The Death of Guitar Hero

First let’s get the obvious “our thoughts are with the people who were laid off” out of the way.

Now, how does it effect Rock Banders (and gamers in general)?

Well we could see the signs at least a year ago. Rock Band 3 was announced with the “real guitar” and piano hardware, what was Guitar Hero’s response? Warriors of Rock? Although the game has a bunch of good songs (most notably Rush 2112), it seemed like a desperate last gasp in comparison to RB3.

It’s only a wonder this didn’t happen sooner. Think about it, how did Rock Band advertise? It didn’t. Game sites and word of mouth made Rock Band popular. Now look at Guitar Hero and all those Bob Seger commercials. How much did those cost?

And then of course there’s the market over saturation. Seriously: Warriors of Rock, Guitar Hero Smash Hits, Guitar Hero 4, Band Hero, DJ Hero, Guitar Hero Aerosmith, Guitar Hero 5, Guitar Hero Van Halen, DJ Hero 2, Guitar Hero Metallica. And those are just off the top of my head! What was the logic in this? I could go on for hours, so let’s get to the benefits.

The immediate benefit is that Rock Band is suddenly a monopoly over the genre. And since Harmonix is a pretty well liked by everyone, this is sort of like having Santa as president or something. If a band wants to be in a music game they pretty much have to go to Rock Band.

The next big thing is that it forces anyone who is a new entrant to the music genre or a Guitar Hero fan to go to Rock Band. This will greatly help the franchise which is frankly no prize right now either.

What are the problems? First is the people who are saying this is the death knell of music games. It’s not. It’s sort of like saying HD-DVD dropping out of the HD wars was signifying the end of HD movie discs. Yet Blu-Ray is still around.

Even then, it’s not some sort of revelation that music games are in a slump. The problem is the image this presents might turn off artists from using Rock Band.

Finally the worst part is how shaky it makes Rock Band look. If a well established game like Guitar Hero can just collapse, can the same happen to Rock Band? A couple of songs and I could have been a Guitar Hero player. That’s a lost investment in hardware, software and downloadable content. They can at least use the hardware for RB3 but even then, what happens if Harmonix closes? Then where would we turn?

Pink Floyd: Rockband

Here is how I would do a Pink Floyd Rockband game.

The Early Years:
Piper At The Gates of Dawn
-Astronomy Domine /A Really Good Starter Song\
-Interstellar Overdrive /A really fun guitar instrumental\
-Bike /Would be fun for a vocalist and drums\

A Saucerful of Secrets
-Let There Be More Light /Listen to it, it's the Doom theme!\
-Corporal Clegg /Has a Beatles/David Bowie feel to it\
-Saucerful of Secrets /Crazy Instrumental\
-See-Saw /Interesting Song\

Ummagumma
-Careful With That Axe, Eugene /An 8 Minute Pink Floyd Epic\

Meddle
-One Of These Days /Awesome guitar instrumental\
-Echoes /How could I not use this epic 20+ minutes song to wrap up the Early Years\


Hitting It Big:
Dark Side of The Moon (Full Album)
-Speak To Me/Breathe /The Drummer starts by pedaling the heartbeat, which goes into the sound effects, vocals screaming, then the awesome guitars start with a sweet drum beat. It would be amazing to sing as well\
-On The Run /I think this would be possible to do (Instrumental)\
-Time /What can you say? Classic song, epic solo\
-Great Gig In The Sky /Almost has to be done, thought of has just a piano song but has good guitar pieces and drums\
-Money /Classic song period\
-Us And Them /Great to sing\
-Any Colour You Like /EASILY Pink Floyd's best instrumental WOULD be amazing on guitar (especially if they could both be guitars\
-Brain Damage /Great Vocals\
-Eclipse /One of my favourites\

Wish You Were Here
-Shine on You Crazy Diamond (I-IX)
-Welcome To The Machine
-Have A Cigar
-Wish You Were Here

