Rock Band

[NiX]

Oh, I do. I'll con someone in to doing the travel. Someone has to live in Buffalo.

[WayAbvPar]

More Rock Band DLC announced!

Kind of puts Guitar Hero's continuing "song pack" clusterfuck into perspective...

Jukebox Hero - Foreigner

I heard this on the radio the other day and was amazed it wasn't on any of the GH/RB song lists yet. It is a natural!

[NiX]

Does anyone live in Buffalo or Detroit? Close to the border.

[Big Gulp]

Does anyone live in BuffaloDetroit? Close to the border.

Would you actually be willing to make that trip?

Toronto isn't too far away, but it's also not non-trivial either.

[NiX]

I've already made the plans to either go through Detroit or Buffalo to get it. Just deciding which one is more convenient.

[Lantien]

I've already made the plans to either go through Detroit or Buffalo to get it. Just deciding which one is more convenient.

Good luck.  Do you have a near-guaranteed source at either location?  Limited resources sound like the rule as opposed to the exception.

All the bonus songs are now announced/leaked.

"29 Fingers" – The Konks
"Blood Doll" – Anarchy Club
"Brainpower" – Freezepop
"Can't Let Go" – Death of the Cool
"Day Late, Dollar Short" – The Acro-Brats
"I Get By" – Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives
"I'm So Sick" – Flyleaf
"Nightmare" – Crooked X
"Outside" – Tribe
"Pleasure (Pleasure)" – Bang Camaro
"Seven" – Vagiant
"Time We Had" – The Mother Hips
"Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld" – Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld

Out of this list, I'm most interested in the songs by Freezepop, Vagiant, and Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld.    I was kind of hoping for another song by Dethklok, but so it goes.

My roommates are already excited DLC-wise about the CCR song. I could easily see all of us buying at least 16 songs from the current announced DLC list. If Harmonix/EA/MTV prices their songs as much as Red Octane/Activation did, that's around 32 bucks just on addon songs for Rock Band dammit. 

I will say, if Red Octane was expecting to cruise on GH2's model of success for DLC... I'm guessing people (like me) who end up buying both GH3 and Rock Band will probably limit their DLC purchases to primarily one of the two titles, and maybe occasionally buy one or two "must have" songs from the other system that are exclusive. GH3's relatively tepid opening, compared to the announcements by Rock Band, don't have me very excited about GH3's chances.

[Big Gulp]

Out of this list, I'm most interested in the songs by Freezepop, Vagiant, and Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld.

It's all about Honest Bob and the Factory to Dealer Incentives for me.

[schild]

Big Gulp here is a fan of the slow surfer jams.

[Big Gulp]

Big Gulp here is a fan of the slow surfer jams.

 

Check out the music that Ookii grabbed off of my iPod.  There's a lot of Commander Cody, Dick Dale, Stray Cats and Reverend Horton Heat in there.

[schild]

Big Gulp here is a fan of the slow surfer jams.

 

Check out the music that Ookii grabbed off of my iPod.  There's a lot of Commander Cody, Dick Dale, Stray Cats and Reverend Horton Heat in there.

There's enough music on that to choke an elephant. There's no "patterns" any normal human is going to take from that mix!

[NiX]

Good luck.  Do you have a near-guaranteed source at either location?  Limited resources sound like the rule as opposed to the exception.

Best Buy isn't doing Pre-orders and I'll be leaving my town (closer to the border) between 3-4 AM. Estimated time to getting to the Best Buy is about 6-7AM or earlier. I'm a crazy sonovabitch.

[WayAbvPar]

Good news and bad news. Good news- Rock Band is out the 20th, not the 23rd like I thought. The bad news is the cocksuckers at Gamestop won't let me reserve a copy over the phone, even with a credit card. The one closest to my house has 1 reserve spot left, which will be gone by the time I get down there.

Gonna try the one nearest to my office, since I will be working the day it comes out (have Black Friday off). Wish me luck, and watch the news for a spree shooting if I can't get a copy reserved.

[NiX]

Shacknews confirms the delay in Canada. Dec 17th? Fuck that. This is a horrible move by EA. It'll still sell well, but not giving a reason? Rumor is bilingual packaging, but EA has probably been through the french issue before, this shouldn't be new.

[Big Gulp]

Shacknews confirms the delay in Canada. Dec 17th? Fuck that. This is a horrible move by EA. It'll still sell well, but not giving a reason? Rumor is bilingual packaging, but EA has probably been through the french issue before, this shouldn't be new.

