Can Rockstar Games be the rockstar of the rhythm game genre?

“You either have to be first, best, or different.” Sound advice to follow. Since it took me as long as Tommy Boy to graduate from college, I’ve realized I’m going to have to be something ‘different.’ For example, I start off everyday wearing flaming red boxers with airplanes on them.

So when Strauss Zelnick, Chairman of the Board of Take-Two (Rockstar Games), publicly entertains the idea of creating a rhythm game, I’m forced to wonder what type of boxers Take-Two is going to put on its new title. What will make this one stand out from Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution, and the other popular rhythm franchises that have beaten Rockstar to the punch?

Take-Two has demonstrated that it has the ability to break away from traditional game forms. Bioshock is a work of art. The GTA series breaks all the rules of a good game to make a better one. And Rockstar Table Tennis has hands down one of the best XBL competitive modes, I’ve played.

Ok, so I’m a Take-Two fan, but I’m worried that the rhythm genre has already reached capacity. Making people feel like they’re rock gods has been done by other companies (dedicated simply to music games and all the assorted rock/dance paraphernalia that goes with them), and done well. If Rockstar wants to be a rockstar in this genre, they are going to have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a truly unique experience.

Rockstar arguably does this better than any other game publisher, so I’m not saying that they can’t do it, but let’s just say that I’m skeptical. I think that this time they may be biting off more than they can chew.

I was fresh out of ideas for how to make a unique, kickass music game, so I went down to my local game store and took an informal poll of the staff. The manager (hot gaming chick with a hickey) suggested Rockstar add a kazoo, promptly showing me her Rockstar key chain. My brother, a piano teacher (with me at the time), thinks that they should add a keyboard. The other guy working at the store must have been mute or catatonic; he essentially said nothing.

Perhaps Rockstar should tack on a guitar game to GTA IV as downloadable content. Then Niko could pursue his real life dream of being a classic American rock ‘n’ roll legend, and Rockstar could forget about this pipe dream.