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ROCK BAND: It begins...the first single to be released through Rock Band
UnbreakableVow
Chareth CutestoryLawyer of the SeaRegistered User regular
Chareth CutestoryLawyer of the SeaRegistered User regular
Latest News:
- On April 15, "Saints of Los Angeles" by Motley Crue will become the first single released through Rock Band. It will retail at $.99. Source
- LewieP, being a gentleman and scholar, informed me that I should put this link in the OP. Apparently it contains a cheaper way to get Rock Band for you UK gamers.
- Electronic Arts will be releasing the Xbox 360 version of Rock Band in Europe on 23rd May.
It will be a timed exclusive for Microsoft, with PS3, PS2 and Wii offerings to appear "later this summer".
Euro Rock Band will feature a selection of exclusive songs, as was rumoured in March. These include tracks from Oasis and Blur plus adopted German favourite Die Toten Hosen, which might mean "the trouser hose". But also might not.
We will get the full compliment of existing downloadable tracks on 27th May, too. This adds up to a meaty 70 songs, which you can get a load of over on the official site.
Going forwards, both European and American versions will be given fresh tracks at the same time each week.
The full list of Euro-exclusive songs can be found below.
English
"Beetlebum" by Blur
"Rock 'n' Roll Star" by Oasis
"Monsoon" by Tokio Hotel
"Hysteria" by Muse
German
"Hier Kommt Alex" by Die Toten Hosen
"Perfekte Welle" by Juli
"Countdown to Insanity" by H-Block X
French
"Manu Chao" by Les Wampas
"New Wave" by Playmo
We're waiting to hear back about how much it will all cost, and EA is hosting an event today to showcase the game to the European press, so hopefully we'll find out soon
Apparently only enough stock to launch in the three countries listed.
- Perhaps more disappointing is the price: unlike the US, which received a Special Edition that includes the game, a Fender Strat guitar, the drum kit and a mic, all for $169 – Europe will only get an Instrument Edition priced £129.99 / 169 Euros, including the three peripherals but not the game – which, bought separately, will set you back £49.99 / 69.99 Euros. So, if you want the proper Rock Band experience, the minimum you're going to have to shell out is around £180 / 240 Euros.
Source: http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/864/864831p1.html
- Due to the OXM tracks becoming available through more legitimate means, this thread will no longer be used to distribute the OXM discs. Whatever you personally decide to do with your discs if your own business, but this thread will no longer keep a running tally of who has received discs and who is waiting.
I. The Rock Band Store
II. Rock Band Clan Tags
III. Rock Band: A Rundown
IV. The Instruments
V. The Music
VI. Gold Star Cut-Offs
VII. Related Links
VIII. The Credits
I. The Rock Band Store.
In this latest software update, you’ll find:
* (New!) Music Store: Rock Band now has a new feature that lets you preview and purchase songs from within the game! Accessible from the main menu, the Music Store lets you view, purchase and sort all available music based on various categories, view album art, listen to song previews, and check out extended information about the song like difficulty for each instrument.
* Revised Fan Caps: To allow Easy, Medium, and Hard players to progress further in the Band World Tour, we’ve increased the number of fans that you can earn before hitting the cap. Easy players can now travel across the Atlantic, Medium players have a wider range of venues they can play at, and Hard players on the Xbox 360 are now able to unlock the “One Million Fans” achievement.
* More diverse songs in Band World Tour: If you’ve ever cursed about having to play “Say it Ain’t So” or a Metallica track multiple times in the same hour, then you’ll be glad to know that we’ve tracked down and fixed the issues that triggered these very repetitive moments in Band World Tour.
* Improved phoneme recognition: We’ve improved the detection and scoring for phoneme recognition. If you had trouble on songs like “Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld” or “Blitzkrieg Bop”, you should have an easier time beating these songs now.
* Microphone Latency on PlayStation 3 improved: Our awesome team of audio programmers has found some optimizations that reduce microphone latency on the PlayStation 3 in certain situations.
* Xbox 360 Band Logos are now visible through Xbox LIVE: An issue with parental controls stopped band logos from being visible over Xbox LIVE. With this update, you can now view all of the awesome band logos that people around the world have created!
* Faster loading of downloadable content: Not only is the loading speed faster, but this information is now cached so that this loading time is a “once only” wait rather than something that happens every time you turn on the game.
II. Rock Band Clan Tags
Here's How It Works: There are two groups. One group is full of people who won't be asshats and quit matches after, like, one song, people that won't hog guitar and will do bass every once in a while, generally stand-up, PA forum players. The other group includes the aforementioned, along with the criteria of having about 50% of the DLC.
The Gamertag for the PA Rock Band Group is PA Rock Band.
