The point of games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band isn't the actual playing of the instruments. It's enhancing the fantasy of being a rock star.
I disagree. Most people seem to play it the same way people engage in karaoke. It's a social activity. It's no more a "rock star" fantasy than Agricola is a "farmer" fantasy.
Rock Band concentrated on making the game social when Guitar Hero (at version 3) was much more akin to a single-player bemani game. That was its biggest success.
I disagree. Most people seem to play it the same way people engage in karaoke. It's a social activity. It's no more a "rock star" fantasy than Agricola is a "farmer" fantasy.
Rock Band concentrated on making the gamesocialwhen Guitar Hero (at version 3) was much more akin to a single-player bemani game. That was its biggest success.
The socialness is an ehnancement of the rock star fantasy. A rock concert is all about a whole bunch of people together making a ruckus. The fantasy falls apart if you're in your room alone. The plastic guitar helps complete the illusion that you are actually playing your favorite song. Combine that illusion with three other people experiencing the same thing, and perhaps a crowd of friends watching, and the fantasy is even more powerful.
The plastic guitar helps complete the illusion that you are actually playing your favorite song.
I get the impression that most people prefer to sing or drum. (This perception is based almost entire on Dave & Joel and a handful of words on the Internet).
The guitar may well reinforce the fantasy, but I still believe the purely social nature of the game is its strongest selling point, just as with karaoke. I think of it as Karaoke++: home version.
The guitar may well reinforce the fantasy, but I still believe the purely social nature of the game is its strongest selling point, just as with karaoke. I think of it as Karaoke++: home version.
But with karaoke as well, people want to experience the fantasy of being a rock star.
People go on and on about how fun it is "jamming" in Rock Band with your friends, and I'm sure it is if none of you play any real instruments. But, actually jamming, with real music, on real instruments, makes the whole experience seem hollow and unsatisfying.
Uh...I don't know about you, Rym, but I'm a fairly skilled drummer. I've performed in quite a few live shows with a band. Drumming in Rock Band is just as fulfilling, if not moreso. I don't have much personal experience with the guitar or bass, but my guitarist/bassist friends all find playing Rock Band to be a very satisfying experience. It just takes away the hassle of organizing a gig. It also gives the players a sense of direction, a goal, a centralized song with a start-to-finish, as opposed to the disorganized feeling of "so, guys...whaddya wanna play?" when you're just "jamming".
Jamming with friends limits you to what ALL of you know. Rock Band doesn't.
Though I'm wondering, if you're acknowledging that the Drums and the Vocals are valid, then why are you discounting the whole game?
Jamming with friends limits you to what ALL of you know. Rock Band doesn't.
Just like karaoke. When I wanted to jam, I played with my musician friends.
then why are you discounting the whole game?
I'd rather sing karaoke at a club with a wider selection of songs then sing in Rock Band, and I have no desire to sing along with other people who are playing plastic guitars. I'd rather play my real trumpet or real drums than play or drum along to a pre-recorded song. I have no desire to play a plastic guitar.
Hence, I have no interest in Rock Band. ^_~
I used to spend a lot of time jamming with people back when I played regularly, and most of the enjoyment came from actually making the music, as opposed to playing the game which unlocks the notes in the already played music. We can disagree on this point, but playing in a real band in front of a real audience on a real stage is a thousand times more fulfilling to me than faking it along with a recording. Hell, even playing in front of one person is more fulfilling. Playing along with a recording isn't fun for me.
The drums and vocals in Rock Band are better because you're actually making the real music in the case of the latter, and you're almost doing so in the case of the former. I can get the same enjoyment out of the vocals as I would from any karaoke. The drums, not so much, because they're just not as visceral as real drums, and your options are rather limited (you can't change up the tempo or do anything really creative). It's nowhere near the experience of real instrument play for me.
I, as someone who plays guitar and drums, don't play Rock Band (or Guitar Hero) because I want to actually be playing an instrument, but because I want to play a fun video game. I find it really stupid to even compare playing real instruments to playing a video game, since the video game is just simulation.
But, actually jamming, with real music, on real instruments, makes the whole experience seem hollow and unsatisfying.
That would count for most other video games, in which a situation is simulated, as well. Yet I still find them incredibly fun.
I also very much so agree with Scott, that playing Rock Band is fun because you feel like a rock star, actually playing. Obviously the game is also a social activity, hence band, in which everyone gets to feel like a rock star.
I just really find the argument that Guitar Hero or Rock Band is stupid because it's nothing like playing real instruments pointless.
That would count for most other video games, in which a situation is simulated, as well. Yet I still find them incredibly fun.
