Rock Band: Soon to be available for thirty billion Euros
 

Even with Guitar Hero III coming down the tracks, logical progression on the Guitar Hero saga lead us to Rock Band. Video from GameSpot found its way to YouTube. Witness:

YouTube Video

With MTV on board now, the track list is already looking extremely sexy:

"(Don't Fear) The Reaper" - Blue Öyster Cult
"In Bloom" - Nirvana
"Main Offender" - The Hives
"Mississippi Queen" - Mountain
"Paranoid" - Black Sabbath
"Rockaway Beach" - The Ramones
"Say It Ain't So" - Weezer
"Suffragette City" - David Bowie
"Won't Get Fooled Again" - The Who
(and maybe "Welcome to the Jungle" - Guns 'N Roses)

Thankfully, it seems as though you won't need 3 other people to play this game, but I'm curious to see what they decide to do. Here's hoping for online, but I'm not holding my breath.

(I wonder if they'll have a cowbell add-on for (Don't Fear) The Reaper...chuckle, snort.)

Apparently I'll need a next-gen console for this, as they've only confirmed 360 and PS3 releases.

I'm curious as to how much a complete setup is going to cost. I doubt I'll get enough friends convinced of coming together regularly with their guitars, drumsets and microphones, anyways. I see how the whole "band" thing is one of the most interesting features of this game, but it could also turn out to be a massive downside.

I was really excited about this game and the gameplay video looks fun, but if I can conveniently get Guitar Hero 3 for the PS2 and use it with my existing controllers, I don't see the point in investing probably more than thrice the money to get a similar experience with Rock Band.

It'll probably cost ~$200 total between 4 people for the set. Assuming everything costs the same as usual musical video game equipment.

I'd love to play something like this, but I certainly wouldn't want to pay that much for this. I think something like this might be better off as an arcade game before a home version is released.

This sort of reminds me of Steel Battalion, although I would gladly pay $200 for that - Nerd Central.

Kensubei said basically what I was going to say minus a couple of things.

1) I wouldn't mind watching people play this, but you wouldn't catch me dead singing ;)

2) I do believe that Harmonix said that you don't have the whole setup to play. So I'll take my Guitar and play on my own calling it Guitar Hero 2.75 (Because 80's edition is like 2.5 get it, hahaha... I'll shut up now)

3) I saw the stuff for the Singer and two guitarists but which of the three tracks is what the drummer plays?

The middle track. Youll notice there are only 4 icons, with the bass drum being represented by an orange line going across the entire track.

I read in the latest Game Informer that they'll utilize the mic for additional percussion such as tambourine or even the cowbell.


This game has me super psyched. This is EXACTLY what I wanted out of Guitar Hero after playing it and Harmonix shall not dissapoint. This has been years in the making and this is their pride and joy so I do believe they'll pull through.

Oh yeah and your existing Guitar Hero controller will work with the game, as demostrated by the video.

Jesus man, what the hell, Harmonix has gone on a SPREE!

ALL 7 or more of gameplay video one for this game has been taken down off of YouTube. The GameSpot video too. Does ANYONE have a link to this video that works anymore? I have friends that I still need to show this to so please post a link if you've got one.

Thanks

If this game manages to meet at least half of its' potential, it might be the one that gets me to buy a 360. Guitar Hero 2 intrigues me, but the real value will be in downloadable songs (which hasn't taken off yet) and the same goes for this one. If they're bringing out, say, 10 songs or so every 2 months and they're ones I want, yeah I'll be glad to get in on the action. I think Rock Band might a little too ambitious, but I'm pulling for it.

I think what they should do is have a line-up of 200 songs or so for download and allow the user to download, say, 30 of them when they buy the game, as opposed to having a "set" line-up. Sort of like a musical MUGEN (start with nothing, then just add the tracks you want).

A question occurred to me today when I thought about preordering Rock Band:

You're supposed to be able to play with your friends online with this game, right? I mean, that's a huge part of paying for $200 worth of merchandise. But won't each one of your friends need a copy of the game disc in order to play it on their system, effectively making everybody pay $200?

Does anyone know how this is going to be handled, on any of the various systems?

Depends on how much equipment they want to buy, I'd guess. I imagine the mic, drums and guitar will also be sold seperately. Maybe you could colaborate and have one person buy the game and a guitar, another the game and the drums, etc.

Though there's nothing official, my guess is the whole bundle will run about $200 and include vouchers for some downloaded material (like, say, 20 songs or something). Considering, unlike Steel Battalion, the stuff will actually have a use, it seems pretty fair to me.

It could be worse: They could force you to buy the official Rock Band amplifier too!

