One of the latest items of news in the music game scene is that Sting is now confimed to be lending his likeness to Guitar Hero : World Tour, along with the already announced / leaked likes of Ted Nugent, Billy Corgan, Jimi Hendrix, and Ozzy Osbourne.
Now, I can imagine marketing men getting excited about being able to include famous characters in a game, in a wonderful brand marketing / halo effect / leveraging synergy moment, but I look at these announcements and really can’t give a rat’s arse. I wondered if it was just me that thought this feature was completely pointless, but it appears I’m not alone.
See, I play music games because ‘playing’ along to tracks you love, particularly with a bunch of friends, is a huge amount of fun. I don’t play them because I want to ‘be’ Slash, or Sting, or Ozzy, or anyone else. I don’t want to be them, I just like to play some of their tracks. If anything, embodying some of these rockers in a game would put me off; let’s face it, some musicians, despite being very talented, are total wankers. There are plenty of bands I can think of that I like, but would never want to socialise with even if I had the opportunity. Personally I don’t hold being a bit of a twat against them if they make great music, but would I want to pretend to be them? No thanks.
Of course the ability to compete against & then play as rock stars arrived in GH3, and not only was I not interested in playing the characters in that game, the way they were introduced was one of the worst mechanics in the entire game - the boss battles. These were so irretrievably awful and painful to play that I can only conclude that either the entire QA team was completely retarded, or that they raised the fact that the boss battles were a rubbish idea but were overruled by those higher up because it was a great bullet-point on the box, even if in practice it was crap. I’m betting it’s the latter, and I’m also betting that these same people are responsible for using precious resources on getting more rock stars faces into the game, resources that presumably could have been spent elsewhere on the core game experience. It makes sense from a marketing point of view, but makes absolutely bugger all difference to the actual game.
Suits: 1 Game players: 0
I’m still reserving judgement on GH:WT until I get to play it, but focussing on stuff like this when they haven’t even confirmed the setlist yet seems like an odd set of priorities, and after GH3’s many rough edges they still have everything to prove to me. A lot of people concentrate on Red Octane’s hardware (which is looking good) as GH:WT’s advantage, but since instruments will now be interchangeable I don’t buy this so much; the experience delivered by the software is paramount. We’ll see.
September 5th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
“I’m still reserving judgement on GH:WT”
You sure? Sounds like you’re already made up your mind.
I was at the Penny Arcade Expo here in Seattle and got to see the difference from RB2 and GHWT first hand. As for me, I’ll be saving up for a 360 and RB2. GHWT was a little too cartoony for me, I vibe better with the RB.
September 5th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
When do you guys get Rock Band 2 in Europe?
I think it’s scheduled to be released here (for the 360) on September 14th, though it hasn’t been officially confirmed.
I think they just posted an update yesterday that lets you export almost all the tracks from RB1 (55 songs excluding Enter Sandman, Paranoid and Run to the Hills) and something else) to your hard drive so you can play them in RB2 but it costs 400 points.
I don’t mind spending the coin, and I can’t wait for RB2.
September 5th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Oops… nope it’s just those three songs. And by “here” I meant North America.
September 6th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
“Monsoon” is the other one you can’t transfer, but you didn’t have that one on the US disc, it was only on the European disc. Luckily I’m not a big fan of Metallica or Iron Maiden
I’ve downloaded the update, because it’ll be required to get DLC that’s released after RB2 is out in the States. I don’t know when we’re getting RB2, there are rumours they might release it in the UK for 360 the month after the US, since we don’t have any of the translation issues here and the 360 is very popular - it would be good if so. If not, I’m also looking out to see if RB2 is region-locked; if not I might import it.
[edit]Sorry I should say ‘North America’ instead of the US, I know you’re Canadian
September 6th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
So far as I’m aware, approx 68 of the proposed 80 odd tracks have been announced.
I must admit I was pretty meh with the whole rock star likenesses used in the game (including Sting)… Then again, the game is called Guitar Hero - maybe they’re trying to live up to the name…
BTW, I agree with KungFooMasta - I’d conclude that you’ve already formed an impression of GH:WT prior to it’s release. I’m happy to give it a shot, but then again you know my thoughts on the whole Europe/PS3 snub by Rock Band!
You must admit, however, that it is good to have competing Guitar franchises out there. It’s already pushed both games to improve on an established format (whichever your preference is).
September 7th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Yep, competition is always good. I haven’t ‘made up my mind’ about GH:WT, but I certainly can’t deny that I’m influenced by past experiences (ie Harmonix have been consistently great at music games, Neversoft so far have imitated but not equaled, and Activision’s highly commercial approach (GH:Aerosmith, I’m looking at you) contrasts heavily with Harmonix’s ‘give the fans what they want’ approach, like regular DLC, single-track purchase options etc).
I can understand your frustration at the delay of Rock Band for PS3 in Europe, but I think you may be letting annoyance & platform loyalty push you to an inferior experience (unless GH:WT really pulls out the stops and makes up the lost ground, which given the difference in experience level between the 2 teams I highly doubt). However the fact that the instruments are interchangeable makes it less final at least.