Yes: but they can't in most cases compare to the real activity if it is available. They are separate things entirely independent of one another. Skiing is not the same thing as a skiing game. Someone might prefer the latter, but I definitely prefer the former.
I never said Rock Band was stupid: I just personally find it incredibly unfun, unentertaining, boring, hollow, and a waste of time (much like WoW). It doesn't make me feel like a rockstar (much like WoW). It doesn't fulfill me the way playing in a real band did. I explained why I personally don't enjoy the game, based on my own desires and expectations. Your mileage may vary, and your personal opinion is equally valid, but for me personally, the game is crap.
I like Rock Band and GH because I like music games. The social aspect of RB is fun, too. Do I play DDR because it makes me a better dancer? (though it is decent exercise) Do I play beatmania because it make me better at DJing and keyboarding? Do I play Taiko Drum Master because it makes me a better drummer? Do I play Daigasso Band Brothers because...actually it's totally different than the above games. It's still a music game, though. No, I play the games because I find them fun. I find playing music and going along with beats to be fun.
Also, some people just don't want to pick up a real guitar. Some people use the argument of "shit, if you put all the time you've put into GH and RB, you might be able to play some of these songs on real guitar". I mean, I guess that varies from person to person, but typically that isn't the case. You can jump up to expert on RB or GH in a relatively short time...and being able to play something like Beast and the Harlot or Free Bird on real guitar would take years and years of practice, but people can play them on expert after only logging 10-20 hours into the game.
Some time ago, I don't know which thread though, I had a little discussion with Scott what Bands need to be in such music games and what would people actually buy. One of my favourite Bands are the Dead Kennedys which is something that will persuade me, but probably not the general public.
Low and behold, next week will have among others a Dead Kennedys three pack as DLC. I just hope it's not all censored to hell. And I thought next week couldn't get much better since next week will see the release of Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour in Europe (yeah, I'm a guitar game addict, sue me). However, I have to add that I only buy GHWT because I hate my X-Plorer and want a new guitar and heard that the GHWT guitar is much higher quality than the Harmonix guitars. I just buy the Guitar Bundle because it's only like 10 or 20€ more than the guitar alone, and I think the game is at least worth that much.
California Über Alles:
Holiday In Cambodia (also in Guitar Hero III):
Police Truck (it was in Guitar Hero: Rock the 80s, but with very altered lyrics which sucked majorly):
All of them masters. Excuse, I'm now going to change my pants.
Edit: I just read on the rockband.com forums that they are largely uncensored except for naughty words. Pretty surprising to me since the songs deal with fascism, including gas showers, police violence including a rape and the Pol Pot terror regime.
I only like these games for 20 minutes at parties. After that, the novelty is gone and I am just a poser with a platic guitar. On a differnt note, drunken Kareoke Revolution is an awesome game for parties.
Here's a good thought that popped back into my mind (I had this before, I don't know why I haven't posted it here before): Very obsessive Guitar Hero and Rock Band players, those who go after high scores and try to perfect specific songs, pretty much carry the same spirit as the arcade players of old. I don't think there is a big difference between the people who obsessively try to get the best score on Donkey Kong or Pac-Man and the people who try to full-combo Thrasher or Neve gonna give you up.
And yes, there is a very large, very active and very competitive circle.
I bought both Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour about a week and a half ago and played with both a good bit. I bought GHWT basically solely for the guitar as I really hate the X-Plorer for GH2 and wanted a new one. I had the choice of either buying the Rock Band guitar for 80€ or pay 20€ more for the GHWT guitar bundle with the game. I took the later because I thought it's a lot of decent songs and will be entertaining enough for the money I pay for it.
And it is all that, but compared to Rock Band 2 it is an inferior game for a few reasons.
1. Very subtle but still noticeable is that a black note-highway (I guess that's what they are called) is better than a colored one with a pattern behind it. Notes are easier to see and I actually had some trouble at the beginning of the bass career on GHWT. A note must be played without holding any frets and this is represented as a purple bar (also used to signify a bass pedal hit on the drum tour). However, it's a bid hard to notice when the song starts with this and the highway is also purple. What's even more a mistake is that GHWT has gameplay coded into the highway pattern as drum fills are simply signified as a different patter on the highway but the highway pattern is originally simply an aesthetic concept and should be made to be as little distracting from the notes as possible.
2. GHWT forces you to start a whole setlist of three to seven songs when you want to advance in the career. On the Rock Band 2 tour there are also gigs which have setlists, but they are supplemented by single-song gigs which allow for quick advancements if you just want to kill ten or so minutes and also does not have you commit to setlists where single songs buried at the tail end may throw you out. Also, Rock Bands setlists are deterministic most of the time or specifically noted when they are not, while GHWT throws at you a surprise encore where you have no clue what's coming up at you in almost every setlist of the career.