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a57...esntbelong.jpg

I'm more interested in how they'll be handling playing the downloaded music online. What if you want to play a song no one else has downloaded to their 360/PS3?

Rock Band Inquiry
 

This isn't supposed to be an official thread for the game, however if you want to discuss topics on the game, feel free to do so within this thread.

What I wanted to ask, and this may be a stupid question. But is the Special Edition of the game simply the game with the instruments? When I pre-ordered my copy at EB they asked if I wanted the SE version and I said yes. I always thought that the regular edition of the game would have been the bundle and the SE would be the bunsle with some sort of extras.

If someone could clear this up for me that would be great.

From what I understand, the special edition comes with everything. Drums, microphone, guitar, panpipes, all that. Regular edition is just the game, then you go and buy whatever instrument most interests you on top of it.

Ok, that's what I was thinking it was. Like I said, for some reason I thought it was something else entirely and then I clued in.

I bet there's going to be a few P'ed off people on release day over not knowing that the regular version is not the bundle... we'll have to wait and see though.

Yeah, I can't imagine how much of a headache this game will be for game store staff when it's initially released! Also threads merged. =')

Is anyone else psyched about the whole DLC deal? Aside from having a lot of stuff, the main setlist kinda sucks (though they added some cool songs at the last minute..."Run to the Hills", "Ballroom Blitz" (though not the awesome Krokus version...damn!) and "Flirtin with Disaster), but for about $8 extra, I get the guitar, drums and vocals for "Justice for All", "Ride the Lightning" (and Blackened is thrown in with the Metallica bundle, which ain't bad at all) and "Joker and the Thief". That's...damn, I want this game NOW!

I'm not an advocate for paying for additional content, but in this case, if there's a particular song I want to dissect, it's worth it.

List of songs in Rock Band - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edit: Anyone else find it kind of strange Metallica's one of the groups leading the charge for downloadable content?

Not really because Metallica is anti-piracy. Not anti-video games. (unless I'm missing something).

But yeah, I hear that the DLC for RB is good, and at a decent price unlike Guitar Hero. If someone could post the DLC and prices that would be awesome ^^

UPDATE
Just answered my own question. ^^;

Week of November 20, 2007:

3-Pack for $5.49 or Individual Tracks for $1.99 Each
(160 Microsoft Points per track and 440 per pack for Xbox 360)

Metallica Pack
"Ride the Lightning" - Metallica
"Blackened" - Metallica
"And Justice for All" - Metallica

The Police Pack
"Can't Stand Losing You" - The Police
"Synchronicity II" - The Police
"Roxanne" - The Police

Queens of the Stone Age Pack
"3's and 7's" - Queens of the Stone Age
"Little Sister" - Queens of the Stone Age
"Sick Sick Sick" - Queens of the Stone Age

Individual Tracks for $1.99 Each(160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360)

"Fortunate Son" as made famous by Creedence Clearwater Revival *
"Juke Box Hero" as made famous by Foreigner *
"Bang a Gong (Get It On)" as made famous by T-Rex *
"My Sharona" as made famous by The Knack *
"Cherry Bomb" as made famous by The Runaways *
"Joker & The Thief"- Wolfmother

Week of November 27, 2007

3-Pack for $5.49 or Individual Tracks for $1.99 Each
(160 Microsoft Points per track and 440 per pack for Xbox 360)

David Bowie Pack
"Moonage Daydream" - David Bowie
"Heroes" as made famous by David Bowie *
"Queen Bitch" as made famous by David Bowie *

Week of December 4, 2007

3-Pack for $5.49 or Individual Tracks for $1.99 Each
(160 Microsoft Points per track and 440 per pack for Xbox 360)

Black Sabbath Pack
"N.I.B." as made famous by Black Sabbath *
"Sweet Leaf" as made famous by Black Sabbath *
"War Pigs" as made famous by Black Sabbath *

Week of December 11, 2007

3-Pack for $5.49 or Individual Tracks for $1.99 Each
(160 Microsoft Points per track and 440 per pack for Xbox 360)

Punk Pack:
"Rockaway Beach" - Ramones
"I Fought the Law" - The Clash
"Ever Fallen In Love" as made famous by Buzzcocks *
Week of December 18, 2007

Individual Tracks for $1.99 Each(160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360)

"My Iron Lung" - Radiohead
"Buddy Holly" - Weezer
"Brass in Pocket" as made famous by Pretenders *

*cover version

I'm looking forward to this game obviously since I'm a huge guitar hero fan.

