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We’ve been covering the up-coming war between Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2 as the details unfold… this is mostly because I finally played one of these games and see why people like them so much; they are pretty fun.
Since Guitar Hero: World Tour got the announcement-drop on Rock Band 2, Rock Band is playing a bit of “catch up and dazzle” of it’s own, dropping news about it’s lineup as well as instrument information.
One of the biggest items is that Rock Band promises “improved instrument quality” after the fiasco that was Rock Band 1 with Drums and Guitars breaking like crazy.
Today the Rock Band team dropped a picture of the upcoming Fender-inspired, faux-wood style guitar that will be part of Rock Band 2.
(Click the image on the left for a giant version of it)
One thing to notice up-front is that the commonly-complained about “same color frets” issue that some people had with Rock Band 1 is still there. It looks like the RB team has decided to keep the instruments looking as real as possible forsaking, possibly, the gameplay-ability. More specifically it could be harder for some players to differentiate or remember the colors of each button with just the little strip of color to the side.
While this looks cooler, I don’t know how many people picked up Rock Band and thought “I want to kinda-sorta ACTUALLY playing an instrument”… most probably thought “I want to play a GAME”. In which case making that game easier to play would give a lower barrier to entry and be a bit more fun.
Notice that the Guitar Hero guitar not only stayed with the more classic design (although they did make it a bit more subtle) but also added the touch-sensitive bar.
News has already come out that Rock Band 2 will include revised drums as well, not sure how similar they will be to Guitar Hero: World Tour drums or if they will include cymbals, but we’ll keep you posted!
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July 24th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Seriously? Complaining about the frets look the same? This sounds like something a fan boy would say grasping at straws to complain about. Anyone who has to look at the frets while playing isn’t going to get very far in the game. When I’m playing obviously I know it’s a game, just because it’s a game doesn’t mean I don’t want the guitar to look real. Complaining that the controller looks “real” and not like a “game controller” is another fan boy argument. I know people are devoted to Guitar Hero for some reason but you don’t really need to bash the guitar because you are getting free stuff from the Guitar Hero people.
July 25th, 2008 at 7:52 am
The Petras,
We’d be happy to get free swag from the Guitar Hero camp; we *love* free stuff.
As it stands now the colored frets were a common complaint about the original Rock Band guitar (don’t ask us, we suck at both) and as far as it looking real being a fan-boy argument, we actually said it looked *cooler*… so not sure how to respond to that one.
We are pumped for both games; half of us are Rock Band folks the other half or Guitar Hero folks, and the end result is probably going to be another half of us buying both… so it’s hard to be a fanboy of either.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:18 am
If it’s not having a full-color button that’s the issue, couldn’t you easily just plop some colored stickers on the front of the buttons?
that is, of course, unless you don’t want to mess up your nice-lookin’ guitar.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:22 am
Mike that’s true… I also had a big Rock Band friend point out the obvious to me: “How often do you look down at the frets while you are playing?” Of course, I had to concede that I had *never* looked down at the frets while playing… cause I had to stare at the screen to see what the next button was