Rock Band & Guitar Hero Games

[Arwin]

If you do that, make sure you have an extra USB hub, that is unless you have open slots to spare on your PS3.

My old 60GB has 4 USB slots, so that generally helps. I have lots of USB stuff to connect, though rarely need more than two at the same time since I have to clear up my setups always anyway and tend to remove controller-type stuff as they often get in the way a bit when playing other games (also in terms of picking up a controller assignment that I didn't really want). But then I also have extra USB hubs lying about if needed. I'll get a new PS3 when it hits 299 euros, save some power and move my current one to the work room probably so I can do gaming there if that's more convenient (to set up my steering wheel more permanently, or the drum-kit, or whatever).

 

[silhouette]

One more thing... I think GH4 weights the note streak way more than it should. Even if you hit the 95% of the ntoes correctly, you can get 3 stars easily (if your average note streak is around 20-30s). I think RB2 is also doing a much better job in that area.

 

[Cyan]

One more thing... I think GH4 weights the note streak way more than it should. Even if you hit the 95% of the ntoes correctly, you can get 3 stars easily (if your average note streak is around 20-30s). I think RB2 is also doing a much better job in that area.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/28/activision-admits-some-world-tour-drums-busted/

They are looking into it and they are providing an MIDI-to-USB cable you need to plug to a computer for free.

Arwin, Rock Band 1 is already out, give it a try.... Also original Rock Band guitars are much easier to find for the PS3 or Wii than the 360. I can't find one where I live and I even mistook the PS3 guitar for the 360 model, I purchased it and I found out my mistake when I got it home. I was dissapointed.... but Game employees kindly refunded me back the money.

P.S. NavnucST3 :smile: , more on the subject whenever I can or I am in the mood for writting. Cheers!

 

[eastmen]

If you have neither of them, I suggest you go with GH4, then buy game only RB2 (and borrow RB1 disk from someone). I assume you are gonna buy on PS3, otherwise let me know, we can jam together

I'm not sure the rockband 2 guitars have that sync feature and it works so nice.

 

[AlNom]

Hmm.... question about this music genre in general: Are there many songs with Lead Guitar, Rhythm Guitar, and Bass Guitar ? I was just watching the comparison video between Neversoft's and Harmonix's take on "Today", and I thought it interesting they emphasize different guitars being played at the intro.

The presence of Rhythm in the music creator for GH: WT got me thinking about how they could feasibly add a fifth band member for doing rhythm. And let's face it, how many people have more than two guitars and how else can they legitimize selling the same hardware bundle sets every year. There'd be the matter of fitting all that people on-screen at once though...

Video in question:

 

[AntShaw]

I think the best option would be to instead of adding a 5th member, would be to allow 2 people to play guitar at the same time. Of course it would be dependent upon the song, but I could see that to be easily doable. As compared to adding a 5th instrument. With 4 people, the screen real estate is already about to max. We are playing it on a 42". I can only imagine how hard that would be on smaller screens.

They already have you playing some synths on some of the songs. We had a challenge we did the other night with songs that had non native instruments. Was Freezepop, The Collector by NIN, and So Whatcha Want.

My buddy at work always talks about how they need to do keyboards all the time, or at least a keytar.

 

[AlNom]

mm... indeed. Space has run out!I was thinking they could do a more traditional segmentation ala 4P splitscreen, but with the vocals in the center. I'll whip up a pseudo-shot of what I mean in a bit.

Though, yes, it would be nice if other people could play the same highway just for the sake of including more people at a party. Do either games support multiple MICs?

edit:


Something like that. I separated the meter showing how well each player is doing and changed the SP bulbs to individual ones (in the same gameplay sense as RB), but the overall layout is the main focus here. In case you're wondering, I did stretch the highways sideways to fit a 16:9 screen, but I'm not suggesting they should do that. It was more to just fill space, so the actual highways should just be normal width.

 

[silhouette]

I'm not sure the rockband 2 guitars have that sync feature and it works so nice.

RB2 guitars have that auto sync feature, GH3/4 guitars do not have.. But, I am not sure how useful it is.. You just synch once and doing it manual is not that hard.

 

[silhouette]

Interesting post.

