Rock Band Gets Keyboards, Guitar Hero Gets Hard Rock. FIGHT!

The battle of the band simulators just got interesting. Rock Band 3 Vs Guitar Hero 6 looks set to be the most epic plastic axe face-off ever, bigger than RB1 vs GH3.

In the RB corner, we have two massive additions (in terms of importance and price, no doubt) in the form of three-mic harmonies, lifted from The Beatles RB and keyboards. Yes, keyboards.

A recent Xbox 360 Green Day Rock Band demo hinted at the inclusion of keyboards with a little monochrome keyboard symbol along with the usual drums, bass, guitar and (three) mic symbols – all alongside a jagged, Rock-Bandy 3. Harmonix haven’t officially confirmed it, but it doesn’t take a Science Genius Girl by Freezepop to work out that the keyboards are coming to the next proper Rock Band.

What could this mean exactly? Well, a much needed reinvigoration of a stagnating music genre for one. And secondly, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. If the epic seven-minute wonder is in RB3 and playable on keyboard, expect sales to fly like a rocket ship soaring through the sky (yes, I know that’s Don’t Stop Me Now, which would be equally welcome).

This brings us to Guitar Hero 6’s response. Well, it’s going to have to be big, isn’t it? Well, the setlist which has so far been confirmed by an Official Playstation Magazine UK leak isn’t so much ‘big’ as eye-wateringly, head-bangingly massive. Dragonforce are back, and Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica, Ozzy Osborne and Children of Bodom have come to join them. Oh, and it definitely has Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody (except without the keyboards, we assume). It’s going to be epic.

Activision’s response to Harmonix’s ‘ultra-realism’ band sim (they are, apparently, going for a more realistic approach to RB3) is to make Guitar Hero an axe-shredding, finger-burning cavalcade of killer rock again, like it used to be before they sold out and started putting in Coldplay.

That means no more turgid pop-‘rock’, no more teeny-bopper indie bands (that’s what Band Hero will do now, apparently). GH6 is going to be Guitar Hero III – The sequel, like everyone wanted World Tour  to be. It might still have full band support but the focus is squarely on guitar riffs and screaming solos.

Thus, we have two very different approaches to the music game genre from the two largest behemoths in gaming – EA and Activision. The original Rock Band sold like hot cakes despite GH3 having been out at roughly the same time and selling some 12 million copies in the face of EA’s full band sim (whereas GH3 had only guitar or bass support). This would suggest that there’s room for both in the crowded genre – but that was years ago when the phenomenon was still exploding.

Whether people opt for Harmonix’s super-real, keyboard-toting, all-in-one band sim or Neversoft’s monster rock and metal fest with a killer guitar setlist might decide the direction of the industry for years to come.

I’ll have one of each, thanks. It’s like Gran Turismo V Burnout – If they both keep to their own identities rather than ripping off each other, there might be room on gamers’ shelves for two new rhythm action games this year.

And really, who saw that coming?

Modern Warfare 3 is imminent...

Well, it looks like there's a lot more Warfare on the way. Activision today let slip that Modern Warfare 3 is in development (like they weren't going to make one after MW2 sold more than 15,000,000 copies in just a few months).

The bad news? It was let slip as part of official court filings by two ex-Infinity Ward employees (the Modern Warfare developers). Not only was the split between Activision and these key IW members very acrimonious, it seems unlikely that the top talent will return to the series any time soon.

So, let's get this straight: some of the top devs have left the series, they're making lots of spin-offs (hello, World at War and the upcoming COD: Spec Ops) and the series is going to continue because it's making lots of money. Get ready, because Call of Duty is about to go the way of Guitar Hero.

You think they'd learn, wouldn't you?

Let's Get Critical

Games reviewers. Both our best friends and our worst enemies. When they slap a high score on that title we’ve already thrown down a hefty pre-order price for, we’re quick to sing their praises. When they cruelly slam our most anticipated titles with a witheringly low ‘6/10’, or some such figure, the conspiracy theories fly. ‘They’re Xbox fanboys!’, ‘they hate this genre’, ‘they’ve been bribed by Sony/Microsoft/etc.’
Our relationship with reviewers, then, is truly Marmite – which is to say, very love/hate. But is it just our crazed internet personae being baited into knee-jerk reactions online, or is does the system itself need to come under review? I certainly think so.

Games, it has often been argued, are an entertainment media on the up. What was once seen as a childish or nerdy pastime (though the medium still struggles with such labels) is more commonly being seen as a serious form of escapism, culture and very occasionally, art. Titles like the recently-released Heavy Rain (pictured) seek to show a more considered, mature side to gaming.

Not the big guns, big swears, bigger 18-symbol kind of mature, but the kind which focuses on strong narrative and adult dialogue. Games like Brain Training and Wii Fit have taken a stab at gaming maturity in an entirely different, but arguably even more successful way, taking a ‘kiddy’ pastime and allowing adults to utilise it to solve deadly serious adult problems like weight gain and senility.

It is time, now more so than ever, that we treated the medium seriously. Which is to say, critically. We cannot allow games to have an easy ride, especially when the standards of production values, graphics and even writing have never been higher. It’s time we got critical.

