SGC member PikminGuts92 and I had an INTERNET ARGUMENT last night. Well, nay, it was a minor disagreement on Twitter. As we’re both big players of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, it was totally about those games. And how Rock Band is doing it better.
Well, in my eyes anyway. In terms of DLC. You get the idea.
Hit the jump to read why.
Basically, Mr Guts92, as he shall be known, said that I was wrong to be bored of the constant releases that Activision have a habit of putting out once every couple of days or so.
Guitar Hero III, World Tour and GH5 are the only “real” sequels that I’ve really seen Activision bring out. By a true sequel, I mean we’ve either seen a new game engine or game-changing features like band play. But in between those games we’ve seen Aerosmith, Metallica and Smash Hits; and Van Halen’s coming up too.
Those games don’t do anything new. All they’ve done is given us a bunch of songs we may or may not want, without a choice in the matter. Not only that, but the “band-centric” games also include some guest acts whose songs have absolutely naff all to do with the title they’re in. All so Activision can slap a $60 price tag on the game and flog it with a new guitar as a fully-fledged “game”.
Now, see, EA — whose title of “EA” has been usurped by Activision — have gotten it right, and the way that they and Harmonix have tackled the issue of extra songs is the right one. That’s right, Mr Guts92, the right one.
You notice how many Rock Band games have been brought out? Count ‘em on one hand: three. Rock Band, the imaginatively-named Rock Band 2 and the fresh-as-a-newborn-babe Beatles Rock Band. One is a fully-fleshed-out sequel with new features and the other is a contractually-obliged, but genuinely, band-centric music game.
On top of all that are around 700 downloadable songs compatible with both Rock Band and Rock Band 2, and — again, contractually-obliged – DLC coming soon for the Beatles title. That’s downloadable content you can pick and choose from without needing to splash out on $60 discs featuring songs you don’t necessarily want.
Ah, but Yamster, you reason, what about LEGO Rock Band? Isn’t that just like Band Hero since they both feature family-friendly soundtracks? First of all, drop the bold text, it’s irritating. Second, LEGO Rock Band is wildly different from the rest of the Rock Band family, what with its minifigure customisation, boss battles with giant LEGO dragons and block-tastic HUD. You can even export the songs to Rock Band if the whole LEGO look isn’t for you.
Band Hero is essentially Guitar Hero 5 with PG-rated songs and whasshisface from Maroon 5 who’s lent his face to the game because it’s the first money he’s made in 2 years. If it’s not doing anything new, I don’t want it on a disc, and LEGO Rock Band is different enough to warrant a Blu-ray box on my shelf.
If you’re not convinced that DLC (or Rock Band in general) is the way forward, let the sales speak for themselves. Guitar Hero Metallica was outsold by Aerosmith — AEROSMITH — in April. Rock Band DLC sales have topped 40 million as of Feburary. You don’t need a calculator to tell me that Rock Band’s business model is working far better.
Am I right then, or will you vouch for PikminGuts92? Is it better to get loads of pick-and-choose DLC for a music game you already have, or would you prefer discs that give you some songs you love and loads you hate?
And if you vouch for PikminGuts, I’ll call favouritism. And cry to Doc about you all ganging up on me, you big bullies.
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i personally like to have any content from my games on discs. i dont like downloading full games from steam or d2d or something like that because my internet is not the fastest and it takes forever. now with the songs for rock band and guitar hero its nice to be able to download them because they are so small that they take almost no time. i do agree rock bands model is working better and i will never buy another guitar hero game ever again because of all the copies they put out but in general i would rather have my games and dlc on a disc instead of downloading them from the interwebz. im just materialistic like that
You have just sold me on LEGO Rock Band. I think I’ll be reserving that now.
DLC is better. Nobody likes to disc-swap when they don’t have to, and it is infinitely better to pick which songs you want than get stuck with a whole gig-load of songs that you have never heard, and have no inclination to hear again. I have not sworn off guitar hero titles, simply because they all eventually end up costing 15 bucks at my Target clearance rack, and I can usually find 10 songs on a disc that I am willing to pony up that cash for.
