Remember when Billie Joe had really cool hair?

Harmonix is one of those developers that always seems to have made the right moves when it comes to their games. When they originally split from the Guitar Hero franchise and started Rock Band, they put a lot of thought into their product, introducing both the vocal and drum tracks into the music genre. They focused on bringing both quality and upcoming artists to their track lists, and built an expansive library of downloadable content that worked across multiple titles in the Rock Band series.

You’ve always been able to describe them as Guitar Hero‘s more mature older sibling. While Guitar Hero was releasing disc after disc of band or genre themed full retail titles, Rock Band continued to support it’s core titles with optional track packs and community events. And when Harmonix did decide to release a band-themed stand alone title, The Beatles: Rock Band, they put so much effort into making it a unique experience that the result was one of the most critically acclaimed music games of all time.

Which is why I’m a little bit disappointed this week as I play my way through Green Day: Rock Band, Harmonix’s second band-themed stand alone title, and surely the low-light of their development career to date.

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It's wall bustingly good!

It is with a sad heart that Matt and I must announce that our band, The Afternoon Frolics, is breaking up.  We had a whirlwind time recording 5 albums and doing countless world tours since the creation of the band in mid-January.  Unfortunately, when living in close proximity with one another certain facts cannot be overlooked.  For us, it was that Matt, as band leader, refused an octopus the right to be our drummer.  I found this unacceptable and we have agreed to go our separate ways.  However, more about the break up of what many people referred to as “a modern day Herman’s Hermits” later.  Now it’s time for me to talk to you about what made our career possible: LEGO Rock Band.

Let me start by saying that I am a huge fan of the Rock Band series.  Anyone that read what I wrote about it in our countdown of the best games of the previous decade would know my feelings about Harmonix and it’s rock creation.  From the outset they put out a strong product that showed that they were serious about what they were doing.  All the while LEGO had been turning it’s hand to games with the creation of the LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones thanks to the fine people at Traveller’s Tales. Harmonix, most likely to compete in the family friendly Wii market, teamed up with TT Fusion to create a LEGO rock spectacular.  Apparently only half of those at TT Fusion were on board with the concept, who wanted to make sure they “weren’t just skinning one franchise on another”.  Once their fears were allayed production was begun in late 2008, with release in November 2009.

And apparently we’re so lazy that we only bothered to pick it up in 2010.

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Whoops, wrong Tesla

Hands up who’s surprised? No-one? Excellent.

Somebody over at MTV Multiplayer was being particularly observant this week (or simply Googling “Guitar Hero 6″ over and over again, MTV can afford people to do that), because they’ve uncovered a recent interview with hard rock band Tesla in which they state they’ll have music in Guitar Hero 6. Don’t believe me?

Guitar Hero seemingly receives equal amounts of praise and criticism. Rude offers his opinion. “I teach guitar when I’m not touring and a lot of people start in on that. A lot of people complain, but I think it’s a good thing. Even if people don’t learn to play guitar, it’s exposing them to all sorts of cool guitar-based music that they wouldn’t have ever heard otherwise.” As far as the actual selection of ‘Modern Day Cowboy’ for Guitar Hero 6 went, Hannon explains, “They (the video game makers) chose it. Honestly, there’s some pirate versions of ‘Modern Day Cowboy’ that people have made up for the game out there. They did ask us what we would request. That was one of our three that we wanted.”

-Guitarist Frank Hannon figures “oh, what the heck”

So apparently Neversoft have approached the band, which I’d say practically confirms the fact that the game is at least in it’s planning phase. But hey, it’s not really jaw-dropping news, is it? Captain Obvious is feeling a little emasculated by the whole thing.

Check out the whole Tesla interview over at Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, or peruse the MTV news post. Let’s hope the song list is better for the next installment!

Not that I’d know, considering that I lent my copy of Rock Band 2 to Mark a long time ago and now his housemates won’t let me have it back, but Harmonix has released a new software patch for the simu-rock title.  The patch fixes a fixes a few compatibility issues, a couple of gameplay tweaks and gets the game ready for the upcoming Rock Band Network.  Here’s the details as Harmonix designer Dan Teasdale tells them:

• Rock Band Network Audition Mode. Available from the “Extras” menu on Xbox 360 versions of Rock Band 2, members of the Rock Band Network can now upload songs from their PC’s and audition their songs using our suite of song audition and testing tools. Currently in closed beta, the Rock Band Network will welcome authors to open beta in the coming weeks!
• “Sort by Stars” in Quickplay. If you hit the “Sort” button on the Song Select screen, you’ll come to a brand new sort that orders songs by the star ratings that you’ve achieved on each song.
• Background Downloading in the Music Store. Purchasing songs from the Rock Band Music Store now no longer requires you to wait for a song to download before you can download another song. You can now queue up downloads to your heart’s content, which is going to be incredibly handy with some of the amazing DLC that’s coming out over the next few weeks and months.
• Xbox 360 Wireless Microphone Support. Rock Band 2 now supports Xbox 360 Wireless Microphones, like the Lips microphone.
• Chord HOPO improvements: If you’ve played The Beatles: Rock Band, you’ll notice much more robust handling of chord hammer-ons and pull-offs. This patch implements those changes in Rock Band 2 to provide a more natural chord hammer-on/pull-off experience.
• Velocity Sensitivity on Ion Drum Kits: Ion Drum kits now support velocity sensitivity in both drum fills and Drum Freestyle mode.

