Here's a picture of the band that my friends and I use when we play Rock Band, "Vegetarian Spank Inferno!" Bonus points for anyone who gets that reference.
I really love the look of Rock Band. The graphics and customization options in this game really put Guitar Hero III to shame, I would compare it as going from last-gen to next-gen, like comparing the graphics of Playstation 2 to Playstation 3. Although it's a blast to play, sometimes it's just cool to sit back and watch the game in motion because it's beautiful. The lip-syncing for the singer really matches well. The drummer actually hits the proper drums in his or her drum set. When you get a close up of a guitar getting played, you see the strings vibrate when they're strummed. The camera angles and stage design is varied and superb. Every so often there are cool special effects like the camera going black-and-white or hazy. The lighting on the stage matches the music being played. All-in-all, the game's presentation is excellent.
Everybody's practicing and gearing up for Endless Setlist. If you don't know what it is, you basically play through all 58 songs included on the original game disc back-to-back-to-back without breaks. Apparently it takes about 5-6 hours to do this. Sounds daunting, but we're gonna take an entire day, get as many people as we can together and make a party of it all. This way we can rotate and swap out people when we get tired or if a song is too difficult for someone.
That being said, here are some more reasons that I heart Rock Band:
- Big Rock Endings. I just wish every song had one
- the ability to still be able to get get more Overdrive while you are engaged in Overdrive mode
- your Star rating is displayed prominently so you know how far away from the next level you are. This way if you're near the end of a song, you can play your ass off to get that next star
- tambourine and cowbell playing for the singer. What a great touch, the first time I sang (Don't Fear) The Reaper, I was in love. I had a fever over the Xmas break and more cowbell really was the only prescription
- new downloadable content every week. By year's end, they say there will be over 200 extra tracks available for Rock Band. While not every song is gonna appeal to everyone, I've already downloaded over a dozen extra tracks. I'm already looking forward to mid-March when they release a Nine Inch Nails track pack. Let's hope that it's the first of many to come.
To end, some song requests:
Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody, the absolute holy grail of rock. I've been dying to get this song in either a karaoke game or guitar hero, but what better place is there than Rock Band. If made as downloadable content, this is guaranteed to be the best selling song of all-time. Also, any other Queen would be greatly appreciated.
Jimi Hendrix - you always see those tidbits about Jimi during the load screens, but yet there is no Hendrix to play in the game. It's like dangling a carrot and pulling it away at the last moment. The holy grail of Jimi's catalog of course has to be Voodoo Child (Slight Return), and other great fits would be Fire, Purple Haze and his cover of Bob Dylan's All Along The Watchtower.
U2 - I'm not really a fan of their entire catalog as a whole, but I cannot deny the greatness that is their 1987 album, Joshua Tree. Anything from that would be a must buy. They are undoubtedly one of the most popular bands of all-time, but strangely enough, I don't believe that they've been featured in a music/rhythm game to date.
NIN - Anything. Ok, half of NIN's catalog just doesn't translate well to the Rock Band format (See: most of Year Zero). However, there are some absolute gems that would translate masterfully to Rock Band. Some of my favorites would be: Anything from their Broken album, HYPERPOWER!/The Beginning of the End (bundle em together like Boston's Foreplay/Long Time), and Head Like A Hole.
One of the big points that would make the transition difficult is the lyrical content. To remain a T-rated game, some songs featured in Rock Band are censored. Certain songs that would translate well but would have to be heavily censored would be You Know What You Are? and Only; songs which contain 'fuck' in the chorus. Censoring might work for some songs, but for others it would just ruin it. Although for a lot of the censored songs, when we play them, we like to belt them out with the swear words intact.
