One more plastic guitar…and then some

With the new Xbox 360 was bound to come at least one thing - another fake, plastic intstrument…or two. With a handful of gift cards from my birthday, I went to Target late Thursday and got myself Rock Band 2, the other music/band game in the same category as Guitar Hero. I debated a while between Rock Band and Guitar Hero since both had new releases in the past two months, but ultimately it was the music that made the difference.

I started with Guitar Hero 2 a few years ago and that led me to Guitar Hero 3 once I got my Wii. Well, since the Wii had a wi-fi connection to the internet everyone thought there would be the ability to download new songs for GH3 - it made sense - but we were wrong. The Wii version of GH3 never got downloads while the X360 enjoyed somewhat regular new songs. However, while Guitar Hero was first to market with this type of game (sorta), Rock Band took it up a notch by adding a drum kit and a microphone - adding kareoke to the playing of fake plastic instruments.

I’m typically a franchise-loyal gamer but with the GH3 Wii let down, I had to make my next choice carefully. The X360 let me start over. I could pick either Guitar Hero or Rock Band. Since both new games offer downloads it all came down to the music, and here Rock Band won hands down.

The sheer number of songs available for Rock Band (and got Rock Band 2) is almost stupid. Ovre 250 songs are available to download, and that’s on top of the 80+ songs that come with the game. Downloadable songs has to be the best scam to come to gaming in a long, long time. Not only is each song $2, by investing that money into the songs you’re basically locking yourself into that game. After all, if you want to get Rock Band 3 you don’t want lose all the songs you downloaded before. It’s genius. The only downside, for them, is that by making new songs available I’m less inclined to buy the next music game. The next game will have to have some sort of killer feature that everyone wants.

Another factor that helped make my decision easier is that Jen loves to sing. We have a few Singstar games for the PS2 and those are fun, but toss in the singing with the guitar playing, that’s just fun all the way around. It’s a game we can both enjoy and it’s a game that has (and offers) a lot of songs we like and almost know by heart to begin with. Rock Band has kept us up into the wee hours of the morning, playing songs over and over while trying to unlock other songs and valuables, like clothes and shoes (for some reason that’s very motivating).

From an instrument standpoint, I’m not sure I like the Rock Band guitar. It’s modeled after the Stratocaster, compared to GH3’s Les Paul. The Les Paul I have for Wii feels a lot beefier than the Strat. It’s heavier, for one, but also bigger overall I think. The Strat has a good shape but the start/select buttons are in the exact wrong spot. On all previous Guitar Hero guitars these buttons were on the top/back of the guitar, so they were right under your wrist. The Strat has them at the bottom/right, so they’re right in the way of your strumming. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve hit those buttons mid-game while strumming away. It’s rather annoying - or maybe I just get a little too excited when I play.

Of course, the “big deal” with Rock Band are the drums. As if a fake guitar wasn’t enough, the game comes with fake drums. A four-head set with a kick pedal. Now, while they are fake and plastic, banging on these things are far closer to playing real drums than the other is to playing real guitar. And man, drumming is hard. My left and right arms have enough trouble coordinating, but then toss in that kick pedal and it’s just a mess. My arms and legs do not function independently during music. It’s not to say playing the drums isn’t fun, but this lack of skill keeps me (and will keep me) on the Easy drum level for quite some time. But that’s OK because I like playing the guitar better anyway.

The kareoke of the game is pretty standard if you’ve played any other sing-a-long game. You’re trying to match pitch and beats, it’s as simple as that. But of course the trick is the range of some of the songs. Singing to KISS is entirely different than singing to “Eye of the Tiger,” but both are a lot of fun.

One thing I was worried about in Rock Band (and the new Guitar Hero) was the difficulty levels. Every interation of Guitar Hero found the “expert” level get increasingly harder, almost to the point where it wasn’t even fun because it was so hard (read, impossible) for the average player not stuck in a dorm room. Since these games now have to be interesting for four people at the same time, the difficulty for each seems to never be that extreme. That’s not to say it isn’t challenging…it’s just challenging enough where you have to practice but you still have fun along the way. I’m not out to get high scores or get YouTubed playing a song perfectly - I just like playing to the songs I love.

The entry price for Rock Band is pretty steep but if you enjoy music, like to sing, play drums, or have no ability to play real guitar but want to, then these games are a wonderful purchase that will keep you entertained for a long time. And so long as they keep offering new music downloads, the game should retain its value for even longer.

But there is one hidden cost to these games - space and screen size. Our living room isn’t huge, so it’s safe to say having the drum kit setup and someone wandering around with guitar can get cramped. And to make things worse, we don’t have the biggest TV, so if we ever had more than two people playing at once, it will get crowded fast. If you already have a giant TV, then getting this type of game is a lot easier - but for the rest of us it becomes a project that has to slowly evolve.

So while the rest of you are silently enjoying Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, or whatever other new shooter title comes out, I’ll be playing loudly in my living room standing next to my wife while she belts out The Screaming Trees and Boston.