Rock Band

[Fitzy]

I'll pick up "Sex Type Thing" probably.

[Cactus Drags]

I've heard rumours of March 21 for a UK release date, and now, more likely April-June (presumably giving EA nice big sales figures for Q1 of its financial year). This is messed up. We've got Activision and Neversoft doing their level best to ruin the GH franchise and make it impossible to play, while Harmonix won't even give us their bloody game! And I've heard Flyleaf and others won't be in the UK version, which is bullshit. Having to wait 6+ months more than North America to get the game, and then getting fewer songs. Are they trying to make us not want the game or something?

[Fitzy]

At this rte, by the time you guys get the game Rock Band 2 will be out!

[Fitzy]

Seriously how the hell do you get past that gay ass Wave of mutilation song? Those shitty kick pedal, red+yellow repeat part is gay. I can't do it. And I can't beat that gay OK Go song either so I am stuck on this second tier on hard.

Edit: Nevermind.

Edited February 16, 2008 by Fitzy

[Miami Vice]

Of all the Weezer songs we get that one? Oh well. I read some rumor page that had these three songs listed so I'm hoping the rest on that list are true since they listed "D.O.A" by The Foo Fighters.

[Mountainous Cleavage]

Got this today as an early birthday present, and my god is it great. I see my drums getting broken soon, as those solo parts tend to make me come close to it.

[Miami Vice]

Got this today as an early birthday present, and my god is it great. I see my drums getting broken soon, as those solo parts tend to make me come close to it.

[Mountainous Cleavage]

Well, I've offically worked blisters into my fingers from drumming, but I love this game.

And is it wrong to like singing Timmy & The Lords Of The Underworld?

Edited February 19, 2008 by Closed and Moved to Archives

[Gabriel]

I broke down and bought it yesterday... on one of my few excursions out of the house, I ended up at Wal Mart, and it was there, and it seduced me.

It's such an awesome game though. I had a great time with three people, and then when they left, I hooked up my mic stand, stuck the microphone in there and played the guitar/sang in my own career mode.

It is extremely shitty though, trying to follow the guitar parts while singing songs you've never heard before. For the ones that I know, it's fine. Fun all around though. I gave the drums a whirl too for a bit, lots of fun. At first I couldn't figure out what the fuck I was doing, but as soon as I did, it was smooth sailing.

I wish the extra songs would be available some other way than download. My Xbox Live just doesn't want to work...ever.

[BlackFlagg]

Just got the game and finished unpacking and setting everything up...now to decide if I wanna drum or guitar first....

[Miami Vice]

My band beat the never ending set list a few days ago. It was a lot of work but also a lot of fun. The worst part was the game glitching up after 15 songs. We had to start all over again but we got through it!

[zero]

What level did you beat it on MV?

[Gabriel]

My guitar didn't come with a guitar head

It looks so naked.

This is going to sound stupid, but how do new songs get unlocked for use in just regular play?

[Shorty]

My guitar didn't come with a guitar head

It looks so naked.

This is going to sound stupid, but how do new songs get unlocked for use in just regular play?

[ragbag]

Good news for Portal fans, Still Alive is now officially confirmed for DLC. From the rockband.com blog,

"The entertainment at the party was geek troubadour sensation Jonathan Coulton. If you aren't familiar with his songs I want you to go to his website and listen to a few. I suggest "RE Your Brains", "Skullcrusher Mountain", and "The Future Soon" (Creative Commons FTW). He has plenty of other rad tracks but those are some of the ones I like the best.

At around 10:00pm Jonathan took the stage. A bunch of us crowded up front, because we frankly have a bit of a man crush on him, and watched him run through his setlist. Right towards the end he announced he had only one left...

"I'd like to invite a couple of my friends up here to help me with my last song."

That is when we jumped on-stage and pulled out our Rock Band equipment piece by piece. Dan Teasdale (one of our senior designers) started picking a three person band with Jonathan and Alex Rigopulos (co-founder of Harmonix and head honcho). When they got to the song list they scrolled through an almost infinite amount of DLC until eventually they stopped on one-

"Still Alive" by GLaDOS

ALERT- THIS WAS A SPECIAL PREVIEW OF THIS SONG. IT WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE AS DLC AT A FUTURE DATE. WHEN I KNOW WHEN I'LL LET YOU KNOW. I NOW RETURN YOU TO THE NARRATIVE.

Yup. That is the song that Jonathan wrote that is the credits song at the end of Portal. The crowd went nuts. Earlier we had turned the backing vocals all the way down and the microphone vocals all the way up so we could actually hear his voice instead of GLaDOS. Alex was on drums ruling it, and Dan Teasdale held his own on guitar. By the end of the song even the people in the back of the room were screaming. It was an awesome way to debut a song we've been working on.

So awesome that one dude tried to jump onstage and steal the song onto a memory card he had in his pocket (who walks around with a memory card in their pocket at all times, just in case?) That was weird.

At any rate, it went very well, and everyone from Jonathan, to Harmonix, to Valve, to the other developers were stoked. I'd personally like to thank everybody for an incredible night but especially Doug Lombardi, Jonathan Coulton, the amazing staff at Temple, and our audio team for getting the song done in time."

[NobBe Nobbs]

Oh my Christ.

[Gabriel]

Blah. I wish there was some way for me to get the downloadable songs without having to download them. I can't get onto Xbox Live for the life of me, so I'm pretty much fucked when it comes to all the awesome songs that they've added.

[Miami Vice]

What level did you beat it on MV?

[EddieRuckus]

So according to the GDC, you may be able to put your own songs in future Rock Band sequels, perhaps as early as Rock Band 2.

GDC 2008: Harmonix Talks Phase

Harmonix cops to iPod music game origins and talks about letting you use your own tunes in Rock Band 2.

by Levi Buchanan

February 22, 2008 - Harmonix, best known as the music game developer behind the Guitar Hero and Rock Band juggernauts, hosted a session at the Game Developer's Conference this week to discuss Phase, its iPod game. The session essentially went over the nuts and bolts of developing a music game for the iPod, but the most interesting factoid from the presentation was when Harmonix's Chris Foster revealed that Phase originally started on the PlayStation Portable. However, Harmonix was concerned about the hassle of moving music files to the PSP, so the project tilted toward the iPod, which had become the de facto music player.

In talking about the ability to use a personal library of music for Phase (called Procedural Generation), Foster did say that Harmonix is indeed looking into ways to allow players to port their own music into Rock Band. However, due to tech limitations (and also the apparent financial boon of selling song downloads), this feature would have to wait for Rock Band sequels.

In their slide show presentation, Harmonix showed a flash from the PSP game -- and it looked remarkably close to Frequency and Amplitude, which were the developer's criminally underplayed rhythm games for the PS2.

Edited February 23, 2008 by Calling Doctor Jones

[-A-]

GDC 2008: Harmonix Talks Phase

In talking about the ability to use a personal library of music for Phase (called Procedural Generation), Foster did say that Harmonix is indeed looking into ways to allow players to port their own music into Rock Band. However, due to tech limitations (and also the apparent financial boon of selling song downloads), this feature would have to wait for Rock Band sequels.

Edited February 23, 2008 by -A-