E3 Impressions: Music Games
Anyone who knows me reasonably well will be able to tell you that I love music rhythm games, especially the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises. At this year’s E3, therefore, I ended up taking on the burden (?) of checking out these titles, of which there were several. If these titles are any indication, this genre is definitely on the up and up.
The first game I checked out, on a bit of a whim, was Activision’s Guitar Hero: Van Halen, due for release this August. At the demo unit were two of the best players in the world, someguy913 (drums) and GuitarHeroPhenom (guitar), so I thought it’d be fun to join in on bass and see how they played; as it turns out, lag issues prevented all three of us from performing our best. As for the game itself, there’s really not that much to say. From the short bits of the demo that I got to experience, there have been no real changes to the gameplay, which isn’t surprising in the least; basically, if you’ve played World Tour or Metallica, you know what to expect from Van Halen, at least as it currently stands.
Much more interesting and evolved is my most anticipated game of the show, The Beatles: Rock Band; I am an unashamed Beatlemaniac, as is everyone in my family, and to be able to play their music is something I’ve awaited for a long time. Besides typical Rock Band gameplay and a catalog of Beatles music, there are other things that players can look forward to. The art style for the game has been completely revamped, from the menus to the backgrounds to the charts themselves. There are more rounded edges and pastel colors, and the backgrounds have a slightly more cartoony look to them; there seems to be a light Yellow Submarine influence to the whole thing, and the word "fab" comes to mind. The whole thing works, despite the somewhat cartoony feel.
I didn’t get a chance to see for myself, but the cartoonishness extends farther than was shown. The game includes several notable venues that the Beatles performed in, including the Cavern Club and the Ed Sullivan Show, but there are certain songs in the game that wouldn’t really work that well (can you imagine hordes of girls screaming in response to Octopus’s Garden?) In these instances, Harmonix has invented what they call "dreamscapes", in which the venue slowly morphs into a stylized, artistic piece, such as a hilltop. I’m not sure if these aren’t ready to go yet, or if I just never saw anybody play an appropriate song for such avenue, but the art style for the game would definitely be fitting for such a thing. The art style also means that the Wii build of the game looks quite impressive in comparison to the other systems.
With regards to gameplay, most of the game is rather similar to Rock Band 2; playing guitar, drums and bass are almost entirely intact. An interesting note is that the game has completely omitted fill sections for the drums; Overdrive is now activated solely by hitting the green note at the end of where a fill would be. Difficulty-wise, I imagine some of the hardest songs would fit in the Nightmare category in RB2; notably, the drum part for "Back in the U.S.S.R." consisted of a bridge very heavy on the bass drum, and the verse rhythms for "I Feel Fine" are unorthodox and fun to play. On guitar, I experienced less of a challenge, though I’m hoping that "Good Morning Good Morning" makes it into the game.
Vocals have received a serious upgrade, however. Before playing a song, you can choose whether you want to sing Solo or Harmonies; Solo is traditional Rock Band vocals, but there’s a bit more to Harmonies. Up to three vocal tracks can appear on the screen at once, each one with a different color, and anybody may sing any vocal track at any time with no penalty. This definitely makes it easier to sing and play another instrument at the same time, as I did with "Day Tripper"; you don’t have to worry about which harmony you need to sing along with, as any of them are acceptable. If you have multiple singers (up to three, one on each microphone), and you sing two complete vocal tracks in one phrase, you’ll get a Double Fab bonus; singing all three tracks properly nets you a Triple Fab. The vocal setup definitely makes it easier to just sing and mess around without the game penalizing you harshly, though.
I don’t think I even need to go into the soundtrack; really, the fact that it is Beatles music should be all you need to know. They’ve taken a mess of songs from every album, and some singles are thrown in as well, from "Day Tripper" to "Here Comes the Sun" to "I Saw Her Standing There". The entirety of the album Abbey Road will be made available as DLC shortly after the game’s release, as well as the single "All You Need Is Love", the proceeds from which will go to Doctors Without Borders; asking a PR rep after the fact, he mentioned that additional DLC was not at all unreasonable to expect.
After playing my share of Beatles: Rock Band (and my share, incidentally, is three to four times a normal human’s share), I stopped by the Warner Bros. booth to check out Lego Rock Band. I was initially curious as to why this product even existed, but the reason for it was made clear after playing it: this is a much more family-friendly entry in the series. All the songs chosen contain lyrical content guaranteed to not offend, the characters are all made out of Legos for a kid-friendly aesthetic, and the featured Quickplay mode allows for instrumentalists to drop in and out before every song, instead of having to go back a few menus to adjust who is playing and who is not.
Lego Rock Band doesn’t skimp on difficulty, either, so don’t worry. Playing one song on drums, "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5, I found myself playing with some rather complicated drum beats; I was informed later that some of the hardest songs in this game were even harder than what could be found in Rock Band 2, which is extremely intriguing. What mystified me, though, were the difficulty indicators; for one song, I forget which, the difficulty meter read one black dot, two white dots, and then two more black dots after that. I don’t have any idea whatsoever what this may mean.
As one last interesting note, I was asked by the ScoreHero community to inquire as to what the "Awesome Detection" cheat did in Rock Band 2. He informed me that this feature was still under embargo, nine months after the game’s release, and that he wouldn’t be able to tell me what it does. He did offer, though, that if you are a very good Rock Band player, and you are not playing with Awesome Detection on, "you’re doing something wrong." Skilled players should take note.
That wraps up my preview of the music games on display this year. Keep watching our website for more previews from other companies.
