Rock Band Continues to Add More Artists to the Music Store (Roy Orbison, Dead Kennedys, At The Gates, etc.)

While Christmas shopping a few weeks ago, I walked through a number of electronics and entertainment stores (BestBuy, Circuit City, etc.). It seems pretty obvious that Rock Band is the current winner of the "battle" of the music video games.

Every store that I went into had Guitar Hero: Aerosmith on sale for 50%+ off of its regular price. On the other hand, I'm receiving what seems like weekly emails from Rock Band as they add new artists to the Rock Band store. These artists range from Roy Orbison to Dead Kennedys, Motorhead, Testament, At The Gates, Mission of Burma and many other eclectic, non-mainstream artists. There is something to be said for having this much flexibility in customizing your music game...and I'm particularly enjoying being able to play Burma's "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" and At the Gates' "Blinded By Fear" back-to-back.

The Rock Band store is now has more than 500 tracks and has had over 30 million paid downloads to-date. Here is the link to the list of all of the songs available for Rock Band.

Harmonix Music Systems' big release for next year is going to be a new standalone game based on the Rock Band premise that features the music of The Beatles. The unnamed game will feature "a visual and musical history of the Beatles, and will include the United Kingdom-released versions of songs from their albums Please Please Me through Abbey Road." While this game will not be part of the Rock Band series, all Rock Band accessories are supposed to work with this title.

Links:
Harmonix Music Systems, Inc. (Creators of Rock Band)

PopStar Guitar (for the Wii) Game Review

PopStar Guitar is XS Games' first foray into the virtual band music video game space. There are a couple of unique twists to this release that could make this title a big hit for the holidays.

The first is that the game is targeted at the Tween/Tween demographic - the music is from artists like Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers and Fall Out Boy. I hadn't really considered this but when I played Guitar Hero with my pre-teen but artists like Social Distortion, Pearl Jam and Guns N' Roses mean very little to her. Even though, I've never heard of half of the acts on PopStar, my daughter spent hours focused on the game and built up her skills/points so that she could get to play Miley Cyrus' "See You Again". There are 60 songs in total so it doesn't look like this game is going to get old quickly.

The game controller also further differentiates PopStar from its competitors as the concept is that you are playing an air guitar. The game comes with an "AirG" peripheral that attaches over the remote and the nunchuck is used to "strum" the guitar. These controllers seem a bit more flexible and forgiving than the Guitar Hero guitar, which is good for a younger user.

Similar to other virtual band/music games, the user gets to form and customize their band, there are multiple male and female characters and there are three levels of difficulty. Earning points and building skills allows you to unlock new venues, songs and solos and videos of your band in Studio Mode.

All-in-all, both the music and game play seems very relevant to this teen/tween age group and it added a high level of enjoyment for my daughter. It is definitely worth checking out if you have kids in this age bracket.

Thoughts and Impressions on Harmonix's Rock Band for the Wii

I was a heavy videogamer growing up but it has only been the last few years that I have been getting back into gaming. I have had a PS2 for about two years and got Guitar Hero III for my birthday this past January. Guitar Hero was the end-all, be-all for a few month...until I mastered the songs. The game loses some of its novelty when the only challenge is ensuring that I can still hit 100% of the notes on the same core 42 songs. Unfortunately, the majority of the bonus songs don't hold my attention as I have never heard of most of the bands (Nast, Gallows, LA Slum Lords, etc.) While I still play the game every now and then, Cars: Mater-National (I have a 4 year old) has taken over the PS2.

I got invited to try Rock Band for the Wii a few weeks ago (the Wii version was released earlier this month) and it was honestly head-and-shoulders above Guitar Hero. Admittedly, the the Wii is a nicer machine than the PS2 (512MB of RAM vs 32 MB, for starters) but I was really impressed with Rock Band's game play. Rock Band allows you to pick from vocals (which are scored based on vocal pitch), bass guitar, lead guitar and drums. Difficulty levels can be set for each individual instrument. I went for the guitar and Rock Band's Fender Stratocaster replica felt more like a real guitar and less like a toy. Compared to the Guitar Hero guitar, the buttons are part of the fret rather than raised above the fret and there is also an effects switch that allows the user the ability to toggle effects like flange, echo, etc.

Anyway...aside for listening to my younger brother attempt to sing, it was a really cool experience. I didn't get a chance to try the drums but I liked watching the action on them - I was told that the Rock Band drum kit is designed to simulate the movements of a real drummer and it is especially cool that the drummer has the opportunity to play some free-form fills as part of a song.

The soundtrack on the initial disc seemed a bit more diverse than the Guitar Hero soundtrack (I'm to the point where I can't stand to be in the room if someone is playing "Slow Ride" on Guitar Hero). The disc that we were playing had tracks that ranged from classic rock (Deep Purple and Blue Oyster Cult) to modern rock (Foo Fighters and The Clash). I have been intrigued by reading that one can now buy full albums to play on Rock Band. The initial albums have ranged from The Pixies (Dolittle, of course) to Judas Priest (Screaming for Vengeance).

Rock Band is certainly a major step forward in video gaming.

Links:
Rock Band Official Website