• Square Elite
  1. If you are having trouble logging in, check the box, "stay logged in" to fix the issue. Thanks! —KHP Staff
  2. Hi Guest, you may have noticed that we aren't khplanet.com anymore. For more information on why these changes are happening, check out our thread, Site Re-Brand Updates

Rock Band

Discussion in 'General Gaming' started by EbeneezerAl, Apr 7, 2008.

  1. EbeneezerAl

    EbeneezerAl New Member

    OK, so a lot of you have played Guitar Hero. Anyone have Rock Band?

    What instrument do you prefer to play? What songs do you like? How far have you gotten solo?

    Personally, I think this is so much better than Guitar Hero. The introduction of the other instruments is excellent. And the multiplayer mode is very well thought out.

    For those of you who haven't played it, multiplayer mode in Rock band works like so. You have anywhere from two to four members, who can pick to play either drums, bass, guitar, or vocals. You designate a home city for your band, and that's where you start. Each city has a number of venues. Each venue has a number of sets you play. In addition to playing single songs, you play set lists, which have you playing two or more songs in a row (I know it gets up to at least 4). Sometimes it's a specific set of songs, like a local artist set or a specific genre. Occassionally, you have the mystery setlist which choses the songs at random from among all the songs you have unlocked.

    Upon completing a show, you gain fans. The game also tallys up all the starts you've earned in each set. As you gain more stars and more fans, you unlock new venues. Eventually, you'll unlock a major show that, upon completing it, will gain you something you need to expand your tour. You get a van, then a bus, each of which allow you to travel further. Eventually, a jet lets you play in other countries. You'll also gain roadies and a sound guy and such that give you access to venues you couldn't get into before.

    It's very realistic in a sense as well, because you play a lot of the same songs over again. You unlock a song here and a song there. But you song list grows rather slowly. The set lists get more varied late in the game, especially wiht the mystery set lists, but early in, you'll get very good at your first few songs. But as a new band, starting out, your list of songs would be rather limited, only growing as your band grows.

    The game also forces you up out of easy, on the context that you can't earn any more fans at that difficulty level. You can of course, drop back down to easy if you need to, for the sake of completing a difficult song. You won't gain any new fans, but at least you'll finish the set, and earn the stars. The multiplayer is extremely well made.

    My biggest complaint is the fact that they took away this complexity for the single player mode. Single player is pretty much just like Guitar Hero, except you can chose your instrument. In some ways, it's less entertaining than Guitar Hero, as it lacks the elemnts of Encores and Battles. You start in a city, and that city has a number of songs. Finish them all, and you unlock the next city. There's also a "bonus tour" in Rio de Jenero that contains a number of bonus songs, which you unlock one at a time. Beat one and unlock the next. There's also no option to play bass in multiplayer (guitar and bass use the same controller) which to me is a real let down. I guess they figured no one would wnat to play bass solo, but to me, the real benefit of single player in Guitar Hero over Rock Band, is having four instruments to play instead of one.

    As with multiplayer, you have to go up to at least medium in order to play all the songs. Thus the game rewards you for trying to pass easy.

    I personally have found that I like drums. I'm currently most of the way through medium in my solo "tour", having just finished Green Grass and High Tides (oh my God, what a difficult song). It actually took me about 20 minutes to recover from that. Drums are fun, but on fast songs you get really tired playing them, and Green Grass and High Tides is the worst so far. It goes on and on forever and doesn't let up. To give some of you who may not have played this an idea, you have at least 8 notes a second coming at you non stop for the several minutes at the end of the song. I finsihed that song about an hour ago, and my arm still hurts. It's brutal.

    But me and my out of shape self could use a work out anyway. Might as well have fun with it.

    I have trouble with Guitar because of a lack of dexterity. Drums actually have a lot more notes and are very difficult. You have to keep on your toes to stay alive. But it's a thythmic instrument which means if you can find the pattern, you can survive. Guitar I simply don't have the dexterity in my hands to be able to pull off. I especially have a problem with Red and Blue. I have troble switching between them, and when playing Red/Blue chords, my ring finger always wants to go down on the yellow key as well ans I screw it up.

    Favorite songs include Dead or Alive, Paranoid, Mississippi Queen, Creep, Welcome Home, off the top of my head. There are others, but those are the ones I can think of right now.

