Electron Hut: Kyle Bedell’s Blog

An experiment in minimalist housing!

Indeed, is is uncanny!

Take one part Guitar Hero, one part Karaoke Revolution, a four-piece drum kit, and an awesome band management system, and you have Rock Band. Done much in the style of Harmonix and Red Octane’s Guitar Hero series, Rock Band ups the music game ante with the addition of a microphone and drums into the mix. It may very well be the greatest party game ever created; a surprisingly deep band management interface, support for four-player online play, a rocking (no pun intended) set list, and heaps of future downloadable content serve only to help Rock Band’s case.

The new instruments are quite nice. There’s a new Fender Stratocaster guitar model that ships with the game, and it has a much better feel to it than previous Guitar Hero guitars. The unit feels much closer to a real electric guitar. In addition, the strum bar no longer makes a clicking noise when used, there’s an effects switch to alter your sound, and five fret buttons along the bottom of the neck allow you to play solos without strumming.

The drums are similarly well-made with the exception of the bass pedal (which seems like it could be prone to breakage in the future). A pair of non-lacquered drumsticks ship with the kit, so you won’t need to hunt down some cooking spoons or anything to play them effectively. Most players will probably find the drums the most difficult of the instruments; there’s a fair degree of hand/foot coordination that goes into playing them, and there are a lot of notes to hit in each song.

Fans wondering how to activate overdrive (Rock Band’s version of “star power” from Guitar Hero) on the drums will be somewhat disappointed; you can only deploy overdrive in certain “free play” sections in each song. Deploying overdrive improves the band’s score multiplier (which goes from 2x all the way to 8x). This stacks with your personal multiplier; a bassist with a 6x score multiplier playing along with an 8x band multiplier is actually making 48 times the points for each note he plays. Overdrive can also bring back band members if they’ve failed out of a song.

The singing element is also quite polished. A rebranded Logitech USB microphone is the singer’s weapon of choice, and as you play, the lyrics and general pitch will scroll across the top of the screen. The harder the difficulty, the close you must match the song’s note, pitch, and spoken words. It takes some getting used to, but it’s just as much fun as playing the other instruments. Like the drums, you can deploy overdrive in freestyle sections scattered throughout the song.

While there is a Solo Tour for drums, guitar (not bass), and the vocals that plays much like the old Guitar Hero games, the real meat and potatos in Rock Band comes from its Band World Tour mode. You need at least two human beings to play in this mode, which has you making a band (complete with name, slogan, and logo) and its members (four, one for each instrument, although you can have as many “substitutes” as you want). From there, you start out in your home city with no fans and gigs at a few small locales. Play well and you’ll open up new gigs, cities to visit, and earn a van, personal jet, a manager, and bodyguards (among other things along the way). The games tracks scores for each song, the number of fans the band has, and the total number of ‘stars’ you’ve earned. Play poorly, and your fans will bail on you faster than you can smash your guitar on the coffee table.

Sometimes, you’ll be offered opportunities to play songs or setlists for charity (triple fans, no money), for corporations (1/3 normal fans, triple cash), or to put out a live DVD (5x normal fans if you can get five stars on each song in your set, lose 5x normal fans if you don’t). There are a slew of other random opportunities out there, but it is small touches like these that really pull the Rock Band experience together.

The cash you earn on your road to fame can be used to purchase new instruments and clothing for your band members. Each member gets their own supply of cash, so you don’t need to worry about wasting the band’s funds. Tailored apparel from rock, metal, goth, and punk genres are available along with dozens of hairstyles and accessories. You can even use the art interface you use for band logo creation to make tattoos. This adds another layer of customization to an already deep title.

Rock Band ships with 58 tracks on the disc, with songs from The Who, Foo Fighters, The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, R.E.M., The Police, and more. Tons of downloadable songs are on the way. Over 18 new tracks are already available from bands ranging from The Police to Metallica. Full albums are in the pipeline as well, with The Who’s Who’s Next?, Nirvana’s Nevermind, and the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty up next on the downloadable content block. Album pricing hasn’t been announced as of yet, but three-track packs currently cost around $5 each, with single songs going for $1.60. Any downloaded content integrates itself seamlessly with Rock Band’s current track list, so expect to see anything you buy show up in the game fairly often.

The only thing keeping Rock Band from being the must-have title of the 2007 holiday season is its price ($169, which includes the game, the drum kit, a microphone, and one Stratocaster). All of the old Guitar Hero guitars from Guitar Hero II and III will work with Rock Band, but you won’t be able to buy the drums or microphone separately until early next year. Single players without Xbox Live need not apply; you’ll be missing out on the game’s best feature!

Daedalus has two excellent videos on how to play a pyro and the spy. If you happen to play, give them a look!