Tyler Christensen of DualShockers writes, "As my author bio at the top of the page lists, I mentioned that not only am I a gamer, but I’m also a musician as well. I’m a vocalist by nature, but I also dabble in other instruments, such as the piano, guitar and bass guitar. But, in no way, shape or form do I consider myself great, hence the wording “dabble.”
Games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero allow players to take part in a performance of popular songs by playing controllers that are modeled after musical instruments. Over the years, players were really just able to shred out with their plastic guitar’s out, but now we are able to play lead guitar, bass guitar, drums and sing.
I honestly feel that these games teach you the fundamentals of playing music when playing on expert. Of course, if you are not there now, you will get there soon, and I’ll include some tips for you to be able to achieve that goal by the end of this editorial..."
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
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.
Bust a Groove, Gitaroo Man and Parrapa the Rappa were such good games. Neither needed any extra peripherals
Player 2's long-form feature about kids and video games continues with a look at introducing toddlers to games for the first time.
Music rhythm games dominated the video game market in the mid-2000s. Unfortunately, the genre would fall from grace shortly after finding success.
More like faded away than failed. Failed implies it was new and didnt take off... that is not the case. Rhythm games were hugely popular but the lights dimmed and the show is over.
You would think the current situation would cause a resurgence but im actually seeing more people picking up real instruments and learning to play. My son is one who started out on GH and now he plays real guitar.
I lost interest when they stopped allowing you to use the controller to play with, just couldn't get into playing with the guitar.
Not the sole reason, but over saturation by Activision releasing 5 GH games in one year, charging full price for all of them while only Metallica and GH5 were worth it.
I dont think these games failed at all. People aren't going to keep buying games and peripherals over and over. All songs need to work on either rockband or guitar hero thru updates. Guitar hero live was actually good but rockband with all its songs and same equipment killed it.
I'm sure part of the reason they faded away, at least over the long term, was that you couldn't download them digitally.
its true... they definitely teach you rhythm, timing and head bopping
same way about the Rock Band drums. They really are a great way to learn music timing.
Rock Band and Guitar Hero definitely seem to get the ball rolling but if you want to be a real musician I think you need to have that drive to go beyond these types of platforms and pick up the real life counterparts
I have no rhythm, so I find it hard even playing the drums in Rock Band. Guitar is no problem though. These games are also great at introducing people to new music and new genres that the might not have tried out before.
This is interesting to me, I've heard musicians say that games like Rock Band and GH are not good enough to teach the fundamentals of music, and then I've heard those that say it really could help.
Myself I'm not sure what to think, I definitely notice a delay and inaccuracy to a lot of the music games out there but I guess after all it is just a game right?
Maybe Rock Band 3 with its Pro modes and guitar/keyboard plugins to real instruments will take it to another level of accuracy and realism.