What a Difference Two Years Makes…
In light of recent comments made by official mouthpieces for gaming franchises and the subsequent Twitter sh*tstorm that ensued, I thought it best to assuage those whose personal feelings were hurt (seriously, there was a lot of crying). Crap, that didn’t help. OK, maybe I’ll just be exacerbating the situation, but regardless fanboys of both side will find this funny…
@Toymachinesh pointed me to a nearly two-year old video put together by EuroGamerTV that talks about the differences between Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour PRIOR to their release. In one corner we have Brian Bright, Project Director at Guitar Hero developer Neversoft. Don’t let his cool guy “I know Tony Hawk” demeanor fool you, this kid knows how to fight. And in the other corner we have a scruffy looking nerf-herder in the shape of one John Drake, PR at Harmonix. His wise cracking and pugnacious demeanor is equal parts Han Solo and Rocky Balboa. Check out the fight in this great video piece clocking in at over 10 minutes. Stick around afterwards for my attempted unbiased play-by-play of the fight.
Lllllllllllets get ready to rumblllllllllllle!
John Drake opens with a right jab to Guitar Hero: World Tour talking about how “my drumset has three cymbals on it, not sure how many drumsets you see with two cymbals on it… that’s a question I guess for other people.” Brian Bright blocks by claiming to be able to plug in ANY drumkit (and apparently keyboard) into GH:WT. Brian counters with ”They were probably thinking ‘Oh shit, there’s cymbals.’” While Rock Band 2 did have cymbals, they were mostly cosmetic for Rock Band 2 and you had to pay extra for them. Trade off is that if you DID get them, you’re already set for Rock Band 3 Pro drums. Interesting to see that even at this point they were anticipating Pro drums with the three cymbal expansion pack and Pro drums charted DLC.
John answers with this: “Most important feature is ‘Battle of the Bands’ mode which really is an industry standard for what we think music gaming should be in the future.” Um, what? Unless there’s something else coming in Rock Band 3, I completely miss this point. But he recovers and follows up with ”Instead of saying we’re going to make something artificially difficult and add notes where there aren’t notes…” John’s uppercut dazes Brian with an overcharting dig! Later in the video, Brian’s comeback is strong: “You can easily run a double bass on our game.” True, it’s still not officially supported by Rock Band! He continues with this: “We have future expandability for a hi-hat control pedal.” His one-two punch connects on the first, but misses on the second. “With the midi jack, we can expand it to as many cymbals and pads as humanly possible.” 30-pad drum kit on Guitar Hero 7!
Brian continues his onslaught: “We’re actually working with artists to release albums day and date with our DLC. Metallica will be our first one…” There was a second DLC/album pack for a new Oasis album (in January 2009), but nothing since then. John laughs at Brian’s attempt and seems to be asking for more!
The round ends with EuroGamer stepping in to point out that in an interview with the FinancialTimes.com, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said creating a Guitar Hero online music platform was “the natural evolution” of a franchise: “I don’t think there have been a lot of credible alternatives to iTunes but Guitar Hero certainly has that potential.” John Drake capitalizes on the opportunity to tease something bigger: “I think we have some very cool plans to do it in a bigger way that works for all of our consumers.” All consumers on the Xbox 360 and certain countries, that is. And a keyboard is mentioned for Rock Band?! That would be weird! John panders to the crowd with this: “That would be really cool! How would you notate it?” Something tells me this kid has something up his sleeve.
Brian takes advantage of John’s bravado with this: “We have huge names, you know Hendrix, Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen, Eagles, Doors. You’re not going to see those bands anytime soon in our competitor’s products.” John sees the move coming and swiftly dodges.
John finishes up the video with the comment: “I don’t see any other games with 500 songs by year end, do you?” Oh John, why the cheap shot?
