To Whom It May Concern: Rock Band at the Super Bowl
To Whom It May Concern: Rock Band at the Super Bowl
Jan 02I don’t know how many of you have had a chance to become acquainted with Rock Band yet. It is a revelation compared to Guitar Hero, and I say that as someone who sat down and made a wish list for a Guitar Hero Great White North edition (all Canadian rock, eh?)
Besides being the ultimate rock fantasy short of going to… well… rock fantasy camp, the game takes the rhythm and appreciation for music taught by the earlier guitar games, and adds singing (it’s often been commented that the Karaoke Revolution games, by the same developer, basically train you, through visual feedback, to sing on key – not to mention learn words and phrasing) and best yet, drums. The best part about the drums is that it’s pretty clear, pretty quick, that if you swapped out the drum pads with real drums in a similar configuration, you’d be playing the drums. Not expert, no no no. But you’d be playing.
The guitars don’t teach you chords or fingering, but the drums do teach you to bang the skins.
I consider myself a decent drummer at the medium level, and the game isn’t mine, so I can only assume that with my own copy and time to obsess alone, I could improve – but even at that level, I felt pretty confident that I was at least ahead by a few months worth of drum lessons.
Now, please observe the following. Feel free to bang yo head. Well, it’s Rush. So, feel free to bop in a progressive manner.
Ok. This got me to thinking, as has happened a lot lately, about whether Rock Band is a Guitar Hero killer. And this video got me thinking that there is one way, in two steps, that Rock Band could completely dominate and crush Guitar Hero.
First, produce enough kits to meet a massive demand. The three you sent to my local Futureshop isn’t going to cut it.
Second, take the Rock Band maniac in this video (or similar) and have his play with Rush. Could be part of their tour. Could be part of the Super Bowl Half Time show. Could be part of the Super Bowl Half Time show in order to help promote the Rush tour. It could be late night TV (lord knows they’ll be leaning on music acts while the writers strike continues.)
And slot that fucker in. It will not be great drumming – in fact, bump him down to hard, maybe even medium, so that the drumming is less insane-o video game drumming, and more like real drumming. But five minutes later, you will have sold everyone watching on the fantasy of being in a band.
Hell, make Geddy Lee sing in-game. You know he can hit those notes. I sure can’t.
Double hell, make it a contest. Winner by Xbox world rankings gets to play with Geddy Lee and Rush.
Just don’t do it until I get my kit.
Another thing they need to do is keep the stratocaster controllers from breaking. It’s a sexy peripheral, to be sure, but it’s a huge pain in the ass when the strum bar decides it doesn’t want to work.
Acrimony aside, Rock Band is definitely a stellar game, and I prefer it to any of the GH games, especially when you look at its model for DLC – weekly, affordable downloads of songs I want to play.
Yes, the guitars and hubs have been universally broken – however, I have the advantage of being in Canada, which means by the time I get one, the quirks will likely be fixed (same as happened with Guitar Hero.)
I’m really looking forward to the regular DLC – was the Buzzcocks a downloadable track? I need that one. I rocked that one, and I rarely sing.
I want to see Chris playing drums with Rush at the Super Bowl next year. Please!