|
DJ RedJeans's Blog
| Rock Band vs Guitar Hero: The Review |
So I've been telling myself "Hey you really need to write that Rock Band review" for the last week now. See, the only problem I've run into is I really didn't understand how to bring it to you or in what format to go with so that you would understand the pure unbridled SEX that playing this game is. Then I realized "Well...a lot of people play GH and want to know about RB so the best way to do this is to..." and by George he's got it.
I'm going to pit the latest installment, of the incredibly popular series, Guitar Hero versus the newcomer of the beat game arena, Rock Band. Lets get it on shall we?
First off I think I will present you with a slight overview of both games split into two.
Guitar Hero 3, presented by Activision and Red Octane, which is half of the original team that did the first two Guitar Hero games. I find that in their Legends of Rock installment they have fulfilled the true gritty down to frets need of bringing in a plethora of songs to the table. Not only did they give us around 80 songs, they also gave us a musical range from the past to now with a little switch genre stuff going on. I must admit...there is nothing more fun than drilling out Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones or The Metal by, the face rocking duo, Tenacious D. But I feel that with the new developing team of Activision and Red Octane they had this great plan to make an awesome game....and then it kind of fell apart somewhere in the middle turning into this mutant or rock and roll cartoons and Dragonforce. Now don't get me wrong here, I like the game. I think its got a lot of things going for it....however my big problem here is that they took the fun and complexity of the past games and just said "Ok....well....we can either have fun....or complexity....fuck it out with the fun and turn the complexity up to 13" to which the guy in the corner stated "but it only goes up to 11"....
Insert LULZ here.
To me the game was not UNPLAYABLE by any means but there's just something about my hand, my left hand oddly enough.....my FRET HAND, hurting after about 4 or 5 songs on hard or expert. Usually with me, and the people I've asked about it, its the strum hand that goes dead after a while. Odd, but alas I can partially blame the new guitar which we will get to in a second. The songs here just did NOT feel like they were bringing me the music. The game finally felt like a repetitive beat driven game and it didn't really feel like I was the star of the show rocking out mad riffs for this crowd. This effect caused me to actually never have finished the game past hard in career mode. Call me a pussy if you will...I know what I like and this good sirs....I do not like.
Moving on to the in game instrument....which I must say consists of nothing but COMPLETE EPIC WIN. They must have crafted this thing with the skin of angels because it feels slick and smooth and the shine on it makes me think someone stole my black DS and melted it down to make this sexy pop off pick guard....oh but wait "it pops off?" you ask? Fuck yes it pops off. No more gay ass little stickers coming off while you're ripping your way through Jordan. You can now buy custom face places that pop right on and stay there....hey if you're the creative and handy type, which I'm not, you could just paint/make your own. I'm sure it would be "rad". Oh but wait....There really is more. Have you ever taken your guitar to a friends house to play? Ever wish you could just throw it in a bag instead of letting your little love strummer flop around in your back seat like a drowning child in the deep end? Detachable neck, how does that strike your fancy? Ok now quit touching yourself for a moment so I can give you the DL on the bad parts about the guitar. WARNING: Its gonna take you like 3 weeks to break in the buttons and until you do your hand is going to feel like its 90 years old after about 4 songs. Also, the neck jiggles a little bit and it's a bit easier to accidentally throw yourself into star power mode when rocking out too hard and moving around.
We shall now move on to graphics and sound. I would prefer to bundle them together being that this is a game that sound built and it makes me look past the god awfully ugly lead singer I'm forced to stare out through half the songs instead of my incredibly hot virtual vixen with an axe of fire ripping rifts like goatse's asshole. One thing I can say is that you can really tell their house band had a little more something in them this time around. So much so that they're being sued for a cover sounding "too much like the real thing", yeh no shit....check it out. Anyways moving on past the house band I must state that you can tell they pressed the record companies and artists for this one because they got a great portion of the ACTUAL tracks. Hell they even got one of the bands to re-record it for the game. Kudos to you Activision....your PR people must be like rabid hounds that have been in a cage without food for three days and beaten hourly.
As far as the graphics go and the "customization" for your characters goes...they really threw their hat in the pool knowing of the upcoming rock band. You can pick from 3 or 4 different costumes for each of your characters and they all obviously reflect the characters personal style. One of my favorites is Johnny Napalms skeleton make up and body suit. It looks qucking slick. (Yes I meant to spell it like that) To add on with that there is a plethora of hot little guitars and basses to make your customized heart squeal. One thing I have always loved about Guitar Hero are their crazy wacky zany guitars that they bring to the table. I think my favorite from this run is probably the one that resembles a toilet with a rat climbing out of it.....I was amused. So amused that I remade my band and called it "The Rat Packers". I have ADD....leave me be.