Is There Anybody Out There: The Wall (Live)
Stop. Why The Wall live you ask? "People are going to ride the whine train all day!" you say. I'll explain it in the songs.
-Master of Ceremonies: ATMOS & In The Flesh (LIVE) /These are just to great not to go together. The singer would say the announcement part. (Which is okay since there's an instrumental)\
-The Thin Ice /Great lyrics, There's an extra bit of instrumental in the live version too\
-Another Brick In The Wall Prt. 1 /Not really to much difference here\
-The Happiest Days Of Our Lives /The originals a bit better, but I also like the lives stronger beat\
-Another Brick In The Wall Prt. 2 /I'll be honest this is the only song not as good as the original, the singing and guitars don't sound as good. However the 2 minutes of extra instrumental is pretty awesome\
-Mother /Again another song with extra guitar solo, yes please\
-Goodbye Blue Sky /Both equally good. The orig. has better light parts, while the live has better dark parts\
-Empty Space & What Shall We Do Now /If for no other reason, What Shall We Do Now is the reason that you'd have the live version of the Wall. Just a cool song. There's a drum solo and a big rock ending!\
-Young Lust /The starting solo guitar makes it so worth it to go with live\
-One Of My Turns /The guitars sound a little better live, but not much difference\
-Don't Leave Me Now /Again, not much difference\
-Another Brick In The Wall Prt. 3 /The guitar is better in the live version\
-The Last Few Brick & Goodbye Cruel World /An awesome instrumental live only, would lead into a pretty much singing solo ending song\
-Hey You /I like the guitars more in this one\
-Nobody Home /Pretty much the same\
-Is There Anybody Out The /There is a ton more to do for the singer in the live version\
-Vera & Bring The Boys Back Home /Basically the same on both\
-Comfortably Numb (LIVE) /solo has an extra minute of badassedness on it. It is literally THE best guitar solo in any Pink Floyd record released. It also ends with a big rock ending.\
-The Show Must Go On /Basically the same, some extra lyrics in the live version\
-Master of Ceremonies: Atmos? & In The Flesh /Just a ton more loud, especially drums\
-Run Like Hell /I love the guitars a ton more live, and the opening speaking to the fans would be great to do\
-Waiting For The Worms & Stop /Basically the same\
-The Trial /Basically the same\
-Outside The Wall /There's nice background singing in the live one\

TOTAL SONGS: 50

Debate: The Wall
In my opinion after completing the game, or completing a challenge like: "Do the entire Wall: Live as a setlist with 5 stars on every song" then you'd unlock the original Wall. However, there's also a possibility of making it DLC, if they did this they could offer Another Brick In The Wall Part II as a freebie with the game. Or the entire Wall as a freebie with a pre-order.

Downloadable Content:
Singles
-Apples and Oranges
-Candy And A Currant Bun
-It Would Be So Nice
-Paint Box
-Point Me At The Sky

Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
-Lucifer Sam
-Matilda Mother
-Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk
-Flaming

A Saucerful Of Secrets
-Jugband Blues
-Remember A Day
-Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun

Music From The Film More
-The Nile Song
-Cymbaline
-Ibiza Bar
-More Blues
-A Spanish Piece & Dramatic Theme

Ummagumma
-The Narrow Way: Part I
-The Narrow Way: Part II
-The Narrow Way: Part III

Atom Heart Mother
-Atom Heart Mother Suite
-If
-Summer '68
-Fat Old Sun
-Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast

Meddle
-A Pillow of Winds
-Fearless
-San Tropez

Obscured By Clouds (Full Album)
-Obscured By Clouds /Instrumental\
-When You're In /Instrumental\
-Burning Bridges
-The Gold It's In The... /solo could easily be mistaken for AC/DC\
-Wot's... Uh The Deal
-Mudmen /Instrumental\
-Childhood's End
-Free Four /Cool Solo\
-Stay
-Absolutely Curtains

Animals (Full Album)
Pigs On The Wing Pt 1&2
Sheep
Dogs
Pigs (One Of Three)

Final Cut
-When The Tigers Broke Free
-Fletcher Memorial Home
-Your Possible Pasts
-The Hero's Return
-The Final Cut
-Not Now John
-The Post War Dream
-Two Suns In The Sunset

Momentary Lapse of Reason
-Learning To Fly
-The Dogs Of War
-One Slip
-On The Turning Away
-Yet Another Movie
-Terminal Frost
-Sorrow