GHWT is nice and all but I'm enamoured with Rock Band style and uniqueness, not to mention the lack of DLC for GHWT.

I've dowloaded 5 GB of songs from the RB's Store so I'm going to buy GHWT alone and most probably not the 1st day because Rock Band drew me in immediately and takes up like 95% of my gaming time.

As you already pointed out, Rock Band's presentation is unique. It's all in the small details.....

- The whole band introduction before songs (specially if you created a character with similar features as yourself -or your soulmate, a relative, friend, etc- in real life with the same hair colour, eye colour, hair style, body shape as you).

- The "simple" but truly strategic use of the Overdrive.... Yes, I find that somewhat strategic and I was a avid RTS gamer -mainly Age of Empires- back in the day

- Watching the guitarrist or bassist playing the same notes a real life guitarist or bassist would

- Or the crowd singing along and when you miss a note that kills the buzz they change from singing along to a more generic cheering

- Or seeing the guitarist singing along with the singer while looking at each other in an accomplice way (with a perfect labial synchronization btw)....

- When the screen flashes like the old black and white films, or when the image "splits" in two mirror images (an effect which looks astonishing), etc etc etc etc.

These are the *tiny little* details that separate the good games from the great and incredibly prodigious games like Rock Band.

Other than that, both franchises are infinitely fun.

Also, Red Octane's peripherals are highly reliable. Heck, my old Xplorer guitar from Guitar Hero 2 still works perfect to date.

The mic is free as I use the 360's headset and it works quite well.... I have RB's drums so I'm not that much interested in GHWT drum set, but the addition of one extra cymbal is a welcome one and being able to use the Overdrive whenever you want is good too. In RB I tend to wait for the drummer to activate the Overdrive if I'm a guitarist or bassist.

The 6th note feature is a good addition too, but I'd miss the RB's Bass Groove.

All in all, both games are great but my mind exposes a very strong weakness for Rock Band.

Ah yes, and your group name and logo shows up in a banner behind the drummer!!!

I agree with everything you wrote, RB2 is much polished than GH4. Neversoft obvoiusly spent their money on improving only the game mechanics, but not the presentation and motion capturing famous singers. Heck, it is very annoying to see exactly the same characters in the audience doing exactly the same motion. I kind of forgive them last year in GH3 because of their timing pressure, but still this after one year!

 

[AntShaw]

mm... indeed. Space has run out!I was thinking they could do a more traditional segmentation ala 4P splitscreen, but with the vocals in the center. I'll whip up a pseudo-shot of what I mean in a bit.

Though, yes, it would be nice if other people could play the same highway just for the sake of including more people at a party. Do either games support multiple MICs?

edit:


Something like that. I separated the meter showing how well each player is doing and changed the SP bulbs to individual ones (in the same gameplay sense as RB), but the overall layout is the main focus here. In case you're wondering, I did stretch the highways sideways to fit a 16:9 screen, but I'm not suggesting they should do that. It was more to just fill space, so the actual highways should just be normal width.

While I like your idea, screen is to busy and you lose on some of the background additions. I think the easily solution would be to have a Lead, Rhythm, and Bass. That way 2 of the guitarists, they could choose: Lead/Lead. Lead/Bass. Lead/Rhythm, rhythm/Rhythm, Bass/Bass.

They would be easy additions and could be a update. That opens up the possibilities greatly. And would be easy to work oout.

 

[AntShaw]

You can now download your 20 free bonus tracks. Open your case, get your manual, and look on the back of it. Follow the steps.

You'll need to go to the RB site, register your code and email, then they send you a code via email that you can redeem in the PSN store (and XBL of course). 536mb for all of em. I got all the emails instantaneously. For those curious what the tracks are...

