An excellent interactive game for the whole family

Yet again I find myself blaming my daughter. She had got addicted to playing Guitar Hero 2 for the PS2 and saw an upcoming game by the same company, but also in conjunction with MTV. Having read a few articles on the game, and also having attempted to play the GH2 game a couple of times, I decided it was an ideal Christmas present. So my quest to get the game started – I was lucky enough to be online looking at Circtuit City’s website when the game became available – within seconds I had ordered it, and a minute later it was out of stock! Luckily it arrived in time for Christmas!

Guitar Hero is one of a bunch of games that is propelling Video Games into the next generation – together with the Wii, this game that is far more interactive and real world, appeals to a wider audience as it requires no real knowledge of pre-existing video games, and is amazingly fun.

The idea of Guitar Hero was for a ‘guitarist’ to follow a moving ‘list’ of notes, and duplicate the notes on a ‘Guitar’ that also has the same colored ‘notes’ or buttons to press. The game took the concept of Dance Dance Revolution in a different direction, making it appeal to a lot more than those fitness freaks you see at the local arcade. The elements of hearing yourself play a recognizable song, while also playing a video game made the game excellent fun. The only downside to the game was that you only had the ability to play guitar or bass – and in multiplayer mode you were unable to play in career mode. Thus it was inevitable that a ‘Rock Band’ that allows you not only to play Guitar, but also play Bass, Vocals and/or drums would come along – it also was obvious that this game is aimed more at groups as the name implies.

Ok, so the game arrived and it was duly placed under the Christmas Tree. After surviving the screams, and the hugs we finally (ummm…my daughter finally) opened the present and found the humongous box.
Perhaps one thing to note straight away is that this isn’t the type of game you can simply place in your XBOX 360 and play within seconds – there is a fair bit of setup (You can play the solo guitar game pretty quickly, but as there were four of us waiting to play, then it took a while).

After a few minutes unpacking, and finally assembling all the parts – basically this is the drum kit – a fairly bad diagram demonstrates how to set it up – and setting up the ‘USB’ hub Note- this requires it’s own power outlet – so it took me a few minutes to re-organize the 700 power supplies I already had plugged in, we began to get a little excited.

Now I mentioned that there were four of us waiting to play – it should be noted that the kit comes with a drum set, a microphone and one guitar – if you want all four to play then you need to buy another guitar for the bass.

I was surprised at how sturdy everything was, and even though occasionally the legs of the drums fall off when I am moving them, the quality was a little higher than I expected for the price I paid. Anyway, after about 20 minutes of assembly, a few minutes rewiring the house and ten seconds looking at the instructions we finally turned on the game.

Luckily, everything was set up correctly and we were able to play the game in earnest. As my daughter had played Guitar Hero extensively, the initial setup was pretty easy. Choosing to start a band, we went though various setup screens and finally ended up with three decent looking punk characters ready to play.
Like Guitar Hero, you essentially are embarking on a quest for stardom. Along the way you are able to buy various items such as new guitars etc, but you are also able to buy items like Band Buses that allow you to go on extended tours, and essentially open up different areas of the country providing you with new songs to play.

The most important element to building your career is the number of fans you have. The better you play, the more fans you will get and the more money you will get….the harder the song, and the higher level you are the more you are unable to gain – there are some songs that only get unlocked on harder levels – so whilst you may want to play the game on easy mode, you’re not going to get all the songs unlocked.

Some do not like this as it really means the more skillful players will get to see more of the game – I am not bad, but anything above hard level is beyond me – luckily, if you search the web you can find cheat codes to unlock all the songs – we didn’t need that as my daughter is great at these games!

OK, so enough of that – how do I play the game? Well there are three distinct styles.

