Guitar Hero Developer Announces Rock Band

figgen writes "Gamers and music fans have been waiting on details for the next Harmonix project, now that the company has been purchased. The development team behind Guitar Hero announced Rock Band via USA Today. The title is coming to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and will expand on the concept by adding singing and drumming into the mix. 'With MTV as a partner, Harmonix was able to sign deals with the major forces in the music publishing industry and has access to the master recordings of music from popular artists. Electronics Arts is also involved, and will use its global reach to help distribute the game.' GameSpot had a chance to sit down with Harmonix's Alex Rigopulos and EA Partners' David DeMartini to talk about the upcoming title."

Comments

Drummania comparison

[bugbeak]

I find it a bit sad that Konami's own GuitarFreaks and Drummania series hasn't seen much coverage at all. I haven't played Guitar Hero, but to those who have, how do they compare?

Re:Drummania comparison

[Mattintosh]

1) I'm a non-PS2 player that heard about Guitar Hero and knew it was highly regarded without ever playing it. I had never heard of Guitar Freaks until after I had played Guitar Hero. So there's a marketing issue, at the very least.

2) Apparently, other guitar games lack the over-the-top stereotyping of the characters presented in the game that GH has. I've not played any of the others, but I would assume that the "fun level" just isn't the same without the atmosphere GH builds.

3) Guitar Freaks uses a different control scheme (and from what I gathered from the description, IMHO, it's probably "clunky").

Re:Drummania comparison

[Saige]

Guitar Hero is significantly better than GuitarFreaks. I played GF a couple times at the arcade, and it just didn't do a lot for me. Guitar Hero, on the other hand, just seems to nail it a lot better. I don't know what it is - and it's not just the fact that GF does Japanese Music while GH does more American rock music either, as I know that I much prefer the Japanese DDR songs to the licensed stuff on the US home versions, and would much rather play on a grey market imported arcade machine.

I hope they manage the drums well - I do love DM, and wish there was a machine close to me to play on, and if Rock Band is at least as good, then I'll be very, very happy.

Re:Drummania comparison

[MDiehr]

The three big differences are: 1. Setlist - GH has Western Rock and Metal, I'm not sure how to describe Guitar Freak's setlist. 2. Number of frets - Guitar Freaks has 3, and Guitar Hero has 5. Guitar Hero emphasizes scales and chords a lot more. 3. How forgiving the timing is - Guitar Freaks requires a lot more precision to hit notes. Also, GH has a whammy bar.

Re:Drummania comparison

[p0tat03]

Having played both, here's why I prefer GH to GF:

1 - Actual songs. Guitar Hero is only 50% about the game, the other 50% is the sheer fun factor of playing some great songs. I was never able to get into Guitar Freak's pseudo-electronica... It just didn't fit with the guitar thing.
2 - 3 vs. 5 frets. This is huge. Guitar Freaks was sometimes too easy because of the fact that your fingers never truly move.
3 - Better interface. The bottom-to-top scrolling lines got confusing when the game was going real fast. Guitar Hero's top-to-bottom scrolling with bigger icons and a "fade in" made the notes much easier to hit and less confusing to play.
4 - C'mon, who doesn't want to play Free Bird?

Re:Drummania comparison

[NeilTheStupidHead]

I agree. The GH controller is far more intuitive to pick up and play. My neighbour and I both have a copy and we get the multiplayer mode going at most of our parties. Everyone loves it. GH definity has the humour factor too; for those who have never seen some of the unlockables, there is a 'fish' guitar with the following description: "This is a highly practical and effecient guitar. Because it looks like a fish."

Re:Drummania comparison

[Masami Eiri]

I love that guitar. It goes really well with Judy Nails (the character I usually use) too, so its win-win.

Re:Drummania comparison

[Punch-Drunk Slob]

While GH's gameplay feels much more true to real guitar playing, I find that I like GF's songs better, because new songs that are really good tend to blow me away. We're already familiar with the classic tunes (still great, though) featured in GH.

