What's Rock Band, some of you may ask...Harmonix, the musically inspired video game developers that were responsible for Guitar Hero 1 and 2 before its purchase by Mtv and Activision, are releasing a new music game - this time you can play one of 4 musical roles.
Singer - any USB Microphone will serve for this role, but Harmonix will be selling a Harmonix branded mic with their game. Singing play will be similar to Konami's "Karaoke Revolution" with the player in the singing role looking to match pitch and lyrics. Early reviews of the singing features report some amazing voice recognition capabilities.
Drummer - No official drumset has been released, but prototypes showed 4 toms, a kick drum, and a variety of buttons in the center of the rack for the toms. Drum gameplay looks to be purely rhythm based, unknown if sticks will be used or hands.
Bass and Guitar - There's a new guitar, a 3/4 sized Fender Stratocaster with the classic body-style and white on black colour scheme. The frets have ten buttons - five of the standard Guitar Hero buttons, and another five at what looks like frets 14-19. During portions of the guitar game, guitar solos will allow you to use these higher frets without the need to strum - this means faster and more insane solos in my eyes. As it's based on a modern Stratocaster there's a five-way switch. As gameplay progresses you can purchase new pedal effects and this five-way switch will allow you to switch over to them in mid-play. There's no real bonus known at this time, but switching on a flanger or distortion box sounds brilliant to me.
The bass will use the same guitar and be more standard
Harmonix are playing the smart game - any previous Guitar Hero controller may be used to play Rock Band and they've been busy getting comfortable price points together for the other controllers.
Rock Band touts online as well as offline play for multiplayer - allowing people all across the globe to play songs together, share rock band avatars and band logos. No word on the recording capability, if it exists - to share video of band performances on YouTube or the like, but it is one of the features many people wish to see.
Currently announced song list:
"In Bloom" (by Nirvana)
"Paranoid" (as made famous by Black Sabbath)
"Say it Ain't So" (by Weezer)
"Won't Get Fooled Again" (by The Who)
"Mississippi Queen" (as made famous by Mountain)
"Suffragette City" (by David Bowie)
"(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (by The Blue Oyster Cult)
"Main Offender" (by The Hives)
song list key:
"by" = original master track
"as made famous by" = cover
Official site:
http://www.rockband.com/
Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Band_%28video_game%29
