Singing in the shower

Remember all those times that you started air-guitaring to your favorite song? How about playing the drums with your fingers? Ever sang in the shower? In recent years would-be musicians have been able to take these urges to the next level with games like Guitar Hero, Singstar, and Taico: Drum Master. Microsoft and Harmonix are about to go far beyond anything those three games had to offer with Rock Band, a game that promises to fulfill all your rocking needs.

Fans will recognize Harmonix as the creators of the excellent games Guitar Hero and Amplitude. With those two games under their belt, you know that the development of Rock Band is in good hands. The game re-introduces players to the gameplay of Guitar Hero, but adds drums and vocals to the mix.

Guitar and vocals

There will be separate peripherals for guitar/bass, vocals, and drums. Using a miniature Fender Stratocaster, players can play guitar and bass. The guitar features 10 colored buttons (2 sets of the same 5 colored buttons at the bottom and top of the neck - the bottom ones used for special solo sections) used to play the ‘notes’. Notes are colored markers scrolling down the screen that match the ones on the guitar. When the notes reach a line on the screen, the player must press the button and use a strum bar at the body of the guitar to play the note. But wait, there is more! Hammer-ons and pull-offs are used to play fast passages without having to use the strum bar, and chords.

The ‘vocal’ part of the game is similar to games like Karaoke Revolution and Singstar. Vocals and pitch are detected and (besides the obvious singing) can be used for tambourines or cow bells when a song does not contain any vocals.

Wanna play the drums?

The real innovation in Rock Band is found in the ‘drums’ part. Somewhat similar to the guitar and bass, the player must hit 4 foam pads arranged like a drum set representing the snare drum, tom-tom, hi-hat, and crash symbols. Along with a kick pedal for the bass drum, the player will hit a pad or use the pedal in correspondence to the notes. The drums part is said to be so realistic that Harmonix claims that any player able to master drums on hard mode will be able to play the drums in real life.

Scoring is done in the same fashion for every instrument. The more notes you hit at the right moment, the more points you get. If you manage to produce a correct streak of notes a score multiplier is activated. Missing too many notes however, will eventually mean you get kicked out of the band. But fear not: if you work hard enough they might let you back in.