Whew

[travdaddy]

For a second there, I thought he had announced he was creating his own rock band. I can only imagine him playing a song hitting only five buttons while the fans all put out mats and step on them.

Excellent Idea

[onkelonkel]

If you're going to dream, dream big. Imagine if you applied that standard (play your own instruments, write your own songs), to popular music. The Billboard top 100 would have about 2 dozen songs left.

Single player mode?

[Daetrin]

I can't read TFA from work, but does it mention what the single player options are? The coverage on GamesAreFun.com indicated that the proposed solution to not having enough people locally to form a band on a regular basis is to do so online. That's good and all for those people who like online play, but all the friends i have who might be interested in playing a game like this are local, and when they're not available i'm not really interested in trying to find random strangers on the net to play with. So is there a single player option or are you just out of luck in that case?

Re:Single player mode?

[Belgand]

Nothing, so far as I know, has been announced yet, but I would assume it's much like Guitar Hero/Karaoke Revolution career modes have already been: you play solo with a computer-controlled band and the co-op stuff is kept separate. Basically like how Guitar Hero II had co-op guitar/bass (or rhythm guitar), but instead they'll likely make it into a proper career mode (you have a band name, have to beat songs to advance, etc.).

Re:Single player mode?

[gad_zuki!]

Worse, check out this quote:

"You could have one guitarist in Germany and another one in Texas, a drummer in New York and a singer from somewhere else, and they can play together online," EA's David DeMartini says.

Germany? Not with 200+ ms lag from an overseas connection. I hope they work out latency issues as low-fi, choppy, and unreliable best define VOIP aplications. Music is going to require more bandwidth and less latency than VOIP stuff the game industry can't get right today. I can see this as a problem with the vocals, but Im sure the "drumming' and "guitar" will be send as midi (or something close to it), but still you're going to need god's own internet connection to do this properly to avoid stuttering and keep the timing intact. One laggy connection will ruin the entire song. Clipping vocals will get annoying fast.

I also hope levels and compression (not the zip kind, think normalizing) are taken seriously with the levels. I'd hate to try this only to not be able to hear the vocals or having vocals at 10x the loudness of everything else.

It's known as a "game."

[Rob T Firefly]

I'm gonna produce a Playstation game that just flashes up some scrolling text, stating the following:
Learn to play REAL instruments, and write your OWN fucking songs.

Will that come before or after the ones that scroll "drive your OWN fucking NASCAR vehicle," "join your OWN fucking Major League Baseball team," or "get your OWN fucking BFG 9000 to blow up REAL demons from Hell?"

Re:It's known as a "game."

[drsquare]

It's not practical to drive a car or play baseball in your room, but you can play a guitar.

Re:It's known as a "game."

[halivar]

"get your OWN fucking BFG 9000 to blow up REAL demons from Hell?"

I am intrigued by your idea, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:It's known as a "game."

[bfields]

Will that come before or after the ones that scroll "drive your OWN fucking NASCAR vehicle," "join your OWN fucking Major League Baseball team,"

Yeah, actually. I never did get the whole "let's pay money to watch *somebody else* play a game" thing.

Genius way to develop this game.

[kinglink]

First they release Karaoke revolution, a game that's popular in Japan and now in America.

Karaoke revolution 2 introduces Duets for Americans.

Then they release Guitar hero, a game that explodes in popularity.

Then they release Guitar hero 2, introducing the cooperative guitar players.

And now they release Rock band, a game which takes everything they learned and adds drums into it. Plus working with EA probably helps them get online working which can only improve the game.

Hell I could even mention frequency and amplitude for timing and visualization but the point is that they essentially made every part of this game into it's own game except for drumming. Very cool Harmonix.

Re:Genius way to develop this game.

[Lifyre]

Donkey Konga took care of the drums for them... At least as much as beating a monkey... you know I'm just gunna stop there and cut my losses.

