Looking At Play-Along-With-The-Music Video Game Mania
Author: AF Duncan
November 21st, 2007
With the prohibitively expensive Rock Band arriving in stores yesterday and Guitar Hero III selling like hotcakes, we appear to be arriving at the apex of the kind of random video game crazes that have periodically swepped the country since the ye olden days of Pac Man Fever. I honestly thought Guitar Hero II was going to be the last and most successful game of its kind for a while, but hey, what can you do.
Weirdly enough Reuters of all people has been all over this mild phenomenon. In their first article they take on Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero III. And in the second they look at the big Rock Band release from yesterday. Both pieces interestingly place the trend in a context I’ve never considered before: what the games mean to the flailing music industry.
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7 Responses to “Looking At Play-Along-With-The-Music Video Game Mania”
November 21st, 2007 at 9:21 am
Having seen Rock Band in Virgin yesterday, and glimpsing the track list on the package, I wish I’d waited for it instead of picking up GH3.
November 21st, 2007 at 9:30 am
These games are actually pretty good. Normally, I really do not like games like these, but honestly they are a lot of fun. Many people across various age groups find it pretty appealing too. They are usually well received by the gaming reviewers as well. Rockband is getting very high praise, even though the price tag is very high.
Something I am quite curious about is do these games actually teach you anything about actually playing the instrument over time? If not, can they be tweaked enough to allow people that play to actually learn the instrument? Nintendo is already creating “Games” that train you to have better visual acuity, improve your mind, add vocabulary. Why not do it with the instruments too? Pretty neat stuff, if it can be done.
November 21st, 2007 at 9:56 am
I think if these games teach you anything about playing the instrument it’s maybe rhythm, and that’s probably about it. I can definitely say knowing how to play an instrument doesn’t give you much of an advantage — except that you might tend to trust what your fingers are doing faster without looking at them than somebody who’s never played a guitar.
I’ve also wondered if they’ll ever be able to mess with the game so there’s a little more creativity or learning involved. I’d love for there to be a way to improvise your own solo or bass or guitar part, for example. But I have no idea how they’d even begin to program that or incorporate it into the game.
November 21st, 2007 at 10:05 am
>>I’ve also wondered if they’ll ever be able to mess with the game so there’s a little more creativity or learning involved. I’d love for there to be a way to improvise your own solo or bass or guitar part, for example. But I have no idea how they’d even begin to program that or incorporate it into the game.<<
Yeah man, that’s what’s missing from these games. The fucking-spectacular “Um Jammer Lammy” (sequel to the great “Pa Rappa the Rapper”) not only allowed you to improvise, but rewarded you for it. Additionally, as you went through the game, you unlocked different guitar effects (wah-wah, flanger, distortion, etc.). Great, great game that never gets the credit it deserves.
Maybe there are legal reasons as to why you can’t improvise on “real” songs? (The Um Jammer Lammy songs were all original songs created for the game).
November 23rd, 2007 at 8:13 am
Rock Band is a fantastic game. It’s true that the guitar playing isn’t really anything like playing one at all; that’s alright, as it’s basically an advanced form of air guitar, which is itself fun enough. However, the vocals and drums on Rock Band are quite a step closer. I’ve heard it said that if you can play the drums well on expert in Rock Band, you might want to look at getting a real drum kit and maybe joining a band. I will say that it’s definitely the most challenging of the roles to play in Rock Band. I’m pretty much saving it for last.
Vocals, on the other hand, are an odd thing. I’m a pretty good singer, not great or anything, but I can carry a tune well. Years of choir and singing at church, I suppose. For me, the Medium setting on Rock Band is ridiculously easy. The only songs I’ve struggled through in any way have either been unfamiliar ones or ones with an exceptionally tough mix of low and high notes in rapid progression, something I’ve never been that good with. However, I’m not, as I said, a great singer.I can still hang on Hard, at least for the first few songs, but my usual 95-100% drops to 80-85%. Then, at Expert, there’s a total fucking drop-off. I bombed out of one of the easiest songs in the game at around the quarter-way mark on it. It seems like they’ve made it easy enough on anything below Hard that anyone can join in and not feel self-conscious, but that Hard and up offers some real challenge. It’s a truly great design decision, as I know people who said, “No way, no vocals for me ever” like my wife and my friends who were planning to press me into being vocalist for their bands felt totally comfortable singing by their second or third song. At the same time, I feel like Hard is going to be a fun challenge, and Expert is one of those “attainable but extremely difficult” things that it should be.
All in all, if you’ve got the cash to drop on it, or the game trade-ins, I cannot recommend it highly enough, assuming you have at least one other person to play it with.
November 23rd, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Bitter, it’s on the Christmas list.
November 24th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
AF - You said the Rock Band is “prohibitively expensive”, but it’s only the ‘Special Edition’ that costs an arm and a leg. The game itself is only $60 which is about normal now. If you own any of the prior Guitar Hero games the controller works with Rock Band (even the GH3 wireless). You can then add as you want in January when the instruments become available individually.