With E3 wrapping up last week we finally got a good sense of what Rock Band 4 and Guitar Hero Live are offering consumers this fall.. It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years since the last Guitar Hero and Rock Band game were released. Both franchises brought in billions of dollars in revenue only to have it all disappear over night. Most people argue including myself, that the genre died due to oversaturation and little innovation between each game release.
In 2009 we had five Guitar Hero games released (Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, Guitar Hero Metallica, Guitar Hero Van Halen and Guitar Hero Smash Hits) During the same year we had 4 Rock Band games being released (Rock Band Beatles, Lego Rock Band, Rock Band Unplugged and Rock Band Mobile). It’s no surprise that the public grew tired of music games in 2010. As someone who still plays Rock Band regularly, I grew tired of buying new peripherals and new disc releases just to get a few extra features and songBoth game’s developers have stressed that they have learned from their past mistakes. Don’t expect to see a new Guitar Hero or Rock Band game in 2016. Both games are intended to be platforms for this generation of consoles. The idea is that DLC will be frequently released for both titles long after launch and yearly disc releases will be a thing of the past.
This time around both games appear to be going in completely different directions. Lets take a closer look at what both games have to offer:
Guitar Hero Live
The new Guitar Hero is ditching the full band setup and focusing solely on guitar. None of your old instruments or songs will work on Guitar Hero Live. The game will ship with a brand new guitar that features six buttons instead of five (two rows of three buttons).
The most notable change to Guitar Hero Live is the game’s presentation. Gone are the days of animated backgrounds and characters. They have now been replaced by real life crowds that react in real time to how you’re playing. If you’re playing good they’ll cheer you on and sing along. If you play bad they will boo you and throw garbage at you while your bandmates will scold you.
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” Guitar Hero TV will be frequently updated with new content and the developers have even expressed some interest in debuting artists music videos exclusively through the service. Whether this materializes remains to be seen.”
The second biggest change to Guitar Hero is the online play. Live will ship with a service called Guitar Hero TV- a 24/7 online network that will feature music channels and an on-demand service. The tv channels are free out of the box and the game will have pre-programmed content that will look similar to a TV’s programming guide. The game features several different themed channels that will span different genres and allow you to drop in drop out of songs on the fly. Rather than playing to live crowds you play along to the music video in the background. Guitar Hero TV will be frequently updated with new content and the developers have even expressed some interest in debuting artists music videos exclusively through the service. Whether this materializes remains to be seen.
Guitar Hero TV also features an on-demand service that allows you to play a large library of songs. Songs can be played using in-game currency or you can use real cash to buy a song. If you use the in-game currency, you won’t own the song, but instead get a set number of plays. You can also buy limited time access to the whole on-demand library if you are having a bunch of friends over or if you want to sample what’s available on the service.
Guitar Hero TV will also feature what are called Premium Shows which are limited time challenges you can play from specific bands. There are usually a number of pre-requisites required in order to play a Premium Show. If you don’t feel like going through the pre-requisites you can simply pay to unlock the Premium Shows. People who pre-order Guitar Hero Live will have access to an Avenged Sevenfold Premium Show that is taken from one of their concert shows and runs from October 20-November 2nd.
Rock Band 4
The core experience for Rock Band 4 looks to stay relatively the same. Harmonix realizes that thousands of people (myself included) have spent thousands of dollars on DLC and peripherals and would like these to all work in Rock Band 4. All your old DLC and old instruments will work on Rock Band 4.
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“What has me so excited about these new gameplay additions is that they will allow you to experience you’re old songs in a way you never could before.”
So what are some of the new features that Rock Band 4 is bringing to the table? They are looking at focusing on what they call “self expression” and allowing players to put their own creative thumbprint on each song. Vocalists can now do free form melodies and add their own harmonies to get bonus points. Drum fills are being completely re-done to deal with latency issues that hampered past games. Now during the overdrive sections, the game will throw a random assortment of fills your way that fit the song you are playing. Guitarists have the most interesting gameplay addition in the way of freestyle guitar solos. When you’re playing a song with a guitar solo you can now play your own improvised solo. The game gently guides you with a colour scheme that gives you some sense of what should be played during these sections. All of these features also work on your DLC songs.
If you aren’t interested in any of the new improvisational features, you can toggle off the new gameplay additions in favour of classic Rock Band gameplay. On top of that all of the DLC and songs that were released prior to Rock Band 3 now support vocal harmonies. What has me so excited about these new gameplay additions is that they will allow you to experience you’re old songs in a way you never could before.
Quickplay has now been replaced with the Show Mode that allows you and your bandmates to vote on which songs you wish to play next. The idea is to create the sense that you’re in a real band down to which song you want to play next. On top of that Rock Band 4 will be offering a pretty interesting career mode. Rather than repeat what’s been done in the past before, the career mode will feature branching story lines that will allow you to choose what type of band you want to be. Do you want to be an indie band that shuns fame and plays small gigs? You can totally do that! Or do you want to be corporate sellouts that endorse salted meat products and play arena rock? You can do that too!
Even the online play appears to be going in different directions for both games. In fact online play and Rock Band 4 shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same sentence, because as we learned at E3, the game will not ship with online play While that may disappoint many fans including myself, Harmonix did leave the possibility open that online play could be added later.
Rock Band 4 Vs Guitar Hero Live
The big advantage that Guitar Hero Live has over Rock Band 4 when it comes to winning over new fans is the price. Guitar Hero Live retails for only $99.00 USD with one guitar and a game. Alternatively you can also buy two guitars with the game for $150.00 US. Rock Band 4 will ship with four different sku’s – standalone disc, digital game, guitar bundle and full band bundle. The guitar bundle retails for $130.00 US and the band bundle retails for $250.00 US. The full band bundle is almost double the price of the original Rock Band 1 bundle. But on the other hand Rock Band 4 supports all your old instruments and DLC. Decisions, decisions, decisions!
My love for both of these games run deep and I look forward to experiencing both these titles this fall. I think the best question to ask about these two upcoming game is where will they be a year from now? Will they ascend back to greatness like Rock Gods who have come back from the brink of extinction or will they crash and burn? Whatever the result I’m looking forward to getting the band back together this fall.