* The 88 - "Sons and Daughters"
* Authority Zero - "No Regrets"
* Between the Buried and Me - "Prequel To The Sequel"
* The Cab - "Bounce"
* The Chevelles - "Get It On"
* The Cocktail Slippers - "Give It To Me"
* Dealership - "Database Corrupted"
* Endeverafter - "I Wanna Be Your Man"
* The Ghost Hounds - "Ashes To Fire"
* Hollywood Undead - "Young"
* Kutless - "The Feeling"
* The Len Price 3 - "If I Ain't Got You"
* Lesley Roy - "I'm Gone, I'm Going"
* Opiate for the Masses - "Burn You Down"
* Semi-Precious Weapons - "Magnetic Baby"
* Shaimus - "Like a Fool"
* Thenewno2" - Crazy Tuesday"
* Tickle Me Pink - "The Time Is Wrong"
* Underoath - "Desperate Times, Desperate Measures"
* X Japan - "I.V."

Oh yeah, and did I mention its FREE??? OOooooya!

 

[Arwin]

Guitar Hero World Tour

What the heck?

 

[AlNom]

Love how the lights are sync'd.

 

[AntShaw]

PS3 RB2 update: http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101961

Release Notes:

Hardware

· Provided support for third party drum and guitar controllers including GHWT & RR.

· Adjusted crosstalk values for drum hardware.

· Bug fix for remote drum fills being silent – users will now hear the drum track when drum fills.

Gameplay

· Fixed overlapping drum fill bug on drum track.

· Fixed rare network crash involving client signing out during setlist creation.

· Fixed rare crash on calibration screen when users mash guitar controller buttons.

· Fixed bug where Leaderboard scores in BWT were not uploading after users played the first song.

· Fixed bug where Leaderboard career scores were posted including DLC songs and not just disc songs as originally intended.

I haven't tested the functionality out with the other instruments yet though. Please note this is PS3 update only and there hasn't been one yet for 360. That I know of.

 

[AntShaw]

What the heck?

And Oh yeah. Somebody has WAY TO MUCH time on their hands. But thats Guitar Hero, I'd appreciate a move into that thread!

 

[obonicus]

And naturally, it's viral.

 

[AlNom]

Some thoughts on the game (I have no drums though):

Things I liked

• the new additions to guitar and bass gameplay - the sustains/holds while playing other notes and the open strum, respectively.
• Vocals... I actually failed the tutorial, so uh... that's all I have to say aboot that.
• Character customizations are great. Logo creation is more precise than RB as one can count the number of button presses during adjustments. The guitar customization is great.
• In the cheats/modifier section there are several options for changing the colours of the pots and the fire. After some trial and error, I kind of like the darker colours for the pots and the Toxic green or Diablo for the fire. The rest just look silly or too monotonous.
• The wait time after pausing is nice.
• Money in quickplay
• GH Tunes online listings seem good
• several real-world band members are used for their own songs (Billy Corgan, Ozzy et al.) during the game.

Things I hated

• Song listing in quick play is very... unfriendly. They could use more sorting options. The colour scheme and presentation makes it a little difficult to read.
• Changing the pots/fire colours is a shot in the dark until you try them out individually, which means setting them and then going all the way back out and playing a song. It'd have been nice to have a preview image or to even let you fully customize the colours manually.
• Can't remove the last track of a custom setlist in Quickplay...
• Can't individually delete GH Tunes tracks?
• the big emphasis on streaks... usually the difference of a few hundred bucks per song. ugh.

Oddities

• There's just something off about the music and strumming/hitting the notes with lead guitar. It feels like I could mute the volume and I would be no worse for it? I don't know, it's hard to explain. I've turned the individual instrument volume higher to emphasize what I'm playing. hm.... like... the lead guitar track is more a part of the music than a separate gameplay track? lol
• There's also something weird about inputting text, like it's the opposite of all the other games (wrt strumming up or down)... pressing the yellow fret to add a character instead of green seemed unnecessary. It took some getting used to, but I have a bunch of saved logos/guitars that are one character long names.

Question... what do the different strings selections in the guitar customization do?

 

[Cyan]

Picked this up Friday, I preferred GH3 to RB1, but now, I am a convert. Had the kid on the mic the first time, that was a little hard, he picked up the guitar and rocked I played the drums all night...still trying to get used to them. Played online with bkillian...I love this game.

Well, Guitar Hero 3 was the peak of the series for me, mainly because of the setlist and the crisper graphics, in comparison with GH2. Judy Nails was my favourite character in GH3 and the art of the game, at least for her, changed for the better.

