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Thoughts On Guitar Rock Hero Band IV: With Instruments
By Joe Haygood | May 20, 2008
So I just read through the entire article in the new Game Informer that discusses the new Guitar Hero IV and all the new features and instruments that come with it, and I became conflicted. Everything sounds so good, and all the things that they have mentioned really could move the genre forward several steps, but I have two lingering issues that are really bothering me and should be bothering other Guitar Hero fans around the land.
First is the whole “be like Rock Band, but with more” mentality that has come over Neversoft. I understand that Rock Band was met with a lot of critical success, even in the face of the huge numbers that Guitar Hero III made at the register. But if you asked people that own both, they will most likely lean towards Rock Band as the better of the two games. I know in my case, Guitar Hero III has seen limited play by myself or my wife since Rock Band came out, because Rock Band is just a lot more fun to play and gives me several avenues to play the game. If I get stuck on guitar, switch it up and play vocals and so on.
The other problem is the whole idea of the mechanics of Guitar Hero. With the first two Guitar Hero games, you never felt outclassed until you started in midway on Hard. At that point, the difficulty seemed to ratchet up nicely to become very difficult. Guitar Hero III, was a struggle for many people, even at the medium difficulty. It was like they decided to kick it up several notches and throw the gauntlet down at the feet of the players. Adding to it, the horrible boss battles, and you ended up with something that did not meet the expectations of the Guitar Hero faithful.
Some of the changes in store are huge and really fix a lot of what I found to be irksome with Rock Band. You can create one band member an have them jump between instruments. That is not possible with Rock Band, as you need to assign an instrument to a rocker. You can also seemlessly switch between multiplayer and singleplayer, which fixes the fact that you cannot get Band World Tour in Rock Band without two players. The ability to customize your equipment design for you guitar just adds to the immersion. Think up a design and get to making it in the game. And then to top it all off, you can mix your own tracks, sans vocals, which should give aspiring musicians some tools to put together some great music mashups.
But even with this, some details are missing. First off, Neversoft seems to have missed the one component that really made the Rock Band name, and that is content. While you can have a great starting list, people have shown they want and will spend on downloadable songs. Rock Band has become a social phenomenon due to the new songs that come out every week. No matter what, we always have new content every Tuesday for Rock Band. Guitar Hero has released some content, but none that shows off a commitment to giving the users a new experience week in and out. They have also not ruled out the use of boss battles, which were one of the worst aspects of a Guitar Hero game ever. No matter what, it always seemed like the person you are battling would get Lefty Flip over and over and just crush you into obivion without having to really try. It is one of the things that has made me avoid playing through the harder career tiers at this point, because it just becomes an exercise in futility.
Even when it comes to instruments, I am conflicted. I like the look of the new drum kit, but I do not want to see another drum set in my living room, regardless of whether it is wireless or not. The incompatibility will hurt as well, as the Guitar Hero drum pad seems to have one extra contact point, as there are three pads, two cymbals and a kick pedal.
So is your interest piqued by Guitar Hero IV? I am there looking over the fence, but I have yet to see enough to really make me want to jump over and sample the goods. At least until some of the lingering issues are hammered out.
Tags: activision, dlc, guitar hero iv, neversoft, rock band
Topics: Mac, Nintendo Wii, PC, PS3, XBOX 360 |
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Comment by Stephen Munn — May 20, 2008 @ 6:25 pm
The key to this will likely be whether Activision can draw enough attention away from Rock Band, particularly the attention of those who have yet to buy Rock Band. If you haven’t bought it yet (because you’re waiting for the Wii version, or a price drop, or whatever) the news of these new features, combined with the fact that existing GH guitars will work with IV, could be more than enough to keep people from buying Rock Band. I recently got a PS3 and considered picking up Rock Band, but now why should I? Do I really want another guitar around I can’t use with any other game?
Comment by Joe Fourhman — May 20, 2008 @ 7:04 pm
Rock Band’s weird one-instrument-per-avatar thing is just stupid, and we should fully expect that to change for Rock Band 2, or maybe even as some kind of patch for Rock Band 1. So I can’t get too excited about Guitar Hero IV promising that. Harmonix was dinged for that oversight a million times over.
You’re right that it’s going to be all about DLC. I always pay attention to the Rock Band releases every week, just in case something incredible shows up. It keeps Rock Band top of mind even when I’m not really seriously playing it. Guitar Hero’s DLC has been farty at best, and the constant reminders of Your Embarrassing Grandpa Edition make it seem like they’d rather nail me for $50+ every six months on their songlists instead of letting me spend $50 to craft my own personal Best Of.
Thanks to some Very Bad Choices on GHIII, I half wonder if Guitar Hero is going to hit that dreaded brand fatigue, where it starts looking like last year’s model. And now it’s last year’s model that seeks to directly copy the newer version. Having a drastically different drum kit is intended to be differentiating, I’m sure… but it only guarantees that we’ll never see cross-game compatibility, which is what we all hoped for back when RB was first announced and we’re still all a little burned by it.
What are the GHIV guitar customization options? Moreso than the logo/sticker stuff of Rock Band?
Comment by Matthew Kellar — May 20, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
Let’s put it this way. My interest is piqued but my wallet is closed. Rock Band got to me first. In addition, Harmonix comes up with their own ideas, so I’m sure whatever they put out next will innovate above and beyond anything GH4 brings to the table.
Comment by Sifer2400 — May 20, 2008 @ 9:49 pm
i just got my GI today in the mail ill read it tomorrow