Other serious forms of entertainment are regularly given a rough ride, panned and pulled apart for every tiny flaw. Whilst I’m not arguing that every film is minced by critics, nor that every game should be, either, it is only by calmly acknowledging a game’s drawbacks can we improve for the future. If games reviewers simply foam at the mouth every time a good game comes along, we’ll never be able to tell what’s truly hot and what’s just hyperbole.Case in point: Grand Theft Auto: IV. The darling of reviewers this generation, garnering a 98/100 average on reviews-aggregate website, Metacritic.

Hold on. 98/100? On average? It doesn’t take a mathematical whiz-kid to work out that 98 on average is an absurdly-inflated score. Similarly, Super Mario Galaxy, Nintendo’s biggest critical success on 97/100 average, is obviously over-scored.
As a regular reader of gaming reviews, it is quite difficult to accept. SMG is possibly Nintendo’s single greatest achievement, potentially besting Super Mario 64 or The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In my humble opinion, it does. But I still don’t think it deserves a 97/100 average. I don’t think any game does.
Film reviews are more considered. You get the feeling that the critics aren’t simply raving fanboys, rabid hype-junkies or silly company-politics obsessives.

 For example, Avatar, now the most successful film ever, garnered a very impressive 84 on Metacritic.That's a hugely positive review score, and any game developer should feel proud to achieve such a stunning critical reception for their title. Except, that’s not quite the case. For games reviewers have become accustomed to only using the top end of the scale.

 As a result, a 6/10 seems ‘a poor score’ when in reality it’s above-average. Similarly, 9/10s and 10/10s are dished out like Guitar Hero instalments, meaning it’s difficult to distinguish a truly outstanding title from a pretty good game. Now, games reviewers have created a vicious cycle in which only the highest scores will do. Regularly, reviewers point out real flaws in a title whilst going on to award it a 10/10 regardless.

Some publications do things differently, and get a fierce kicking from all corners of the internet as a result. EDGE magazine, for example, recently handed Final Fantasy XIII a 5/10. They argued that the game was technically accomplished but far too linear. Fair complaints, if we take linearity to be a bad thing (but that’s for another day...). A 5/10 is not a bad score, it is average. A game doesn’t need serious flaws to score in the middle of the scale, just be a game which is not particularly outstanding. Many forum-dwellers quickly pointed out that ‘an EDGE 5 is a normal 7 or even 8’.
Sadly, they’re right. Games reviewers and the industry at large needs to realise that high scores should be the exception, not the rule, if gaming as a medium is to truly be respected.

Don’t agree? Good. We need to be more critical.

When The Music Stops

Plastic-axe shredders are a fickle bunch, it seems. No sooner than the Guitar Hero franchise exploded into multi-billion dollar sales, churning out titles quicker than Nintendo re-releases portables had the rhythm action genre suddenly died, like an exploding star that fell in on itself.

Harmonix this week announced that Viacom, one of their complex-legal-license-partners for Rock Band, had asked for a refund ofa bit of bonus money they’d handed them. $200 million, if you want the precise figure. The reason? Flat-lining music game sales that had seen RB’s revenues plummet.

This is obviously a problem, not least for the company being asked to repay almost a quarter of a billion dollars that were bonuses – not loans or agreed finance – but for the games industry as a whole. The games economy is too reactionary, throwing money at anything that looks popular then quickly cutting off the cash supply when players have lost interest.

Case in point: ‘casual’ Wii titles. There are literally hundreds of the things. Baby Shopper Party, Family Potato Farmer, Dress My Kitty and such drivel. Not even I'm sure if those are real or I just made them up. It's gotten that bad. So bad, in fact, that last month, Best Buy, a large American department store, announced they’d no longer stock ‘casual’ or ‘mini-game’ titles. The market, it’s clear, has become oversaturated.The games economy simply isn’t set up to take the kind of hits that result from these sudden changes of plans. Activision blew, it’s rumoured, over $100 million on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Luckily, the game shifted ten million copies a second, roughly, but imagine if it hadn’t. Imagine if the games-playing populace had already moved on to the ‘next big thing’? Only a couple of years ago, Halo was the shooter of choice. Stretching back a couple of decades, the likes of Doom and Quake were the top trigger-happy titles.

Times change fast, and every shift only hurts the industry when the big guns and the little guys bet on their game making big bucks and lose. Activision will undoubtedly give Modern Warfare 3 an even bigger budget, and it may well pay off, but if gamers have moved on by 2011, they’ll be in big trouble.

 It looks highly doubtful that Final Fantasy XIII, out next month, will recover the multi-multi-million dollar development costs from the four years it took to make, what with the slightly cold reception it's received from its initial reviews.

The games industry, then, needs to calm down and get better at predicting the tastes of tomorrow rather than aping the top titles of yesterday. Brain Training clones soon saw that market stagnate, and the landslide of shooters we’ll see over the next two years may see the same thing happen to the FPS genre – MAG, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, MW3, New Call of Duty Spinoff, Killzone 3, Spec-Ops: The Line.The list goes on and on. If racing, or action titles (like Uncharted 2 and Assasin’s Creed II) become more popular, for example, all those FPS developers will just be shooting themselves in the foot.

As with the fall in popularity that rhythm action games have suffered, no doubt due to the sheer volume of plastic-banding titles released recently (GH:Metallica, GH: Greatest Hits, GH: World Tour, GH:5,GH: Van Halen, Band Hero, Rock Band: The Beatles...), if the gunfire ceases, it sure won’t be pretty. Games developers need to learn the Guitar Hero lesson before it’s too late.