I think they're fucking crazy.  If anything, I'd make Canada top priority considering how weak the US dollar is.  Aren't they already charging you guys around $200 Canadian for the bundle?  Make hay while the sun's shining, I say.

[NiX]

As of like 2-3 weeks ago every game release has been set at American pricing. It's $169.99.

[schild]

Did EBGames drop the wage for everyone too?

[NiX]

I get the joke and I'm sure they would if the government didn't make it a mandatory $8/hr.

[schild]

It wasn't a joke. If managers were still getting paid $40k+ Canadian (as I know some do in Vancouver and Toronto areas), that would be _ridiculous_.

[Big Gulp]

I get the joke and I'm sure they would if the government didn't make it a mandatory $8/hr.

Hmm...  If the dollar keeps dropping I might very well sneak across the border and snag one of those lucrative McDonald's jobs.

[NiX]

A McDonald's job in Alberta actually is lucrative right now. I'd peg their hourly wage at about $14-16. Go go oil boom!

I knew a few managers who made 40K+ a year, but they were with the company for about 5-10 years. Otherwise you barely made $35K+ a year. Assistant Manager averaged out to about $28-30K

[WayAbvPar]

Well, I am fucked. Every Gamestop (the only place taking preorders) around me is out of reserve spots. Not being able to reserve it over the phone with a fucking credit card is just insanity. Some 12 year old kid can wander in and put his name on a list, but god fucking forbid I try to GIVE YOU FUCKING MONEY FOR A FUCKING PRODUCT. And I will fucking guarantee that there is at least one stoned fuckhead who will forget he reserved it at two different stores.

Best Buy is having a midnight opening for it, but that would make getting to work a giant PITA the next day. Fry's claims I can call and reserve it the day it comes out. I can just see how that will work for me. At this point I will be lucky to have it by Christmas. FUCK.

[Lantien]

Well, I am fucked. Every Gamestop (the only place taking preorders) around me is out of reserve spots. Not being able to reserve it over the phone with a fucking credit card is just insanity. Some 12 year old kid can wander in and put his name on a list, but god fucking forbid I try to GIVE YOU FUCKING MONEY FOR A FUCKING PRODUCT. And I will fucking guarantee that there is at least one stoned fuckhead who will forget he reserved it at two different stores.

Best Buy is having a midnight opening for it, but that would make getting to work a giant PITA the next day. Fry's claims I can call and reserve it the day it comes out. I can just see how that will work for me. At this point I will be lucky to have it by Christmas. FUCK.

I've called once or twice, just to confirm my pre-order is still valid.  I'm terrified that they'll find a way to botch things.    When I went to pick up GH3 from my friendly neighborhood Gamestop, they informed me that in fact I had preordered just the GH3 game, and not the bundle.  Last time I called, they confirmed that I did have the bundle, with the right system for Rock Band.  Hopefully they don't get crazy and try to hold a lottery with the current pre-orders.

Still, it could be worse... http://community.rockband.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=7493

btw, Scorehero.com, which is one of the more popular clearing houses for Guitar Hero scoreboards, was a part of a battle of the bands, involving all the various game review sites.  Winner of the battle of the bands would get exclusive rights to release information about soemthing about Rock Band that Harmonix hasn't annouced yet (supposedly). Gamespy did a writeup about their experience in the final round, when they went up against 1up: http://ps3.gamespy.com/articles/835/835124p1.html

The real interest in the whole article, besides seeing the logistics of a tourney, is also seeing how Gamespy is separating what's easy/fun to play, what's challenging to play, and what's really difficult to play.



Some of the songs don't make a lot of sense as "we're boned".  I wonder if it's songs that are obscure enough to their group so that the song is hard to sing (Electric Version?), songs that they got an expert guitarist with, so the song's not so bad (Green Grass, High Tides), or songs that they've never really bothered to practice before.

[schild]

There is not a single SINGLE SONG in that game that Cpt_Jigglypuff, Hammer Frenzy, Phildo and I will have a problem decimating. Just thought I'd put that out there. We're going to fucking embarass this game in a single evening.

[cmlancas]

Like decimate as in, "I'm so fucking good at this game, I just ran over it with a backhoe"? or decimate as in, "Man, I just squeaked by with a 59% on expert on Psychobilly Freakout. Fuck Yeah!"


Props to you guys if you can skate through everything easy-breezy on expert. That's insane.

[schild]

I can hit over 90% on psychobilly freakout consistantly. It's a cakewalk.

Yes, we're going to run over it with a back hoe, sherman tank, AND 16 cats.

