Rock Band Weekly: The Black Keys, Neon Trees

@The Man with a girls name
Why what's the matter with your voice?

@butaneko
I am a mute,

@The Man with a girls name
It's alright. I got the reference.

@Kal El

umadbro?

@Kal El It's getting really old, but the flaming doesnt stop. People need to just come to terms with the fact that there are two games and they are nearly identical. They both have their flaws, neither is perfect, and Pro Mode isnt the game changer everybody thinks it is because of the tremendous price tag attached to it. On the other side, the new guitars look horrendous, but the music selection (for what it is) is decent. See, an even-handed assessment of both titles. I really wonder how much of the back catalog is going to be adapted for the hew modes and instruments. See? No fanboyism to be found, until the replies begin.

@VaultBoy This is well said. I cannot fault anything there. Rock Band has great DLC, but GH has a better interface. I love them both for so many different reasons.

@Kal El
Guitar hero's charting is shit and you guys are nuts.

I keep hearing this, how is it shit exactly? Nobody ever has anything to back up that claim. I heard people bitching about how Smells Like Teen Spirit was overly complicated, when the expert chart was a fair representation given the over simplified nature of the games interface up to that point. Do you want to have an intelligent debate or just flame like an idiot?

@VaultBoy You know your stuff.
People seem to overlook the fact that RB3 has songs that GH already have in. Plus the fact that so far there is nothing so special about the setlist. Whereas WOR has such an amazing setlist.

@Kal El I am not trolling one way or another. I have both and play both. But when people get on their high horse and try to tell me that one is CLEARLY superior to the other, based solely on their base components I call bullshit. OK Rock Band has a lot of DLC, yes true, but that doesnt change the fact that they come out with about the same number of songs on each disc. The selling points for some are not selling points to all. Rock Band has a lot to offer that comes at an additional cost to the disc. Guitar Hero, at least this time around has a good amount to offer based on the initial investment. That is all i am saying. I am excited as hell about Pro Mode, but it comes at a much higher price. One I cannot afford to pay at launch, sorry. Will I still get it? Yes. But I am going to have to save up to take advantage of the full features of the game even based on the fact that I have full band kits for both games. As a hardcore fan of both games, I can honestly tell you that while the extended features of RB3 are AMAZING, not everyone is going to be able to make the investment to get everything out of the title. At least not right away.

@Kal El I would love it if Activision got off their asses and made their GH titles more intergrated in terms of content. Nothing would make me happier, but the snobs that act like the other shouldn't exist because there are one or two things they like better than the other (feel free to throw in each DLC song RB has over GH as a counter point, I already see it coming...very clever) is unadulterated fanboyism. And you are deluded if you cannot see that.

@VaultBoy
As for the charting, I have to admit I haven't played a guitar hero game since GH3, but the charting was terrible. The most glaring example at the end of Knights of Cydonia, which features a repeating pattern that obviously gets off sync with the actual music. I can't tell you how many times I've missed notes on that incredibly easy section because I was paying more attention to the music than the chart, which should NEVER EVER HAPPEN. There are numerous other examples in GH3, and I've only heard it gets worse in 4 and 5.

More generally, though, I get the feeling that the goals of each game is centrally different. GH wants to sell copies while RB wants to make the game better. A perfect example of this is the music creation mode, which was tacked on to GH4 (and produced crappy Mario and Zelda covers, sounded terrible and no one uses but looks good on the back of a videogame box). Compare that to the Rock Band Network which doesn't seem as exciting at first blush (because it's not strictly a gameplay feature, and might just seem like just another way to get more music) but in fact has and will continue to strengthen the core of the experience by offering unbelievably copious amounts of the only thing that brings me back to the game: new music.

Bottom line: I can't prove this, nor is there any way really TO prove it, but I have consistently gotten the feeling as a consumer that the people who make decisions for GH are corporate executives, whereas the people who make decisions for RB are people who love music more than anything. I know where my dollars are going if that's the case.