3. Rock Band has a superior song selection in my opinion, but that depends on taste. However, what Rock Band also has a lot less songs which meander around for an eternity without coming to a finish. GHWT puts the icing on that shit-cake with songs like Vicarious by Tool or Stranglehold by Ted Nugent (who I wholeheartedly despise) which take an eternity to play and then finish off with an insane solo. If that solo makes you fail you wasted 8 minutes and get nothing in return. Very very frustrating.
4. Spoilers, but who gives a shit. GHWT is schizophrenic in it's representation. For one, the Guitar Hero series is rather cartoony, the videos being the most notable of that. That's all fine and well as long as you stick to it. The problem is that GHWT also crowbars real musicians into the mix. The worst bit of it is probably Jimi Hendrix apparently rising from the dead to play a gig with you, or rather you playing a gig as Hendrix. Music games, including GHWT are supposed to have you play as yourself. That's why those games have character creators. It's really unnecessary. Coming close to Hendrix being forced into this is the final gig on the tour. I am not sure if this also in the band tour but at the solo tour replaces the other band members (which are randomly select, but alas) with an all-star line-up of Ozzy Osbourne, Sting and Travis Barker to play songs none of them have a stake in and I doubt even cares about. GHWT also goes very much over the top with it's cartooniness with the encores when gigantic skulls with bat-wings flies through a church window or the stage at Ozzfest sprouts mechanical tentacles which starts to fling members of the crowd through the air. The final gig has you play a new years show at Times Square in a stage a few hundred feet above ground which is OK, I guess. What's not OK is when after the final encore the aforementioned all-star line-up leaps out of that box, stage-diving to be scooped up and carried away by some flying galleon dragged through the air by giant falcons or something where you play a Dream Theater song for the credits sequence.
5. The songs are again horribly over-charted on expert guitar in GHWT which becomes really annoying. I tried to play the expert tour but I am now stuck since Demolition Man's intro is a complete clusterfuck and the the solo of Sweet Home Alabama (live) is also overcharted as can be. The third strike came when Love Removal Machine by The Cult also threw an overcharted solo at me at which point I said "fuck it" and finished the tour on hard difficulty.
6. On drums I very much prefer the Rock Band method of activating Star Power/Overdrive which has you play a drum fill and then hit a note which activates the temporary bonus. GHWT has you activate it with a hit of two pads at the same time (I'm playing with the Rock Band drum kit, so for me it's the two pads in the middle. On the GHWT kit it would be the two cymbals). This method pretty much forces you to break the rhythm of the song for the bonus and it also makes it very easy to lose the note streak and the resulting bonus from it.
So far the only reason I can think of why one could pick up GHWT over RB2 is for the guitar which is admittedly the best plastic instrument I played with so far, simply because it is larger and the strum bar is well constructed. I have yet to find some good use for the slidefrets yet though. However, I can't compare the guitars as I never played a Rock Band Guitar.
Even though GHWT has a few innovations, such as the hammer-ons to sustained notes and the slide solos, those are not earth shattering or anything that must be experienced. Rock Band 2 is clearly a superior software product in my opinion and the metric ton of already available downloadable content for Rock Band gives it another major edge in that department.
If that solo makes you fail you wasted 8 minutes and get nothing in return.
Free Bird anyone? It's not quite 8 minutes, but still...
I do agree with you, though. With music games, it's really "make or break" with the tracklist. Imagine DDR with Britney Spears or Fall Out Boy (oh wait, Supernova for consoles)...it's horrible. Then imagine Elite Beat Agents without Avril Lavigne (oh wait, Ouendan), it's awesome.
Well, Free Bird is at least a well known song and noted to be very long. I for my part had no clue how long Stranglehold would drag along. Also, GH2 asks you about 5 times if you really want to play Free Bird
Rock Band is most decidedly a social activity. It's a fun thing to bust out at a party and play with for a little bit.
Personally, though, I'm at the point where I'd rather direct that energy towards actually learning how to sing (well, OK, how to growl) or how to play an actual stringed instrument.
I got Rock Band 2 (Wii version) for Christmas, and I am greatly enjoying it. My only problem with the game is the very limited selection of clothes for your created characters. I am desperately trying to create Sex Bob-Omb in the game and I am having trouble making Kim's clothes look like they do in the comic. There just aren't enough kinds of "normal" pieces of clothing. If you want something that is torn, is a bikini top, or has way to many straps you're covered, though. My only other major gripe with the game is that, at this time, the music store still isn't open so I still can't get my "Juke Box Hero" on.