OK, so what was the point of all of this? You can spin things all you want, but each franchise has its advantages and its weaknesses. I’m clearly a bigger fan of Rock Band, but that doesn’t mean that I think Guitar Hero is garbage. I’ve been around since the beginning. I really liked GH1, loved GH2, indifferent on GH3, and HATED Guitar Hero: World Tour. I just picked up Guitar Hero 5 relatively recently, and despite the negative comments from some sources, including Neversoft themselves (“A few articles said Guitar Hero 5 was a bit soulless. We wanted to put more into this game and give it its life back.“), I REALLY like it.
Consider what this blog is focused on, take this next thought with a grain of salt, but I don’t know why players feel the need to declare “sides.” Committing because of DLC isn’t as strong a point as it used to be. Yes, more songs are released on Rock Band as DLC than Guitar Hero, but “the other guy” currently has features that aren’t present in Rock Band (Expert + with double bass, open notes, etc.), so based on personal opinion, you may find a DLC track is actually better on Guitar Hero than DLC. Shocking yes, but it may be true. Harmonix is good, but charting songs is an art form, not an exact science.
Think about it this way. It’s a down economy still, and often times I hear people say they don’t have enough money to purchase as many games and and DLC as they would like. Well, you’ve already sunk money into somewhat pricey peripherals to play the game, why limit your music gaming experience to only one franchise?
OK, I’ll go back to “hating” Guitar Hero now.
Feel free to comment as well, but let’s keep it civilized, shall we?
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SebastianSB (164)
Kirksplosion (149)
skydog (125)
Anex (94)
Metallichris71 (86)
Yep. Fortunately I don’t feel any sort of dedication to one franchise or the other. I vastly prefer Rock Band over Guitar Hero, but they both have their place. It was the same for me – indifferent to GH3, hated GH:WT, and in 2009 I just got sick of hearing about the “Hero” games with 5 different console game releases. I dislike Activision more than I dislike the Guitar Hero brand.
I’ll be picking up RB3 on release day; I thought GH5 was pretty great, and I’ll be picking up GH6 eventually. Looks like the franchise has gotten over what I would call a “rough patch”.
Kirksplosion Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 11:54 am
Oh, wait. SIX releases if you count DJ Hero.
Cyril @ Defunct Games Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
More if you take into account the two Hero games released for the Nintendo DS last year.
Fantastic article there. GH5 has a lot of minor features that make the game fun. I feel that GH6 is a step backwards in the series. They have a larger name recognition so they have that advantage. I’m interested to see the future of music gaming in the next 2 years. Rock Band 3 will definitely keep things fresh for those who’ve been a fan since the beginning.
Eeesh. Both way too bitchy for their own good, didn’t like that video :/ Narrator was quite a dick too.
Lulz at John Drake’s hair though.
Hate Activision and never buying a game they make again.. they ruin em.
The more you guys buy activision games the longer they last… by saying I hate activison and buying Guitar hero 6.. is a bit hypocritical.
I have GH5 and I really hated it. What a horrible game. I hate the song selection and I do think it is “soulless”.
That being said, I really hope Activision manages to develop a Guitar Hero game that can compete with Rock Band 3. Competition keeps the two side always trying harder, and the consumer benefits from that.
But I won’t be buying a new GH game anytime soon. Not until they convince me that it is worth my money. Sorry, right now Harmonix clearly has the advantage in terms of overall quality, imho.
Since playing these two music games, I grew to love rockband more. Song selection to game play are far better imo. Guitar Hero is a stale game now. I really don’t see a difference in one game to the next. I only bought GH5 for one song and when that got tiersome I sold it. Can’t wait for RB3!
toymachine Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Rock Band 2 is the stale game right now- thankfully we got a glimpse of Rock Band 3 finally
RockBandAide Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Not an inaccurate statement, at this point. It’s one thing to release a bunch of games in another year, but two years is a long time to go without a direct sequel in the rhythm game genre.
abcdefg Reply:
July 17th, 2010 at 3:12 am
I’m still having a blast with Green Day. I haven’t been playing it obsessively, but between that and The Beatles I’ve stayed interested through the dry patch.
And say what you will about the Hero series, I just got DJ Hero today and the gameplay is very fun. I just wish I cared about any of the songs…
I dislike the gh style and ethos that they went with once activision took the reins. The character models are actively unpleasant to look at and it feels like it’s more about being bombastic than having fun.
