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| |  Genre: Arcade | | Mac OS X: 10.4 Mac OS Classic: Not Supported
CPU: Intel RAM: 256 MB |
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Graphics and Sound Graphically, Frets on Fire makes me smile. Simple graphics adorn most of the game, nowhere near as polished as Guitar Hero, but that’s not really the point of the game anyway. The presentation is fairly clean, and the cassette picking metaphor for song selection is amusing.The sound is a mixed bag, and greatly dependent on what you’ve selected to play. The songs included with the game, and songs converted by the game from the PS2 disks are professional and perfect. Your mileage may vary (greatly!) with songs you pull off the wilds of the internet. Issues Frets on Fire, like just about any game, has some issues. While I understand the licensing issues with MP3 libraries in an application, and the game really needed to be distributed free, the use of OGG music files is an annoyance and an additional step in conversion. Converting MP3 to OGG isn’t hard, and a 20 second google search will show you a host of applications to do it. Furthermore, there needs to be a validation process for music files before they are added to the library for selection. With some of the song files I acquired for playing, a file or two was missing, and the game engine didn’t choke on them until I selected them to try and play. This would be better filtered out before they’re displayed on the selection screen. Importing songs could be easier. As it stands, you open the package to navigate to where you need to dump the songs. Yes, I know the application is open source and ported to the Macintosh, but an applet or something for the casual user to drag and drop on, perhaps coupled with the above validation process I mentioned, might be the best solution for the casual user.Why does this game have such steep requirements to play? Regardless of advice, the game will run on a dual G5 with some tweaking, but an intel processor is really required for it. I do understand the use of OpenGL for the visuals, but even a Core Duo Mac Mini I have connected to a television chokes from time to time on the game. With any luck, the system requirements will fall on future revisions of the game.The Final Verdict I sound schizophrenic with this review, picking it apart in one sentence and praising it in the next. Frets on Fire is fun, but not perfect. It takes time and money to make the game a truly great experience. Also, if you don’t like rhythm games, you won’t like Frets on Fire. What Frets on Fire does is allow you to play the songs you would have liked to see in Guitar Hero. I like the potential Frets on Fire has, and the community is great, but if your song selection is picked poorly, the same community efforts make the game tough to enjoy. I played literally hundreds of songs for Frets. Some were great, rivaling Guitar Hero songs, and some weren’t. Be prepared for time customizing the game to your liking if you want to play. Frets on Fire is good, but won’t replace your Guitar Hero games.Pros • Open source
• Large library of converted songs available
• Active community
• Free!Cons • Steep system requirements
• Internet community dependent
• Converted songs lack quality and playability sometimes
• Time and money investment required for the complete experience
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