The Division Bell
-A Great Day For Freedom
-High Hopes
-What Do You Want From Me
-Poles Apart
-Marooned /Instrumental\
-Wearing The Inside Out
-Take It Back
-Coming Back To Life
-Keep Talking
-Lost For Words

On An Island
-On An Island
-The Blue
-Take A Breath
-Red Sky At Night /The Sax would be amazing to turn into a guitar solo\
-This Heaven
-Smile
-Where We Start

Christmas Haul

• Rock Band 2: Special Edition
• JVC Everio Memory Camcorder
• 16 GB SD Card
• 500 GB External Hard drive
• Tickets to Lewis Black live (Jan 30th)
  
• Two 1400 Microsoft Points Cards
• $100 SHOP! Card
• T-Shirt with Stinger503 on it
• Chocolate Homer Simpson
• Chocolate
• Two Shirts
• Photo Album
• Gillette Fusioin Hydra Gel Moisturizing with Aloe + Cocoa Butter
• $200 dollars from grandparents
• Flashlight

Demo Review: Mirrors Edge

Mirrors Edge
Good/Bad: GOOD
Although short the Mirrors Edge leaves you wanting more. The combat and some of the more specific moves can be a bit hard to master, you can see that there's a ton of room for the game to let you move around a bit. I think 10-20 years from now Mirrors Edge will be referred to as a Concept Game for First Person Shooters, sort of like Dark Side of The Moon for Rock, in line with Portal and Doom. The basic idea is that you can jump from rooftop to rooftop, trying to escape police in a big brother dystopia. The game has a sort of Matrix feel to it. Think about it, your trying to escape police by jumping long distances in a dystopian world, disarming enemies with martial arts-like moves, with gun play, in a city, and heck there's even "bullet-time". If you were a fan of the matrix you will like this game. Hell I wouldn't mind if this game were called the Matrix.

Anyway like I said at the start I can't really get into the plot because the demo was pretty short and also like I said it left me wanting more. Eventually I will buy this game (After Fable 2, Fallout 3, Rock Band 2 and Gears of War 2), or at least rent it.

My E3 Thoughts...

E3 is/was the Christmas of my gaming religion. The Electronic Entertainment Expo is my Mecca. Unfortunately, this year I was on vacation the same week as the show. But now that I've gotten a chance to take it all in, here are my thoughts on Microsoft presentation and miscellaneous E3 items:



Microsofts Presentation

• Fallout 3 looks bloody amazing! (And I'm not kidding about the blood)


• Resident Evil 5 comes out March 13! Can you say birthday present for me?!


• Fable 2 is going to be a must by for me this year. It looks incredible!


• All I can say about the Gears of War 2 trailer they showed: Damn!


• All I can say about the Gears of War 2 demo they showed: GOD DAMN!


• How the hell am I going to afford Fable 2, Gears of War 2 and Fallout 3?


• Live Party (you and friends able to talk and go into different game instantly) sounds sweet.


• Primetime, which is basically a game show channel where you compete and possibly win prizes, looks amazing! Especially 1 vs. 100. My only concern is that Canada is gonna get screwed over again.


• The dashboard update looks great, I'm also excited about the harddrive installation idea.


• I'm uncertain about Avatars, they look better than Miis but still a little too cartoony for many people.


• Microsoft's Lips looks fun, if it works for Rock Band 2, I may get it for Christmas! I love that you can play iPod songs on it!


• 500 songs for Rock Band 2 is amazing! But not as amazing as AC/DC!


• I'm not a fan of RPG's (Role Playing Games, not Rocket Propelled Grenades) by any means, but you'd have to be an idoit to not know that Square Enix and Final Fantasy are huge for the Xbox 360.

Mischellanious

• The boys at Ensemble have done a great job with Halo Wars, it looks great, fun to control, and I'm glad it comes out next year (I can't afford more games!)


• I Am Alive (surivial game) should be good if it's done right, which Ubisoft should be able to do.


• Red Alert 3! Do I need to say more?


• Fine then, the units look awesome, the buildings look awesome, Christ the landscape looks awesome! Take a look a the water in RA2-

Compared to RA3-

Need I say more?

Ghostbuster looks okay too.

Finally I have sad post E3 news, Splinter Cell has been delayed until 2009-2010!