Ryan & Amanda Keefer's Personal Site: Cycling, Family, Tech, Music, Software & Game Reviews, etc.
// June 11th, 2010 // No Comments » // Gaming, Music
I haven’t had the time, nor energy to play my two consoles any time in recent memory, but love the organic transition the third installment is making. I’m definitely interested in trying it out upon release!
// December 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Gaming, Music
All of this articles’ suggestions are great for where the original full-band series needs to take it. New music isn’t enough for a sequel anymore. I really hope Harmonix is thinking along the same lines as the IGN author, or they are after seeing this piece.
// August 30th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Gaming
I love the whole music video game genre and have spent countless hours across all the games I’ve played — from Guitar Hero II to Rock Band 2 to Guitar Hero: Metallica (and soon Guitar Hero 5 and Guitar Hero: Van Halen)
But making tracks for the game, taking 20-40 hours? Screw that. I’ll happily plunk down $2 for a track over spending 20-40 hours for a home grown one. I can’t see too many individuals going to that length to make tracks.
It sounds like the tools for composing are PC-based, which counts out Mac users (unless you’re running a VM tool like Parallels Desktop). Also, only PS3 and 360 can utilize the tracks. No Wii support at all. That may be a memory or other hardware limitation of the slower/older technology of Nintendo’s current platform.
Regardless, I’ll be interested to see how this plays out and the volume of tracks that actually pop up.
// June 29th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Gaming
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the rhythm game genre on my Xbox 360. I personally own Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Guitar Hero: Metallica and Rock Band, and this list will only continue to grow (Can we say, Guitar Hero: Van Halen?).
Ars Technica has a great list of five rules all these games and future ones should follow. They’re all pretty simple and make total sense. Activision, Red Octane, Harmonix and everyone else involved in the video game genre need to take these rules as gospel as well.
// June 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // Gaming
In the more and more crowded rhythm music games on the home video game consoles, there’s always room for one more, right? This title was announced awhile before E3, but how about the concept of meshing Legos and Rock Band? Sure. But I don’t get the relationship reasoning. The game is obviously aimed at families. I’m thinking as a guy that already has a ton of Guitar Hero/Rock Band Xbox 360 titles already in my library, this might be one of the few that doesn’t make it onto my shelf. I’ll leave final judgment till I see a track list, but think this is one of the games that utilizes the guitar controller that I’ll skip.
// April 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Gaming, Music
As soon as I heard that there was going to be a Beatles-themed game, I immediately pictured the rooftop concert moment. The other venues listed in this article, didn’t but seems like if it has half of them, this game will be a step above the Aerosmith and Metallica themed video games in terms of immersing the player fully into the band’s history.
// January 10th, 2009 // No Comments » // Gaming
I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of so many video games – some more than others. Rock Band, by far, sits head and shoulders above all others. By buying a whole spectrum of songs that includes tracks by No Doubt, Foo Fighters and even a Brad Paisley song (sure that last one’s not rock, but man, he’s a hell of a guitarist!) and having people over for the whole in your living room band experience is great.
Granted, I’ve put in more than the price of the game to get so much out of the game, but it’s turned into hours upon hours of great group gaming fun, much to the dismay of my better half.
To make it that much better, I still have Rock Band 2 to purchase and conquer, which can use almost all the content from Rock Band 1, plus all the downloaded content. Props to the developer for that! But before I even think about getting Rock Band’s sequel, I’ve still got a bunch of the World Tour mode to conquer. I thought we might have the Hall of Fame 8 song list conquered, but it wasn’t to be, playing that damn Molly Hatchet single. Oh well. With time, all those unconquered achievements will fall.
// July 9th, 2008 // No Comments » // Gaming, Music
So it sounds like Rock Band 2 is going to build onto the super-smooth and successful original. I love the fact that they’re adding a battle of the bands mode and that the world tour mode will go to Xbox Live. This next round of music games should have even better set lists as more and more bands realize the popularity and revenue stream potential of these games. Sign me up for a copy upon release (sans the instruments):
// May 21st, 2008 // No Comments » // Gaming, Music
Man, looks like Activision’s next incarnation continues to emulate the original developer’s moves. While Harmonix has moved onto Rock Band, Guitar Hero IV will have all the instruments of Rock Band. It’ll even borrow the name of the multiplayer mode of Rock Band – “World Tour.”
// March 20th, 2008 // No Comments » // Gaming
This looks really nice and polished. It’s also nice to see in the article others desiring World Tour mode to be available online. The browsing and various ratings for the band/instruments is cool, as is the interface itself. Buried deeper in the article, it mentions a few other welcome patches, updates, etc. Looking forward to my Xbox letting me know there’s a Rock Band patch ready to be applied:
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