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While My Guitar Gently Beeps
theodp writes "As the world prepares to meet the Beatles all over again on 9-9-9, the NY Times Magazine takes a look at the making of The Beatles: Rock Band, and asks a Fab Four tribute band to take the game for a test drive. (Not surprisingly, they fare well.) 'As huge as Guitar Hero and Rock Band have been over the past few years,' says Harmonix Music Systems co-founder Alex Rigopulos, 'I still think we're on the shy side of the chasm because the Beatles have a reach and power that transcends any other band.' The Beatles: Rock Band follows the group's career from Liverpool to the concert on the roof of Apple Corps in London in 1969 (trailer). The first half of the game recreates famous live performances; the second half weaves psychedelic dreamscapes around animations of the Beatles recording in Studio Two. 45 songs deemed the most fun to play, rather than the band's most iconic numbers, come with the game."
No, it's not. Scoring the headshot requires prediction and deception of your opponent as well as timing. Rhythm games only require timing. Rhythm games have zero tactical depth, so they shouldn't really be called games. They have even less depth than tricks like juggling or riding a unicycle, which at least require real time decision making because they involve unstable systems. Guitar Hero is a perfectly stable system, and you can get a perfect score with no thought at all. The only rhythm game with any value is DDR double (8 switch) mode, played without the bar (or other similar games). Here the unstable system is your own body. In Guitar System you are only making minor hand movements so momentum and balance are not an issue.