That being said, ever clever Harmonix made a great game like GH2 -it's sense of humour is unmatched both in GH3 and 4, and even Rock Band- and a revolutionary game like RB, as we know....

To summarize, or I'll end up writting a long post :smile: Rock Band 2 feels like an experience while GHWT feels like a decent game.

I like Rock Band more because it's made by musicians and it shows, as they're creative people. Tribe, Vagiant, Sprode, etc, are band created by Harmonix employees.

The original Rock Band is more creative than GH3 and 4, imo. In GH3 they added online featuers and the worst feature of the game -boss battles..., they stopped me from playing in a while-.

Other than that, the main differences, the ones that are more representative of both games is that GH tends to favour individual players as you are the "hero", while Rock Band is based on band gameplay because of the ability to save bandmates or be saved, which opens up different strategies.

I remember playing with 2 people and we managed to finish the song even if our percentages at the end were 36%, 91% and 64%, because we used the Overdrive well.

The other most prominent difference is that GH relies mostly on note streaks to achieve stars and RB is based on the use of Overdrive and not missing notes to achieve the same stars.

In short, both games are fun. Rock Band is somewhat more friendly and my favourite of the two, of course, and GH is great for most people too but mainly for 20 years old (or less) kids because most of them think the game is much more challenging than Rock Band.

Well, I'd like to see most of them trying Visions, Master Exploder, Afterlife's solo, Battery, Painkiller, or the DLC Yngwie Malmsteem's songs on Expert....

Both games are fun anyways, and that's what matter in the end. Cheers

P.s. One of my favourite characters from GH2, which is perpetual in the series, is the one I used to call him Johnnynoface. He is a bassist with a long beard and long hair (you never see his eyes) covering most of his face.

 

[BadTB25]

Darn step peddle stopped working at a party last night. Had to go into "no fail" mode so that it wouldn't kick us out.

Peddle works with Rock band 1 drum set, so I assume its got to be something with the main drum unit itself.

We played until around 4 am--what a blast once the "band" gets it.

I also picked up the GHWT guitar/game only for $85.00 after tax. I haven't opened it yet, because I'm hoping the whole bundle will go on sale soon. All the stores I visited seem to have an abundance in stock.

 

[Arwin]

Finally got round to trying GHWT, thanks to the latest BluRay coverdisc containing a demo (like with Guitar Hero Aerosmith, this is available before it was availabe in the online store).

Glad it was on the BD disc too, because the demo is 2GB! It contains a fair selection of songs (about 10-12, among which about three that I actually like, but one, Are you gonna go my way, was already in the Aerosmith demo).

I could test the guitar and bass obviously, with my GH3 guitar, and I could test the singing with the Singstar microphone, which I was very happy to see works fine.

Now it's just getting harder and harder to decide whether I want the full band pack or whether I can settle for the guitar part only - the guitar after all gives me the new guitar, a bass, and microphone, which already allows for three players ... Now I'll have to decide if the 100 euro extra to play the drums is worth it. I guess it will depend on whether I can actually store it somewhere proper (probably not).

I'm in no hurry, but I'm happy this demo is here - at least I can now play that already with singing and guitar or bass (the new bass thing where you just hit the strum bar is neat, by the way, I tried expert on Livin'on a prayer, not too hard).

Also the refresh rate on PS3 seems improved. First song I played (I think also bon jovi, was quite easy) on guitar-hard got me 99% with only two notes missed out of 414. However easy songs were in GH3, I don't think I ever got that high a percentage of notes right.

Can you use the drum set to improvise? Can you use it to connect to a midi device? Or is it only the other way around, that you can connect a midi-device to the guitar hero controllers?

EDIT: on doing more research, the GHWT seems to accept midi-in, and if the drums come in on channel 10, you can use any midi device that sends drums in that direction. I have an old Roland E16 keyboard, so I could even use that for drumming, it seems then, as it has a drum-kit mode that sends midi-out to channel 10 if I remember correctly. Would be interesting.

I was looking because if I don't buy a drumkit now I want to know what my options are later, since right now I can't buy the drumkit separately and if I can buy some regular midi kit instead that wouldn't be bad either.