OK now onto the last part of the Guitar Hero sum up before we drift into the challenger of Rock Band. I bring you the GAMEPLAY. You can really tell that the programmers from Activision and Neversoft took the core engine of this game and ran with it. But they never strayed away from what it originally was. I can't tell you how worried I was, when I first heard that Activision/Neversoft was developing it, that this game was going to turn out "Guitar Hero Tony Hawk 9001" (insert over 9000 joke here). I would like to compare them taking the drunken greasy frat boy that was the prior engine and turned it into an engineering grad student with a 3.8 GPA. They really got it right here. The solo's feel smoother, the hammer ons faster, and the real feel of structure within the way the notes sound when you fuck shit up.
In all I have more love for this game than I have hate.....but it seems the hate was enough to make me want to smash my 360 and burn my eyes out. I am not really a fan of the 1 to 5 scale and the 1 to 10 scale doesn't really seem to work well either....I've always felt however that school work is properly graded with a numerical system of 1 to 100 and every number in-between. With that said I would like to give Guitar Hero a 90%. Not quite an A but not quite a B. It kind of falls in the middle for me.
Now we move on to the new challenger that has appeared....ROCK BAND.
Rock Band is brought to you through the way of EA and Harmonix produced by MTV Games. Now if you know anything about MTV Games everything they touch, without mentioning ON DA MIC, turns to shit faster than a slug in a salt maze. I, however, came into this game with serious worry....that which was quelled quickly.
I should start off by saying Rock Band is a start in the right direction of the end all be all rythm party game. I have seen party games and rythm games come and go. This one seems like it should be around for a while. It really brings the brotherhood of a drunken gathering together. It makes you work as a well oiled machine....well....that or a boozed up clock that couldnt tell time to save its life.
Rock Band brings a lot to the fight, not as many songs as GH3 if you disclude downloadable content, but it focuses less on the individual instrument and more on the band. I really like this idea because even if you're playing by yourself you feel accomplished at the end of the song. I would have to say that in some ways Rock Band is a bit easier than GH3 but this is like I said earlier...Activision sucked the fun out of GH3 and just threw in rapid button mashing. Not only are the songs on rock band fun, they are incredibly diverse from on another ranging from th 70s to now. I really appreciate the time they took in handpicking each of the songs. With that said I must state that all of the songs seem to be the original version, with MTV on board that wouldnt shock me, and it makes me feel even more immersed in the world of playing a fake instrument. Awesome.
I have played through each instrument section of the solo campaign now and I can say one thing....I felt like I was ripping notes with guitar, rocking mics on vocals, and rocking out like the one armed drummer for Def Leppord on drums....which I should mention have a steep learnign curve for those of us who lack in rythm....you should see me dance....its like a child dying from a seizure.
So speaking of instruments lets move on to the section where I speak on this matter. The guitar for rock band is a little flimsy to say the least. I find that people who actually play guitar will like it because the strum bar is not for clicking anymore but actually for strumming. I must say that I enjoy the GH3 wireless Les Paul more than I do the Fender that came with Rock Band but the Fender does have some nice little additions. The Fender guitar supplied by Rock Band brings out the real tone of your Overdrive (star power) with a group of effects that you can throw on with an adjustment bar. On top of that they threw in a group of solo keys that allow you to really FEEL the solo by tapping the buttons without strumming...this allows the true feeling of banging out that hellahard solo. All in all the guitar has a bit of a learning curve. Senior players to the genre may dislike but they will adapt,where as, new comers will most likely feel at home with it.
So now that we've got the guitar out of the way we can move on to what people wonder about....the vocals and the mic. The mic is the standard mic in which you would recieve with XBOX Media Maker or On Da Mic and it feels real, with optional stand, while holding in your hand. It picks up your voice very well and the game DOES have a sensitivity section which helps a lot if you're tying to belt out lyrics at 4am while not waking up the neighbors. All in all the voice recognition works not on voice but on pitch, tone, and sometimes syllables. I think its the best combination of Kareoke Revoution and Singstar to date. Kudos on the mic.
Moving on we are supplied with the most major instrument in the game....also the largest extra to be packaged with a game....the Drum Set. Everyone wants to play the drums. I dont know if this is because its a new thing, which its not, or because its the hardest possible thing you could ever imagine. If you thought playing dragonforce on expert for GH3 was hard try playing Boston's song on RB with the drums set at medium. You will surely die. I must say that this is the most challenging, yet rewarding, part of the game. The drums are very sturdy and standstill. You could beat them like they owe you money for hours on end and still at the end of the day...you could beat them again like the drums were Whitney and you were Bobby Brown and everthing would be ok. I promise they wont fall apart if you treat them right no matter WHAT the goddamn Rock Band forum says.
As before we did graphics and sound....lets do this. I stated earlier in this review that most songs were not covers but the actual original (gangsta) track. I can not tell you how giddy this makes me. Whether I'm playing Weezer or Metallica it seems that having the ACTUAL song makes things so much better. I say this because the other day I went and listened to the Frans Ferdenan song off GH1.....well...frankly...the cover sounded better. Whether this was due to me having heard the cover more than the song I dunno. But it made me really realize why having the original track is important. Rock Band definitely delivers this and it makes me scream like a catholic school girl on prom night. On top of the original tracks there is something else I noticed while playing a song....have you ever listened to a song you really like in the car? You know that part where you start singing along like a crowd would do at a concert? Yeh well....the crowd does that in this game. I can't tell you how awesome that makes me feel as a fake instrumentalist. I almost smashed my Les Paul after a rousing rendition of "Wanted Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi.
