Beatles Coming to Rock Band?
Oh, please, please, please let this be fer real:

The Beatles and Rock Band 2 "Come Together"

Not that I'm the world's biggest Beatles fan or anything. I'd be more excited about another Rush album. Or getting Dire Straits' Sultans of Swing as downloadable content. But still, this just glows with coolness.

Labels: Mainstream Games, rock band

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:00 AM (Permalink) 1 comments links to this post

 
Game Design: Gotta Get Back In Time!
Man, all I needed was some Huey Lewis.

Due to an article I'm writing for another website, I already had the wayback machine set on my brain for around 1985. In fact, I managed to dig up an essay I'd written back in high school about the topic of said article. It was very convenient for my younger self to provide me with so many forgotten details.

In the middle of writing about events from over twenty years ago, I took a break to play the newly-downloaded Rush album, Moving Pictures, for Rock Band 2. That actually turned into something of a Rush-fest, as I played every non-cover Rush song in the game, plus a little bit of Boston, Blue Oyster Cult, and even a Duran Duran song for flavor. Somewhere in the middle of the set, as I was pulling off a perfect solo (which probably means it is time to up my difficulty to expert on those songs), the hypnotic effect of the moving buttons on the guitar track did something to my brain. I found myself back in 1983 or 1984. I'm not sure which. It was like the whole bizarre premise of Somewhere In Time was playing out.

And that got me thinking about games and time travel. See, this is the very weird and bizarre way my brain works. Kids, don't try this at home.

Time travel is a moderately popular topic in speculative fiction. One of my all-time favorite movies was Groundhog Day. There's been the aforementioned Somewhere In Time, Star Trek IV (claimed by many critics to be the best ST movie of them all - but I'm partial to The Wrath of Khan myself), Star Trek: First Contact, the Back to the Future series, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, The Philadelphia Experiment, The Terminator films, 13 Going on 30, Time Bandits (important to me only because of its influence on the Ultima games), and probably a bunch of others I am forgetting (purposefully, in the case of a couple of them I remember suffering through).

On TV, we've had Doctor Who, Quantum Leap, Terminator: he Sarah Conner Chronicles, and a bunch of "one-off" episodes of various sci-fi & fantasy shows. A couple of the main characters in Heroes jump through time as a matter of course. In fact, if it's a science fiction series that has lasted more than a couple of seasons, you are almost guaranteed to have an obligatory time-travelling episode (and the amnesia episode, and the ...) Sometimes they can even pull it off without jumping the shark.

But the best of linear media can't hold a candle to the capabilities of exploring the subject in video games. Surprisingly, there's not been a whole lot of games dealing with the subject. Chrono Trigger is perhaps the first one to come to mind. One of my first games for the Commodore 64 was a pretty terrible one called Dino Eggs that was interesting only because a giant dinosaur foot would come down to stomp you. Daikatana and Anachronox had time travel as part of their storyline, if I recall. City of Heroes had an expansion all about time travel. Recent Prince of Persia games used time reversal as a game element. Recently, that concept was taken to a more extreme degree with the indie game Braid, which uses time flow is as much a part of the mechanics as the standard platforming action.

Assuming Braid is not the final word on the use of time flow or time travel in games, what else is there, and how could we play with the concept of time in games?

In the back of my mind, I've got an idea for a deterministic real-time strategy game. A short one - not a Total Annihilation / Supreme Commander style multi-hour slugfest. The whole game is played out to conclusion before you arrive. You can fast forward or reverse to play through the battle at any point. You have a limited number of actions you are allowed to take, which might include sending units from "the future" back to the past if they could be more influential in the battle.

At that level, it would turn into something of a puzzle game, attempting to use the "butterfly effect" to win. But what if your opponent had the same power? But you'd take your actions simultaneously? Suddenly it becomes a battle for time control, anticipating your opponent's moves in reverse.

I could see this working in a sim-heavy RPG (like Dwarf Fortress) as well - though the data required to to store (or recalculate) states throughout time could get a little out of hand.

What other possibilities are there for playing with time in games?

Labels: Game Design, retro, rock band

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:03 AM (Permalink) 15 comments links to this post

 
Rampant Coyote on Rock Band 2
I wasn't waiting until Christmas this year. I snagged a copy of Rock Band 2 last night. You know, the game that Harmonix said around this time last year that they weren't even thinking about making for quite a while.

We played as a family last night for about an hour or so, and I got some solo time in. I came to the conclusion that it could be called, "Rock Band 1.1: A Whole Bunch of New Songs." They managed to get rid of some of the annoyances of the first game (like having the band tied to one character, and having that character tied to a particular instrument only). And they have some new features, including some competitive scoring "battles of the bands" modes which we will probably never use, because they require everyone to play on expert difficulty. Oh, and a drum training mode. The residual Guitar Hero style single-player mode (which I didn't play much) seemed to be gone from what I could see. Single-player is now the same as multiplayer, but with only one band member. This deletion is probably an addition... it's nice to have it all seamless now.

I'm sure there is more, and I'm sure I'll even explore them at some point. I might even find a new favorite. But for the most part - it's a minor upgrade to Rock Band plus - if you include bonus songs and some free downloadable songs coming soon - over 100 songs.

And you know what? That's not bad. At least they didn't include boss battles where you break the other guy's instruments while playing (at least, so far as I can tell). Really, aside from what they've now addressed, I can't really think of many ways to really improve on Rock Band. This is like Guitar Hero 2 to Guitar Hero - they sorta took it as far as it can go, and any further changes might only wreck things. Did I mention GH3's really lame and irritating boss battles yet?