I don’t begrudge others for having their preference, but it really comes down to the dlc for me. Rock band’s dlc is better in terms of both quantity and quality and I hatehatehate ever changing a disc to play all of my music (which is why I almost never touch tb:rb, despite loving it.
It may be a pipedream, but I wish dlc could be set to be cross-compatible; the exclusivity deals on both sides rub me the wrong way.
I’m a Rock Band junkie, but I do have pretty much all the Guitar Hero games as well (all except GH Aerosmith, Band Hero, and DJ Hero, if those count). I don’t see how GH5 is “soulless”, I think it had a lot of innovations that moved the rhythm genre forward. As stupid as the “party mode” seemed when I first put the game in my PS3, it eventually grew on me. Open notes were new in GH:WT, I think, and I really enjoy those – kinda wish they were in RB, they make playing the bass more interesting (and confusing, at times). The little challenges that GH5 incorporated for each instrument for each song were fun and kept things fresh, too.
However, the whole idea that you can have four people playing lead guitar on the same song…is a little silly.
I own both games and I still think Rock Band 2 was a lame sequel, they could’ve waited longer and added something else… I loved the bass open notes
I’m more than willing to declare a “side” — Rock Band — but I still think Guitar Hero can be redeemed. I require two things of a future Guitar Hero title (6, or beyond) before I will go back.
First, the vocals have to actually work. Anybody who has anything nice to say about World Tour or GH5 is not a vocalist. I mean, RB1 vocals were kinda bad, and people were complaining — the smart thing for Neversoft to have done would be to pick up a copy of RB1, play the vocals, and base WT around improving upon RB1′s vocals. They… didn’t. And then when RB2 vastly improved the vocals (and nerfed the talkies, sorta), GH5 didn’t improve the vocals at all. They added a couple confusing parts. Like what do I do with all the hands? Whatever I do doesn’t add points. Stupid.
Second, I need to be able to port all songs I’ve bought and all DLC to the latest platform. I bought GH2, GH3, GH:WT, GH:5, and GH:Van Halen. I won’t buy another one until it will allow me to export 100% of the tracks from all those games that I paid for. And then I would go buy Smash Hits, Metallica, Aerosmith, etc. (And yes, I do expect them to go back and do the drum and vocal parts for GH2, GH3, and Aerosmith, but I’d be willing to pay extra for that, it’s only fair.) I don’t think it’s unreasonable to forward the songs you’ve paid for to the latest platform. Updating iTunes doesn’t mean you lose all your songs and have to buy them over again. Harmonix gets this, so that’s where I’ll spend my money.
And, I fully believe Guitar Hero can do both of those. I also believe they have their reasons for not wanting to. I would guess they don’t believe vocalists really matter, and that guitarists are their core market. As for the song exporting, they obviously want you to hold onto your old games, they don’t want you selling them secondhand, because if you do, you lose a good amount of songs.
Lastly, I see someone above said DLC should be cross-compatible. Aside from licensing issues, I don’t see any technological barriers. Both games do roughly the same thing. If I play current DLC in RB1, the vocals still suck, so if I played my DLC in Guitar Hero, assuming it were possible, I imagine the experience would similarly be lessened. Under “Website” I put my MyRockBandSongs.com song list, so you can see how invested in the Rock Band platform I am (currently I have 619 songs available when I put in RB2, I’d like to say I have “the best half”, though now it’s more like the best third or something). But that isn’t a requirement for me, though, it sure would be nice.
non_zero Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Way too many X factors to ever expect DLC to be compatible between games. That’s a pretty unreasonable expectation if you ask me.
abcdefg Reply:
July 17th, 2010 at 3:15 am
Guitar Hero 5 really improved on the vocals, and even the GHWT songs when imported are updated, too. They’re not as good as RB2 or Green Day’s vocals, but they’re vastly improved.
Well written
To be honest I whis Rock Band would keep it classy.. they have good arguments and we know them without them having to turn into Activision and starting with the trash talk.
