E for All Coverage: Rock Band
The E for All Expo in Los Angeles, California is drawing to a close today, and the Project Thursday crew was lucky enough to attend and check out some of the hot games coming out in the months ahead. One of these games really stood out of the crowd for me, as I’ve been anxiously waiting for the next Harmonix-crafted music game: Rock Band.
Both MTV and EA were at the Expo in full force, and invited all gamers to hop on stage and partake in what could be considered the best music/rhythm to date.
Players are given the option to customize their own personal avatar (as opposed to Guitar Hero’s horrible pregenerated avatars), and then jump right into picking from a great number of classic rock songs.
The instruments all oozed of quality craftsmanship. The guitar (which can also double as a bass guitar) felt and looked much sexier than Guitar Hero’s, with a solid, non-clicking strum bar and easily accessible whammy bar. The guitar also features fret buttons at both the top (for standard play) and bottom (for faster solo-esque play) of the instrument, giving users a wide range of control. The drums include four solid drum pads, cooresponding to the colors on-screen, along with a foot-level drum pedal for the fifth note. The microphone is, of course, fairly straight forward, but I noticed that it can also be doubled as a tambourine on certain songs that utilize the instrument (meaning the lead singer isn’t always just singing).
Funnily enough, while waiting for our chance to get on stage and play Rock Band for a third time, an MTV representative approached Joel and I and asked if we’d like to be filmed for a chance to be put on MTV and the Rock Band website. How could we resist? Above is a snippit of our performance of Blackhole Sun.
All I can say is, keep an eye out for this game people. The bundle package (including guitar, drums, and microphone) may be a bit expensive for the casual gamer at $169.99, but with full online play, downloadable songs, four-player action, and a great setlist, I have no doubt this will be the game to own this year. Guitar Hero might just get a run for the money.
Be sure to check out all our Rock Band and E for All pictures at our Flickr page.
So, was this the highlight of the entire conference? Where are the booth girls?
For me, it was probably a mix of playing Rock Band, Metal Gear Solid 4, and meeting Iga, of Castlevania fame (and getting his autograph for the new Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles).
As for booth babes, it was really only Nintendo that had them…but they were quite tasty. I snapped a few pics for our Flickr pages =)
How was MGS4? Will you be doing an article on that as well?
It was awesome. And yeah, I’ll be posting an article discussing our experiences with it today probably. Stay tuned!