My son has his thirteenth birthday this week. I want to get Guitar Hero or Rock Band for him, but I’m unsure as to which one to get. My kids at school tell me that GH is better for playing alone while RB is better when you have lots of friends over. Does RB also have single-player modes as well? Which, in your opinion, is more fun for a thirteen year old boy? I’m leaning toward RB because he and I could play together, but I don’t want to get something that he couldn’t use as a single player as well.
By the way, we have an Xbox 360 that is connected to our home network. It plays onto a 42" HDTV with surround sound.
I have both Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Rock Band does have single player mode and I find myself playing the drums by myself fairly often. And Rock Band is pretty fun with a group. Of course, Rock Band for the whole kit is much more expensive than getting Guitar Hero.
I got Guitar Hero several months before I got Rock Band and in all honesty, I have not played Guitar Hero since I got Rock Band. However, it appears that Guitar Hero is going to attempt to compete better with Rock Band with the introduction of Guitar Hero: World Tour in October. The game is going to have wireless drum controller with a more realistic looking drum set.
Guitar Hero’s newest game (that hasn’t come out yet) will have the mic and drums and bass, plus it has an editor where you can make up your own songs. That’s the one Im saving up for. I know you said your son’s birthday is this week, but if you go that route, you can use the guitar with future versions.
The main selling point to most people I know who have one or the other of these games is the available music selections. You should take a look at which games have which songs, and compare to see which one your son is more likely to enjoy.
I’d say Rock Band, especially if he has brothers/sisters/friends/you to play with. You get guitar, drums, and a mic. I personally like the drums and singing the most. I drum solo, just Saturday night I started on Medium difficulty trying to get 5 stars on each song and I kept acing each one. Before I knew it 3.5 hours had passed!
Yeah, I’m just finishing up expert tour on drums. It’s a hoot. I also enjoy playing Rock Band guitar more - the songs are charted better and they aren’t crazy difficult just for the sake of being difficult like they are in Guitar Hero.
The drums are crazy fun, and unlike the guitar you really get the feeling that you’re building up a real skill playing them. They’re much closer to playing the real thing, and you build the same skills (separating your feet from your hands, learning rolls and proper stickwork, etc). I really like that.
I’m looking forward to the Guitar Hero drums - they look better. But for right now - I haven’t played Guitar Hero since I got Rock Band six months ago. And I’d been playing Guitar Hero since GH I.
I just wish there was more blues rock in Rock Band. Some Stevie Ray would be nice.
I vote Rock Band (for the PS3 or 360, though remember that only the official Rock Band guitars work for the PS3 version while the guitar hero ones work for the Xbox360 version). The downloadable content is significantly better than GH3’s. The game is difficult, but not insane, like GH3. The content of music is more varied. The drums are fun, and so is the singing (surprisingly). Ironically, the only thing I don’t like is the bass guitar (it’s just boring in the game).
I enjoy watching my son and boyfriend play Rock Band. I enjoy playing along when it’s Rock Band. So at least from my perspective, Rock Band hands down wins over GH.
I agree. The bass problem is one of song selection, really. All they need to do is make more bass-heavy bands available for download, like Primus, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tool, Korn, Suicidal Tendencies…
Rock Band just arrived last night and I’ve been playing the drums…a lot (I haven’t even unscrewed the guitar to put in the batteries yet). That said, so far, I like GH a little better overall.
I think it’s mostly songlist - with the RB songs, there’ve been a lot of “huh? what the hell is that?” And singing along to songs that I’ve never heard before is not quite so fun (though on easy, it doesn’t really matter. so long as you’re singing any notes at all, it seems to give you 5 stars). Playing is ok, but is more fun on songs that I know and love - or know and like - or at the very least have vague memories of having heard before.
Which one has songs your son knows? And does he have siblings or friends who come over a lot (or would come over a lot if they had RB there?)
For the record, we went with Guitar Hero. From what you’ve said here and what my students said, it is more geared for solo play than Rock Band. It is also more readily available in our small town. The local WalMart only had RB in PS3 format and I needed it for 360. That said, my son hasn’t hardly put it down since Thursday night (today is Tuesday).
See, I’m the opposite. I know a hell of a lot more of the RB songs than GH stuff. Seems to me that GH tends more towards various flavors of metal, hard rock, and other riff-tastic music, whereas RB has more pop and alternative stuff that isn’t so guitar heavy. Makes sense, really.
There are three full solo careers - one each for guitar/drums/vocals. Plus, there’s a wonderful feeling when you get a group together, and you’re all jammin’ on some Boston, and it’s really like a rock band.
Like someone else above, we have both, but we haven’t played Guitar Hero since. The note charting, song selection, etc., in Rock Band are vastly superior. And, I think Rock Band might actually develop desire to play a real instrument - at least, more so than Guitar Hero…
I’d have to say Rock Band too, I might like the songs better overall on GH, but I really don’t enjoy the guitar controller that much. Drums are my instrument.
My son is 13. He has Guitar Hero on the Wii. I have Rock Band for myself on the 360. I am constantly hearing, “Mooooooooooooom, can I play Rock Band?” Guitar Hero sits largely unused.
I think the draw is the multiple instruments/options - downloadable content that can be played on drums, bass, guitar or sung. If he burns out on guitar, he can just switch to something else to challenge himself again.
Let me be the voice of dissent and advise GH3.
I didn’t like the guitar-playing in RockBand at all.
It might be fun on the higher-level difficulties but at Easy or Normal the songs are just much too easy.
GH3 is just much more fun to play (not counting the drumming and singing as I only have my trusty HG guitar controller).
Scoundrel, you rejected Rock Band not because it doesn’t offer higher difficulties, but because the beginner stuff isn’t hard enough? Do you quit out of Tetris in disgust on the first level every time too?
Another too-late vote for Rock Band. I love Guitar Hero, and played the heck of of GH3 on the Wii when it came out. But once I got Rock Band there was no going back. They’re really not even comparable. I was glad Neversoft botched the Wii version of the game - I was able to send it in for a full refund.
I’m interested to see how they do with Guitar Hero World Tour (their me-too version of Rock Band) because the drums look sweet, but I need to see some results first. With Rock Band and the earlier guitar heros, you can tell you’re playing a music game made by musicians. With GH3, it felt more like a music game made by gamers, especially considering that they cranked the difficulty level up to 11 (I finished both GH1 and GH2 on expert - I’ll never finish GH3).
It is just that I will never-ever get the hang of playing with 5 fingers, so I am perpetually stuck at the Normal level.
The Normal level in RockBand is just too simple, and not only too simple, it doesn’t feel like playing an instrument at all.
The Normal level in Guitar Hero took me a few days to master but I have been getting pretty good at it.
Maybe not for you, but it is extremely hard for me.
I can’t even finish the Muse song on Normal, even after trying for weeks.
I even tried practising it slow and then speeding it up, but I always fail at the part where you have to use that “pick and thingamajiggie”-technique.