From what I've heard, only "2" versions of the game are coming out Tuesday. The Special Edition with all the instruments, and the regular version with just the game. But the thing is you won't be able to buy instruments separate until later. (possibly until February like what it seems like for GH3 Wireless Les Paul). It shouldn't be too much of a headache. I feel bad that those geeky game store clerks now have to lift a 30lb box every time they sell a bundle =p

I'm a little concerned about what I've been reading, that it isn't as hard as guitar hero 3. I assume it's mainly due to the song choices and not that they're intentionally making it easier for guitar fanatics.

But at the same time, I might enjoy it more because it's more casual. The one thing that threw me for a loop about GH3 was its insane difficulty. My hands hurt more than any song GH2 threw at me and I wasn't even finished with the last tier. It might be nice to just kick back with some friends and rock out :)

This is what they mean about it being easier then Guitar Hero.

Clips: Rock Band Vs. Guitar Hero 3, Difficulty

those comparison videos are concerning because it seems like you're hitting less notes on Rock Band (Reptilla is the best example) when you should be hitting "all" of them. One of the reasons I'm so good at expert and pretty crappy on lower levels is because I don't know what notes they want me to hit when I'm so used to hitting what I'm hearing.

But like I said, it should still be enjoyable.

My problem is the same as yours concerning difficulty. Once you get to know the exact noting of a song, it's hard to play by tones again instead of individual notes. However, I can't wait till this year's new years eve party my friends and I always have, this game is going to be way better to play then GH cause it has 4 players. And I'm sure that after a couple of drinks the difficulty and the crappy singing will all work themselves out, lol.

Me and my friends went to Best Buy today and all tried the Rock Band demo kiosk they had set up. I don't think we have ever made bigger asses of ourselves in our lives - while having so much fucking fun.

I am so buying this shit.

This game is awesome. Save up your money this holiday and get Rock Band instead of Mass Boredom, or Guitar Rehash 3.

First, the bad. Playing the drumset part on expert gives me falsely failed notes on at least 1 of every 20 notes. Even on parts of the song that repeat the same rhythm for about 16 measures, I will try ignoring the screen and play solely to the beat as one would in a real band, but it still doesn't give me above 95-ish%. As someone who has played the drums since 7th grade and in the high school Jazz Band for 3 years, this is extremely annoying.

Now the guitar. I really like everything about the new guitar, except the strumbar. It feels broken (it isn't, of course), and is really hard to get used to when you're used to the Guitar Hero guitar controllers. Other than that, it is great, and I love that it is a realistic size/shape moreso than any of the GH controllers. Side note: Anyone with a brain will also see how superior the 360 version is due to its wiredness.

The included 4-port USB hub is a nice and needed addition, but it is cheap, plasticky, and took awhile to get it to even work. Not that relevent though, as most people already have decent USB hubs, or are at least able to get them for $10 off newegg.

Also, there is no easy way to switch instruments, other than having everyone log out of their instrument controllers, and logging in to other ones. Very annoying when you're just trying to quickly swap around what parts you each want to play every couple songs.

Now, the good. Everything else. People complaining about the pricetag are morons. $169 is a great price for what you're getting. The vocal part is hilariously fun with how it shows you the tone you need to sing along with the tone you're currently singing, and it is not overly harsh in judging your voice as far as the score goes. And that's the opinion of someone who hates singing. The only thing I was hoping for is an option to turn off the real voice track completely and only play your own through the speakers, for laffy-taffy karaoke parties, etc.

Other than a few minor issues, the equipment included in the box seems very solid and is fun to use. The song list is pretty strong. Easily better than GH3, though probably not quite as good as GH2. The characters/stage/audience/etc have a much nicer look to them than the cartooney jokemode look of Guitar Hero. It's also entertaining to get to design how your character looks, and buy not only instruments in the store, but also a very wide variety of clothing and accessories to fully customize your character.

The DLC for Rock Band, compared to GH2/3, is an exponentially better value. First of all, you get 4 parts (with 4 difficulties each) with each song you buy, rather than 2. They're cheaper. A bundle of 3 for $5.50, compared to GH2/3's bundles for $6.25. OR you have the option to purchase songs individually. $2 a song compared to SOL (Bundles Only) in GH2/3. And there's simply more selection.

Rock Band, buy it.

I agree with every single word Tube said. This game is fucking masterful, and puts Guitar Hero 3 to shame in almost every way. I haven't gotten all the way through yet, but as someone who is really good at Guitar Hero, I am clamoring for some crazier songs. I plan to get the Metallica DLC when I get out of work, so that should tide me over nicely.

Overall, completely satisfied with this purchase. Do yourself a favor and get it.

Well Canada gets fucked again. I try not to use the "F" bomb too often but this is FUCKING STUPID!

