Keep busy with Ninja Gaiden II and Metal Gear Solid 4, because there's nothing new for the Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 this week. Wii gamers will finally be getting Rock Band at the end of the week. Clank goes solo with the arrival of Secret Agent Clank for the Sony PSP. Square Enix brings revived Taito classics Arkanoid on the DS and Space Invaders Extreme for the PSP and DS. There's never a slow week for the DS...
TheGamer Writes "Harmonix has proven plenty of times it can make Rock Band work without instruments."
I mean, yeah, but was anyone saying otherwise? The fact is people liked the plastic instruments rather than pressing buttons on a controller. They enjoyed the simulated experience.
"Work"? No, but to be good? It's absolutely necessary. Not having the accessories is like playing a lightgun shooter with an analog stick sure it works, but one experience is completely unique and fun as hell, and other is torture trying to make do playing in a way it was never meant to be played
"trying to make do in a way it was never meant to be played"
I disagree. The accessories were a fun gimmick (and very marketable) but they were added AFTER the genre had been well established with games like Frequency and Amplitude (both also made by Harmonix).
The gameplay formula is different on a controller - there's a focus on switching lanes and contributing to all of the instruments.
Never played Frequency, but Amplitude and Rock Band Blitz were really good. I would love to get more of that kind of game. It's basically a different part of the genre, and stands on its own.
The insurmountable difference in popularity between Amplitude and Rock Band proves my point
Popularity isn't proof of quality. If it was, then Harmonix wouldn't be making music for Fortnite now. lol. Our disagreement wasn't over which one is more popular. Amplitude and Blitz just aren't "torture" to play.
Rock Band 4 and Guitar Hero Live failed to revive their sub-genre, and Rock Band 4 caused Mad Catz to have to file for bankruptcy. Doesn't mean that instrument-based music games are bad.
It does mean that there's too much overhead and risk for anyone to take a gamble on a big budget game that needs instrument accessories now though.
For the genre to thrive, for now, it needs to do so without the instrument accessories. That's just a fact, unfortunately.
VR games like Beat Sabre (a new sub-genre) and traditional music games make more sense and are more viable right now.
*"If quality is always proved by popularity, then Harmonix wouldn't be making music for Fortnite now."
I think CHEAP plastic instruments is THE reason why the instrument-genre ‘died’.
People invested in buying the game AND the peripherals, so the guitar, the dj-set, the drum, whatever, and the experience was absolutely fantastic. Great fun, great music, etc.
But then the instruments would break. A button would stop working, or your hits wouldn’t register, and that kind of hardware failure would end in you not being able to play the game as intended, and thus you not getting the scores you deserve.
So, now you had a great game, but a broken instrument, and nobody is gonna buy a new plastic instrument every 3-6 months in order to keep playing the game.
A solution would have been to release better quality instruments (obviously), at a slightly higher price, so you could have kept the new games coming and the genre alive, but sadly, that didn’t happen.
The only issue I ever had with any of the hardware was the drum pedal on the original rock band set stared to crack in half. The reason I, and other friends I know who played, lost interest is they weren't putting out new tracks that we were interested in anymore. I think earlier this year I looked through the releases for the last 2 years or so, and there was maybe 3 songs I would have bought.
Yeah I had this happen too with my drum controller, I ended up attaching a metal strip to it which fixed it up nicely.
Bust a Groove, Gitaroo Man and Parrapa the Rappa were such good games. Neither needed any extra peripherals
Alex S. from Link Cable Gaming writes: "So as the Sun sets on Vicarious Visions as an independent studio within Activision|Blizzard, let’s take a look at the top 10 best games they have ever put together."
Player 2's long-form feature about kids and video games continues with a look at introducing toddlers to games for the first time.
Typical. There's nothing good either.
Secret Agent Clank eh..... Might be worth a look see.
A lot of good games out this summer.
There's a whole lot of games been released between now and the end of the month in Europe.
SS Brawl, Crisis Core, Alone in the Dark, TopSpin 3, Bad Company, Beijing 08, C&C Kanes Wrath, GH Aerosmith, Nascar 09, Ninja Gaiden DS, The Bourne Conspiracy,....etc...
I played the demo on PSN and I cant wait for it. I buy few games and Gamefly the rest, I will be buying Civ Revolution for sure.
I just bought MGS4 LE and DBZ Burst Limit LE, I'm good for a long while.
I might give Space Invaders a try on DS =/ Apart from that slow week.
I still have NG2 I suppose and you lucky PS3 owners have MGS4.