    Least Favorite, apart from the already mentioned Green Grass and High Tides, include Wave of Mutilation and whatever one they included from Fall Out Boy. Also, Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld is a pain. It's cool that they included it, but its hard, and theres not really a pattern to it.

    OK, so that was a long intro. But anyway. It's a cool game. Discuss.
     
  2. NeRo

    NeRo Your Supreme Lord And Savior Staff Member Administrator

    I own Rock Band. and i do so enjoy it alot. however i dont play it as much as i used to because well ive done everything i only play for the online play. if i could get acces to a credit card i would download more songs. that makes things SO much more fun i did download 2 songs and they add to your solo mode.

    See in solo you have that bonus tour in Rio De genero. but once you download songs you get to play them in alternate Tours. which is a change of pace.

    I personally love the game its better than guitar hero in a alot of aspects. however guitar hero is still the king of solo's the buttons on the Rocknband guitar are harder to clich and switch off. i play on Expert on the guitar and medim on the drums mostly but there are some songs i can do on Expert on the drums. then for some rason i am very adept with singing.well possibly bc i do sing in RL. but in any case. i adore the game and cant wait till a new is relased but they might not. they just may continue to make add-ons.

    I own the ps3 version if anyone wants to ever play me just let me know
     
  3. EbeneezerAl

    EbeneezerAl New Member

    My sister's fiancee has it on 360, and we don't have Xbox live hooked up because of FAP issues with our satellite net connection.

    And it's surprising how good you get at this after a while. I've managed to get 5 stars in all of the Medium Songs with the exception of Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld. And some of the songs I used to have trouble with don't cause me any problems at all.

    I'm over halfway through Hard now. Just beat Detroit Rock City, which sucks on hard. I can't believe I actually survived it). Some of the songs I'm breezing thorugh on hard though. For instance, Green Grass and High Tides, which I previously found to be one of the most brutal songs in the game, I played through without any trouble. But certain songs, which I enjoyed before, are just ruthless at the higher difficulties. The irregular kick patterns that seem to be quite common in Hard/Expert songs are the hardest thing for me. My goal is to be able to survive all the way through Expert. I just want to complete it. I don't care if it's pretty. Then, in multiplayer, when I need to go to higher difficulties to get fans, I know I can do it, at least on certain songs.

    How does the online play work? Is it just like the Multiplayer except you can make a band with people you don't live with? Or is it set up completely different? Coop, competetive, etc?
     
  4. darkside

    darkside New Member

    i only tried it once on guitar on 360, and it seemed pretty easy, but different because of the different look of the keys.
     
  5. EbeneezerAl

    EbeneezerAl New Member

    The guitar parts at lower levels are a lot easier on Rock Band than Guitar Hero. On lower levels, they don't even look all that much like the actual parts. As you get to the higher levels, they get a lot closer. On hard, most of the rhythms are there. And I expect that expert is the exact part (or as exact as it can be, concidering it's not a real guitar). Guitar Hero's problem, for me, was that the original part was so close to what was being played, that as the difficulty increased, even as small as from easy to medium, they just started adding notes that weren't even there. Rock band doesn't do that. They simplify the more complicated rhythms and then slowly turn them into the real ones as the difficulty increases.

    Drums are probably the most realistic (apart from vocals, but that's the least interesting part anyway). The difficulty of drums, for the most part, increases with the kick. The actual drum rhythms on the sticks don't change as much for most of the songs (though you do move around on the drum kit more and you have to add more rolls). The real difficulty comes as the kick notes are added, and you have to train your foot to think more and more independantly of your hands. Easy drums used very little kick. Medium used a decent amount, but most of the kick notes timed exactly on the other notes. Above that, they start making you hit kick notes between the other notes, at different rhythms, and they also start adding more of the difficult drum flares in, and speeding up drum rolls.

    Out of curiosity, does anyone know what the difference is between difficulty levels of vocals? Does it get harder in some way, or does the game just get more nit-picky on how close to pitch you are?
     