Here's a list within the last month;

Stranglehold LE -PS3 (cancelled)
Mass Effect LE -360 (cancelled)
Rock Band -ALL (delayed till 12/20/07)

What a load of shit. If I wanted to make this into a positive thing I could think of it that they may have the PS3 GH3 guitar patched to work with RB by then. But no matter what way you look at it we got screwed.

Why do we always have to wait till release day to find this stuff out? Bullshit man.. bullshit...

If only I had a 360 and/or PS3! :mad:

Waiting for one of my friends to get this so I could just leech off of them, but the game does look awesomely wonderful. Playing the demo at Best Buy, me and my friends seriously rocked the house when we played.

Since I had prior experience playing PercussionFreaks, although it doesn't really matter too much, it wasn't too much of a hassle to pick up Expert on my first try. Wanna try the vocals and I'm horrid with the guitar even though I'm not bad in Guitar Hero.

Hey, at least you're getting it this year still, quit whining. I still have no fucking clue when this is arriving in the UK, Q1 2008 is all that's been said so far. That's what I call bullshit. I honestly don't understand why they'd miss the Christmas market with this one. Bastards, and fools.

Do you guys recommend Rock Band over GH3 for someone that is going to play mostly solo?

the song seem a little better than the one of GH3 :\

I wouldn't see why not though. Each thing could be done alone, and when you have a bunch of friends over, you could all rock out together. And playing the demo, the drums are probably the most fun you'll ever have. :3:

According to the Gamespot review, playing the drums could possibly make you a better drummer on a real set also. Really helps out with the kick pedal.

GH3 has 20 more songs then Rock Band. Also GH3 is overall harder then Rock Band for anyone who can beat GH1 on Expert can conquer all songs in Rock Band hands down. Finally, GH3 has the best soundtrack of any music game to date in my personal opinion.

Almost any reviewer would say something similar to what I've just said. However, most would also say that Rock Band is the best multiplayer game with one console by FAR to date.

Seeing how the question was about solo play however. I'm gonna have to say GH3. (big surprise there)

I feel like a retard for asking this, but how and where do you download the songs for this game? I see no options ANYWHERE to download shit, nor is there anything in the instruction book.

Additional Spam:
Nevermind, I found it after a bunch of digging through the Marketplace... Christ, you'd think there'd be an option to get stuff from the game itself, but I guess I figured wrong.

Well, no, no they wouldn't, because it's your personal opinion. Given the rather subjective nature of music preference it is obvious, and by your own words, that it will vary from person to person based on the individual opinion.

There's also the distinction to be made between a soundtrack that makes for a good music game and a good soundtrack.

Well don't take my words quite so liturally and I'm sure you'll see what I mean. Tjough the music preference will be subject to the individual person. Overall reaction seems to be that GH is still the better solo game (songs not being the single deciding point). If you don't believe me listen to the reactions in any of the following podcasts.

IGN PlayStation Beyond 11/19/07
EGM LIVE 11/20/07

Now I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure those two sentences mean entirely different things.

Yes, reviewers are tending to say that Guitar Hero is a better solo experience, mainly because it's built around a solo experience. Rock Band was never going to be about the solo aspect, and picking songs that have good parts for all 4 elements was guaranteed to mean that the strength of each individual element was going to be as strong as the guitar focus of Guitar Hero.

But anyways, rather than worrying about how someone takes your words, how about you write what you mean in the first place.

Didn't he already do that?

Thoes sentences contribute ti the same thing.

"GH3 has some of the best songs of any music game, but it also has a lot more challenge and other single player oriented elements that make it the superior solo game."

How's that? Does that work? And of course that is based off my opinion once again, it's not a fact. Though many others have beliefs along the same lines.

@RR
That's what I thought too. I'm just jump'n through the hoops try'n not to get burned in the process here.

Anybody else having problems with the downstrum on the guitar that comes with the 360 version? After a few hours of playing, it started feeling stiff and wouldn't register unless I was rather forceful with it. I've been reading the rock band website's forum, and it seems a lot of people are getting this. Maybe I'll get lucky and it'll sort itself out in the next few days. Otherwise I guess I'll just send it in for a replacement. Looks like I might be playing Drum Band for a while.

I like Guitar Hero III, but I'm not a massive fan of the song selection...I thought there was a lot of crap in there (either lousy songs or songs that had lackluster patterns to play) and it wasn't as fun as II (some stinkers, but generally solid with a lot of TEH EPIC) or 80's (few songs, but only 3 I didn't fully enjoy and has my two favorites songs of all time in the setlist). Rock Band is geared towards DLC as well, so while I think it has the weaker tracklist ATM, it will offer a lot more in the future. And that's for 4 parts, two of which are pretty new and offer stuff GH doesn't.