[Lantien]

As I recall from reading Schild's posts earlier about GH2 and GH3, he's had a ton of experience clearing out the nasty higher tier songs in co-op mode.  In addition, 1up's coverage of Rock Band has noted that folks with fairly strong drumming backgrounds can very quickly pick up the drums, as evidenced by their drummer Nelson.  I have no clue how "tough" vocals are.

So you got to figure, if one of the 4 guys is a strong drummer, and if the vocals are fairly easy to pick ups, then yeah, schild & co can probably tear through Rock Band.

My wild-ass guess is that amongst the competative community, it won't be as much a matter of the bragging rights being that you finished a song, the bragging right will be what the total score is for your team. 

[cmlancas]

I need to practice some c2v on GH1-2-3. I don't play it enough and then I get frustrated because I suck. I'm supposed to be good at these rhythm type games. 

Anyway, Rock Band + Beer + Liquor = A really fucking good time. (Coming soon to my living room)

[schild]

As I recall from reading Schild's posts earlier about GH2 and GH3, he's had a ton of experience clearing out the nasty higher tier songs in co-op mode.  In addition, 1up's coverage of Rock Band has noted that folks with fairly strong drumming backgrounds can very quickly pick up the drums, as evidenced by their drummer Nelson.  I have no clue how "tough" vocals are.

So you got to figure, if one of the 4 guys is a strong drummer, and if the vocals are fairly easy to pick ups, then yeah, schild & co can probably tear through Rock Band.

My wild-ass guess is that amongst the competative community, it won't be as much a matter of the bragging rights being that you finished a song, the bragging right will be what the total score is for your team. 

Phil is the good drummer. I imagine singing will be a fucking cakewalk for anyone even if they sound like ass, but I think Hammer Frenzy will sound beautiful. Justin and I can wreck just about any song together. Though after about 20-30 tracks it tends to wear on us.

[Lantien]

Phil is the good drummer. I imagine singing will be a fucking cakewalk for anyone even if they sound like ass, but I think Hammer Frenzy will sound beautiful. Justin and I can wreck just about any song together. Though after about 20-30 tracks it tends to wear on us.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to some crazy multiplayer action too, but on a much lower-level scale.  Two of my roommates are probably mid-tier hard quality guitar/bass players (Pinky gives them some limited problems, just barely starting to try HO/PO), and another roommate has atrocious rhythm game skills but will probably be a capable singer.  The last roommate has no interest in playing. I'd honestly guess that for our group to have "fun" sessions, our team will probably be:

Guitarist/Bassist: Hard/Expert, maybe Medium/Expert on a really nasty song
Drums: Medium
Vocals: Medium

As a result, I think with our house, we're going to play more of the "fun" as opposed to "hard" songs.

That's probably one of the good things about the vocalist; my general observation is that as long as you know the song's tempo and lyrics fairly well, you'll have a hard time failing in medium difficulty. Vocals are going to be interesting to see what people do with them.  Presumably, it's the easiest of the intruments to start out in.  On the other hand, with the other 3 instruments, as you increase in difficulty, you get a bonus of feeling like you're "playing the song", as you're playing more and more of the notes.  With vocals, I'm not sure you have that feeling as you move up.

[NiX]

Best Buy is having a midnight opening for it

Is this for all of them?

[Lantien]

Nope: http://www.bestbuy.com/site//olspage.jsp?id=pcmcat136400050001&type=category

[NiX]

Excellent! My plans are still in effect. I actually debated whether or not to leave Monday to make the midnight launch in Detroit.

[caladein]

Phil is the good drummer. I imagine singing will be a fucking cakewalk for anyone even if they sound like ass, but I think Hammer Frenzy will sound beautiful. Justin and I can wreck just about any song together. Though after about 20-30 tracks it tends to wear on us.

Vocals:
Matt and discgolferpro were our main vocalists, and while a few others attempted a couple songs, I never got behind the microphone myself. They will provide their thoughts, but Expert was apparently very difficult as the vocals were failing more frequently than any other instrument. To give an idea of the difficulty, Sean told us a story about one of the artists who recorded a song in the game, and could not even get through his own song on Expert. They did fine-tune the difficulty a bit after that, but Expert is still very tough.

That's from about a month ago or so.

[schild]

That means singing is absolutely broken if the original singer can't do it.

But then, technically speaking in terms of game design and flow, Harmonix sucks a cock.

[NiX]

That means singing is absolutely broken if the original singer can't do it.

Depends on the singer. I think some would go for the all out experience when they were singing for the game, when it really just looks for pitch.