I don’t usually post a blog in the middle of the week, in fact I’m not sure I’ve ever done it before, I’ve usually considered subjecting people to one my blogs per week enough but I found myself with a strange urge to talk about everything to do with the upcoming rhythm games recently. I can understand the people behind Power Gig holding their event one week before E3, trying to get the news out there about their product before it gets buried under the rush of E3 previews, but it’s a little bizarre how all these rhythm games have popped up at once.

I’ve already talked briefly about Rock Band 3 and Harmonix’s hint at the inclusion of keyboards as a peripheral. Rock Band 3 is the upcoming rhythm game I’m most excited about. I’ve been a big fan of Rock Band and have played it for much more time than the average gamer, Harmonix are likely to stick to the same basic Rock Band formula they’ve used before but with a new instrument. They’re not adding crazy new gimmicks but they are adding something new to the mix and I trust that they can incorporate it properly.

Green Day: Rock Band also doesn’t sound like a bad game. I like Green Day, I like Rock Band and while I’m not massively interested in the story behind Green Day’s rise to fame it sounds like the game has a lengthy selection of Green Day songs and provides more solid Rock Band gameplay.

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock I’m not expecting great things from. It seems a bit like they took one look at Brutal Legend and went “Hey, what if we made this into a Guitar Hero game?” I didn’t mind the light narrative of Guitar Hero III but an entirely story-based Guitar Hero is taking it a bit far. It’s not that I haven’t seen some forms of narrative work well in rhythm games (think Elite Beat Agents) but I can’t see Warriors of Rock going much further than repeating “Here’s a scene that could have come from a metal album cover, now play Ace of Spades” over and over.

Now we come to the most original and possibly the most perplexing of the rhythm games coming in the near future- Power Gig: Rise of the SixString. When this game originally surfaced I didn’t quite know what to make of it, Guitar Hero/Rock Band with a real guitar is potentially a very fun idea but sadly potential alone doesn’t make a good game. It should be noted that the game is being made by a studio freshly launched out of a guitar manufacturer and I do have some worry that there is a danger of the developer focusing too much on the instruments and not enough on other aspects of the game but this really is only speculation.

I was even a little surprised to find gameplay footage of Power Gig out there because it’s not been made very obvious that there is gameplay footage available. You could assume this would mean that they’re not ready to show the gameplay but considering the buzz they’ve been making about the game and how polished the videos at the above site look that doesn’t seem to be the case. The original look of the guitar and to some extent the drum note tracks look is rather appealing although the one thing about the UI shown in those videos that I hope won’t be in the final version is the massive needless blank space in the middle of the screen. The graphics themselves don’t seem too different from what we’ve already seen in the older Guitar Hero games and I can’t say I’ve enjoyed the ad campaigns and their constant wish for me to “Rock it real”.

The singing looks pretty standard, but that’s not a bad thing. The guitar gameplay overall looks like it could be pretty cool, although I don’t know how easy it will be for the more complex hand positions to be clearly, quickly and easily conveyed to the player. The really weird reveal in regards to Power Gig was the drum kit or rather the lack of drum kit. I’m no musical expert but surely a big part of playing the drums is actually feeling the feedback from hitting the drum. Do they genuinely believe air drumming feels more realistic than having a drum peripheral or is there something else behind this? Well, even it’s not the most realistic of controllers it could be fun, without actually using it it’s not easy to know how it’s going to feel to play.

Unfortunately from what I’ve heard so far the soundtrack doesn’t seem anywhere as near as good the soundtracks of Rock Band or Guitar Hero. We haven’t seen the full song list for the games but their big names so far have been Eric Clapton, The Dave Matthews Band and Kid Rock. Perhaps these are just the people endorsing the game and the real soundtrack will have a wide variety of well-known artists, but are these endorsers really names that will resonate greatly with the audience they’re aiming this game at? Personally I think Eric Clapton and The Dave Matthews Band aren’t bad but I’m kind of hoping I can scratch the Kid Rock tracks off of the disc with a fine needle and let’s not get into the “No one is more authentic than Kid Rock” comment.

Overall the visuals don’t seem to be the games strong point, the vocals and guitar could be fun and the drums I’m rather sceptical about. However, I don’t have a great deal of confidence in the games soundtrack and this is a game where we will not only be paying for the disc, microphone and drums but also an actual electric guitar and at this point I just don’t know whether it’s going to be worth it.