All I know is I subconsciously sing to my favorite GH tracks while playing, so it'll be really cool to stick a mic in front and get points for it on top of that. Now if they can just bring over "Electric Eye" and "Nothin' But a Good Time", I'll be set...

http://www.fakebands.com/graphics/timmyandlou.gif

DARKNESS FILLS MY HEART WITH PAIN

I picked up the Rock Band bundle and I'm enjoying it :)

The Solo Career (Guitar) is definitely easier than GH3. But it's not really due to them slacking on the notes, it's because the setlist is full of easy guitar songs (for the most part :P) I felt like I was playing every note and it didn't feel like it was handing me the game. I 5-starred every song in the game except Run to the Hills (which i still can't 5-star :p those triplets kill the combo every single time). I failed Green Grass and High Tides with the new guitar, but passed it with no real issues with the x-plorer. I 5-starred most of the bonus songs and DLC except for Ride the Lightning which was a very close 5-star.

I like the way the new guitar feels, and I love the solo buttons. My only complaint is the strum bar which doesn't make any noise and doesn't really move much when you strum it. It gives it an authentic feeling of actually playing (and I can downstrum faster) but when I have a stream of fast notes coming at me, I can't hit them worth shit because I can't hear the clicks. I like the controller overall.

I started playing drums on hard and failed pretty miserably. I dropped down to medium and am trying to get my hands and feet to do the right thing. It's working out pretty well and I've 5-starred most of the early songs on medium.

I also tried out the singing because I like to use everything that comes with a game =p I haven't sang since 5th grade chorus :P It's the one thing I'm shy about myself. I put it on easy and aced the song I played. I moved up to medium and the few songs I played I managed a good 96-99% accuracy. I didn't try hard because after a few songs my throat started to hurt. I'll have to try it again later. I have a stupid voice, but I can sing pitches pretty accurately. I knew I could, but it's just something that I'm very shy about doing.

I'm playing the World Tour with my girlfriend (she plays bass guitar on easy) and we're having a blast :D I know its gonna be the most fun ever when we bring it to our friend's house and we have 4 people playing at the same time.

I had a little fiddle with Rock Band on Friday. Only played four songs (two on guitar, two on drums), but I'm impressed. The drums are a LOT harder than I thought they'd be, and as I expected the kickpedal was the worst part for me.

As for the guitar, I like it. I'm not as bothered by the lack of difficulty compared to GH3 as I thought I would be, though the strum bar is drastically different from all previous guitars. That and I managed to pull a Peter Moore.

I was searching retailer websites, and it doesn't seem like they are selling the PS2 drumset separately anywhere... does anyone know if you can buy just the drumset when it's released?

Are the ps2 instruments the same as the ps3 and the 360? Meaning, if i buy the ps2 bundle when it comes out, i can use those instruments to play on the 360 or ps3, since by the time rock band 2 comes out (if it does), i'll have either one.

No, all instruments from all versions can only be used on the system they were designed for. And you won't find instruments sold separately until early next year.

On an unrelated note, the guitar career is unbelievably easy. Unlike GH2/3 on Expert, I haven't had to use practice mode once. I got to the very last song without failing anything, but then tried the last song this morning and failed in the last solo part which is a lot harder than anything else Rock Band throws at you, so it caught me off guard. I'll have to try again tonight.

The drum career was similar, in that it was smooth sailing (went through on Hard my first time through) all the way until the end. Then the second-to-last song (the Iron Maiden one) took me awhile to nail, while the very last song was no problem on the drums. I would have started on Expert if I had known the achievements stack, but it's fun enough to want to go through again anyway. If you can do Hard on drums, Expert isn't that much more difficult, so far at least.

All that's left now is the vocals, which I am dreading. I don't understand the scoring very well, and I will arbitrarily do really good in a song or just fail it in the middle, even though I always feel like I am doing a terrible job at singing.

I picked this up last weekend and had a great time playing it over at my friend's house. I usually do vocals. I'm going to see if I can get some online action going this weekend.

Got this game yesterday for the PS3. Fantastic game so far. Only got some game time with the guitar, which feels so much different than the GHIII controller. While the note charts are easier than GHIII, the lack of the clicking noise and the seemingly stricter timing window make it harder than it really is. For me, anyway. :(


But I do have one question: Some gameplay videos online have the background crowd in the game singing along with the band. Is there any specific thing you have to do to trigger that?

Do well? I've noticed it a couple of times when I've played Wanted Dead or Alive...

