Gamer Culture, Guitar Hero, Headlines, Music, Rock Band
Come Together: What The Beatles’ Rock Band Game Means for the Music Industry
As I’m sure you’ve heard, The Beatles are coming to Rock Band. The Fab Four announced Thursday they will be making their digital debut via a partnership with MTV and Harmonix, which looks to see the band featured in its own exclusive Rock Band title, slated for a holiday 2009 release. Of course, this is a major announcement for a plethora of reasons. The most important reason is hidden underneath the surface of this monstrous musical development.
With last month’s release of Wii Music, Nintendo concludes its “Big Four” group of nontraditional games (Wii Sports, Wii Play, and Wii Fit being the previous three). Unfortunately for the Big N, its foray into the music game genre has been receiving less than stellar reviews, averaging a score of 60, according to Metacritic. Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s resident developer guru, has come out in support of his game. Which, he admits, may not really be a “game” at all, but rather something approaching a “musical arrangement engine.” It would appear that with Wii Music, Nintendo’s dogged pursuit of nongamers has finally resulted in a misstep, in spite of Miyamoto’s firm defense of his creation.
I think it’s safe to say that we’ve all had moments when we got a killer headshot in Halo or shattered a high score in Guitar Hero when we’ve wondered: could I do this professionally? Well, 16-year-old Blake Peebles is actually doing something about it and is planning on purusing a career as a professional Guitar Hero player. His dedication is such that he actually left his public school in order to focus on the game.
The Guitar Hero franchise’s dominance over the rhythm-action genre came under attack last November with the release of the critically-acclaimed commercial hit, Rock Band. This fall, Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour will clash in a veritable battle of the bands, seeking to win the love and adoration of fake musicians everywhere. As a result, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, released on June 29th for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3,Wii, and Xbox 360, seems like an afterthought - an expansion pack aimed only at Aerosmith devotees and hardcore GH fanboys. Does this virtual homage to one of the greatest rock and roll bands in history make you want to just push play, or is it the same old song and dance?
Avid guitar hero fans can now rock out whenever, wherever. Thanks to Guitar Hero Mobile, players rejoice to the easy and convenient access of rocking out on ‘the go.’ As of mid-June, Guitar Hero III Mobile proudly hit the one million downloads mark, successfully reaching the top of the sales charts. With an average of 250, 000 songs played per day, it’s clear that the nation can’t get enough of the greatest 80s and 90s classic rock.
“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.
The average gamer may be surprised to learn that PC games for the visually impaired exist at all; video games for the blind seems like a contradiction in terms. However, dozens of companies, focused specifically on producing PC games for the blind (BSC Games, Bavisoft, GMA, Gamesfortheblind, to name a few), have been at it for the past decade. The only problem is that many of the titles that these companies have published are geared so specifically for the visually impaired that they are virtually unplayable by gamers with good vision. Historically, the sensory divide between blind and sighted players has carried over to the gaming world, thus preventing the two groups from ever playing digital games together… until now.