The unofficial Rock Band thread.

[TheBrew]

Two Things:

Circuit City sells the Wireless Les Pauls from GHIII for $20 (my fav guitar controller and I picked another one up).

I've unlocked Endless Setlist on RB2. Will now go make my fingers bleed and beat it on Xpert Guitar with my new Les Paul.

[TheBrew]

... and I fail because the power went out...

[Starbreaker]

I wish I could afford some of the new tracks right now. Most of what is on Rock Band 2 is NOT fun to sing.

[Brikar99]

Aragorn wrote:

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Downloads for the week of Jan. 4:

Roy Orbison Pack

"Claudette"
"In Dreams"
"Mean Woman Blues"
"Oh, Pretty Woman"
"Ooby Dooby"
"You Got It"

Oh sweet! I'll get those!

[Aragorn]

Complete Washington Post story.

The Battle of the Fake Bands
By Mike Musgrove

The American people have an important and historic decision to make this holiday season: Guitar Hero World Tour or Rock Band 2?

Here's how it goes: Fork over about $180 at your local electronics store, and you get a large box. Inside are a drum kit and a guitar -- or, at least, video game controllers shaped as such -- along with a microphone and a game disc. Get a few friends together, and you can put together a fake rock band. Hit the right notes on the guitar controller and sing the right tones into the microphone, and you and your friends can briefly live a videogame version of the rock-and-roll dream.

I've played both quite a bit over the past few weeks and can say one thing for sure: They both offer pretty much the same kick, and neither is a dud. Beyond that, it gets a little more complicated.

One piece of good news for baffled holiday shoppers this year is that all the "instruments" included with both titles are wireless, except for the microphones. They're also all interoperable, meaning that you can use, for example, Guitar Hero's fake ax to play Rock Band, and vice versa. Naturally, some gamer snobs have gone so far as to buy both.

While Guitar Hero is more of a household name, Rock Band has had a year-long head start on the market as the first "full band" game, said Michael Pachter, a game industry analyst who figures that the two titles will divide the market fairly evenly in the coming year. "You can argue over whether this guitar is better or whether these drums are better, but at the end of the day you're doing the same thing and the music is similar," he said.

.....

Rock Band's fans say the title has the clear advantage because of the amount of content available for download for people who want to expand their collections. Both game discs feature similar batches of songs from bands including Bon Jovi, Fleetwood Mac and Modest Mouse, but Rock Band has a wide library of 500 songs available for purchase online. Recent additions range from Jimmy Buffett to punk ditties from the Dead Kennedys; so far, Rock Band fans have bought 28 million tracks this way. Guitar Hero World Tour has only 41 licensed tracks for sale so far.

While Guitar Hero's online library of licensed content is far behind Rock Band's, Kai Huang, co-founder of Guitar Hero maker RedOctane, looks at the question of the song catalogues another way. Thanks to a new feature that lets users create and upload their own songs, there are 75,000 fan-created songs available for download. Whether they're any good is another matter, but the user-created songs have been downloaded 21 million times, according to the company.

.....

[mrcoaster]

TheBrew wrote:

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... and I fail because the power went out...

Ouch! What a bummer!

I've heard of that happening to a few people. Others tried to do the ESL online and had somebody drop out 2/3 of the way through. One guy had a friend who thought it would be funny to back out to the menu halfway through and kill the ESL run. I did the ESL on RB1, but I'm just not sure I want to spend the time doing the second one.

The Orbison tracks are all win-win. Some Jan 13 and Jan 20 tracks already were leaked a few days ago, too.

Jan 13
Lenny Kravitz -
Are You Gonna Go My Way
Freedom Train
Let Love Rule
Mr. Cab Driver

Jan 20
Steve Miller -
Space Cowboy
The Joker

I need to get back into playing on my tour. I've been mostly playing Quickplay and just jamming to tracks and playing lots of drums. Still trying to get used to playing with three cymbals and going back and forth between them and the pads.

[Aragorn]

Additional downloads for the week of Jan. 11:

Megasus - "Megasus"
Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives - "Entangled"

[Aragorn]

Downloads for the week of Jan. 18:

Steve Miller Band Pack
"Space Cowboy"
"Take the Money and Run"
"The Joker"

Godsmack - "I Stand Alone"
Belly - "Feed the Tree"
Ghost Hounds - "Wind Me Up"
Mute Math - "Typical"
Rob Zombie - "War Zone"

[mrcoaster]

There are a few of those that I'm getting, minus Zombie, Hounds and Godsmack.

I've probably had more fun playing the Orbison tracks recently than anything else. First time I sang "You Got It" I ended up with the #10 overall vocal score on the leaderboards. Woo-hoo! Though I still find myself just playing it for fun rather than worrying about scores.

[Brikar99]

Yeah the Orbison pack is really, really fun! Loving it!

This week I'll get Steve Miller Band and MAYBE Godsmack.

[mrcoaster]

One of these days we have to get together and play as a TrekBBS band. I have a ton of DLC (minus some of the thrashier/metal stuff, Metallica, etc.).

[Brikar99]

No Metallica?? FOR SHAME! :P

[Aragorn]

Guitar Hero's next "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith" game is "Guitar Hero" Metallica," so they've got that band cornered (which is also why Enter Sandman could not be exported to play on Rock Band 2).

I guess Rock Band countered by taking The Beatles.

[mrcoaster]

Brikar99 wrote:

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No Metallica?? FOR SHAME! :P

Yeah - what can I say? I really don't like Metallica, aside from one or two songs. That and Lars and Co. almost prevented me from meeting my gf by shutting down Napster many years ago. That didn't exactly help their cause either.


When the Beatles game comes out later this year, however...I will be all over that immediately.

[Brikar99]

mrcoaster wrote:

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Yeah - what can I say? I really don't like Metallica, aside from one or two songs. That and Lars and Co. almost prevented me from meeting my gf by shutting down Napster many years ago. That didn't exactly help their cause either.


When the Beatles game comes out later this year, however...I will be all over that immediately.

Heh, it's cool, yo. Just bustin' chops. I'll definitely be getting the Beatles myself. I'm really curious for more details about it, because they've (understandably) been very vague about it. I don't expect the actual gameplay to be any different, but there's talk of a storyline following the history of the band, and I wonder how that will play out.