Green Day: Rock Band
Obviously, I play a lot of Rock Band. I'm a Rock Band partisan, if you will, mainly because of the little details that Harmonix gets right as opposed to the direction of the Guitar Hero franchise. One of these days I'll enumerate why, but in the meantime I'll only say that my various Rock Band purchases have gone a long way to making me a semi-competent drummer in a variety of styles. It's really the only reason I have remained interested in the game, though the tangential benefit of having my friends interpret various songs during my movie screening nights has been a nice side effect.
One of the primarily voiced concerns on the Interwebs is the over saturation of what is called the rhythm genre. It's easy to blame Activision/Guitar Hero for this, having released 5 different games for consoles this past year, compared to just The Beatles: Rock Band and Lego Rock Band by EA/Harmonix. Personally, I don't think the number of games has anything to do with the decline of the rhythm genre. All games get old. When the mechanic is basically unchanged for two years people are either going to get sick of it or move on, or they are going to stop buying games that offer nothing new gameplay-wise. It should be noted that the DLC sales remain strong for Rock Band, despite the decline in game sales.
When this game was announced, I shrugged along with the rest, but I spared the vitriol. Harmonix, at the least, has worked out the issue of song export with this title (along with their others, including Lego Rock Band), professing to allow owners to export songs to their hard drive so that they can add to their library without disc swapping. As someone who has people over frequently for Rock Band shenanigans, this is appreciated. Swapping discs is no fun, and it makes sense that you should be able to play tracks you've purchased across titles.
Of course, this title doesn't solve the problem of "revitalizing the rhythm genre", but for my friends who just want to sing and play various songs, I don't think the game mechanic being revitalized is going to make a difference. The key to one franchise dominating over the other is going to be the depth of their song library, pure and simple. I can't see Guitar Hero dominating far into the future for this reason, since exporting songs has not been a priority for them. This simple decision alone is going to make the difference long-term between the two franchises.
Will Rock Band ever again reach the lofty heights it once did? Nope, but it will maintain its niche. As for me, I'll keep buying songs as long as they promise new drum charts/styles to play, and let my friends pony up for the songs they want to sing. I'm not sure if this game fits either bill, but we'll see what the MSRP is.
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Also... life. The semester is over. I wrote very little this semester, and hope to do more going forward, though I think it will likely delve into less personal topics over time. My penchant for self-reflection hasn't been erased, but my desire to share such thoughts publicly has definitely diminished over time, particularly as I've been massively busy. We'll see how it goes.
One of the primarily voiced concerns on the Interwebs is the over saturation of what is called the rhythm genre. It's easy to blame Activision/Guitar Hero for this, having released 5 different games for consoles this past year, compared to just The Beatles: Rock Band and Lego Rock Band by EA/Harmonix. Personally, I don't think the number of games has anything to do with the decline of the rhythm genre. All games get old. When the mechanic is basically unchanged for two years people are either going to get sick of it or move on, or they are going to stop buying games that offer nothing new gameplay-wise. It should be noted that the DLC sales remain strong for Rock Band, despite the decline in game sales.
When this game was announced, I shrugged along with the rest, but I spared the vitriol. Harmonix, at the least, has worked out the issue of song export with this title (along with their others, including Lego Rock Band), professing to allow owners to export songs to their hard drive so that they can add to their library without disc swapping. As someone who has people over frequently for Rock Band shenanigans, this is appreciated. Swapping discs is no fun, and it makes sense that you should be able to play tracks you've purchased across titles.
Of course, this title doesn't solve the problem of "revitalizing the rhythm genre", but for my friends who just want to sing and play various songs, I don't think the game mechanic being revitalized is going to make a difference. The key to one franchise dominating over the other is going to be the depth of their song library, pure and simple. I can't see Guitar Hero dominating far into the future for this reason, since exporting songs has not been a priority for them. This simple decision alone is going to make the difference long-term between the two franchises.
Will Rock Band ever again reach the lofty heights it once did? Nope, but it will maintain its niche. As for me, I'll keep buying songs as long as they promise new drum charts/styles to play, and let my friends pony up for the songs they want to sing. I'm not sure if this game fits either bill, but we'll see what the MSRP is.
--
Also... life. The semester is over. I wrote very little this semester, and hope to do more going forward, though I think it will likely delve into less personal topics over time. My penchant for self-reflection hasn't been erased, but my desire to share such thoughts publicly has definitely diminished over time, particularly as I've been massively busy. We'll see how it goes.