I am a fan of both games franchises. I do though have to give the upper hand (as of right now, we will see with RB3) to the Guitar Hero franchise with their attention to us Wii users. I understand the whole no SDHC in Rock Band 2, but you would have thought that Lego:RB would at least supported the DLC that we bought by using the SDHC. Guitar Hero also supports the DS/Wii users with Roadie battles and the cool thing in Band Hero where you can use your DS to select songs while in party mode on the Wii. Guitar Hero also let us Export songs…we will see if RB does the same or will they screw us again?… Also Rock Band has burned us with saying that we would get the RBN songs and then a no show of songs as of today.
GH doesn’t seem to care about vocalists. GHWT would have been a great game if the vocals worked. They did do some tweaking on GH5, but were still off. As for the talkies on RB there here and there misses on some songs. Question I see that the talkies are now a thing of the past? Beatles and Green Day don’t have any. As in it doesn’t count for score or loss of multiplyer. RB3 will also have the same feature? If so that sucks. Anyone with info on this?
toymachine Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
I saw talkies but I was playing in all instrument mode.
abcdefg Reply:
July 17th, 2010 at 3:16 am
I would rather they be gone than be frustrating because I’m saying the word and it’s not registering.
That being said, Green Day’s songs DO have talkies when imported to RB2.
I’ve been buying both series, because I much prefer to get 60-100 songs for far cheaper than $2 a song. Plus the game discs quickly go on sale whereas DLC rarely goes on sale. I also like that the guitar hero game engine steadily improves each release. Most of my game play pet peeves in GHWT have since been eliminated. Guitar Hero does a great job of tracking your progress, but a lousy job of keeping you playing. Whereas Rock Band 2 does a good job of keeping you playing, but a terrible job of allowing you to easily track how well you played each song.
If Rock Band 3′s pro mode game play is a fun as I think it will be, then even cheap songs might not be compelling enough for me to buy GH6.
“First, the vocals have to actually work. Anybody who has anything nice to say about World Tour or GH5 is not a vocalist.”
Anyone that thinks that vocals in GH5 don’t “work” doesn’t sing accurately on pitch.
Antwon Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I find the GH5 vocal engine to be pretty brutal myself, with little enough leniency that for scoring purposes, it’s pretty much mandatory that I not sing so much as play Amazing Human Pitch Machine. Which feels more like work than fun, frankly, and which I steadfastly avoid. “UR JUST A PUSSY, LEARN 2 B PITCH-PERFECT FAG” is a position folks are welcome to take, though I have no real reservations about telling such individuals to fuck off and die.
Engine strictness notwithstanding, the vocal UI in GH5 is somewhere between mediocre and a total clusterfuck. Doubly so when star power is activated. “We’re going to take your already meh-grade pitch-indicator… and obscure the hell out of it with swirling animation!” was especially aggravating.
Kirksplosion Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Yeah, I can score well in the GH games on vocals, but I have to sound like a robotic pitch machine. I like the leniency of Rock Band.
toymachine Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
I enjoy the leniency as well but if you want a challenge on vocals then you should play Guitar Hero 5/Band Hero.
Also since I have your attention regarding vocals there will be a small change introduced to the Guitar Hero: WoR vocal engine.
“Essentially, vocal notes were given a sort of “hit” window. It is very small, but the first part of every note has the same pitch leniency as vocal slides normally do. This means that if you aren’t a robot (which most people aren’t) it’s okay to slide into the beginning of notes like many people naturally do. This makes for much more natural singing to be acceptable while playing the game, and it works great!”
- quote from that guy below me actually lol
skydog Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
I still disagree…
I think GH vocals are way to difficult for being a game.. I mean my mom has taken vocal lessons and sings at weddings (gets compliments like hell) and still can’t get on the line for GH.. she said it feels really off.