All of this sounds great, especially the DLC background downloading.  It’s no problem on my new internet connection, but on the old connection I’d invariably download all my new tracks through the Xbox console just so I could actually use my console in the proceeding hours.

The patch will be downloaded the next time you boot up Rock Band 2 and connect to Xbox Live.  The PlayStation 3 is also getting the same upgrade as soon as the patch makes it’s way through the PlayStation Network certification.  You can check out the detailed forum post here.

Guitar Hero would have made itself top of the bill

Let’s face it. Rhythm games are over-saturated and, if you’ll excuse the pun, played-out. There is never really much new gameplay-wise to enjoy in a new release, long time players have lost most of the challenge by practicing too much, and the song catalogues accompanying most new titles are uninspiring at best. Drop on top of this a full retail price every time a developer feels like grinding out a new game, and it’s not really very hard to see why many gamers are over the entire music game trend.

Which is why, amongst this slowly composting genre, it’s lovely to recieve the breath of fresh air that is provided by The Beatles: Rock Band.

Now, before I gush (and gush I will, trust me), let’s do a little checklist on my list of gripes above.

Technically, there isn’t much new gameplay-wise in TB:RB. There are a few new mechanics that I’ll get to in a second, but overall there isn’t much changed here since Rock Band 2.

The difficulty also won’t exactly challenge any experienced player, with the exception of maybe a few of the trickier songs. If a player is comfortable alternating 3-button chords, then there isn’t much to seperate them from 5 starring every track.

And yes, you will be slugged (at least initially) full retail price for your copy of The Beatles: Rock Band.

But all that can be easily forgiven when you play the game, and discover the beautiful way in which Harmonix has collaborated with Apple Corps to make such a brilliant tribute to the life and times of the Beatles.

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I’ve only just sorted myself out with a copy of The Beatles: Rock Band, but according to VG247 it’s already been blitzed by Guitar Hero 5 in the UK’s first week of sales.  Not only was TB:RB outsold by the already released Batman: Arkham Asylum, but also failed to rank over GH5 and Colin McRae: DiRT 2, debuting it at 4th on the UK game sales charts.

Having just played the game through, we be thinking that Beatles:RB ain’t getting the creedence it deserves, but that’s how the coo-goo-gachoob crumbles I suppose.  Guitar Hero 5‘s aggressive “buy a copy, get everything else we ever did free” marketing would appear to be working for them.

I’ll post up our TB:RB review soon, it’s in the draft stages.

Take a look at the statistics…

Yeah, well, same to you Lego rocker

The block-heads at MTV Multiplayer have posted up an exclusive trailer for the upcoming Lego Rock Band, which shows off the rather destructive element that Lego is able to bring to the rhythm game genre.

We haven’t seen too much aroud the web about the title, we’ve all been giggling far too concerned about Guitar Hero: Van Halen, but the trailer looks highly entertaining. Players appear to be able to rock out so hard that they destroy the environment around them. I would guess (just guessing, no facts!) that the amount of destruction caused by your rock is going to be relative to how well you play, kind of like a current-gen Bust-A-Groove. There’s no confirmed complete track listing yet, but I’d be eager to see it when it does.

Lego Rock Band is due out for the final quarter of 2009. Until then, take a look at the trailer, it’s pretty damn cool. Lookit the little Lego hammer-ons!

Can you feel the emotion yet? No? Yeah, me neither.

Well here’s one I didn’t see coming. News from the gang over at GamingBits, they’ve posted up a video of (I assume) in-game footage of Xbox avatars playing as a band.

Like I said … didn’t see that one coming.

Frankly, while I completely support the integration of avatars in as many things as possible, Guitar Hero? Really? LEGO Rock Band, maybe, but it kind of ruins the last shred of what they call their “artistic style” if you ask me. If they’re going to drop this in, well, why not Miis too? Sure, the Wii only offers a more basic avatar system compared to the 360, but why not? They already look out of place, why not just go the whole hog?

They’ve worked so long making realistic animations for drumming, guitar and vocals, which is something that your average avatar can’t replicate. Watch the video. It looks like the singer is about to take a massive bite out of the microphone, because his mouth has no animation while singing.

Take a look, it’s kind of hypnotic, like a lava-lamp in a car crash.

In related news, Activision finally dropped the full setlist for the upcoming title. If you’re interested, hit the “Read More”, I won’t make a nine mile post to take up the front page. It’s looks like a great selection, definitely a step up from the ecclectic choice of GH: World Tour.

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