My only problem with the game is the very limited selection of clothes for your created characters. I am desperately trying to create Sex Bob-Omb in the game and I am having trouble making Kim's clothes look like they do in the comic. There just aren't enough kinds of "normal" pieces of clothing. If you want something that is torn, is a bikini top, or has way to many straps you're covered, though.
This sparks an interesting question: what "fantasy bands" people want to create in Rock Band. Personally, I've always wanted to form The Mesopotamians.
Comments
Rock Band concentrated on making the game social when Guitar Hero (at version 3) was much more akin to a single-player bemani game. That was its biggest success.
The guitar may well reinforce the fantasy, but I still believe the purely social nature of the game is its strongest selling point, just as with karaoke. I think of it as Karaoke++: home version.
Jamming with friends limits you to what ALL of you know. Rock Band doesn't.
Though I'm wondering, if you're acknowledging that the Drums and the Vocals are valid, then why are you discounting the whole game?
Hence, I have no interest in Rock Band. ^_~
I used to spend a lot of time jamming with people back when I played regularly, and most of the enjoyment came from actually making the music, as opposed to playing the game which unlocks the notes in the already played music. We can disagree on this point, but playing in a real band in front of a real audience on a real stage is a thousand times more fulfilling to me than faking it along with a recording. Hell, even playing in front of one person is more fulfilling. Playing along with a recording isn't fun for me.
The drums and vocals in Rock Band are better because you're actually making the real music in the case of the latter, and you're almost doing so in the case of the former. I can get the same enjoyment out of the vocals as I would from any karaoke. The drums, not so much, because they're just not as visceral as real drums, and your options are rather limited (you can't change up the tempo or do anything really creative). It's nowhere near the experience of real instrument play for me.
I also very much so agree with Scott, that playing Rock Band is fun because you feel like a rock star, actually playing. Obviously the game is also a social activity, hence band, in which everyone gets to feel like a rock star.
I just really find the argument that Guitar Hero or Rock Band is stupid because it's nothing like playing real instruments pointless.
I never said Rock Band was stupid: I just personally find it incredibly unfun, unentertaining, boring, hollow, and a waste of time (much like WoW). It doesn't make me feel like a rockstar (much like WoW). It doesn't fulfill me the way playing in a real band did. I explained why I personally don't enjoy the game, based on my own desires and expectations. Your mileage may vary, and your personal opinion is equally valid, but for me personally, the game is crap.
Do I play DDR because it makes me a better dancer? (though it is decent exercise)
Do I play beatmania because it make me better at DJing and keyboarding?
Do I play Taiko Drum Master because it makes me a better drummer?
Do I play Daigasso Band Brothers because...actually it's totally different than the above games. It's still a music game, though.
No, I play the games because I find them fun. I find playing music and going along with beats to be fun.
Also, some people just don't want to pick up a real guitar. Some people use the argument of "shit, if you put all the time you've put into GH and RB, you might be able to play some of these songs on real guitar". I mean, I guess that varies from person to person, but typically that isn't the case. You can jump up to expert on RB or GH in a relatively short time...and being able to play something like Beast and the Harlot or Free Bird on real guitar would take years and years of practice, but people can play them on expert after only logging 10-20 hours into the game.
Low and behold, next week will have among others a Dead Kennedys three pack as DLC. I just hope it's not all censored to hell. And I thought next week couldn't get much better since next week will see the release of Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour in Europe (yeah, I'm a guitar game addict, sue me). However, I have to add that I only buy GHWT because I hate my X-Plorer and want a new guitar and heard that the GHWT guitar is much higher quality than the Harmonix guitars. I just buy the Guitar Bundle because it's only like 10 or 20€ more than the guitar alone, and I think the game is at least worth that much.
California Über Alles:
Holiday In Cambodia (also in Guitar Hero III):
Police Truck (it was in Guitar Hero: Rock the 80s, but with very altered lyrics which sucked majorly):
All of them masters. Excuse, I'm now going to change my pants.
Edit: I just read on the rockband.com forums that they are largely uncensored except for naughty words. Pretty surprising to me since the songs deal with fascism, including gas showers, police violence including a rape and the Pol Pot terror regime.
And yes, there is a very large, very active and very competitive circle.
And it is all that, but compared to Rock Band 2 it is an inferior game for a few reasons.
