7 posts tagged “rock band”

So the Rock Band Nine Inch Nails pack came out earlier than rumored.  I gave it a test run on guitar (Expert) and drums (Hard).  I still have yet to complete my Rock Band drum career on Hard and I was prepared to drop the difficulty down to Medium if necessary.

Anyway, the entire pack is great.  All great masters and it seems like the levels for whatever instrument you are playing are really jacked up.  I wonder if Trent Reznor had a hand in remastering the tracks for Rock Band.  The March of the Pigs drum line was not as insane as I was prepared for it to be.  The guitar for it was deceivingly difficult because of a quick triplet with a chord change thrown in there.  I am sure with more playthroughs, that gimmick part will be a breeze.  The song is short however.  The Collector track is alright.  Nothing memorable there and nothing that made me sweat on drums or guitar.  The Perfect Drug track is the highlight of the pack.  Great drum solos that had me going "where the f did that hit come from", great tempo changes, and varying difficulties across both drum and guitar of this long song to keep you on your toes.  I thought I had a 100% on guitar when the song through something unexpected.

I could see myself going back to The Perfect Drug time and time again for the fun of playing it, while I could see myself trying to master the March of the Pigs for pure show.  If you can't afford the pack, pick up The Perfect Drug.  Well worth the money.

march 18

New downloadable content....this week Black Sabbath!

"Digital buds" is a term that I first heard from .tiff.  What does it mean?  To me it means friendships without an analog interface (typical programmer).  I have a ton of digital buds on Vox and Warcrack.  People that I may never meet in person in my lifetime, but will have experiences with them via digital interfaces.  For my Warcrack peeps, this is usually just questing/raiding or doing a little PvP together, "all real time" and a full shared experience.  For my Vox digibuds, it comes across in the sharing of experiences via posts or comments.  Not real time but still there is some sort of bond formed.  Now and then we enter the real of IM when we're are not all that busy at work ("Hey Steve, have you found this bug yet?"), really have to tell someone something ("OMG Steve, check out the setlist!!"), or when someone has to log onto their sister's computer and they pop up on Google Talk.

Last night, through Rock Band I was able to finally play with some of my digital buds.  With much trial and error, .tiff and I were able to do some Quick Band play (with her sister hopping in for vocals).  It was the first time we heard our voices (actually I had heard .tiff's voice from her other gigs in gaming journalism), so in reality this was the first time she heard my voice.  And even though we have known each other for over a year, it's still a little nerve wrecking to speak to someone and not hide behind the text for once.  Anyway we had a blast and I am certain that last night was the first of many nights in which we will meet under the guise of rockers.

After .tiff left, Steve came in for a bit of head to head guitar playing.  While .tiff and I did the more co-operative path, Steve and I went the competitive path (sadly he didn't have his mic on).  Steve and I have talked Guitar Hero for sometime usually just giving each other progress reports.  "I just got past X on Expert" or "I just beat the game on Hard".  Last night, we could actually see how well we played (of course this was extremely late at night for me during my 5th-6th hour of playing the game non-stop).  I really wanted Steve to get his drum kit hooked up so we could suck .tiff in for some Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  But with no voice communication and the lack of Steve's presence on an IM platform, it wasn't gonna happen last night.

I can not express how happy I am with Rock Band allowing me to play with two of my digital buds.  It opens the avenues to play with other Heroes of the Plastic Guitar (or drums).

Damn, I can get this song out of my head!!!  We need to play this...

Steve, .tiff, who is our fourth?

Another salvo in the rhythm game war was fired today with more Rock Band tracks being announced today.  I was hoping that I could get away with just buying Rock Band and ignoring the third installment of Guitar Hero but after comparing the set lists, GH3 has a strong offering of tracks.  Instead of listing out all the confirmed tracks, follow these links to see what they are for each game:

• Rock Band Soundtrack
• Guitar Hero III Soundtrack

So looking at Rock Band, I am excited about (in no particular order):

• Cherub Rock
• Creep
• (Don't Fear) The Reaper - I really hope that have the microphone taps correspond to the cowbell in certain parts of the song.
  
• Enter Sandman
• Epic
• Gimme Shelter
• The Hand That Feeds
• Learning To Fly
• Paranoid
• Sabotage
• Should I Stay Or Should I Go
• Tom Sawyer
• Wanted Dead or Alive
• Won't Get Fooled Again
  

Sadly there is no Guns N' Roses on this set list...yet.  If there would be, please please please let it be Paradise City.

Now lets look at what I am excited about for GH3:

• Barracuda - The difficulty of Crazy On You's rhythm was a surprise.  I can only imagine how difficult this one will be
  
• Black Magic Woman
• Cherub Rock
• Cult Of Personality
• Even Flow
• La Grange
• One
• Paint It, Black
• Paranoid
• Rock You Like a Hurricane
• Sabotage
• Slow Ride
• Welcome to the Jungle

That's a mighty set list of things to look forward to.  Many of the songs have been on my Guitar Hero wish list and I am excited to finally get to play them.  However, this is why Guitar Hero III is on double secret probation.  Harmonix is no longer developing the franchise, Neversoft is.  Harmonix is/was the breeding ground for MIT and Berklee School of Music grads.  Now, I can safely say that a majority of their staff are musicians.  What makes the Guitar Hero franchise so great is the fun that you have while playing the song.  I attribute this to the excellent level design/gem placement.  At a Harmonix party that I attended, they said that this was one aspect that they spent the most time.  How do you layout the gems for each level of difficulty without making it too hard and musically make the positioning make some sense.  I think Harmonix has done an outstanding job with the first two Guitar Hero titles (I have yet to check out the 80s edition).  So now, Neversoft, famously known for their excellent Tony Hawk series, is now tasked with designing GH3.  I don't know if they have musicians helping them out with the level design or not, but I think it will show in the final product if they are worthy of the Guitar Hero franchise.  If the level design is not up to par (and Welcome to the Jungle is not a blast to play), I will be closing the books on GH.  It will be interesting to see how different it will be to play those songs that exist on both titles.

Neversoft, good luck.  You have some big shoes to fill.

Remember the scene in The Simpson's when Ned Flanders finds out that the Simpson children are not baptized.  "Hinkily Dinkily.  Okily Dokily..." and other random Flanderisms.

This article made me do that: Harmonix forms Rock Band

This was the next logical iteration.  I hope that the GH2 Xbox 360 guitar controllers work with Rock Band because I think the wife will kick me out if there are any more plastic guitar controllers in the house.