"Cause i'm wanted (wanted~) dead or alive."

Yeah, that's like the ONLY song I've seen that had the crowd sing along. :(

Well, it has happened in other songs. I could vouch that much. What they are, are beyond me, because they're not really that loud... And Wanted Dead or Alive is the only song I seem to notice on it because the lyrics aren't all that hard to sing and I could notice other shit in the mean time.

Otherwise, I think you just have to have 4 stars or higher to activate it.

It's not the stars, it's the crowd meter.

Ah, usually happens when the crowd meter is maxed out or about to be maxed out. Can hear them much better actually playing the song as opposed to watching a video of it.

So Europe finally gets a release date and price - well, for the 360 version anyways - and it's not pretty. As I would have guessed, though really hoped wouldn't be the case, Europe gets royally fucked:

[ source ]

[ source ]

EA: Please, kindly, with all due respect, go fuck yourselves raw and then don't bother stopping until you die horribly bloody deaths. Thank you.

As much as I want this game, I flat out refuse to buy it until it's a reasonable price. I'm not waiting 6 months for a game only to be over-charged in such a bullshit manner.

It's not as if they haven't already damaged the game's chances of selling here enough, but this finally kills it.

There's no reason that American peripherals wouldn't work over here is there? It'd probably be a fuck load cheaper to buy the PAL game here and import all the bits and bobs to go with it. Exchange rates being what they are, I imagine the saving would more than pay for the shipping.

That is, essentially fucking gay though. Given that the UK is third in the world in terms of video game producing revenue, it'd be nice if we didn't get completely shafted once in a while. If only we made as much hardware as we do software eh?

Hahaha holy shit. That's like $400 here for the whole combination fried plastic toy rice. The same price as a 360 (arcade) or a Wii. What the hell, EA.

.. Or 200 copies of Big Mutha Truckers.

You can import the PlayStation 3 version, as that will work. The 360 one, not so much, given the 360 features region locked games (I'm pretty sure I read someone saying they tried to import Rock Band 360 with no success).

The thing is, there's next to no argument about the hardware manufacturing, because I'd be willing to bet these things are plastered with 'Made in China' labels. Even so, the cost of shipping over here doesn't justify a doubling in price.

As Q said, this pretty much kills it as a brand in Europe. Some retards will still buy it, and if it drops enough in price I'll consider it, but just out of principle EA can take a running jump.

Wow, did the pound almost half in value overnight? Chalk me up as someone not willing to pay the price.

Omagnus, you should be able to just buy the stand alone game and the stand alone drum kit if that is available over there, since the Guitar Hero guitars work fine for Rock Band (or at least, the bundled guitar from GH3 on 360 does). That of course doesn't make the pricing any less silly, but for people like you who already have Guitar Hero, you may catch a break.

Don't care. I'm not paying £120 for the drums and game when that's at the top-end of what I was willing to pay for the whole kit and caboodle. It's just a joke, plain and simple. I'm going to actively dissuade anyone who was considering this from getting it now.

No reason at all. Importing the peripherals is a great idea. In fact, the saving might well even pay for an American PS2. They aren't exactly expensive right now. That way you don't need to buy the PAL release at all, and whoever decided on this insane price can get stuffed.

Oh... wait... this game isn't coming out for PS2? Forget I suggested that. The peripherals for 360 will work fine no matter which region they origina te from. I'm certain of that. I apologise for getting confused over that. I'm only marginally interested in the release...

So you're saying a, say, US bought Ace Combat 6 flight stick would work here.. Interesting ::chinstroking::

I wonder if the PAL version of the game will recognize it.

Although I'm quite certain that it would work, I have no actual direct proof. I just thought I'd say that. What I do have is past experience of all kinds of imported peripherals working with PAL consoles. There usually isn't even the slightest difference between peripherals from different regions.

I have both Japanese and American peripherals for several of my older consoles. but I must admit that I've not actually been using anything imported on my 360 yet. I've just not had it long enough. I've used an imported arcade stick controller on my PS3 though, which goes to show that the current generation consoles don't have to be any different.

As for whether the game will recognise it... that depends. If they just released the American version in Europe with the only change being the regional coding and some additional languages... then yes it would. I'm confident in stating that controllers, no matter how unusual, aren't region coded. Ever.

On the other hand, it's possible that when they mastered the European version they took out the code for the stick. I can't imagine why they would do that... but it is not impossible that they did.

The AC6 controller is a sweet piece of equipment, I grant you. I'm confident you'll be successful, but the tiny chance that it won't work does exist. It wouldn't be fair to pretend I've actually tried anything on the 360. I just know that as a general case, peripherals don't care where they are from.