Coupled with the glorious sounds of the game the graphics and directing style of the shows seem amazing. While you may not see much of this as you are rocking out you are gauranteed to see a bit or piece here or there. As some of it may seem out of time, like your vocalist kicking the air when not called for, it is definitely made up for by the crazy intros of the guitarists/bassists/drummer rocking out on their instruments like the real band memebers would. I must say there is something to be said for your bassist/guitarist and vocalist getting their faces close enough to each other during the chorus to be considered yoai. The lights and stage presents really bring this all together making you feel like a rising star because as you progress it justs keeps getting better.
Customization....that is the topic I am going to attempt in tackling in this next section. Now I must say that me attempting to tackle the mass amounts of customization in this game is like a midgit attempting to tackle a Gundam. It may seem akward and unreal and will probably not work out right.
Have you imagined your perfect rocker? No? Yes? Doesnt matter....if you have or have not. Rock Band will imagine it FOR YOU. From haircuts to buttplu....errr...wristbands your goth glam rocker or emo hardcore enthusiast can riff those rhythms or bust those bass pedals as you move through your career like never before. With more hair styles than a Bel-Air botique and move clothes than a Macy's Thanksgiving sale you will be sitting in menus for hours tryign to figure out what you're wearing to the next gig. On top of that you can even create your tats from a long line of real art. Thats hot right? Yeh it is. Hot like a summer day on the sun half covered in pavement with no Mr.Frosty in sight.
To sum it all up I must say that I have not made a lot of faults for Rock Band. Mainly the reason behind this is that is does not have many fault of its own. I am however bothered by the fact that you can not take all of Rock Bands features, such as Band World Tour, online to Xbox Live. What the hell man? I mean sure I like to "quick play" with my band but I signed up for this because, like many people who 5 starred GH2 on expert, I have no friends. Thus I have an online community....why not be able to make an online band? I feel tricked! Either or Rock Band is an incredible game that has brought forth what I hope to see from many rythm and party games in the future....that is the combination of a team to make something special. Don't yell at your vocalist for fucking up, use Overdrive to bring him back. Its the power of the team.
Earth, Fire, Wind, Water...Hear....no...no heart sucked...fuck Mahti and his monkey...no wait...ther monkey was cool...fuck Mahti. Stupid ass heart power.
Anyways I give Rock Band a final score of 94%.
As you can see I have preferred Rock Band over GH3 but this is mostly due to the fact that anyone can play it and you can all play it together. To me there is nothing like the group experience....except for that time when balls touched....but it was cool I totally called no homo.
Review of Tony Hawk's Proving Ground and The Darkness coming later this week. Stay tuned muthafudgers.
|
|
 |
| |
Tuesday, 24 June - 15:55:18 |
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Register
|
|
 | | |
- PAX East 2010 - A New Beginning
Thursday, 25 March - 10:22:28
- RJ Says - I'm a Twitter Shitter
Monday, 23 March - 21:02:41
- RJ Says - A Public Apology (No Spoilers)
Saturday, 7 March - 14:05:42
- RJ Says - I'm gonna cut the next person who asks if I'm gonna see Watchmen
Saturday, 28 February - 20:33:56
- RJ Says - RAP SONG! RAP SONG!
Thursday, 19 February - 19:14:05
- RJ Says - MyStalk and RapeBook
Monday, 16 February - 02:21:55
- RJ Says - In the Beginning
Thursday, 5 February - 18:57:17
- My 360 Can Blog
Sunday, 21 September - 17:48:09
- RJ Shorts #1
Sunday, 10 August - 05:28:09
- Muppets All Up In Your Intartubez!
Monday, 4 August - 07:04:50
- Comcast Offers Wii(TM) Systems to New Triple Play Customers
Monday, 28 July - 14:41:19
- RJ Rants #3 - The Dark Knight!
Friday, 25 July - 05:23:49
- RJ Rants Numba Duece - How To Make a Request
Saturday, 12 July - 01:26:52
- RJ Rants Pilot!!!
Sunday, 6 July - 01:19:40
- Rock Band vs Guitar Hero: The Review
Tuesday, 24 June - 15:55:18
- Tony Hawk: Proving Ground, the little game that couldnt
Tuesday, 24 June - 15:53:41
- The Darkness: Get Down With Your Inner Demon
Tuesday, 24 June - 15:49:22
- To John Woo, Thanks for Everything - Chow Yun Fat
Tuesday, 24 June - 15:42:33
- Films you need to see this summer
Tuesday, 24 June - 15:30:03
- Holy Blogging BATMAN!
Tuesday, 24 June - 04:08:41
| |
|  |
|
