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Developers: Harmonix (Guitar Hero 1 and 2, Karaoke Revolution and Frequency)
Publishers: EA and MTV
Genre Type: Rhythm
Players: 4 Players (on one machine cooperatively or over chosen console network, such as PSN or XBL).
Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Playstation 2. Wii is rumored but not confirmed.

News:

Game Spot Hands On Preview (July 07)
IGN Hands On Preview (July 07)
E3 2007: Downloadable Content To Include Full Albums

Media:
IGN videos
Trailer
Leipzig Videos, including Jet - Are You Going To Be My Girl, OK Go - Here It Goes Again and more.
IGN tries the new songs. Fails horribly.

The Instruments!

PRICING - $169.00USD for a bundle containing a game, microphone, drumkit, a wireless guitar for PS3, a wired guitar and USB Hub for Xbox 360)

Fender Stratocaster (Lead and Bass)



Something new has been added to the good old Green-Red-Yellow-Blue-Orange frets from the Guitar Hero games; a duplicate set of frets higher up the neck of the guitar. The purpose of these buttons is for solo sections for whatever guitar you are using (bass or lead); it allows the user to play the solo without strumming. However, Harmonix are including backwards compatibility with the Guitar Hero 2 X-Plorer (the XBox 360 version, at least) if you want to wear out your strum bar.

Wired and Wireless versions available; it's rumored that only the wired version will be bundled in the megapackage due for release later this year/early next year, however.

Drum Kit


Consisting of four circular pads and a kick pedal, this apparently foldable drum kit (short on space? Too bad, get Rock Band anyway, because it'll fit) changes the righter-most three pads to cymbals, tom-toms, or whatever the song deems, whilst the left-most pad is the snare.

Rock Band Microphone


A USB connector allows the vocalist to belt out tunes for every song. It also doubles as auxiliary percussion, where the vocalist can hit the mic to simulate a tambourine or a cowbell. Any USB microphone is available to use with Rock Band, as is the Xbox 360 Headset attached to the controller (which helps for menu navigation).

No stand is planned to be included at initial release, however Harmonix are considering releasing one at a later stage.



Song List
[u]40 songs are to be released with the game on the game disc; each week will bring Downloadable Content. Some weeks will bring single songs, others full albums (that's right, 10 to 20 songs); start saving for that 120GB Xbox HDD people.

That's 26 out of 40 tracks that are announced so far, so stay tuned for more as the release date looms.



Updated 7/10/07

Yeah, Rock Band looks incredible so far, the prospect of jamming with three of my friends offline or online has me watering at the mouth already. I'm not sure if I'm willing to spend such an exorbitant amount of money on a multiplayer rhythm game just yet though. It's even more of a predicament with Guitar Hero III looming as well. Decisions, decisions! :argh:

There's going to be about 2 months to save (GH3 got an October release date IIRC), and that's plenty of time. :colbert:

I wonder what the pricing will be like for this? I can't imagine it will be cheap :argh:

$400? I'd rather start my own band... what a joke.

Bump for megathread goodness, more information, and Leipzig 2007 updates.

40 Songs is pretty weak to start of with though, after all, GH2 has... what? around 100.

40 Songs is pretty weak to start of with though, after all, GH2 has... what? around 100.

GH2 has 70, and has had 12 songs released as Downloadable Content. Don't forget, Rock Band has to have 4 tracks rendering at the same time (vocal, lead, bass and drums) and programmers have to get those four tracks onto the disc; hence why DLC is going to be such a push for it.

Just remember that GH2's stupid pricing for 3 songs was handled by Activision (who have said to the community 'fuck you, you keep paying for it so we'll keep extorting you for songs'); MTV/EA have said (I'll try and track down the article) they'll be competing with Activision by having lower prices per song.

Man, there's now way I'm going to be able to afford this. And when I do, I think I'm going to save up most of my money, not pay $400 to get in on this whole guitar craze.

Just give me a Wii and Brawl and I'll be happy. :thumbsup:

This game will put a deep hole in my pocket. What should be the finale? It needs to be a song that's both well known by everyone, and very difficult for both guitar, drums, and vocals at the same time. So...

I'm going to say... Perhaps they may actually pop out master of puppets? Who knows. It's all speculation in the end

Nah, it's all speculation until the end.

Metallica have signed up for DLC on GH3 and Rock Band, so I'd watch this space.

GH2 actually has 74 + 15 DLC, so that's 89. They needed 2 tracks for all of those songs too.

I can't imagine space would be the issue with the number of songs.

I'll still be getting though.

Oh yeah, MCR track. Whoops.

Also, not every song has two tracks; Who Was In My Room Last Night has the regular career track split between the players in co-op. Dodgy, I thought, but hey.

DAVID BOWIE.

OH GOD.

I have every David Bowie album ever ((including Tin Machine!)). But TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS?! Are you fucking serious? I'll ask for this for my birthday but I'll go out and buy GH3.

As fas as song selection goes, Guitar Hero 3 wins hands down, even WITH Suffragette City and Tom Sawyer. Rock Band has Enter Sandman, la dee da.
Guitar Hero 3 has One. ONE. Also, it has Raining Blood.

<.<
>.>



RAINING BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD
FROM A LACERATED SKYYYYY
*thrash*

Pfft, get both. There's a big enough gap between releases.

Not really, it's alot of money. New song announced...Brain Power by Freezepop. This is not officially confirmed, but a lot of sites cite this information.

It'll be good for me, I don't plan of using the peripherals... so I won't have to spend as much. :P

It's not the time issue, it's the "Rock Band costs way too much fucking money" issue.

Which will be a hell of an issue for a lot of people, it'll be interesting to see how the game sales given the price.

I'd have thought it would be more suited to an arcade environment.