Good luck finding one for less than the cost of Rock Band.

Speaking of deep-dickings for people who want the game, it seems that the Wii version is a ported PS2 version without DLC, without online, without world tour mode, and Harmonix says its Activision's problem if the GH3 guitar doesn't work with it, as theirs is "open source." Oh, by the way, it costs the same as the PS3 and 360 versions.

Fuck you Harmonix for being lazy.

I can't see that they'd bother adding region-locking to peripherals although I guess for something that has different functions, rather than just using the same button mapping in a different format (Like an arcade stick) there'd be a possibility that they took the support for it out of the PAL version if they never intended to release the peripheral here.

I wonder when they will release a fucking asian version, I swear to god i've wasted 100 dollars on this shit last month, i got myself the drum and guitar and the game, sadly the game doesn't work because Its region locked =p.

That would be entirely pointless. What a lot of people seem to not realise is that removing things from software can be just as costly as trying to add something to it (and potentially more dangerous). They just didn't see a market for the stick over here, with likely pricing and feasbility of it selling, etc.

As for Rock Band, they have no real argument because their tax/shipping bullshit falls apart as soon as you compare the price of guitar+game to Guitar Hero 3, which is a wireless guitar and game. Roughly the same size, I imagine similar weights, similar packaging sizes, etc. There was a rumour of a European price retraction/drop, though that hasn't happened and I don't see it happening. They've dug their heels in too much to budge now and lose face. Evidently they'd rather lose sales.

As a final kick in the teeth to Europe, EA and Harmonix are releasing the 'exclusive' European tracks as DLC this week, the same week as the European release. So the US will actually get the 'exclusive' tracks before the game hits over here.

I return to my original stance: EA can go fuck themselves. Never before has my excitement and interest in a title gone from so high to non-existent, so well done to all the clever marketing and sales people responsible for this.

Yeah man, I cannot wait until tomorrow when I can download Hysteria. Been waiting for this song since the day I got Rock Band.

Well, I downloaded and played Hysteria during my lunch break this afternoon and goddamn is that song tough on Expert guitar and bass. There are a lot of hammer ons, and quite frankly, the Rock Band guitar is not very responsive, which makes long strings of hammer ons borderline impossible to keep going, at least for me.

Rock Band comin to Japanland
And can't wait to download some Margaritaville this week.

cant wait to see the low as hell sales numbers.

Having got to play this out in the US, annoying I do want to pick it up. I still refuse to pay crazy moneys for it though, and there's no way I'm splashing out on the full pack. For now I'm thinking I might, at the very least, pick up the game solus, since I have two guitars and technically a mic. If I can get a good game + drums deal, then I might give that a go. I venture forth after work today to see what I can get.

As for the Japanese release, this should be interesting. I wonder if any songs will be available as DLC, because that would be rather cool (and not out of line on the singing front, given they've lumped French and German songs on the Euro release, so if you're playing the UK version you might have to sing one of those songs in the random set lists).

Yeah, I figured that after playing it you would want to pick it up. When you pick it up, you, Iwata, and I need to get together for some online band play. It will be awesome.

I have it now (the full kit and caboodle), so yeah, I'm game for an online session at some point, for sure.

I'd suggest that it's unlikely as the tunes on the game would be licenced to the new publishers, not the publishers of the UK version or Microsoft. One of our clients has licensed tunes to Harmonix for some of their other games and the contracts are really specific as to what versions and so forth the tunes can appear on. I mean, it still might happen but with all the contract negotiations, I'd say it's not much more likely than any other tunes being available as DLC.

Tee hee. Aussie release confirmed for late October. A month after America gets the sequel.

$400 ($385 US)

$400 ($385 US)

$400 ($385 US)

LAFFO (HUNDRED BUCKS MORE EXPENSIVE THAN A BLOODY 360)

Jesus, no wonder Australia is so gay for Nintendo.

"WEHLCOME TA OZTRAILYA, MAYT. PREPAIR TA SPEND YEH LOIF SAYVINGS BILLDING YEH HOUSE OUT UV ROK BANNED BOXIS!"

I see Australia is getting the Europe pricing model, with extra shitty release schedule. It's such complete bollocks.

Although Australia glorious country, it have problem too: Social, Economik and Nintendo

Christ, Infernal, won't you be importing anyway? Who cares by now if the minnow market gets shafted as usual?

Now would be a good time to release a line of cheapo 3rd party peripherals I guess.

Seems it might be a case of no Rock Band for you aussies after all:
[ source ]

Damn it, I may just have to purchase Rock Band now. "Charlene (I'm Right Behind You)" by Stephen and the Colberts was released as a free download today.

