yourbeliefs said:
My issue with Activision and Harmonix is that they're both on different extreme sides of how they produce new content. Activision has taken the approach of releasing whole new games dedicated to a particular band or genre with some tweaks and modifications made to the game formula along the way, while Harmonix has just created 1 game (Let's be real, RB 2 should have been called RB 1.5) and has just been releasing songs and track packs for it. The problem is that Activision has saturated the market and forced people to pay $40+ for each game (I say that amount because people act like they forget that games typically come down in price over time) while Harmonix has just been supporting the same game that came out 2 years ago and hasn't done anything to change up the formula or make the game itself more fun or accessible. This is PAINFULLY obvious with Beatles: RB, where the gameplay is essentially the same as regular RB, just with a harmony vocal system that no one will use because hardly anyone owns more than 1 microphone. As someone who owns GH5 and Beatles RB, it's hard to shake the feeling that Beatles RB is nothing more than a glorified and overpriced track pack. At least GH5 introduced some new ideas like making the game easier to jump right into, allowing multiple instances of the same instrument, and expanded upon their music creation system (and 95 new songs was nice as well.)
A happier medium needs to be established with these games. Relying primarily on just DLC or just releasing niche games will only get you so far. Quite frankly I think we all would have been better served with just one company releasing games like this, but obviously it's too late for that. I suppose the glory days of the Rock Star gaming are over, and perhaps in a year or 2 we'll look at our big plastic instruments in ways similar that we do at old photos of ourselves submitting to the fashion trends of the day..
Beatles pretty much is just a glorified track pack mostly because relasing all these songs DLC would really jack up the price with liscensing, not to mention having to deal with different point pricing on three seprate systems for pack discounts and what not. i actually had a chance to try the harmony because i had my friends bring microphones for while we play, and i got to say, that shit was fucking hard. in RB2, you could sing a song on medium and play guitar at the same time pretty easily, but having to harmonize at the proper pitch was annoying as hell, because everyone wants to sing as fucking Lenon. try to harmonize properly and play guitar at the same time...fucking A. not to mention trying to figure out from your peripheral vision which little arrow you are and which colored line in what becomes a general blur of colors while you try to play guitar at the same time. My friend playing drums was laughing his ass off.
i can see why your mad about there being nothing innovating coming to the genere but...what else is there? Harmony and a rhythem guitar is about it... there's not much else to add that is totally superficial, so why not just release it all as DLC, better then releasing rediculous amounts of games that only have a handful of good songs. I stopped buying Guitar Hero when i realized they had 7 fucking games coming out this year. SEVEN! that's rediculous. They have Band Hero, Guitar Hero 5, Guitar Hero Van Halen, Guitar Hero Metallica, Guitar Hero Smash Hits, Guitar Hero Modern Hits (DS), Guitar Hero on Tour Decades (DS). If you want to include DJ hero as another hero game, that makes eight. i was done after that, said no more. if i ever need a musical game buzz, i would stick with Rock Band. That Guitar Hero 5 party thing is really only for people who are too lazy to navigate a menu, which is just sad.