Re:Genius way to develop this game.

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus working with EA probably helps them when they want to make 20 sequels of basically the same game for the next 20 years.

Fixed.

Re:My plan

[dollar99]

I think you're confusing the concept of "work" vs. "entertainment". I love my FPS but I'm not gonna buy a gun and learn to snipe.

Oh, dear...

[Rob T Firefly]

I'm worried about the singing aspect. While it's lots of fun to use a simple row of controller buttons to trigger pre-recorded power chords and sound like a pro, there's really no way to amateur-proof singing. I am not a fan of "Karaoke Revolution," or just plain Karaoke for that matter.

Re:Oh, dear...

[DarkGreenNight]

Girls tend to like singing games more than boys, boys tend to like GH-like games more than girls. So with this you've got a game you can play with a member of the opposite sex. Unless you both like the same instrument, of course, then you'll have to play with your second preference.

And now we only have to mix it also with dancing on a mat while doing moves seen by a cam. Make yourself a Music Idol! (gosh, I've just imagined the steretypical slashdotter doing this, I gotta cleanse my mind)

Re:Oh, dear...

[BoberFett]

You realize of course that suggesting that a girl sing does nothing to help people on this site.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Joe Random]

Pay over 400 bucks apiece for a console and the peripherals.

Or go to a bar, find the biggest redneck you can, insinuate that he likes guys and that you slept with his mother, and street fight for real...

I guess kombat's more fun when it's manufactured.

Re:My plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's going to sell. Why don't you make a game where you tell people to go buy a shotgun and shoot some real zombies?

Re:My plan

[Anonymous Coward]

I will write a mod for your game that pops up a dialog that says: "I could play that! Like, if I wanted to.."

(insert air guitar flail here)

http://www.bitworksmusic.com/

Will it be playable live?

[Belgand]

While this sounds great (for everyone except us Wii owners) I'm wondering exactly how multiplayer will work when you're playing live with three other people. Simply put there doesn't appear to be enough space on the screen to put up notation for four. Even putting up bars for two players was a little tight in previous games, but now you'll have to deal with guitar and bass tracks (vertical if they stick with the past), a vocal track (probably horizontal) and a completely unknown style of drumming track to display notes.

While I love that they're implementing online features it might turn out to be the only effective way to play the game.

Hope it hits the WII

[mheddings]

I read a quote from one of the developers on Kotaku so I'm hoping this gets done.

Absolutely, we will at some time bring Rock Band to every console of significance and in doing so we will customize and tailor the play experience to take into account the weakness of the console and the strengths of the consoles," he said. "I think (the Wii) is something that holds enormous potential for music games.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/wii/wii-rock-band-likely- 248882.php

Re:Hope it hits the WII

[EvilGoodGuy]

I know that I can't wait for a WiiGuitar type game. Might be possible to make a great game with the Wiimate/Nunchuk as well!

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Aladrin]

You're trolling, but I'm gonna bite anyhow.

Yeah, the music lessons and years of practice don't enter into the equation at all, eh? Not everyone is a musical god and can just look at an instrument and play it. The non-musicians of the world sometimes actually enjoy to pretend to make music in a game environment.

Games are for having fun, and Guitar Hero really hit a chord (haha) with some people. They obviously expect that Rock Band will, too.

As insightful as jello brand gelitan.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

There are games that are simulation of real life events, and those that are completely fantasy based. In most cases, it would be better if more people did the actual activity rather than the dumbed down simulation ( excluding the obvious GTA, first person shooter genre).

that being said, simulating activities that you can't actually do, or would be dangerous to do makes more sence. This might not be a popular "opinion" here, but from everything I've witnessed, its probably true.

Re:As insightful as jello brand gelitan.

