The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Discuss.

I want in, but with this sort of market fragmentation, I don't know where to start.

First things first:

Band Hero is actually part of the Guitar Hero series. Same manufacturer (Activision) and all, but they wanted to include "Band" in the name to emphasize that you can play with a large group of friends. Guitar Hero has had full-band capabilities for a while now, but consumers are pretty stupid. It's also got more "mainstream" acts, though I feel like both franchises stopped being about classic rock and heavy metal guitar jams a long time ago.

I think Rock Band (made by Harmonix) has the more ergonomically comfortable guitar/bass instruments. To the best of my knowledge, the drums and mics are practically interchangeable (in point of fact, they're literally interchangeable in that they're cross-compatible). I also think Rock Band's interface is more usable and its graphics look cleaner (I'm talking about the playing screens, not the characters and venues and stuff, because who cares about that? the people who aren't playing, that's who). However, Guitar Hero has more difficulty settings (5 to Rock Band's 4).

For those reasons, I've mainly played Rock Band. I think I tried Guitar Hero back when they were still on Guitar Hero 1, and I got frustrated because it's nothing like playing real guitar. I'm not familiar with the current song lists of both games, so if that's going to be your deciding factor, better check the song lists on their respective websites or Wikipedia.

I'm totally gonna make a game called "Fleshlight Hero".

Rock Band 2 by Harmonix is the way to go... but even I'm getting tired of their shenanigans now too. The once fresh music game scene is now over populated with crap.

I'm in the same spot here since I got a Wii for Hanukkah! I really want Guitar Hero Aerosmith, and Rock Band, but the guitars aren't compatible. I'm thinking about buying the Beatle Rock Band for the instruments and the software only for the others.

ken wrote:I'm in the same spot here since I got a Wii for Hanukkah!.

Yes - I am also thinking of buying myself a Wii for Hanukkah.

I just moved into my new house yesterday and we negotiated with the sellers that they leave behind the big-arsed TV they had attached to the wall. I was those Wii things in the shop and that looks like fun. You can get cricket where you actually use a cricket bat. That's cool.

So, I can also play the Beatles game on a Wii too? I will look into that later

ken wrote:I really want Guitar Hero Aerosmith, and Rock Band, but the guitars aren't compatible.

Are you sure that's still true, Ken? Is is platform-specific? I was told by the guys at the Game Spot that the incompatibility has been fixed, so I bought a XBOX 360 wireless Less Paul Controller for Guitar Hero, and it worked fine with Rock Band. I preferred the Rock Band guitar, but this one worked, except for the lack of upper-fret buttons, which I am not sufficiently advanced to use anyway. I'm not sure they're even in play on bass. Maybe the problem is the other way around. Perhaps you can't use Rock Band guitars in Guitar Hero??? Anyone?

Generic wrote: ...consumers are pretty stupid.

Consumers aren't stupid, they just aren't informed. That's why I started this thread. I am surprised at you, Jon.

I don't think everything works together, only somethings:

http://www.rockband.com/compatibility

I see, you bought XBOX360, which seems to do better than Wii.

Well, I didn't buy one. I was running a Rock Band competition at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas for Microsoft, so they sent me one, temporarily, unfortunately, but that is where most of my experience comes from. That is a very useful chart and indeed, I see that there is a much higher degree of compatibility on the XBOX 360 than on the Wii.

I have Guitar Hero 2 and 3, and Rock Band 2, and can echo the recommendation of Rock Band 2 as the best of the bunch.

The Guitar Hero franchise (I have not played World Tour/Band Hero) is more "video-gamey". It seems like there are passages that are intentionally difficult to play, rather than being musically necessary. I do like the Guitar Battle thing in Guitar Hero 3, but other than that, gameplay is very linear: you play from fixed sets in order. You can jump around within the setlist, but you don't get a new setlist until you finish they one you're on.

Rock Band feels much more musically natural to me, and is a much more satisfying playing experience. Gameplay is a lot less linear, which has both benefits and drawbacks. On one hand, you aren't locked in to playing the sets in order. The downside is you end up playing the same song many times in the course of career mode, which can be a bummer for those tracks you just can't stand.

Another area where Rock Band has a clear edge is in music selection: there's a much broader selection of styles. Again, I have not played Band Hero, so maybe that's better than the previous Guitar Hero titles in that regard.

I always thought guitar hero was a more satisfying multiplayer experience - mostly because I can't play the freaking rock band drums, no matter how hard I try.

Rock Band is the better game. I agree with a lot that Irwin said, so I'll just add in this:

Harmonix made the original two Guitar Hero games and then moved on to Rock Band. They have a great understanding of how to meld music and gameplay. I've been playing Harmonix music games since 2001's FreQuency and they have consistently been fun. Factor in that Rock Band has a huge catalog of songs to play (over 1000 songs, with a new 6+ songs going on sale every week) and next year, Rock Band opens the Rock Band Network which will add a lot more songs including songfighters Brad Sucks ("Bad Attraction"!) and Beatnik Turtle. Rock Band is the way to go.

PS- With the two I have already mentioned, plus Frontalot, there are 3 Songfight bands in Rock Band. Let's go for more! Songfight makes some of the best music round. I think it deserves some more notice.

When did Beatnik Turtle enter Songfight?

[runs off and checks...]

Holy crap!

Though I dunno, I think they're in the same boat as MC Hawking. Yeah, they entered, but they had a fair amount of notoriety before they did so.

Generic wrote:When did Beatnik Turtle enter Songfight?
[runs off and checks...]
Holy crap!
Though I dunno, I think they're in the same boat as MC Hawking. Yeah, they entered, but they had a fair amount of notoriety before they did so.

True. I only said that they are Songfighters. They have fought the song fight.

Niveous wrote:Harmonix made the original two Guitar Hero games and then moved on to Rock Band.

Thanks for that tidbid, Niveous. I had forgotten about that, and it explains some of my confusion.