1. Very subtle but still noticeable is that a black note-highway (I guess that's what they are called) is better than a colored one with a pattern behind it. Notes are easier to see and I actually had some trouble at the beginning of the bass career on GHWT. A note must be played without holding any frets and this is represented as a purple bar (also used to signify a bass pedal hit on the drum tour). However, it's a bid hard to notice when the song starts with this and the highway is also purple.
What's even more a mistake is that GHWT has gameplay coded into the highway pattern as drum fills are simply signified as a different patter on the highway but the highway pattern is originally simply an aesthetic concept and should be made to be as little distracting from the notes as possible.
2. GHWT forces you to start a whole setlist of three to seven songs when you want to advance in the career. On the Rock Band 2 tour there are also gigs which have setlists, but they are supplemented by single-song gigs which allow for quick advancements if you just want to kill ten or so minutes and also does not have you commit to setlists where single songs buried at the tail end may throw you out. Also, Rock Bands setlists are deterministic most of the time or specifically noted when they are not, while GHWT throws at you a surprise encore where you have no clue what's coming up at you in almost every setlist of the career.
3. Rock Band has a superior song selection in my opinion, but that depends on taste. However, what Rock Band also has a lot less songs which meander around for an eternity without coming to a finish. GHWT puts the icing on that shit-cake with songs like Vicarious by Tool or Stranglehold by Ted Nugent (who I wholeheartedly despise) which take an eternity to play and then finish off with an insane solo. If that solo makes you fail you wasted 8 minutes and get nothing in return. Very very frustrating.
4. Spoilers, but who gives a shit. GHWT is schizophrenic in it's representation. For one, the Guitar Hero series is rather cartoony, the videos being the most notable of that. That's all fine and well as long as you stick to it. The problem is that GHWT also crowbars real musicians into the mix. The worst bit of it is probably Jimi Hendrix apparently rising from the dead to play a gig with you, or rather you playing a gig as Hendrix. Music games, including GHWT are supposed to have you play as yourself. That's why those games have character creators. It's really unnecessary. Coming close to Hendrix being forced into this is the final gig on the tour. I am not sure if this also in the band tour but at the solo tour replaces the other band members (which are randomly select, but alas) with an all-star line-up of Ozzy Osbourne, Sting and Travis Barker to play songs none of them have a stake in and I doubt even cares about.
GHWT also goes very much over the top with it's cartooniness with the encores when gigantic skulls with bat-wings flies through a church window or the stage at Ozzfest sprouts mechanical tentacles which starts to fling members of the crowd through the air. The final gig has you play a new years show at Times Square in a stage a few hundred feet above ground which is OK, I guess. What's not OK is when after the final encore the aforementioned all-star line-up leaps out of that box, stage-diving to be scooped up and carried away by some flying galleon dragged through the air by giant falcons or something where you play a Dream Theater song for the credits sequence.
5. The songs are again horribly over-charted on expert guitar in GHWT which becomes really annoying. I tried to play the expert tour but I am now stuck since Demolition Man's intro is a complete clusterfuck and the the solo of Sweet Home Alabama (live) is also overcharted as can be. The third strike came when Love Removal Machine by The Cult also threw an overcharted solo at me at which point I said "fuck it" and finished the tour on hard difficulty.
6. On drums I very much prefer the Rock Band method of activating Star Power/Overdrive which has you play a drum fill and then hit a note which activates the temporary bonus. GHWT has you activate it with a hit of two pads at the same time (I'm playing with the Rock Band drum kit, so for me it's the two pads in the middle. On the GHWT kit it would be the two cymbals). This method pretty much forces you to break the rhythm of the song for the bonus and it also makes it very easy to lose the note streak and the resulting bonus from it.
So far the only reason I can think of why one could pick up GHWT over RB2 is for the guitar which is admittedly the best plastic instrument I played with so far, simply because it is larger and the strum bar is well constructed. I have yet to find some good use for the slidefrets yet though. However, I can't compare the guitars as I never played a Rock Band Guitar.
Even though GHWT has a few innovations, such as the hammer-ons to sustained notes and the slide solos, those are not earth shattering or anything that must be experienced. Rock Band 2 is clearly a superior software product in my opinion and the metric ton of already available downloadable content for Rock Band gives it another major edge in that department.
I do agree with you, though. With music games, it's really "make or break" with the tracklist. Imagine DDR with Britney Spears or Fall Out Boy (oh wait, Supernova for consoles)...it's horrible. Then imagine Elite Beat Agents without Avril Lavigne (oh wait, Ouendan), it's awesome.
Personally, though, I'm at the point where I'd rather direct that energy towards actually learning how to sing (well, OK, how to growl) or how to play an actual stringed instrument.
EDIT: My bad.