November 23rd, 2007 by Chris Scott
Also available on:
PS3, PS2, WII Something Old, Something New
So you have all your instruments set up, cramped into your play space and now you are ready to play. Well, if you have no friends to play with at the time, there is still plenty to do. The single player component will be very familiar to anyone who has played a Guitar Hero game in the past except that there are now three different instrument paths for you to embark your customized character’s career on. You will pick a difficulty and work your way through increasingly more difficult sets of songs. Oh and did I say you can customize your character?
Before embarking upon your new career to be a rock god, you must create an on screen avatar. You can customize their name, personality, and appearance. The options are limited but you should be able to find something that is suitable to your tastes. The character models seem crisper than in Guitar Hero III and are overall more enjoyable. One bone of contention I have with the character creation is that it is linked to a particular instrument and your guitar character can not be your drummer or vocalist character. It’s a minor annoyance but an annoyance nonetheless.
After you have created your character and it has been linked with a particular instrument, you will enter into the career mode, select your difficulty and set out conquering that particular instrument. If you chose guitar the game will seem extra special familiar aside from a few aesthetic changes including the notes being bars instead of circles and the special solo sections where players can rack up extra points for performing excellent solos. This is basically like Guitar Hero but easier. The overall difficulty has been modified from Guitar Hero to have less of a focus on giving you carpal tunnel syndrome to actually giving you the experience of playing in a band. To this extent longtime Guitar Hero players will find Rock Band’s single player component easy to complete up until the very last few songs on the Expert difficulty.
Phil Collins Anyone?
But the challenges do not end with the guitar. You can complete careers as a vocalist and as a drummer each of which offers a vastly different experience from playing the guitar. Vocalists must hit the right pitch as well as the right words as they progress, racking up streaks for singing blocked off phrases well. You can activate overdrive (Rock Band’s star power) by free talking in specially marked spots to rack up extra points. Players will quickly find out that belting out the lyrics to their favorite tune at the top of their lungs is the quickest way to get thrown off the stage. The game is rather unforgiving at times on the vocal front and being more reserved and focusing on your pitch is the best way to progress.
If you choose to be a drummer you are in for a workout. Whereas the easy difficulty for guitarists and vocalists is in fact relatively easy, drums are a completely different story. You will start out using all four pads and the foot pedal. The difficulty increases by adding considerably more notes to hit. If you can master drums on Hard or expert difficulty, you may want to look into buying a real drum set as you can probably really play. Even though the drums are difficult to play, they are incredibly fun and will more than likely be what almost everyone will want to play at parties.
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