Maybe it'll be a case of party places getting it all and hiring to to people for a night or something for parties and such.

It's not as if it's just going to be the one package; you can use USB microphones, any you have (including Singstar or Karaoke Revolution mics, as well as the X360 headset), as well as the Guitar Hero 2 controller for 360 at least (GH3 is yet to be seen, but it should be able to). I know that I'm buying the full pack, because I want to try and get all the songs on all difficulties with all instruments, but if you want, you can start with just the vocals, the lead guitar, the bass guitar, or buy the drum accessory with the game, which is also sold seperatley.

The online play means that you aren't going to miss out on a party atmosphere if you so want.

There's also a heap of other stuff that's come out of the woodwork from PAX07, but I'll put that up when I get home.

The idea of gradually adding more accesories eases the financial burden I guess, but I think playing without everything might not be considered the "full experience".

I'm not sure; playing 40 songs through, going for 5 stars/best ratings, 4 difficulties, and then online extending it, it should be easy to get a fair bit of longevity out of it, especially with DLC. Considering how cheap the USB microphones are meant to be (around $30AU) and the immense sales that GH2 has achieved on the 360 and PS2 (along with Singstar on PS2) most people should be able to get at least 3 seperate careers (bass can be played on the regular guitar too), and then get the peripheral they require later on.

That said, I'm hoping that GH3's wireless Les Paul works with Rock Band, coz if it does, it chalks up another reason to get me to buy the $130 pack when it launches.

I cannot wait for this game, it is certainly going to kick major ass. I mean seriously. There is no question about it. I LOVE, I mean absolutely LOVE the previous Guitar Hero games, and this is a step in the right direction.

OK, I've been meaning to update this for a while, but I'm lazy :P

It's been boosted to 45 licensed songs, plus bonus; so there will be a songlist about the size of GH2. The Xbox 360 bundle has been confirmed, all controllers are wired but it does come with a USB Hub.

Awww... Wired :unsure:. Well that is not that bad, because all of the other ones were wired aswell so... Nevertheless, I was kinda hopeing you know?

Here's hoping GH3's wireless Les Paul is compatible. Apparently Harmonix are going to be testing it.

This game will make guitar hero look like a silly toy. For a while, I was ready to buy GH3 and Rock Band all at once, but after a while, I came to the realization that after seeing Rock Band, any GH game would seem like a huge step backwards.

Just be aware that some of RB's songs may be repetitive; there's a video with the guitar parts out (first three tiers) and they're really same-y; but those songs let drums, bass or vocals shine. Guitar Hero is turning into Metal Hero though, but when the news comes that the wireless Les Paul works for RB, I'm buying it (oh, and Muse).

Guitar Hero 3 EASILY has the better track list

Super mega information update time, including a new DLC album and a few new songs, as well as pricing update; well under the $400 predicted price. We're now looking at a $200-$220 including the shipping costs; it's $188AU in line with the $169US price.

After seeing GH3 song list, im really glad Rockband is coming out. I'm not going to get into which game is better on any of that stupid fanboy crap, but if you notice the track list for Guitar Hero 3, it just seems like its getting more and more hardcore from a gaming standpoint.

Most of the songs from GH 3, are songs and bands I've never heard of. It also seems like these songs are in to appeal to the hardcore gamers that just want a super hard game. Its almost like Guitar Hero is getting more and more like DDR, where the focus is getting more and more on the challenge and how fast the songs are, and how many notes are in it, and less about just having fun playing along to songs you love rocking out too.

And im not even saying this is a bad thing, im just saying its good that Rockband seems like the songs are picked on how cool the song is, and not really on how insane it will be on expert difficulty. Especially after seeing stuff like Faith no More and Nine Inch Nails making it into the game.

Just something I thought of ...

That's one of the reasons I've been leaning towards Rock Band instead of GH3; I want to have fun, not get RSI by hitting the same notes back and forth, which is why a lot of the metal in GH3 is so crap and bland. Neversoft employed a couple of people from the ScoreHero forums who made custom charts for hacked GH2 copies on PS2; check out YouTube for "custom charts gh2" and you'll see why GH3 is already on a rocky slope from my point of view. It's not fun, it's just flailing around hitting notes and cheesing through the game.

Someone should make Piano Hero. I'm getting tired of all my guitar-playing friends.... i noticed that most of them are really good at guitar hero ... So if someone decides to make Piano Hero i'll be a pro in no time.

Revived!

I got Rock Band for Christmas, much to my surprise. It's awesome. 'Nuff said. I bring it to parties, to my friend's house, we all play together. It's so much fun it's crazy. I also bought some new songs and they're great too. I'll post some videos of me and them playing it soon, to give you an idea of how sweet it is.

But, warnings to those who buy it.

1. Your guitar is going to break. It might feel fine the first day or two, but in a few more days, it'll break. Just accept it for what it is. It'll stop recognizing when you strum down. Just send it to EA for a free replacement.
2. If you're a Guitar Hero whore, you're going to be weirded out by how the RB guitar doesn't "click" when you strum. It takes a while to get used to. Also, hammer-ons are just smaller notes than normal, and they're more sensitive than in GH.
3. Your kick pedal? That'll break too, but not nearly as badly as your guitar. The top half will just snap off after a ton of playing. But don't fear. You can either hot glue it back together, which is what I did and it's been working fine so far, or send it back to EA for a free new one.

Still...if you have the money, buy it. DO IT. It's worth it.

I'll be getting it when it comes out, not impressed that we have to wait till March though, and that it is region coded.

Are the drums sturdy and well...well protected?

I always get too aggressive when I play and I'm always worried I'll break them

The drum pads are sturdy. The drumsticks that come with the game are real Ludwig drumsticks, and I've had people beat the shit out of my drums with no problems as of yet. Pedal is a different story though.