The best thing - an incredible thing, when you think about it - is that not only is all of the downloadable content for Rock Band 1 compatible and automatically works in Rock Band 2 with zero effort, but the original's songs - all but about three, at least - can be exported into the new game. And you can go back and delete the ones you hate ("Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys is the prime candidate amongst our friends). It's sad about the missing songs - probably because of $ome kind of licen$ing i$$ue. But the end result is that unless you really, really want to play Run to the Hills, Enter Sandman, or Paranoid (and granted... I might), there's no reason to have to put your RB1 disc in the drive ever again.

So I guess I could argue that Rock Band 2 comes straight out of the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of game design. They fixed what they needed to, added some optional new features, and otherwise just delivered the same Rock Band-y goodness I've been enjoying for the last year with friends playing the ultimate (game console) party game. So now we have more of the same, without having to worry about swapping characters and bands in the middle of a set when we're switching off.

So I'm pretty thrilled about it.

Also - "The Trees," "Carry On Wayward Son," "Hungry Like the Wolf," "One Way Or Another," "White Wedding," "American Woman," "Pinball Wizard," "Any Way You Want It," "Livin' On a Prayer," "Aqualung," "Go Your Own Way," "Ace of Spades," "Round and Round," "The Middle," and even some fun cheesiness of "We Got the Beat" and "The Eye of the Tiger." Man, those would just about be worth the price of admission all by themselves.

Labels: Guitar Hero, Mainstream Games, rock band

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:23 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Rush Fails
And I'm not talking about a Zerg Rush.

This is actually pretty old news (2 months ago - ancient), but the Colbert Report had a hysterical segment where the epic mega-rockers Rush failed their own song in Rock Band. I'd heard about it, but a friend of mine sent me this link last week, and so I thought I'd share for anyone else who had missed it:

Kotaku: Watch Rush Fail At Rock Band

They were pretty good sports about it. So, okay, I guess Rock Band really isn't like the real thing after all. :)

And the sequel is coming out in just a few days. Woot!

Labels: rock band

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:34 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Rush Album for Rock Band Delayed For "Weeks"
Well, dang.

Rush's 1981 album, "Moving Pictures," is literally my favorite album of all time. When I heard that the entire album would be available for Rock Band, I was thrilled.

Since this coincided with my week off, I thought I'd get some extra time to pretend to be Neil Peart or Alex Lifeson. No, I do not yet have the courage to try and imitate Geddy Lee's vocals. The last time I went to a Rush concert, Geddy Lee himself had a problem belting it out like he could in the 80's. Throughout the day on Tuesday, I'd pop onto the XBox and see if the album was available for it. They had a teaser ad in the marketplace for it, but the "new content" was only the Devo and Duran Duran songs from last week (which were plenty of fun, too).

But now... Harmonix has announced that the album's release is delayed because of "technical difficulties." Probably for a couple of weeks, not days. They've had a lot of practice releasing song packs by now, so I wonder if the technical difficulties are more of a hang-up on the legal / licensing side. Or if they are just trying to figure out how to get YYZ to work, since it is an instrumental piece with no vocals. Maybe the vocalist has to beat Morse Code on the microphone?

In the grand scheme of things, this isn't exactly a world-ending disappointment. I've got plenty of jobs and pleasures vying for my time this week. But ... it is still a bummer.

Labels: Mainstream Games, rock band

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 12:30 AM (Permalink) 3 comments links to this post

 
How Much Do I Spend On Rock Band?
Rock Band, Harmonix's newest game and possible successor to the Guitar Hero throne, cost me about $170 initially. Money well spent. While I think Guitar Hero III might be a better solo game if you prefer being an air-guitar star, Rock Band is probably the best party game videogame I've ever played. It's the perfect size for our family of four, everyone can play cooperatively on different skill levels, and when friends come by, Rock Band comes out.

I don't buy all of the downloadable songs that come out for it. Though I found myself buying a couple that I'd originally skipped after playing them at a friends' place. Last night, downloading the Grateful Dead pack, I realized that I've probably spent narly $40 on extra music for the game.

And you know what? It didn't bother me.

Rock Band shipped with a reasonable number of songs (most of the expense of the game is due to the guitar, drum set, and microphone controllers that shipped with it). True, when starting out in world tour mode, it seems like it takes forever to escape the first couple of batches of "beginner" songs, but eventually all 58 songs become available and it feels reasonable.

Now the number is around 78. It feels like a great game has just been made better, and it's becoming customized to my tastes. Sure, it would be better if there was an option to remove the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" completely from the list, and if the downloaded songs were swapped in as stand-alone songs on different venues rather than only appearing in random or custom set lists. But hey - I've got three songs by Rush, "Gimme Three Steps" by Lynard Skynard, and songs by Blink 182, the Pretenders, Weezer, and CCR with my game.

And I've been getting introduced to music that had always been under my radar. And some of the artists (and iTunes) have profited.

Nevermind the fact that Rock Band has sold something like 3 million of these downloadable songs by now. Or am I underestimating?

If I were a music studio executive right now, or an agent for an indie band, I'd be lining up with an attractive licensing deal for MTV / Harmonix - or Activision / RedOctane - or whoever else might be working on the next big music game (Hmmm.... a licensing deal for Steam's indie hit Audiosurf?) - right now. In fact, I am guessing they already are.

As GLaDOS would say, "Huge Success."

UPDATE: Wow, can I call it or can I call it?

Labels: Biz, Guitar Hero, music, rock band

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:31 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post