Guitar Hero and Rock Band: A Look Back

Guitar Hero and Rock Band: A Look Back

Hey guys, Jim here, and it’s my turn to write this week’s blog.  There are a lot of things that I could go into, but I wanted to start with a game genre that I probably spent 2-3 years straight playing…the rhythm genre...mainly Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

To start, here is a quick history of these games.  Released in 2005, the original Guitar Hero was developed by Harmonix and Red Octane.  Red Octane previously had a part in the music game genre with GuitarFreaks, an arcade game that can still be found in arcades and boardwalks.  The music in the game was originally all covers, and the game innovated with its immersive and fun guitar controller and accessible learning curve.  It is a game that everyone could play, but took a lot of work to master.  From there, the series got more popular with the first two sequels (II and III), with II being one of the first big games to take advantage of XboxLIVE and DLC.  In 2007, the companies broke apart, with Harmonix going on to create the Rock Band series.  From there, these two series would take completely different paths.  

Rock Band was the first to create the full band experience, bundling a microphone, guitar, and drum kit.  Each player could play separate instruments, and even the most arrhythmic person could have the experience of being in a band.  It was stupid fun, and was an instant hit.  GH would follow suit with their 4th main entry, Guitar Hero: World Tour, which did the exact same thing, but with a differently designed drumset.  From there, each game would release sequels, and add to the hardware, but this is where the paths fully diverge.

The biggest difference between these two franchises, in my opinion, is the way that the developers treated the consumer and the evolving (or devolving) quality of the overall product.  Here is a breakdown of the releases for each franchise.  If this doesn’t give you an idea of where I am going, I will explain shortly. Also, I am excluding the portable titles.  These maintain the “hit a button at the right time” aesthetic of the gameplay, but without the standard controllers.  

Guitar Hero

Guitar Hero - 2005

Guitar Hero II - 2006

Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80’s - 2007 (last game developed by Harmonix)

Guitar Hero III - 2007

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith - 2008

Guitar Hero: World Tour - 2008

Guitar Hero: Metallica - 2009

DJ Hero: 2009

Guitar Hero: Smash Hits - 2009

Guitar Hero 5 - 2009

Band Hero - 2009

Guitar Hero: Van Halen - 2009

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - 2010

DJ Hero 2 - 2010

Now let’s compare that to Rock Band’s releases…

Rock Band - 2007

Rock Band II - 2008

The Beatles: Rock Band - 2009

Lego Rock Band - 2009

Green Day: Rock Band - 2010

Rock Band III - 2010

Rock Band Blitz - 2012 (download only title, did not use the guitar peripherals)

Rock Band also released a bunch of physical track packs, released as separate disks between 2008 and 2011.

In the beginning, these titles came out maybe once a year, and made strides every time.  GH 1 and 2 made huge, yet subtle, gameplay tweaks that made the gameplay much better.  GH III had the widespread appeal, and the first to mainly feature licensed tracks.  Rock Band introduced the band aspect, and heavily relied on DLC.  GH Metallica introduced the double bass pedal mechanic, and RB II improved all aspects, including the hardware, of the original title and had one of the biggest licensed DLC libraries of all time. After this, the last innovation, besides the turntable aspect of DJ Hero, was with Rock Band III, which included a way to plug real guitars into the system.  

As many of you know, Brian and I are both engaged.  We are both in our late 20’s and have full time jobs.  Suffice to say, we don’t have a lot of time to play video games, or to discover new things unless we REALLY want to invest our time and money into it.  We are self-admitted marks for COD and WWE games, and will gobble up anything by Bethesda.  WIth that being said, the blog is our way to relive the old times, to hang out and just play games like we used to.  When the original GH came out, i was 19, and the heyday was in my early 20’s.  There really was not a time in my life that I didn’t get to fully enjoy games more, now that I had money, and delved right in.  

 
I had played GuitarFreaks before, and while impressed with it, was never blown away by it.  That was not the case with the original Guitar Hero.  My friend Ryan was the first of my group of friends to get it, and I was hooked right away.  In Christmas of 2006, I got my very first game of my own, that being GH2.  I played through the entire game on medium, every song, straight through until 5 in the morning.  From there, we would gather and play each new iteration, one of us forking over the money on a new one so we could all play.

Then came Rock Band.  The band dynamic, along with the drum set, really shed a new light on the genre.  None of us used the mic, but playing with 2 guitars and a drum set was amazing.  The christmas after it came out, we did the entire game again, playing straight through for about...8+ hours if memory serves correct.  Like I said before, GH eventually came out with their own version.  Being a drummer in real life, I tended to enjoy the GH games more, mainly because the drum set was more “realistic.”

After that came the biggest problem, overexposure.  Look above, look at all those games and the frequency that they came out.  Sure, many of them made leaps, but most were not worth it.  Guitar Hero, now being distributed by Activision, was the biggest offender.  To Rock Band’s credit, they mainly focused on DLC.  Also, when a new version came out, you could pay a small fee (typically 12 dollars), to import ALL of the songs from the previous game(s).  Besides that, instead of releasing a full 60 dollar disk that would maybe have 50 songs, if that.  Also, the song imports for the GH games would not give the full games songs, barely making the investment worth it.  It was the money grab aspect that killed the genre, and that is a real shame.  If the games had been worth the money, or made strides, then they would be worth it...but that never happened.  The genre, the way it was set up, only had a ceiling that was so high.  By the time RB3 came out with its real-world integration, it was too late, and the genre had gone stale.  

Every once in a while I will break out the old kits again, which I consider very lucky since the equipment was notorious for breaking.  I think there is a place for the genre, but it won’t be for a long, long time.  Games like Rocksmith keep the genre alive, that focusing on a more educational approach, but the party aspect really isn’t there.  Maybe one day it will come back, and when it does, I will be there to give it a shot and hopefully reclaim some old glory.