[starwed]

You do realize that many real life rockstars play GH, right? And that trained drummers are often better than guitarists at it? :)

Re:As insightful as jello brand gelitan.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

obviously. Just like real NFL stars play madden. They did not become rockstars by playing Guitar Hero, just like NFL stars didn't make it to the NFL by playing madden. If you actually do the real thing enough, obviously you don't need to worry about not doing the real thing enough. But if a pro Football player did nothing but play madden, he wouldn't be a good football player for much longer. I suspect he same would be true of a rockstar, although to a lesser extent.

It doesn't change the fact that GH is a derivative game, requiring zero original thought.

Re:As insightful as jello brand gelitan.

[SlamMan]

You can pick up a guitar, and learn to play in a few years of actual practice or you can have fun with Guitar Hero after 2 or 3 minutes of figuring out the controller.

Re:As insightful as jello brand gelitan.

[Rob T Firefly]

They did not become rockstars by playing Guitar Hero, just like NFL stars didn't make it to the NFL by playing madden.

No, but they probably had fun playing those games, which is what games are meant to be for. I doubt many GH players retain any illusions about the efficacy of the toy guitar connected to their XBox as an actual guitarist training tool.

To put it another way, I'm currently reading a detective novel. It's quite an enjoyable read, but should I be upset because the characters in the book aren't handling things totally as professionals in the real world would, rendering the novel useless as PI training material? Along those lines, am I shirking some social responsibility by enjoying a fictional representation of crime-solving instead of dropping my day job, undergoing private investigator training, opening up my own detective agency, and solving a real murder case? Or is it acceptable that I am simply enjoying reading a book that was crafted for the enjoyment of its readers?

Re:As insightful as jello brand gelitan.

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsflash: not everyone who plays Guitar Hero wants to be a guitar player. I play DDR, yet I don't even dance at parties--just not my thing.

US drum game patent

[Anonymous Coward]

if i remember right, there was some obscure arcade company that held a drum arcade game patent in the US. that was supposedly the reason why konami hasn't already brought guitarfreaks/drummania and why harmonix ended up doing guitar hero. otherwise, we'd probably be playing a 3-fret guitar game with a drum component already, either by konami themselves or contracted out to harmonix to add english titles to the mix.

what i'm wondering is if harmonix and/or ea sorted that out.

Re:US drum game patent

[ProppaT]

I highly doubt this, seeing that Namco brought Taiko Drum Master to the US.

Drat

[aarku]

Drumming with the Wii remote and nunchuck ala Rayman Raving Rabbids would have been fun. Is the Wii not beefy enough for their intentions or something?

Re:Drat

[KlomDark]

I've been jokingly referring to RRR as Drum Hero. Although they could sure go for some better songs than "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" - that's a little difficult "Dude, check it out, I just aced the Drum Solo part of GJWHF!!" falls a little bit flat.

Re:Drat

[steelcobra]

I have a feeling that it's more because the multi-core designs of the PS3 and 360 can process the three different input types better. The vocals alone will take up a large chunk of processor time to rate scoring. That and they want the graphics to really stand out, something that the Wii isn't really as good at.

And, more likely than not, they want to build a player-matching system that isn't dependant on an esoteric numeric code.

In a Dream World....

[flitty]

This game would work online, cross platform (Guitars handled by ps3/x360, and the drums handled by the wii with 2 wiimotes), and would let you write your own songs, and submit them to an online archive. Then, people could use these songs to dance to DDDR3revolutionextreeeem! I hope they get more master tracks. Listening to that Guy do his best Kurt Cobain on "heart shaped box" on GH2 was pretty damn painful. Same with the guy who was singing the RATM song. But man, was it fun to play John the Fisherman with the real Primus Track.

Re:In a Dream World....

[RCSInfo]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who took issue with the singing in GH2. While I understand the great reviews for such a fun game, I couldn't believe how many reviewers actually liked the singing. For as much money as this series brings in, you think they could bring in the original artist for a few tracks. How much does Zack de la Rocha fetch for a performance these days? Matthew Sweet? The lead singer of Warrant?