Guitarist and Bassist– these are essentially identical. A ‘fret’ board is shown, with colored notes that move down the board. The colors go from left to right – and these match buttons on your guitar – so if a red note appears – you hit the red button.
Initially you only have to hit one button at a time, but as the difficulty increases you will find yourself hitting two or three notes simultaneously. In addition, you sometimes have to hold the note down for a few seconds – this is indicated by a solid line after the note.
There are a couple of different sections that you may encounter as you play – there is a solo section – there is a separate ‘solo’ set of buttons, but you don’t have to use these – I guess it’s just to allow those people who like to show off, prove that they are mega people! You also have a ‘free’ section where you can basically hit your own notes to try and gain bonuses.
You also have a wammy bar that allows you to distort the sound.

Drum – you get a similar ‘screen’ display – but this time instead of hitting the button, you get to pound one of four drum pads with real drum sticks. There is also a bass drum pedal – while the notes are moving down, you will also see a solid white line – this corresponds to the bass pedal.
I was quite surprised how real the drumming felt – you actually are following a pretty decent beat in most cases and this involves using both hands and a foot. It’s difficult yet very rewarding.
Vocals - well even bad singers can succeed on this game. You essentially have a horizontal line moving across showing you notes - the note ‘level’ corresponds to how high you should be singing. Thus even if you don’t know the song, you are able to somehow follow along simply by trying to sing based on the ‘level’ - you are able to see where you voice is compared to the real note and adjust accordingly. The ‘board’ also has the words of the song, so you don’t have to memorize every song on the game.

I note that I only knew about 5 or 6 songs from the entire game, so I had to follow the ‘board’ – in most cases I passed, but only just – it’s far better if you actually know the song you are singing.

Bonuses etc - with all of the above you are able to gain bonuses. As you progress without making a mistake, you a multiplier increases (up to a maximum of 4) – this allows for you to attain very high scores. At the end of the song each individual performance is ranked and you are given some basic stats on how you performed – (total number of consecutive notes etc.). The higher the overall rating, the more fans you gain and the more songs you unlock.

The game is designed in such a way to show the progress of a local band into a national band. Initially you only have local venues to play in, but eventually you travel the country. This is a neat way of keeping interest in the game.

OK so that’s how you play it – but is it fun?
Yes, Yes and YES! This game is great in a group or solo. My favorite mode is as a group, because even if you fail, some superlative playing by your other members will save you and allow you to continue – in solo mode, once you fail you have to restart.
Not only is it a great feeling when you finish a song together, but it is incredibly fun. Quite often my band members would laugh at my vocals – that was until Tom Sawyer came on – I truly rocked then!
I probably had less fun than my children as I only knew about 6 or 7 songs – a lot of newer songs were on the game so I got a little lost when playing them!

Each of the different instruments (including vocals) is fun – they each have their own skill set and thus more players will be able to play the game. It’s interesting that you actually don’t need any musical skills at all to play the game – even the tone death would be able to win the game.

Perhaps the biggest bonus of the game is the online element. Not only can you buy additional songs (note this can get expensive) but you can also play with (or against) different players from all around the world. Watching my daughter thrash some Australian dude has it’s own perverse joy! The adrenalin that builds while playing online seems a little higher than playing as a group – although this is still pretty high!

Now this may sound like a perfect game to some, and in fact with the different skills required and the online elements it is one of the better games I’ve come across. However, there are elements of repetition, and some of the songs seem nearly impossible to complete.

One other side effect with me is that the game can be pretty annoying if you’re not playing, but are trying to watch a movie in a different room – the incessant tap tap tap of the drums can be very annoying!!!

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this game – it is immensely fun and manages to bring the family together. Due to the different levels and the number of songs, it will keep you busy for several weeks – although you’ll be tired of playing some of the songs by the end of it!

The variety of songs is good, ranging from some good old toe tapping songs, to your very fast rock and roll or punk songs. There were no Country songs, or rap songs so if you’re not a rock fan then you’ll probably not like this game!

The price is steep, coming in at $170 but you do get some pretty decent ‘equipment’ – some people have complained of poor quality guitars, but so far I’ve been lucky!

One final note - some may ask why should I get the game for the XBOX 360 and not the PS2 - the graphics aren't that much better, and don't really add much to the game. Well if you're into 'online' gaming then that is one reason - the other is the ability to purchase other songs - the PS2 does not allow this.