Rock Band was released for the Wii this past weekend. I’ve been a music/rhythm game fan since the days of PaRappa, and I haven’t yet sprung for a PS3 or 360, so I eagerly picked it up the moment it was available. Since I’ve now had a couple days to play with it, I figured I’d offer my thoughts and see what others had to say. (Caveat: other than in-store demos, I’ve never played RB on any other system, so I have no idea whether my comments apply cross-platform).
Drums: The centerpiece of the Rock Band experience, and a fun new toy for rhythm gamers. This ain’t your daddy’s Donkey Konga. I dived in at Medium and promptly got whooped. The pads are responsive enough; personally I’d prefer them a touch more sensitive so that I could play when the guy downstairs is home, but for the gamer who wants to go nuts and beat on some rubber, they’re great.
The foot pedal is the hard part. The lack of any apparent correlation between the speed of the pedal-press and the loudness of the percussion track was bothersome. I couldn’t tell how far I needed to press the pedal to “strike” the drum, and sometimes I couldn’t tell if I’d done it at all. I also think they could have found a better way to signify pedal notes (fifth column, maybe?) than putting a highly distracting bright orange bar under the other notes, but I suppose I’ll get used to that with practice.
All told, they’re a load of fun, and will be an interesting challenge to master. I can tell that I’m in for great (if frustrating) times ahead.
Guitar: As a Guitar Hero veteran, I was looking forward to some new material (especially given that Activision hates money and refuses to pay to port the prequels of the best-selling and highest-grossing game of 2007 to the best-selling current console by far…but that’s another rant). For the most part, if you’ve ever played GH, you’ve played this; I’m breezing through the Expert mode with few problems, but there are a couple key differences.
For starters, the peripheral takes some getting used to…the buttons are set into the guitar neck instead of protruding like the GH controller’s do, so it can be hard to tell exactly where your hand is when you adjust. Also, there’s an annoying “lip” just above the green button and below the orange, which will wear the skin off the sides of your fingers if you overadjust (and if you’re used to the GH controller, you will), but this shouldn’t be a problem for new players.
Then there’s the matter of hammer-ons and pull-offs. These work just as they do in GH, if you can figure out where the hell they are. In GH, they’re easy to spot; they’re larger than regular notes and have an upward-projecting glow. In Rock Band, they look exactly like regular notes except that they’re about four pixels shorter on either side, a difference that’s bit hard to discern when you’re playing at high speeds (which, coincidentally enough, is just when HO/POs turn up). It may seem like a petty gripe, but not being able to identify these notes makes certain solos nigh-impossible to play. If Harmonix was going to gank the rest of GH’s gameplay whole-hog, couldn’t they have taken this part too?
If you loved Guitar Hero, you’ll like this (verb order intended), and if you’re anything like me you’ll just be grateful for the new content. It’s fun to rock out with a plastic guitar, and RB is no exception.
Singing: It’s, y’know, singing. Fun if you like it, and I love it. The harder difficulty levels are a great way to improve your artist-emulation skills…and if you just want to have fun without worrying about accuracy, select Easy, and you can pretty much get by making whale noises.
I will note that the included microphone peripheral sucks. It’s a shame, because it looks and feels like a decent-quality stage mic, but even with microphone volume maxed out, you have to french kiss the thing while screaming if you want to hear yourself through the output. If anyone is aware of a remedy for this, or has a recommendation for a USB mic that works well with the game, please advise.
Overall: Party in a box. Despite my gripes with the equipment (and the hammer-ons…seriously, what evil sadistic 20/20-vision-having bastard designed this thing?), the whole point is to get together with your friends to scream, beat on things, and rock out, and for that it’s excellent. Veteran music gamers will have a challenge waiting in the drums and feel at home with the guitar, and the singing portion can even convince non-gamers to join in. If you have a group to play with, I highly recommend it.