Of course this doesn't work for Nirvana or Lynyrd Skynyrd. But at least they could do a little better covers.

Re:In a Dream World....

[KristoferP]

Your dream world is my private hell

GF

[Ydbhon]

GuitarFreaks? Easier even with 3 frets? GF is leagues harder than Guitar Hero. Go look up tatsujins for that game. Search "Concertino in Blue" in YouTube and then tell me that's not easier than the hardest of what GH offers.

Re:GF

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever. If you're looking for a challenge, how about picking up a REAL guitar instead of a toy?

If you can do this, or this, or this, or this, maybe you'd earn some real respect instead of bragging about keeping up with some game.

Re:GF

[Ydbhon]

What are you, stupid? That's totally irrelevant to what's being discussed here.

Re:GF

[MDiehr]

Guitar Hero 2 has plenty of ridiculously difficult songs.

Six - http://youtube.com/watch?v=0BKazzknBaA
Misirlou - http://youtube.com/watch?v=zLSxsASqWd4
Jordan - http://youtube.com/watch?v=y33AYT7p0-c

I can't say for a fact that they are harder than Concertino in Blue (It's hard to see the little bars in youtube vids), but it appears there is more than enough challenge for all but the most devoted guitar hero/freak in both games.

Re:GF

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, are you an idiot or what? Oh wait a minute, you somehow thought you were actually playing a GUITAR! Impress me by actually playing any of those songs note for note, fool. Or go back to your toy.

Re:GF

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a clue...

It's the 21st century, and we're discussing gaming. No one gives a shit what a bunch of smelly lice-infested hippies and rednecks did thirty years ago. GH sucks because all the songs, except for that Trogdor the Burninator one, are stupid old nostalgia gimmicks from our parents' and grandparents' epoch. At least GF has some modern and relevant songs. But still, at the arcades even GF sits around mostly unused while everybody plays DDR or ParaPara.

BTW, the guitar was obsolete the instant the 1200, 303, 808, and 909 were all available... hence GH and GF being gimmick nostalgia games. So who gives a crap if anyone can play the real thing "note for note" as you say. That's right up there with punched-card operator in the relevance department.

Re:GF

[shimage]

I haven't played GuitarFreaks, but looking at a youtube video of it, it looked hard. Hard enough that I probably couldn't pass it. But for it to be harder than Jordan, it would have to be on account of the tighter timings that I have heard GF requires. For some bizarre reason, I can't for the life of me pass "Psychobilly Freakout" on expert, but "Misirlou" is a breeze. Also, "Free Bird" is something of a marathon, if you're used to the length of songs on typical rhythm games. That said, Guitar Hero is much more lenient than other rhythm games I have played, so you can miss quite a bit of notes and still get through the song with 5 stars.

The obvious joke you've been waiting for

[Programmer_In_Traini]

>> The development team behind Guitar Hero announced Rock Band

and later on they will announce Rock Star, where you become popular for your controversial songs and famed for holding off even more controlversial shameless fame-seeking attorneys.

I hope...

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be real cool to smash up a virtual hotel room and throw the TV out the window.

Guitar Hero = PaRappa the Rappa

[illeism]

Playing guitar is entirely different than playing guitar hero. Guitar hero is rhythm based, and has nothing in common with real guitar playing other than the rough shape of the instrument. Comparing guitar hero to actually playing is like (insert OMG bad car analogy about hot grits on nat portman with a pony overlord named c.neil in soviet russia)
That would be why drummers do better... all they have to do is hit something...

Re:My plan

[tepples]

So what company wants to publish your music composition software for a PlayStation platform?

Still, if I write my own songs, play real instruments, and put my recordings on the Internet, then how do I keep from being sued by a major music publisher for alleged subconscious infringement of copyright? See Wikipedia articles My Sweet Lord and Cryptomnesia, citing Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music, 420 F. Supp. 177 (SDNY 1976).

