Wii vs PS3 vs XBox 360? Who cares? The real console war this holiday season is Guitar Hero 3 vs Rock Band!
I think Guitar Hero 3 is going to wind up on top. I suspect a lot of people picking up games had to struggle to justify that $80 price tag for the previous games and the $200 price tag for Rock Band (individual instrument packs aren’t coming until next year) is going to lock it out. Also Harmonix may have moved on but I think that most people (as in, not the people who obsess over this stuff) follow the game brand rather than the developer brand.
We also have to factor in that GHIII is for all current systems (360, Wii, PS3) AND the PS2. I know Rock Band isn’t on the Wii at all, and I don’t think it’s on the PS2, but I might be wrong on that.
Guitar Hero. It’s an established brand, plus GH3 beat Rock Band to market and costs half as much. But most importantly, Guitar Hero is fast, simple, and accessible: pick up the guitar and play. Rock Band seems like a lot of effort: assembling four people, setting up all of the peripherals… I’m sure it will be fun and there’s definitely an audience for it, but Guitar Hero will remain dominant.
The people who made GH and GH2 made Rock Band, not GH3. I’m positive RB will have single player and 2-3 player modes. RB has freakin’ MTV backing it for getting song licensing rights and such.
In time RB will have individual instrument packs; many, many of the GH dedicated fan base seem to want to get both, it will probably have a longer shelf-life and lifespan due to the bigger investment from the music industry (more song-packs and upgrades).
I’m not saying RB will win for certain (frex, the previously mentioned fact that most people don’t really pay attention to who’s making a game, just the title), but I suspect GH3 will have the upper hand initially, but be considerably out-sold by RB in the long run.
I don’t really know anything about these products, but at some point, wouldn’t it be easier to just, uh, get together the instruments and play actual music?
Have you seen the controls for Guitar Hero? It’s 5 buttons on the neck, a paddle to tap in lieu of strumming strings, and a wah-wah bar for more advanced stuff. Anyone can pick it up and play; no actual learning is required. It’s Dance-Dance-Revolution on a guitar-shaped controller.
Seriously. That’s like saying “Why spend the time to learn to play Gran Turismo when you could just go to a real racetrack.” I play guitar hero, and within moments I am rocking My Name Is Jonas. Give me a guitar and a month, maybe I can fake something for ya, and STILL I need to find someone to play the other instruments and have nice production quality to make it sound good.
Yup. But according to reviews, GH3 continues in very much the same vein as the previous titles, despite the new developer. Maybe there are some fans who won’t dig new features like the boss battles, but for the people who loved the first two and are looking for a continuation of that experience, Guitar Hero III is the clear choice. Anyway, as you say, I doubt most people are even aware of which development house is behind which game.
I don’t doubt that Rock Band will also have a satisfying single-player experience, but it just seems to me that RB is putting almost all of its eggs in the four-man-band basket-- you can’t even buy the game without purchasing the bundle with all of the various peripherals. Like the Mario Party series, it’s positioning itself for the “multiplayer party-game” niche. I think that will appeal to a lot of people but not as many as Guitar Hero already does.
It’s all going to come down to execution. Guitar Hero III actually surprised me - I was all prepared to dislike it because it was being made by a new company and seemed to want to take the game more towards ‘game’ and further away from the music. And to some extent they did. But the execution is fantastic. The changes to the note timing make it feel a lot more natural to play, and there’s a lot of good songs in the soundtrack.
That said, Rock Band looks like Guitar Hero taken up a few levels. The animation is better, the music is excellent, being able to play the drums and sing is fantastic. It looks superior in just about every way.
But little things could kill it. I’ve read some early reports of easy to damage guitar controllers, and the note timings are a lot tighter, making the game feel more difficult when transitioning from Guitar Hero, which may put off a lot of people. I don’t think the entry price is that big of a drawback. We’re not talking about a fortune - about like buying a car racing game with a wheel and pedals, or buying a good joystick with a flight simulator.
In the end, I suspect the sales numbers will be pretty close, and mostly limited by the availability of Rock Band over the Christmas season. They’re supposedly already warning suppliers that they will run out some time during the Christmas Season and some customers may have to wait until the new year to even buy it.
So as an aside, if you’re thinking about getting the game it might be a good idea to pre-order it from somewhere.
I think the two titles will coexist quite easily. Eventually, it will get to the point where most people that want to play either game will have the peripherals to do so. New titles in the series will cease to be a $100+ investment.
That said, GH3 mostly did things right but the addition of boss battles really bugs the hell out of me. I hope that it’s not an indication of the direction that the new developer is taking the series.
That’s what I meant when I said Guitar Hero is heading more down the ‘game’ path, while Rock Band seems to be more headed down a ‘rock simulation’ path.
The Boss Battles bug me, the flashing note streak text bugs me, and they sacrificed function for form with the Rock Meter and star power indicators. Bad decisions. But the core gameplay is better, so you win some and lose some.
That’s exactly the impression that I’ve gotten after playing GH3 and a demo for Rock Band. Of the two, the ‘rock simulation’ is more appealing to me at this moment.
The World Tour Mode is what really excites me about Rock Band. When there’s another one to three people in your virtual ‘band’, decisions about where to play, what set list to use, etc all take on more of a cooperative aspect that I don’t think you really see often outside of MMORPGs.
In GH3’s cooperative career mode, the only decision to be made is “What song are we playing next?” and that one barely matters since every song must be played anyway. Perhaps they’ll flesh it out in future releases.
The sticking point of course will be how easily people can find another person to play with. I’m lucky enough to be married to a Guitar Hero fan who’s been wishing that she were playing drums all of this time. I realize that I’m in a minority in this respect and most people won’t have a readily available player most of the time like I do. A good online coop system will be key to overcoming this.
