're playing in stereo. That's why I said "I can imagine this being a problem if you've got a nice surround sound set and you want those mistake "chinks" to come out loud and clear". I was saying that if you want those mistakes to come out loud and clear, then not having the game in stereo is a problem. My personal feeling is that I'm a bit relieved at the muffled chinking, as that can be distracting in its own right. I haven't noticed other sounds in the music being gone, and I definitely use the song's structure to play, since I can't seem to calibrate the lag on my HDTV correctly, I've been practically playing the game blind-folded.

After thinking about it a bit, I believe I agree with you about the Wii GH3 lawsuit, if only because the idjit sued about 5-6 days after Activision announced that they were giving everybody free replacement discs as soon as possible. I suppose you can put a monetary value on being annoyed that your game doesn't work right for four months, but it shouldn't be enough to merit a court case.

That said, where the GH3 mono on Wii really bugs me is that the product somehow passed through every level of Activision and Nintendo Q&A without anyone noticing something players picked up on right away... or, if they did notice, they decided not to care. It's really inexcusable behavior from companies this major, and fans should get after them to make sure they know it can't happen again. Yeah, GH3 Wii even with mono is, say, a better game than Anubis II... but it's not as good a game as, say, other versions of GH3, and not because of the platform it's on.

Anyway, I only brought it up in this story because if some guy paid $9,000 for a copy of GH3 on the Wii, he paid a ridiculous premium for a second-hand copy of a game that doesn't work right. That's mind-blowing. Is the guy who paid $9,000 going to be able to get one of the replacement discs from Activision? Then again, a mono "first pressing" of GH3 Wii may end up being a collector's item in 10-15 years...

For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure this guy was paying less for the actual game, and more to support the parent's cause of punishing the kid for his drug use. It wouldn't be the first time an auction has been propelled to ridiculous numbers in "support" of the parent's story. I think a similar thing happened a couple years ago on ebay with a bunch of DSes, didn't it?

Oh it's definitely not cool that the game went through Q&A without them noticing that the sound was off, though I will admit it took me a while to notice it myself. I've forgiven games for far worse offense, though.

Also $9000 is too much to pay for ANY video game. You couldn't sell me a Polybius cabinet lined with gold Nintendo World Championship cartridges for that much. Some dude paying that much for GH3, even as an anti-drug sentiment, just boggles the mind.