Rock Band (video game)

Rock Band
Developer(s)	Harmonix Music Systems
Publisher(s)	MTV Games
Designer(s)	Harmonix Music Systems
Platform(s)	Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Release	NA: November 2007 AU: December 31, 2007 EU: TBA
Genre(s)	Music video game
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

Rock Band is an upcoming music video game under development by Harmonix Music Systems and to be published by Electronic Arts scheduled for a North American release during the 2007 holiday season. Developed both for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Rock Band will offer players the ability to function in a virtual band by providing up to four players with the ability to utilize three different instrument-based peripherals (a guitar peripheral for guitar and bass guitar sequences, a drum peripheral, and a microphone) and allowing them to interact through both online and offline multiplayer capabilities. Current Harmonix parent company MTV will be providing both financial and creative support to the process, leveraging its stature to facilitate deals with record companies for licensing rights to songs. Several record companies have pledged their support by offering master recordings.

While there has been no official announcement regarding a Wii version, Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos, when asked if there was a possibility of seeing the game on Wii, responded "Absolutely." Rigopulos also suggested additional features in an interview with GameSpot. Some of these include offering entire catalogs for an artist, instead of just one song.

Gameplay

Though the game will be compatible with Guitar Hero guitar controllers, new Rock Band-branded controllers are being produced specifically for the game. Specifically, the guitar controller will be a replica of a Fender Stratocaster, and both the Roland and Boss brands will be represented in-game. Harmonix has said that Rock Band will also support the use of additional third-party controllers, and, should Activision (the publishers of Guitar Hero) request it, they can make the Rock Band guitar controller work with Guitar Hero III.

The Fender Stratocaster replica guitar controller, which features 10 frets and an effects switch.

Information on the gameplay was revealed by the July 2007 issue of Game Informer.. Three of the instruments (guitar, drums, and voice) will have its own campaign, as well as a band campaign for multiple players. It was revealed in the issue that the bass lines for the game are too simple to constitute an entire campaign. However, players can use any combination of the 4 instruments on or off-line. The players will be able to customize their game avatars, their movements on stage and their band logos. The guitar instrument will be similar to the Guitar Hero one, but will have 5 additional fret buttons to be used in special solo sections. The microphone instrument will be similar to the Singstar and Karaoke Revolution games, but also will have phoneme detection to determine the difference between vowels and consonants. The drum controller is similar to the DrumMania arcade game, and will be based on striking one of 4 pads along with a kick pedal for bass drum.

On-screen, Game Informer describes the game as a combination of the Guitar Hero and Karaoke Revolution game-play elements. Instead of a single guitar neck from Guitar Hero, there will be three vertically scrolling sections along the bottom of the screen, one each for guitar, drums, and bass; along the top will be the vocals display similar to Karaoke Revolution. The remainder of the screen is used to display the band's characters as they perform. Within the main co-op mode, all players earn points towards a common score, though multipliers and the equivalent of Guitar Hero's "Star Power" are tracked separately for each player. If a player fails to play well enough, their section will become grayed out, but any other player can activate their "Star Power" to bring back failed players back into the song, with a special reward at the end of the song if all players are still active by the end.

Soundtrack

Queens of the Stone Age has confirmed that a song from their new album, Era Vulgaris, will appear in the game. On the song selection of the game, Harmonix co-founder Alex Rigopulos says: "We'll be covering a great breadth, from metal to classic rock to Southern rock to everything in between".

Currently, five record labels have been confirmed to have agreed to supply master recordings by their artists for use in the game, including EMI Music, Hollywood Records, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group's Universal Music Enterprises, and Warner Music Group's Rhino Entertainment.

On June 7, 2007, Harmonix announced that they would be taking requests for possible songs and bands. Fans may go to the game's official site and nominate up to 4 songs to be in the game.

The July 2007 issue of Game Informer lists 4 songs from the soundtrack. Bold determines a master track. :

• "In Bloom" - Nirvana
• "Paranoid" - Black Sabbath
• "Say It Ain't So" - Weezer
• "Won't Get Fooled Again" - The Who

External links

• Official Rock Band website