Rock Band
December 4,2007 - With their departure from the Guitar Hero series, Harmonix took the chance to make the game they’ve always wanted to make. Instead of replicating just one part of the band, they decided to bring friends together to make music as a Rock Band. With an emphasis on multiplayer that comes with a high price barrier, does Rock Band manage to rise to superstardom or does it fall prey to chasing the dragon forever?

With Harmonix’s extensive history in music games that stretches all the way back to Frequency and Amplitude on the PS2, they combined most of the elements from these games to make Rock Band a cohesive experience. The vocals are an extension of the Karaoke Revolution engine, which rely more on your pitch than singing the words correctly. The guitar and bass parts of the game are, of course, pulled from the Guitar Hero games. The drums are the newest part of the game, taking inspiration from the guitar, but with more challenge that inherent from the instrument itself. These pieces all come together very well to make for one of the most compelling multiplayer games we’ve seen in a long time.

The guitar gameplay in Rock Band is pretty much an improved version of Guitar Hero II’s gameplay. The Star Power is back, though under the name of Overdrive now, but the ability to collect more energy phrases to keep the double multiplier going is a great addition to the gameplay. The big addition to the Rock Band guitar are the solo buttons further down the neck of the guitar, which come into effect during solos and the big rock endings. Both make good use of those smaller solo buttons, as you’re not required to strum and focus on the buttons.

The main difference is that the big rock ending lets you jam on all five buttons to tack on an ending bonus. As for the guitar itself, the build’s more like a real guitar than the Les Paul that comes with Guitar Hero III, with a quiet strum bar, solid fret buttons, and a cool 5-way effects switch. As you might expect, bass guitar works the same as lead guitar, just in less of a capacity as the lead guitar in multiplayer.

The drums are arguably the coolest and most intriguing of the instruments offered with the Rock Band bundle. Not only is it probably the most challenging instrument that requires you to not only hit the drum pads on time, but it adds a bass pedal to give your foot a workout, as well. It tests your reflexes and rhythm more than the other instruments. The drums use the same scrolling track as the guitar, but use only four notes for the four drum pads with an orange line under the notes that signals the inclusion bass pedal.

The drums can be quite repetitive at times, though that’s largely the nature of the instrument itself and how the songs use the drums. It really only becomes a problem with long songs like Green Grass and High Tides. The drums also allows for the use of Overdrive like the guitar, but instead being able to activate it at will, a big rock ending-like set of notes comes up with a final note you need to hit to go into Overdrive. The main problem is that these sections come up quite repeatedly once you fill your energy bar halfway, so that leads to having to endure these sections multiple times before you can get a full energy bar to get the full effect of Overdrive.

The vocals are probably the most simple of all the parts of the Rock Band gameplay, as you just have the microphone and your vocal chords to play with. While it’s great to be able to sing some of these great songs in the game, you can get through fast and confusing songs with just singing the correct pitch. Like the other instruments, the song is broken up into phrases, and singing each phrase well enough adds to your multiplier until a yellow section comes up, allowing you to yell out loudly to activate Overdrive. The 2X multiplier will either drain per word or for a certain amount of time, so you’re able to get a fair amount of bonus points while singing.

Besides just matching the pitch of the song, there will be some parts where the pitch disappears and you’re at the spoken part of the song. Say the words correctly and you can keep multipliers going. When vocals are absent for some time, you get the chance to play tambourines or, in the case of Don’t Fear The Reaper, cowbell by just tapping the microphone on your hand in time with the circle on the scrolling track. Unless you have a great voice, it’s best to play on easy or medium. For online players, you’ll be lucky that voice isn’t transmitted to your band mates unless you want them to hear it.

Multiplayer is definitely the focus of Rock Band, so much so that there’s a lot more variety being offered to those with friends. With up to three friends, you can try out the Band Quickplay, Tug of War, Score Duel, and the headlining act, Band World Tour. Band Quickplay allows you to play songs with friends without strings attached. Tug of War allows you and a friend to duel with the same instruments while trading off sections of the songs in a Tug of War format. Score Duel is the same as Tug of War, but playing for score and both players play the same song.

Band World Tour is the mode that goes beyond anything Guitar Hero has ever done, putting you and your friends in the role of an up-and-coming band that seeks to rise out of your hometown and grow your fan base and popularity to take the role as the best band in the world. You play different types of gigs, from just straight sets to battle of the bands events and more, until you’re done with that area and can upgrade your method of transportation to move onto nearby cities. Though there is a ton of stuff to do in the World Tour, the limiting factor is that songs are a bit repetitive at first before you unlock more of the soundtrack to play.

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