If you live in the U.S., might as well wait for Rock Band 2. >_>

True, but how come the Rock Band 2 bundle is $189, whereas the Rock Band 1 bundle was released at $169 (and can be found for $149 or lower now)? I shouldn't complain in light of the PAL release, but what's changed that they're charging $20 extra?

Probably the new drums, which are supposedly much better than the old set.

$20 extra. Boo fucking hoo. Once you start getting stung with real rip-off prices, not to mention shitty release dates, then you can complain. Until then, get out with your fucking $20 more.

It cost the extra $200 in Europe to give you guys those 9 bonus tracks and instruction manuals in your native languages. Do you think that people to translate the instructions from American English to actual English come cheap?

$20 more to do less than what the Guitar Hero one does is actually pretty insulting.

I'm not complaining, Lord British, as my quote says. I just wanted to know if their was something extra I was missing, or they were just jacking the price for lulz (which would be really stupid, since the Rock Band 1 bundles are bound to drop in price now).

The Special Edition (with all the instruments) RB2 doesn't come out until November. With the increase in price, seems like I'd do just as well to buy the game, wireless guitar, and drum set piecemeal, use my XBL microphone, and rent RB1 so I can import the songs. Not saying I'm going to rush out and buy it, but I've considered it for awhile now, and the song list just keeps getting better.

The Guitar Hero Bundle should work with your Rock Band stand-alone game. That's what I'm doing on the Wii. That way I can just buy the Rock Band 2 game.

Are they releasing a non-shitty guitar with RB2 or is it still the same one?

I heard that all the stuff included in the bundle is better then the stuff they released with the first game.

Nicer looking guitar that works better as well as a better drum set as well.

The early reviews on the RB2 guitar say it's better than the original.

As for the RB2 drums, the new set is supposedly velocity-sensitive, has a metal bass pedal, and allows for an addition of a 2nd bass pedal and 3 cymbal add-ons (yellow, blue, green). Unfortunately, some people have been complaining about the RB drums as crappy as the RB1 drums (cross talking, dropped notes, etc.). Who knows if it's the majority or just the small minority being the most vocal.

OK, so Rock Band 2 finally hit in the UK on Friday and my copy turned up yesterday. Got to say, game is pretty awesome. They've taken RB1 and tweaked and refined it and it's all the better for it. Being able to tour even when you haven't got mates round, and being able to play with a band online is brilliant. The challenges and battle of the bands stuff is a nice addition, and all in all it just feels better. Songs are also good (from those I've encountered so far).

So, anyone up for doing some online band shizzle at some point?

I'd definitely be down for it at some point. I don't have much free time, but keep me posted on this.

I'd love to play this with somebody, but I doubt many people will have the PS3 version like I do. By the time I got a 360, I already had a bunch of DLC, so I didn't want to have to rebuy the game as well as peripherals and songs, too. =/

At any rate, if anyone gets Rock Band 2 for PS3, my id is Skexx.

I'm down for it Skexis, I own Rock band 2 for the playstation 3.

Give me a holla, my Gamertag/PSN ID is Liquid_Snack

Bumping this thread with a stupid question. I picked up Rock Band 2 today (awesome sale at Toys R Us, $110 for the complete set, plus $25 gift card). How does one change instruments? For example, it's just me playing off my console; if I start in my band playing drums, and then I want to switch to guitar, do I have to turn off my console for the game to recognize the guitar as my gamertag instead of "Player 2", or is there some simpler way of doing it? If I play as "Player 2", I wouldn't be working towards any of the achievements, correct? I tried turning off the drums, but then it keeps telling me to reconnect the controller.

If anyone's up for some jamming, I'm on 360, gamertag nuttyturnip.

Nope, you just have to back out to the menu, turn off the controller you were using (or unplug it) and then plug the new instrument in. You only get into trouble if you try plugging one in before you've disconnected the other.

Interesting. All I have to do is go back to the main menu and use whichever instrument I want to navigate the menus. This is with both the guitar and the drums connected on the PS2 version.

Things are slightly different on the 360 purely because the signed in profile (the one associated with your gamertag, achievements, save games, Xbox Live, etc) gets tied to one of the player slots. So if you're connected and signed in on slot 1 and then start using a controller on slot 2 it won't be associated with the right profile. So you can either sign out on slot 1 and re-sign in on slot 2, or you can get it so the new controller is picked up on the same slot (if any of that makes sense).

That makes sense. I hadn't thought about just signing out the first controller.

Oh snap, a fellow PS3 RB2 owner.

LET'S BE FRIENDS.