Rock Band

[Scott Gardener]

I got this puppy for my birthday, the deluxe box that includes the game, a USB mic, guitar, and drum kit. The thing normally retails for about the same as an entry level X-Box 360 or a "nicely equipped" PS2 with games, and the whole kit and kaboodle takes up more floor space than both. There's the added geek factor of having game controller instruments to help repel dates. Thankfully, I'm already married, and hopefully in spite of this game, I can stay that way. The drum kit can disassemble for storage, though the guitar begs to be wall-mounted next to a gold-certified fake LP.

While unpacking, I was very tempted to pull out my camcorder and start filming a Rockumentary; I felt like road crew. The only thing missing were a huge bunch of speakers, though I do intend in the next few months to put in a home theater surround system, so that experience is forthcoming. That, and ever notice that guitar amps invariably are branded "Peavy"? Does anyone else even make guitar amps? Or, is Peavy a synonym for guitar amps, the way "Crayola" and "Band-Aid" might as well be the names of the products rather than the brands of them?

Upon loading the game, it prompted me to download update 1.04. I tried three times but got error messages each time. Thankfully, I could skip this and go on to the game, and a quick look online this morning shows that it sometimes takes many tries before it goes through. Appearantly it's not a major update; it just applies towards streamlining the process of buying additional songs. Which brings up an additional point; with iTunes and ringtones, and now video games, it seems the music industry is finally at last working with instead of against us geeks. To my knowledge, no one has yet made hacks that pirate these additional for-purchase tracks, though I fear it could some day happen. If so, it would take a bit of work to pull off, as one would have to engineer in lyrics with keys, guitar and base prompts at four levels of difficulty, drum prompts likewise, a slow-ed and sped isolated track of each of the three instruments, and... it could only be done by someone with way too much free time. Then again, that could be said of those of us playing this game.

I started up the game and went through the basic and intermediate guitar tutorials. There's quite a sense of humor about the game, with lots of great personality and atmosphere. I went through the basic and intermediate tutorials for guitar and then tried two of the beginner songs. I made it through REM's "Orange Crush" with an 84% success rate by my second try, but on the "easy" setting. I then tried Nine Inch Nails' "Bite the Hand That Feeds" at "medium" and got squashed like a bug. I went back and tried it at easy, and did OK. I'll try out the drums and vocals as time permits in the next week, though I'm also needing time to catch up on some recordings of Dr. Who and to continue playing Okami.

It's a great party game, and you can play online; I'm looking forward to joining with my sister and her husband Michael, the ones who gave me the game. They have it over there in Austin about four hours away, and we could play online together. It's also a great party game, and its ensemble arrangement makes it a lot more sociable than its predecessor Guitar Hero. Unfortunately, the included guitar controller isn't compatible with that game, though third party controllers are available that work with both. This of course brings up the next stage of geekdom, the fake guitar collection. "I wasn't going to touch it; I was just pointing at it." "Well, don't point at it."

[Scott Gardener]

Slight correction; the current list price for the Rock Band kit with instruments is $170, just slightly less than a Wii and a lot easier to find. Still a big gift, but it makes it a lot easier for more of you to jam with me--if you can get past the cost of a PS3 itself; the PS3 version and the X-Box 360 version can't network with each other, since they connect through their respective consoles' networks.