YMRA EHT NIOJ

[tepples]

I love my FPS but I'm not gonna buy a gun and learn to snipe. Or you could get hired by an army recruiter, and the army will buy you a gun and pay you to learn to snipe.

Jazz Flute!

[PhinMak]

I hosted a party this weekend and one of the attendees was a coder from Harmonix. Some of the guys there were leaning on him to let the cat out of the bag as to this press release. He finally relented and told us that the new game was called "Flute Hero" and in it you had to master different crazy jazz songs. We were kindof suspicious, but then he jumped into this story about how everyone went nuts over Ron Burgundy's ability to play the jazz flute. At this point he started pantomiming game play. Funny! We were all drunk and actually believed him. In retrospect it was some pretty quick thinking on his part...

Play the mistakes a measure later

[tepples]

Germany? Not with 200+ ms lag from an overseas connection. If the rule of the game is that any mistakes in the song are played as corresponding mistakes one measure later on other players' machines, then the gameplay can survive a 1000 ms ping.

16:9 divided by four

[tepples]

Simply put there doesn't appear to be enough space on the screen to put up notation for four. That's why the 360-bit consoles support widescreen televisions. On your 16:9 TV, each player gets a 4:9 column for notation. It worked in the Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix series.

Re:16:9 divided by four

[Belgand]

Perhaps. It'll remain to be seen how well it works for this game, especially since the vocals will likely be notated horizontally while guitar and bass will probably continue to be notated vertically.

The greater issue is that if it only really works for a 16:9 this will be rather unpleasant for the vast majority of gamers who do not own a 16:9 display.

Re:16:9 divided by four

[tepples]

the vast majority of gamers who do not own a 16:9 display. Tell that to the developer of Ninety-Nine Nights. Its text is small enough to be unreadable on a standard definition TV. How many high-definition TVs are 4:3?

But wait! There's more!

[davido42]

I'm going to release Rock Snob, where you get points everytime you watch the wailing solo and say, "Yeah, I could do that."

Re:FIST SPORT!

[bfields]

Not everyone is a musical god and can just look at an instrument and play it.

Fortunately, that is not a prerequisite for having fun (really) playing music....

It's pretty telling about the company...

[MikeyLove]

...that the one platform they don't announce it for is the only one that could that could handle drumming if the game was released today. Gotta make sure to sell all the special accessories. :/

How will this even work?

[EvilCabbage]

Serious question. How do they expect to make this work?

I'm a fan of the Guitar Hero series, my wife loves it too and her girlfriends really enjoy the Singstar series of games. We were discussing a 'Band Hero' style game a few nights ago while they belted out some crap pop songs, but how is this going to work, honestly?

Two people playing Guitar Hero takes up a whole lot of screen real estate, as does a pair of people singing together. How are they going to combine the two and somehow add drums to the mix?

I'd love it to happen, but honestly I don't see how this is going to work terribly well. Even on our gaming display (not massive, but 42") it would get very crowded, very quickly with instructions, guides, scoring, etc..etc...etc..

Re:How will this even work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of writing a 200 word comment, you could have read, say, the first paragraph of the article, and you would have realized that you mainly play with people you hook up with online. Yeah, yeah, I know this is Slashdot, but it's seriously irritating that people have to crap flood the threads with inane questions nonetheless.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing is that Guitar Hero players are learning to play a musical instrument of a sort, one that requires dexterity. Some of it resembles the nastier exercises you practice while learning a classical instrument. (That's probably why musicians don't like it :)

I bet in the future they will begin to allow more creative input from the player, and people will be writing music while playing the game.

Professional music software is becoming more accessible and game like at the same time. I could write a respectable sounding piece of dance music using Ableton in less than ten minutes. I wonder if the Guitar Hero controller works with it?

Re:FIST SPORT!

[mpathetiq]

first result from google: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAl2wEw6AhQ