Monday, March 16, 2009
Hello. The topic for today is:
Over the past two years, music games have become insanely popular. They have always been around in the arcades, but it was only when they became available for home consoles that they became really big.
Back then, there was only Guitar Hero, but nowadays there is much more variety, with games like Rock Band and Ultimate Band making their debut. Also, while these games once only included guitar game play [hence the name GUITAR Hero], now there are also drum and vocal portions.
Everyone has probably at least heard of one of the aforementioned series before, and I'm sure many people have played it themselves. Music games may seem like casual gaming affairs on the easier modes, but they can really be challenging on the Hard and Expert difficulties.
While Guitar Hero and Rock Band have gained worldwide recognition, I realised that there are actually quite a few people who do not know how the game works, so I'm going to explain that.
Vocals and drums are quite straightforward, but guitar and bass have both basic and advanced techniques. Also, keep in mind that while the different music games are mostly similar game play wise, there are many subtle differences that make each of them unique.
Guitar and bass are played almost the same way. The thing you see in the middle of the screen is called the note highway. Notes come down from the top of this highway, and they move towards you. There are 5 different coloured notes, green, red, yellow, blue and orange, and the amount of notes that appear in each song depend on the difficulty you are playing on.
For example, when playing on Easy, only the first 3 buttons are used. Playing on Medium requires 4 buttons, and Hard and Expert mode utilizes all 5 coloured buttons. Also, the speed at which the notes come at you is determined by the difficulty you are playing on.
At the bottom of the highway, there are 5 indicators with co responding colours to the notes. So what you have to do is, when a note passes through an indicator of the same colour, you press down the button of that colour on your guitar controller, and you hit the strum bar.
That's right, you need two hands to play Guitar Hero. One hand to press the colour buttons, and another to strum. Just pressing the buttons alone doesn't do anything. You need to push the strum bar down for the note to register.
For Guitar, some notes are single, while others consist of two to three notes that are required to play at the same time. Single notes are usually present during melodic portions of the song, or the solo, while double or triple notes, which are actually chords, are usually present during a chorus.
If you can hit a series of notes without missing any, you will get a score multiplier, which as its name suggests, multiplies the amount of points each note gives. You can go up to x4 for the Guitar Hero guitar and bass, and the Rock Band guitar, and x6 for the Rock Band bass. So instead of getting 50 points for each note hit, you will get 200 if you have a x4 multiplier.
In Guitar Hero, the bass guitar has something called an open strum, which appears as a horizontal purple line on the note highway. To play an open strum, you just have to hit the strum bar as the line passes through the indicators, but without pressing down any coloured button.
For all music games, the guitar has a variety of techniques that are required to play Hard and Expert mode. You need to know how to alternate strum, which is basically strumming up and down, so that your wrist will not get tired.
You need to know how to hammer on and pull off. Hammer ons and pull offs can be done when you see a series of notes that are really close together. You only need to strum for the first note, then you just have to press the buttons according to the rest of the notes. No strumming required.
There is another score multiplying feature called Starpower in Guitar Hero and Overdrive in Rock Band. What it does is basically double your current score. So if you have a x4 streak, and you use Starpower/Overdrive, your streak will go up to x8.
Starpower/Overdrive can also be used to save you if you are failing a song. If you are close to failing a song, and you use it, then every note you hit will save you twice as fast, and notes you miss will only have half their normal impact on your Rock Meter.
Rock Band is the first music game that featured drum game play for home consoles, and Guitar Hero soon followed suit. Drums are much more straightforward than the guitar and bass. The Rock Band drum kit has 4 coloured pads and a bass pedal, and the Guitar Hero one has 5 coloured pads and a bass pedal.
When playing the drums, what you see on the screen is similar to the guitar and bass. There is a note highway, and 4 colour indicators for Rock Band and 5 for Guitar Hero. Of course, the colours are in different order than that of the guitar and bass.
As the notes come down the highway and pass through the indicator, you just have to hit the pad with that colour. When playing drum, you will always be alternating between hitting one note and two notes.