  6. Luke

    Luke Member

    I wish they included some more heavier songs. Though they did include a couple of my favorites ( paranoid, Enter Sandman, Dead or Alive). Im still surprised that i`ve yet to see Crazy train on any rhythm game.
    I have beat Rock band on all difficulties but cannot get 5 stars on Run to the hills.( i can get 4 1/2)
     
  7. EbeneezerAl

    EbeneezerAl New Member

    The trouble with adding a lot of the heavier songs is that fact that a lot of them use double bass, which Rock Band isn't designed with in mind (though it is possible to rig one up with the coval mic cord if you can get a second pedal). And even with that I think they have a decent number of heavy songs in it. Especially in the bonus list. The game has a really good mix of song types. A little bit of everything.
     
  8. Beloved

    Beloved Azure's Beloved

    I play drums on Hard...High Tides F'ING HURTS

    Have you tried it on hard Al? Don't. It HURTS! But I did make it through...eventually. lol
     
  9. EbeneezerAl

    EbeneezerAl New Member

    Actually, I'm in the last tier of Hard now, fixing to go to Expert. When I played it on medium, I would have agreed with you. I couldn't do anything for an hour. When I got to it on Hard, I was dreading it. But when I played it, I never flinched, blinked, or found one single thing that gave me trouble. And I wasn't even out of breath. It was one of the easiest songs there.

    Now you want rough, wait until you get to the end of Hard. Iron Maiden is a royal pain. Luke, I'm impressed that you can even beat Run to the Hills on Expert, let along get 4 1/2 stars. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to make it through that song. I know exactly what the rhythm is. But I just can't play it fast enough to survive the song.
     
  10. Beloved

    Beloved Azure's Beloved

    Ouch. Yeah, I Run to the Hills on Expert. 4 stars. A real pain man...
     
  11. EbeneezerAl

    EbeneezerAl New Member

    Well, I'm having more than my usual amount of trouble right now because I broke the pedal. I have a new metal one ordered that should be here in the next day or two, but for now my kick pedal is held together with packing tape. And while that packing tape is doing an extrememly admirable job of holding the kick pedal together, I'm still trying not to be too hard on it right now. And so on the more difficult rhythms, I tend to miss a lot of notes cause I'm being too careful on the pedal and don't hit it fast enough.
     
  12. Beloved

    Beloved Azure's Beloved

    Ouch dude. I'm already careful enough.
     
  13. EbeneezerAl

    EbeneezerAl New Member

    So was I. It broke anyway. I just have to be extra careful until the petal comes in. Seriously, this is apparantly a major problem. Pretty much everyone I know who owns this game had to replace their petal. If I were you, I'd go ahead and the asme thing I'm getting. It's a metal plate that fits over the petal. You screw it on and it fixes the broken petal, or reinforces it if you haven't broken it yet.
     
  14. Beloved

    Beloved Azure's Beloved

    Whoa, good idea. Think I'll do that.
     
  15. EbeneezerAl

    EbeneezerAl New Member

    OK, just found a couple new things. Anybody manage to get a Gold Star yet? I got one today and had no idea what it was, so i looked it up. Basically a Gold Star is getting a score that is a set number of points higher than the score required for a 5 star rating (approximately 1.5x). And you have to be playing on Expert to get one. I got mine on drums playing Say it Ain't So. Okay, so it's a really easy song, but I'm proud of it nonetheless.

    Another question is, has anyone played, and completed, the Endless Setlist? I saw that when I was looking for the Gold Star info. I would say the hardest part of that is actually finding the time to play it. For those who don't know, when playing in Band World Tour, there is a setlist, unlocked after the Hall of Fame, that is all 58 songs in the game, played straight through. Times I've heard range form 5 to 6 hours to complete it.

    As for me, I'm playing through a Solo Career in Expert right now. Gotten as far as Chicago, and still have Reptilla and Epic to beat before I can move on. I haven't beaten it in hard though. I've beaten every song except Run to the Hills. I'm in two bands though. One with just me and my sister where we still need Roadies, and one with us and her fiancee (and sometimes just me and him) where we already have the PR Firm and we're trying to get the stars to get into the hall of fame.
     
  16. Beloved

    Beloved Azure's Beloved

    I've gotten gold stars on Drums only. I suck with the guitar really. But I somehow pwn with the guitar for Guitar Hero....wierd.
     

Share This Page