Dynafire has 132 chronicles

1. A rant about Guitar Hero and Rock Band
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Oct 17 2008

   Warning: This is long.
   
   I play fake guitar, and actually have some skill at it. However, I know that being good at the plastic guitar does not equal being good at a real one. This does have a point, but let me begin my little rant at the time I first picked up a fake guitar.
   
   It was November 2006, and I had just purchased Guitar Hero II. I had little to no musical experience up until that time, and I was pretty bad at the game, but that’s not what this about. Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, and Guitar Hero ‘80s setlists were mostly covers performed by Harmonix’s in house bands. Every now and then I come across someone whining about how bad some of the covers were in those games, and while I usually just ignore it, I can’t help but disagree with them.
   
   In my opinion, covers in general were good. (I say “were” because it looks like we’ll only be seeing master tracks from here until the end of time) Why? Because it made the game FUN. The whole point of Guitar Hero was to be a pretend rockstar, and covers only helped convey that feeling. Now that everything is getting master tracks, it seems like GH and RB are becoming more like real instrument simulators. Don’t get me wrong, the games are still fun, but not AS fun, if that makes any sense. Covers were the root of the game initially, and to be honest, I thought all of them were done very well.
   
   For a better example of what I’m trying to say, go look at the “making of” videos in Guitar Hero II. It’s a short, behind the scenes video of Harmonix making the tracks for the game, and they’re all having a blast doing it. That is the kind of passion and dedication I like to see from developers. However, comparing that to the master tracks of the most recent additions to the franchise, that creative process rarely happens anymore. I think it would be awesome to get more in-house band covers. Better yet, try to get collaboration between some of the bands that have bonus tracks in the game. It would be cool to fuse Bang Camaro with Freezepop and Breaking Wheel on a brand new song exclusively for Rock Band. It might turn out to be not so great, but I think it would be a good idea to attempt it.
   
   That’s about it as far as the “covers” issue is concerned. My next issue is people whining about difficulty. (At least for guitar and bass) It’s natural that people want to be challenged, and all the GH games offer a fair challenge on hard and expert. This was mostly complained about in the first installment in Rock Band, and I agree. When you compare GH3 to RB1, it’s pretty sad that most of the songs in the first couple tiers of GH3 are harder than most of Rock Band’s setlist. There are only a handful of songs in RB that will test your skills sufficiently on the guitar or bass, but that’s no reason to call it a bad game with an awful setlist.
   
   I love Harmonix’s taste in music. I’ll just put that out there right now. Call me a fanboy or whatever, but I just like Rock Band’s music selection a lot more than Guitar Hero. My most played songs are in the first few tiers, even though I have the skill to do well on most of the songs. Not all songs have to be 22 notes-per-second flailfests to be fun. Float On, Lazy Eye, and Jagged Gorgeous Winter are great songs in my opinion (and ironically, are “soft” songs – my favorite band is Megadeth, which is hard/metal rock), and I often find myself picking those songs online, when others are going for Painkiller, Panic Attack, or Peace Sells. RB2 has done a much better job with the difficulty, too. Right from the get-go, RB2 is at least moderately difficult. Every song has an interesting note chart to it, and is a vast improvement over the cakewalk that is RB 1.
   
   Ultimately though, it should be all about the music, and I have mixed feelings about this. Recently, Activision acquired exclusive rights to a band. This isn't necessarily worth of condemning Activision to the pits of hell, but we, the gamers can't win from this. I won't go into this issue, but I can say that there shouldn't be any bands exclusive to one game. A more open music platform is the way to go, and allows for more diverse music experiences if both games can use whatever bands they want to.
   
   Putting that aside, we are finally starting to see instrumentals make their way back into the games, too. GH3 only had I think 2 instrumentals on disc, correct me if I’m wrong. They released the Virtuoso pack though, so there are a few more if you want to spend some more money. Rock Band had none until YYZ came out as DLC recently, and I hope they crank out more of these.
   
   Well, that’s about it. I don’t really remember what I just typed. Draw whatever opinions you want from it, and feel free to disagree with me.

   
   

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Dynafire has 1 comment on this chronicle.

1. BEN
   Posted On Oct 19 2008

   I think it would be cool if these games would mix the songs up once in awhile too. Imagine a song title with a GH Remix behind it, haha.
   
   Although this will always be a virtual representation of the real instruments, I agree that they're doing more to make it like the real things. I see no reason why this type of genre won't continue to add songs, new instruments, AND music genres. I don't like country music, but it seems like the genre's following would make a country GH pretty popular! I don't play these song enough to have a very strong opinion on the cover track versus the master versions, but I always appreciate yours and all the other Plactic Rockstars we have here