Rock Band (Xbox 360)
Second verse, same as the first. Just like Guitar Hero, Rock Band is a game where you pretend to be a rock musician, except with the added bonus of pretending to play drums, pretending to play the bass, and pretending to sing. Okay, the singing is actually singing, but it’s not going to make you the next American Idol.
Now, as I’m a misanthrope, I don’t have friends to play this game with, so I only have a guitar, no drums. Thus, my review is from that point of view, with my boyfriend occasionally playing it with me, handling the vocal duties. Regardless, it’s obvious that Rock Band distills everything good about Guitar Hero, subtracts the bad parts, and adds even more goodness on top. The presentation is much more refined than GH; everything from the notes to the score is presented in a cleaner, more subtle manner, so the game is much nicer to look at. You also can create your own characters, rather than relying on a half-dozen or so music clichés; the character creation is kind of limited, but it beats having to see that ugly-ass singer from GH again.
Song choice is also much better. GH’s inexplicable obsession with metal is jettisoned in lieu of a more mainstream rock soundtrack. The best thing about RB is the much-improved expandability: whereas GH only offers a handful of track packs to download, a multitude of songs and even a few complete albums have been released for RB, and the best part is you can download individual songs so you can take the good but not take the bad. Take that, Mrs. Garrett!
Even playing from my limited perspective, it’s obvious that Rock Band has the upper hand in the Guitar-Based Rhythm Game War. The next Guitar Hero is basically going to take everything that Rock Band innovated, so it’ll be interesting to see whether they succeed with it.
5 out of 5
Second verse, same as the first. Just like Guitar Hero, Rock Band is a game where you pretend to be a rock musician, except with the added bonus of pretending to play drums, pretending to play the bass, and pretending to sing. Okay, the singing is actually singing, but it’s not going to make you the next American Idol.
Now, as I’m a misanthrope, I don’t have friends to play this game with, so I only have a guitar, no drums. Thus, my review is from that point of view, with my boyfriend occasionally playing it with me, handling the vocal duties. Regardless, it’s obvious that Rock Band distills everything good about Guitar Hero, subtracts the bad parts, and adds even more goodness on top. The presentation is much more refined than GH; everything from the notes to the score is presented in a cleaner, more subtle manner, so the game is much nicer to look at. You also can create your own characters, rather than relying on a half-dozen or so music clichés; the character creation is kind of limited, but it beats having to see that ugly-ass singer from GH again.
Song choice is also much better. GH’s inexplicable obsession with metal is jettisoned in lieu of a more mainstream rock soundtrack. The best thing about RB is the much-improved expandability: whereas GH only offers a handful of track packs to download, a multitude of songs and even a few complete albums have been released for RB, and the best part is you can download individual songs so you can take the good but not take the bad. Take that, Mrs. Garrett!
Even playing from my limited perspective, it’s obvious that Rock Band has the upper hand in the Guitar-Based Rhythm Game War. The next Guitar Hero is basically going to take everything that Rock Band innovated, so it’ll be interesting to see whether they succeed with it.
5 out of 5
posted by Cole at
2:01 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home