The bass pedal is indicated with a horizontal purple line. As it passes through the indicator, you have to step down on the foot pedal. This line is usually accompanied with one or more notes, so your coordination has to be good to be able to play.
There is also Starpower/Overdrive for drums. In Guitar Hero, you have to hit both cymbals at the same time to activate. For Rock Band, you have to hit the green note at the end of drum fill portions to activate.
Vocals is a little different from the other instruments. You also have a note highway, but instead of a vertical one like all the rest, you have a horizontal one. When playing in a full band, the vocal note highway is always either at the top or at the bottom of the screen.
To sing, you need a microphone. While there are officially licensed Guitar Hero and Rock Band mics, any USB microphone will be compatible with the games. However, to connect the mic, you need to have a controller on at all times, so that you can scroll through the menu.
During a song, you can either select scrolling or static options for lyrics. Scrolling lyrics means that the lyrics scroll from right to left, while static lyrics just appear on screen sentence by sentence.
The vocal game play works by pitch detection. That means you don't have to be a great singer to be able to perfect a song. You just need to get your voice into the right pitch. You could even hum along to the tune of a song, and if the pitch is right, you can still perfect a song.
There is also Starpower/Overdrive for vocals. In all music games, this is activated by tapping the top of the mic with your palm. If you happen to be playing another instrument and singing at the same time, then it can be turned on by saying "POW!!" into the mic.
Of course, there are several other things that can happen if you are playing as a full band. If everyone is doing well and have x4 streaks, then you will start getting bonus points. Also, if all band members activate Starpower/Overdrive at the same time, unique things might happen.
Guitar Hero is much harder than Rock Band, and it is much stricter, so if one member fails a song, the whole band fails. In Rock Band, if one member fails, he or she can be rescued by another.
When they fail, they will not be able to play until their band mate rescues them. While they are disabled, the Rock Meter is constantly being drained, so there is a risk of failing the song. Once some one else has at least half a bar of Overdrive, he or she can deploy it to rescue the one who failed. Each person can be saved only three times.
So there, you have it, pretty much everything you need to know to be able to play Guitar Hero or Rock Band. Do keep in mind that while the game may seem easy when you read about it, it is actually challenging on Hard and Expert, and you need some skill to be able to play it.
If nothing else, at least now you have enough information to act as it you know how to play the game even if you have never ever played it before. Why would you want to do that? Well, girls love these games. Use your imagination :D
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I didn't do much today. I stayed at home for most of the day. Played a bit of DotA. Went out for a while in the afternoon. I got back home and my cousins came for a while, since it's the March holiday and all. We played a bit of Halo 3.
Man, I'm feeling damn weird now. Not that I have any problems or anything. It's just that ever since my third Xbox died off, my passion for gaming seems to have been affected. Nowadays, I don't feel like playing my Xbox.
I'm not sure if it's just because now is the time of the year where there are hardly any good games being released. Or whether it's because Microsoft gave me another defective replacement unit.
This one makes such a loud grinding sound that I might as well mute my TV, because there is no much difference. I dunno why I'm feeling this way. Maybe I'm just suffering from the hang over brought about by last year's awesome holiday season video game line up.
To make things worst, I am really discouraged about my future game right now. After watching Watchmen, and reading the comic a few more times, the storyline of my game just seems insignificant now.
I used to be able to get inspiration for my game just by listening to music. I could actually picture cut scenes from the game, as well as how I want the game to play like when the music played. Now, no matter how hard I try, it's just a blank when I listen to the same songs.
In fact, I can't even concentrate on the music any longer. I will be listening carefully at the start of a song, then my mind will drift away, and before I know it, the next song is already playing.
It's probably because I have things on my mind right now. The TPSU FOC is happening in two weeks. School is starting soon. I need to figure out a way to better manage the money in my bank account. I just got back a close friend. And I'm about to lose and even closer one...
Damn, I really need to figure things out. The fact that I'm getting bored with my Xbox is really scaring me.
Ok, I'm done for today. Thanks for reading. [KOAS KW!!] Ending off, see you tomorrow.
posted @ 11:17 PM
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