I think that competition is good, but I’m increasingly worried about exclusivity inside of exclusivity. It’s bad enough on the wallet to segment the gaming world into three distinct groups (PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii), but then to slice them up further (Rock Band and Guitar Hero) just makes it worse.
I felt sick to my stomach after reading that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith was soon to be released and that the entire Aerosmith song catalog was going exclusive to Guitar Hero. I only own Rock Band so how am I going to play my favorite Aerosmith songs? Am I going to have to worry about Activision and Harmonix throwing sick amounts of money at bands for exclusivity rights? While I might enjoy Aerosmith’s music, their presence alone isn’t enough to make me drop money on another game. Should AC/DC choose Guitar Hero for their eventual digital unleashing, I’ll be royally screwed.
Regarding the upcoming Guitar Hero: World Tour, why isn’t Activision letting you carry over DLC from prior Guitar Hero games? Is it because they don’t want to add parts for the other instruments? If so, that’s just plain weak. They should include the option to play the DLC with guitars only or download fuller "band" version for a dollar upcharge, for example. Sure people would complain, but at least an option would be present.
Finally, I’m not a big fan of the music creator in Guitar Hero: World Tour mostly because it lacks vocal support. Being the vocals guy in our group, I might as well just fire up the DS while my buddies enjoy jamming out to our latest creation. I don’t see the point of this feature without including all four players unless you were wanting to replicate old-school 8-bit Nintendo music. With any luck, next year’s edition will include a workaround to this problem to make all members of the band happy, and not just three out of four.
- Dover
Sometimes I do not decide to write a post until I read Dover’s entry - this is one of those times. I would have a difficult time denying that Guitar Hero has fallen onto something of a creative slump, even as its financial success climbs. As a series, the Guitar Hero franchise was birthed only three short years ago. Pulling more than a little inspiration from Konami’s Japan-exclusive Guitar Freaks, and mixing in a little of its older music titles Frequency and Amplitude, developer Harmonix sired a plastic instrument-fueled beast than would soon spawn a greater, one billion dollar franchise. Since the inception, Harmonix has split from the series (following Guitar Hero II) and development duties have fallen to Neversoft of Tony Hawk fame. Of course, Harmonix graduated to the more fully featured Rock Band and its upcoming sequel, the aptly titled Rock Band 2. Sales numbers for Guitar Hero have grown over iterations and this trend is expected to continue with Guitar Hero: World Tour, or part four for those keeping count.
The problem with Guitar Hero stem from each game being almost identical to the last. Minor user interface differences and note timing changes aside, I have a difficult time telling them apart. The formula is solid, but with six distinct versions in less than three years, Activision knows that users may be tiring of the same ol’, same ol’. How then to differentiate World Tour? Adding instruments is nice, but Rock Band already did it and Drum Mania did it even earlier. Enter the music maker. Dover may whine because of the lack of vocals, and it is a legitimate complaint, but of all the roles to be axed that should be it. Honestly, lead singers are egotistical black holes of talent anyway. I kid! I’m taking the glass half-full approach here and saying that any music creation device is better than no music creation device. And about the non-transferable songs from Guitar Hero III, it’s pretty lousy. I have no doubt that the online stores are separate to avoid consumer confusion (i.e. I have this song on my list but it doesn’t have drums, etc.), but I still think it’s shitty.
Apparently, Diablo III was announced last week. The numeric confounded me. Between that unveiling and this StarCraft II thing, Blizzard seems to be upping belated expansion packs to fully-fledged sequel status. Money can buy many things, but it would seem that originality is not one of them.
- Irving