-Gamer_152

I don’t usually post a blog in the middle of the week, in fact I’m not sure I’ve ever done it before, I’ve usually considered subjecting people to one my blogs per week enough but I found myself with a strange urge to talk about everything to do with the upcoming rhythm games recently. I can understand the people behind Power Gig holding their event one week before E3, trying to get the news out there about their product before it gets buried under the rush of E3 previews, but it’s a little bizarre how all these rhythm games have popped up at once.

I’ve already talked briefly about Rock Band 3 and Harmonix’s hint at the inclusion of keyboards as a peripheral. Rock Band 3 is the upcoming rhythm game I’m most excited about. I’ve been a big fan of Rock Band and have played it for much more time than the average gamer, Harmonix are likely to stick to the same basic Rock Band formula they’ve used before but with a new instrument. They’re not adding crazy new gimmicks but they are adding something new to the mix and I trust that they can incorporate it properly.

Green Day: Rock Band also doesn’t sound like a bad game. I like Green Day, I like Rock Band and while I’m not massively interested in the story behind Green Day’s rise to fame it sounds like the game has a lengthy selection of Green Day songs and provides more solid Rock Band gameplay.

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock I’m not expecting great things from. It seems a bit like they took one look at Brutal Legend and went “Hey, what if we made this into a Guitar Hero game?” I didn’t mind the light narrative of Guitar Hero III but an entirely story-based Guitar Hero is taking it a bit far. It’s not that I haven’t seen some forms of narrative work well in rhythm games (think Elite Beat Agents) but I can’t see Warriors of Rock going much further than repeating “Here’s a scene that could have come from a metal album cover, now play Ace of Spades” over and over.

Now we come to the most original and possibly the most perplexing of the rhythm games coming in the near future- Power Gig: Rise of the SixString. When this game originally surfaced I didn’t quite know what to make of it, Guitar Hero/Rock Band with a real guitar is potentially a very fun idea but sadly potential alone doesn’t make a good game. It should be noted that the game is being made by a studio freshly launched out of a guitar manufacturer and I do have some worry that there is a danger of the developer focusing too much on the instruments and not enough on other aspects of the game but this really is only speculation.

I was even a little surprised to find gameplay footage of Power Gig out there because it’s not been made very obvious that there is gameplay footage available. You could assume this would mean that they’re not ready to show the gameplay but considering the buzz they’ve been making about the game and how polished the videos at the above site look that doesn’t seem to be the case. The original look of the guitar and to some extent the drum note tracks look is rather appealing although the one thing about the UI shown in those videos that I hope won’t be in the final version is the massive needless blank space in the middle of the screen. The graphics themselves don’t seem too different from what we’ve already seen in the older Guitar Hero games and I can’t say I’ve enjoyed the ad campaigns and their constant wish for me to “Rock it real”.

The singing looks pretty standard, but that’s not a bad thing. The guitar gameplay overall looks like it could be pretty cool, although I don’t know how easy it will be for the more complex hand positions to be clearly, quickly and easily conveyed to the player. The really weird reveal in regards to Power Gig was the drum kit or rather the lack of drum kit. I’m no musical expert but surely a big part of playing the drums is actually feeling the feedback from hitting the drum. Do they genuinely believe air drumming feels more realistic than having a drum peripheral or is there something else behind this? Well, even it’s not the most realistic of controllers it could be fun, without actually using it it’s not easy to know how it’s going to feel to play.

Unfortunately from what I’ve heard so far the soundtrack doesn’t seem anywhere as near as good the soundtracks of Rock Band or Guitar Hero. We haven’t seen the full song list for the games but their big names so far have been Eric Clapton, The Dave Matthews Band and Kid Rock. Perhaps these are just the people endorsing the game and the real soundtrack will have a wide variety of well-known artists, but are these endorsers really names that will resonate greatly with the audience they’re aiming this game at? Personally I think Eric Clapton and The Dave Matthews Band aren’t bad but I’m kind of hoping I can scratch the Kid Rock tracks off of the disc with a fine needle and let’s not get into the “No one is more authentic than Kid Rock” comment.

Overall the visuals don’t seem to be the games strong point, the vocals and guitar could be fun and the drums I’m rather sceptical about. However, I don’t have a great deal of confidence in the games soundtrack and this is a game where we will not only be paying for the disc, microphone and drums but also an actual electric guitar and at this point I just don’t know whether it’s going to be worth it.

-Gamer_152