On the other had she thinks some songs on RB are hard but at least she can get on the line (one song that comes to mind that is actually hard to sing if you can actually sing is Bring me to life by Evanescence… i mean you can’t mumble or sound like a dying cat LOL)
skydog Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Forgot to add.. It’s not hard to get on the lines or anything for Evanescence.. I’m just saying she still feels a challenge on songs that aren’t really that hard to mumble or sound really bad but still get 100%s on.
Kirksplosion Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
That’s pretty awesome toymachine. I basically have to sing a half-second early due to this natural tendency.
RockBandAide Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Ouch. FOAD? That’s kinda rough for a video game, dontcha think?
toymachine Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
he’s take
ing
pride
comp Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
The MIDI charting on various vocal songs in GH are completely, completely wrong. They have a tendency to do fairly well until the range gets more complex, which then sends many songs into a tailspin. This is aside from the fact that the engine behind the vocals is spotty to begin with.
I am a pianist, choir vocalist, and occasional guitarist; I am also an accompaniment pianist for numerous auditions on a weekly basis. If you would like to take exception with my opinion, that is fine. However, anyone experienced with faithfully reproducing music is highly likely going to take exception to some of the GH vocal charts (particularly those that require notable knowledge of singing to author).
I would compare the quality of many of Neversoft’s vocals with some of the lesser-quality releases on Rock Band Network. Fair efforts, but hardly substantial and certainly not a standard to abide by. My suggestion to them would be to employ those classically trained in music to author the vocals, or at the very least rigorously test and adjust as needed with the aid of session musicians–basically, anything but what they have now.
toymachine Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Can you give examples of some these “completely wrong” note charts. I’m curious.
comp Reply:
July 17th, 2010 at 12:49 am
It’s been some time, but Beat It–while done mostly accurately at first–does taper off toward the end if I’m remembering correctly.
Guitar Hero is a game.
Rockband is an experience.
If you want to play a simple game, Guitar Hero
If you want style and much more professionalism, Rockband.
Case closed.
toymachine Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Expert+ drums is pretty pro though.
non_zero Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
no cuz real drummers use triggers anywayz
Rock Band is for people who love music. Guitar Hero is for people who love rock stars.
As a vocalist, I am dismayed that GH’s vocal engine is confusing and frustrating. Which is a shame, because I think GH has some good on-disc songs. I’ll be buying RB3 no matter what, but I don’t think I’ll be getting GH6. I’m not a fan of the setlist and the DLC from GH has been subpar at best.
I love Guitar hero and Rock band almost equally. I really like the drum engine since I’m not an insane drummer I find stuff a little bit more difficult to hit on Rock band. But it doesn’t stop me from playing it. Rock band has a lot of better things over guitar hero but guitar hero does some pretty crazy stuff as well.
RB3 has open notes on pro mode.
Am I nuts or was the activision guy flat out lying about the drum set and related topics throughout the video?
Good article. I’m still not giving a cent to Activision, though. Finally, the animation during Bohemian Rhapsody in the “Act 2″ GH:WoR trailer makes me laugh and die on the inside.
While I spend more time on Rock Band these days, there are still occasions, where I through the GH-discs in. I quite like some of the songs and occasionally still buy DLC (most recent: Aerosmith full-band pack), so I completely concur with Tommy’s final statement that “you’ve already sunk money into somewhat pricey peripherals to play the game, why limit your music gaming experience to only one franchise?”
I’m therefore really curious, whether the new Pro-Drums of RB3 will work with GH:WT and GH5. Has there been any announcement regarding this?
RockBandAide Reply:
July 19th, 2010 at 8:52 am
Yes, it works. I have pro drums right now (you can buy the “first gen” cymbal attachments for quite awhile now), and the functionality is the same, just with three additional cymbals.
Scott Reply:
July 19th, 2010 at 9:55 am
Currently, unless you have an official Guitar Hero drum set, the drum charts are reduced to 4 lanes from 5. If I remember correctly, the orange cymbal gets recharted to blue. So it’s playable, but I don’t think it’s as much fun.
Sorixas Reply:
July 19th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
In GH:WT, orange is mapped to blue. In GH5/WOR (I’m guessing), the orange is mapped to green. Although, that means that the ride cymbal is also green…