Guitar Hero has come down with Singstar Syndrome, though it appears to be healing slowly: GH Metallica and GH Smash Hits are supposed to be exportable to GH5. That’s a step in the right direction.
Even Singstar isn’t too guilty these days, Smelly. They all come with the Singstore and share downloadable content, much like Rock Band.
Yes, they share content, which is nice. My beef with SingStar is that each new game is essentially 30 new songs, and nothing else. There isn’t one new feature added in SingStar Abba or SingStar Queen, and the tracks are not, and will not be, available on the SingStore. So, if you want any of them, you are obligated to purchase the whole disc, and hot swap the disc rather than rip them to your hard drive. Rock Band still wins.
Yamster i have to argree completly with your argument here. No way is guitar hero extra it’s more like Guitar Thief or How much money can we get from you without you realising we’re just releasing the same crappy game but this time with new songs and more old singers who are dead so won’t sue us (HMMCWGFYWYRWJRTSCGBTTWNSAMOSWADSWSU for short)
though to be honest i hate both games, like guitar hero. Here’s an idea LEARN TO PLAY A FRICKEN GUITAR YOU LAZY MORON!
Right… Then why don’t you tell people who like war games to join the Military. Or people who like to play sports game to play for an actual team. Or for people who like racing games to actually race… Or… Well you get my picture…
STFU… Please….
i do. I did it today. What’s the problem with leaving a few comments and there’s a differance, guitar hero is a game based on something that leaves some morons believing that can gasp, shock, horror! actually play a guitar! i edmitt at first, yeah sure good idea for a game but now it just needs to die. like a lot of things in the media.
I refuse to purchase DLC.
If I’m going to buy something, I actually want to get a physical copy.
What if I want to sell it? With DLC you’re out of luck.
Hence why you pick and choose songs you KNOW you’re going to like.
Rock Band has it right. I would rather buy songs I want than a bunch where only some I like
I’m normally not a fan of DLC….I bought Oblivion and Mass Effect only when they came with the DLC, and I sold my Fallout 3 in preparation for F3 GOTY with DLC.
However – music games are one thing I think the DLC is very good for. The other options, dozens of themed releases or add-on disks, are not very attractive. The “platform” concept of Rock Band is one reason it’s much more attractive to me than the various iterations of GH disks (although I did buy AC/DC track pack).
For full games and large add-ons, I want a disk. (DLC copy of Bioshock for 30 bucks? No thanks!) I have trouble pulling the trigger for a 8-15$ XBLA game. But tracks for 80-160 points are much more doable, although I definitely think they could and should allow the resale of them (think about it, with the Xbox licensing functionality, there’s absolutely no reason they couldn’t activate it on one person’s license and deactivate it on another person’s).
Oh, and the “Play real guitar!” “argument” is about as stupid and played out as the “Nintendo doesn’t care about ‘real’ gamers” argument.
I love DLC!!! I’ve spent more than $200 on it.
You left out some details.
First of all, most of the Guitar Hero games give you more than just new songs. For example, Guitar Hero: Metallica, YOU PLAY AS METALLICA!!! They cannot make that stuff downloadable.
But a game like GH: Smash Hits is really stupid, they could have definitely made that DLC. Even so, it was way too early for a “greatest hits” game.
Playing as Metallica could easily be included as DLC. Each of the Beatles: RB DLC songs are supposed to be coming with unique dreamscape/videos, so it can be done. Plus, outside of B:RB, I have never really cared what is going on outside of the note track in these games. I don’t know anything about the presentation of GH: Metallica, but I do know that the B:RB extra content was done right!
lets just be gald your sperm count is still up
well either way i prefer DLC. With a disc you have to buy the disc, case and manual and it’s easier just to download though soon i might need a bigger GB harddrive. If DLC is the future then by what other people on sarcastic gamer have said about the 360 then microsoft is screwed….well unless it can come up with a brand new harddrive that is cheap enough for us to buy.