Rock Band is the New Karaoke
Rock Band was released today, and I’m fortunate enough to have a roommate who was willing to dump $160 on a single video game. He’s had it pre-ordered/paid off for months, and all we had to do was waltz into Game Crazy and pick the game up. If you have no idea what Rock Band is, it’s “Guitar Hero” for a complete band: guitar, bass, drums and vocals (ideally, all four people play at once). If you don’t know what Guitar Hero is, how did you manage to get on the internet? Anyway, I’ve been excited for this game for quite a while as the inevitable evolution of the Guitar Hero formula — but mostly because I REALLY wanted to play a real drumming game as a way to live out my secret drummer fantasy.
Unlike the majority of rhythm games, which are basically an abstraction of playing a real instrument, the drum parts in Rock Band (in expert mode) are almost hit-for-hit exact reproductions of the original drum parts (translated to pseudo-five piece kit). Except for the first couple tunes, this is nearly impossible unless you’re a real drummer. On hard however, the drum parts are dumbed down a bit (lots of syncopated bass drum hits are skipped, trickier patterns on high-hats/ride are distilled down to straight eighths and sixteenths and, for example, ghost notes on the snare are ignored). If you can generally get your limbs to operate independently of one another and know where to place your bass drum hits, hard’s your mode; this is perfectly do-able for me. The Rock Band drum controller is set up for right-handed drummers to play open-handed. Unfortunately for me, a left-hander who has learned to play simple beats open-handed on right-handed kits, the drums CANNOT be reconfigured (even lefty-flip mode has no effect on drums) at all. The left-most drum is snare, the second drum is generally your high-hat, the third drum alternates between ride and tom (depending on the part of the song) and the right-most drum is your crash/splash. Obviously, the aforementioned bass pedal controls your bass drum. If you Ringo real drums, be prepared to learn how to play drums again; my rhythm hand is my left and I tend to lead with it, which causes problems, being forced to use it for snare on Rock Band. This was a serious setback for me even after quite a bit of practice.
Anyway, Ground Kontrol, the retro arcade you have probably heard me rant about, had a Rock Band release party tonight. They had the game, with all songs unlocked, hooked up to their PA system, and registered teams got to go up on stage and perform in front of a supportive live audience. Rock Band fits the bar environment perfectly; the new karaoke. There were a couple guys there that were decent at their respective instruments, but I think my roommates (the only two guys I know that are better at rhythm games than me) and I made a pretty good goddamn team together. It was a total blast. After songs, I would head back to the bar for another beer and people would seriously give me “the nod”; “Nice, dude.” Fucking hilarious. A couple of the other groups even requested me to play drums for them (a moving rendition of Radiohead’s Creep was a crowd favorite). Before taking off for the night, we finished with Rush’s Tom Sawyer with the Ground Kontrol owner on vocals. Partly due to the crazy time changes in it and partly because I had had five Pabst tallboys, oh but mostly because it’s fucking RUSH, I had to set drums to medium difficulty. We ended on a pretty good note, I think.
Now the shitty part: I’ve had problems with my right wrist basically ever since I started skateboarding. I skate goofy so it’s my lead wrist and, consequently, what I use to catch myself when I fall — I’ve fallen pretty hard on it more than a couple times in my twelve years of skating. It’s bothers me in everyday life often; in high school playing viola was getting exceedingly difficult, and even seven years later if I spend too much time in one sitting playing guitar or bass or typing, it really starts to bother me. Before I left for Oregon, I was playing a lot of drums with Adam, but would have to take frequent breaks (and alternate instruments) to allow my burning wrist a rest. Well I don’t know what it is about Rock Band (maybe that you can’t adjust the tilt of the drums, only the height), but my wrist was REALLY bothering me even before we headed off to Ground Kontrol. After a couple hours of playing at the arcade, it’s KILLING me, and visibly swollen in one part. For whatever reason I thought it would be a good idea to play one more song when I got home, and now my wrist is completely useless. Typing (yeah, this blog is costing me), supporting weight — it all sends sharp shooting pains up my arm. That’s a good sign, right?
I’m going to take a couple days off the game, as well as guitar playing, and we’ll see what happens. If I’ve sustained permanent damage from a rhythm game, well…better to burn out than to fade away, I guess.
November 21st, 2007 at 6:24 am
Oh, in honor of the “What’s Your Favorite Plural Word?” post, me and Nick’s primary group on Rock Band is named Smithereen. Singular, of course.
November 21st, 2007 at 7:42 am
my roomate got Rock Band yesterday as well…i hate to say it, but Guitar Hero is dead. Rock Band blows Guitar Hero out of the water…it saddens me, because I LOVE Guitar Hero, but I really think GH3 is the last we will ever see.
I don’t really like the guitar parts though in Rock Band. they seem very dumbed down to me
November 21st, 2007 at 7:42 am
but the drumming is fucking rad
November 21st, 2007 at 1:10 pm
whos justin howard
November 21st, 2007 at 1:11 pm
dude burning wrist new band name
November 21st, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Yeah, the guitar parts are a lot easier, but it’s so much more fun playing with a full group that it doesn’t really bother me much.
Oh, and GHIII isn’t going to be the last Guitar Hero. EA bought publishing rights to both franchises for a reason.
November 21st, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Singing and playing guitar at the same time = Radically awesome bitchiness
November 21st, 2007 at 4:46 pm
One of my roommates was trying that last night, guitar on expert, vocals on hard. He did pretty well, but you really have to know the lyrics. Plus in the parts where the vocalist is supposed to hit the “tambourine”, you have to instead make your own tambourine noise, which makes you look even more ridiculous than you already do playing a miniature plastic guitar and singing to your TV.
November 22nd, 2007 at 7:46 am
Someone couldn’t look MORE ridiculous playing rock band if they had their dick hanging out of their pants and were doing “Roquette’s” while juggling dildos.
November 22nd, 2007 at 6:44 pm
I actually think that’s a little more ridiculous.
November 23rd, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Don’t let Chris lie, he’s over here right now singing his heart out.
November 23rd, 2007 at 9:56 pm
I hope you’re serious.
November 24th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Very serious
November 24th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
My roommate bought this for PS3 and it is quite awesome, but I fucking hate the guitar and it’s not backwards compatible with the GH3 guitar (unless they’ve fixed that in the last 3 days). The strummer on the guitar feels so awkward, but it’s fun to team up regardless. Sadly, the most we’ve gotten is guitar and drums. I think I’m gonna buy another guitar when I get back home though.
November 24th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
On 360 it’s backwards compatible with the GH3 guitar. I like the new guitar, but I know what you mean about the new strummer. I love the fact that it’s silent, but it doesn’t give you enough of a “click” to feel the rhythm. They need to make one with a silent strummer, but with enough tactile feedback to still FEEL when you strum. I have the same problem with the bass pedal on the drums; tough to feel when you’ve hit it correctly.
November 25th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Yeah, it’s a toss up. I like that the guitar itself doesn’t make so much noise, but if there’s a series of the same note in a row, I get completely lost just because I can’t feel where I am.
Supposedly the PS3 not being backwards compatible is just a mistake. I’m hoping they correct it soon.
November 25th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Singing was fun until I tried “Ballroom Blitz” and then it just became more annoying than funny. When I sang “Dead or Alive” it was the highlight of everyones lives though. Awesome exit the other night after you drooled beer on yourself by the way Jesse. I guess you’re married and that’s life.