The Gamertag for the Rock Band DLC Group is RockBand allDLC
Once you're a friend, go to the Gamertag's profile, go to Personal Profile, and View Friends. You now know who is online and currently owns Rock Band, and will be able to send invites. People that are friends with RockBand allDLC now have a portal to Rock Banders that will probably share a good amount of DLC with them. Enjoy the greatest music game ever made, with your friends from Penny Arcade!
Number of DLC Songs Available As of April 1, 2008:
81 Songs
Note: There's 58 songs in the retail game (45 main setlist and 13 bonus), so if you subtract 58 from your total songs as listed in Solo World Tour, you'll have the amount of DLC you've purchased.
III. Rock Band: A Rundown
(Excerpts From Wikipedia)
Rock Band is an upcoming music video game under development by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games, and to be distributed by Electronic Arts Partners. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions are scheduled for a North American release on November 20, 2007 at a price point of $169.99, while the PlayStation 2 version will be released in North America on December 10, 2007 at a price point of $159.99. The game will be released in Europe in early 2008. In early 2008, a Wii version of the game was announced, but no release date was given.
Rock Band will allow players to perform in virtual "bands" by providing up to four players with the ability to play three different instrument-based peripherals (a guitar peripheral for guitar and bass guitar sequences, a drum peripheral, and a microphone). These instruments will be used to simulate the playing of rock music by hitting scrolling notes on-screen. Players can interact through both online and offline multiplayer capabilities. The game is Harmonix's first project since development duties of the Guitar Hero series were transferred over to Neversoft.
(My Personal Take)
What I Thought Then: The culmination of what Guitar Hero I and II had hinted at. How psyched am I for this? Super-psyched. There's a very good chance (we're talking 75% here) that this could be become my favorite series of all time.
What I Think Now: Rock Band is unreal. The amount of joy this game inspires in me transcends anything else the medium has to offer. Not since the original release of the Wii have I seen so many non-gamers I know pick up and play...and this one keeps them coming back far more often. Harmonix gets a tip of my hat as the best developer out there right now, with a constant stream of DLC every week. Little touches like the Rock Band store just let you know they care.
IV. The Instruments
This sexy replica of the Fender Stratocaster is (from a style perspective) a vast improvement over the GHII model, looking much more like an actual instrument rather than a toy. Each fret button is still color-coded, however it's much more incognito this time, as the colors are only visible on a side-view, perfectly placed for the player. Other features include a five-way switch for different sound effects, and an extra set of the five existing fret buttons for all your soloing needs. The Fender that comes with the 360 bundle is wired, while the PS3 version is wireless. Wireless guitars for both systems are now available to buy separately.
Xbox 360 users may use the Guitar Hero III Wireless controller or their Guitar Hero II X-plorer as well. PS3 users are currently confined to the Fender Stratocaster.
Four pads (snare drum, tom-tom, hi-hat, and cymbals), one kick pedal. Real drum sticks. I imagine you know what those look like, and they're easily replaceable if lost. According to reports, it's easy to assemble in less than five minutes, and you can even set it up on a flat tabletop if you don't like the stand. Easily the newest part of the game I'm looking forward to the most. Drum kits are now available to buy separately.
It's a microphone. One tends to sing into these devices. It picks up individual vowels and consonants, and if your bastard friend happens to be playing the solo on "Highway Star" or you really want to imitate Will Ferrell, it can be used as a tambourine or cowbell by simply tapping on it. Don't want to tap? Hand full of axe? Just make random noises, like "pow pow pow." All the real rockers do this when people aren't looking. Microphones are now available to buy separately. Or you could use a random USB mic you have lying around somewhere; most are compatible.
V. The Music
Lime is a master track.
Orange is a cover
The Main Setlist
"Are You Gonna Be My Girl" - Jet
"Ballroom Blitz" - Sweet
"Black Hole Sun" - Soundgarden
"Blitzkrieg Bop" - The Ramones
"Celebrity Skin" - Hole
"Cherub Rock" - Smashing Pumpkins
"Creep" - Radiohead
"Dani California" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Dead On Arrival" - Fall Out Boy
"Detroit Rock City" - KISS
"(Don't Fear) The Reaper" - Blue Oyster Cult
"Electric Version" - The New Pornographers
"Enter Sandman" - Metallica
"Epic" - Faith No More
"Flirtin' With Disaster" - Molly Hatchet
"Foreplay/Long Time" - Boston
"Gimme Shelter" - The Rolling Stones
"Go with the Flow" - Queens of the Stone Age
"Green Grass and High Tides" - The Outlaws
"The Hand That Feeds" - Nine Inch Nails
"Here It Goes Again" - OK Go
"Highway Star" - Deep Purple
"I Think I'm Paranoid" - Garbage
"In Bloom" - Nirvana
"Learn to Fly" - Foo Fighters
"Main Offender" - The Hives
"Maps" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Mississippi Queen" - Mountain
"Next to You" - The Police
"Orange Crush" - REM
"Paranoid" - Black Sabbath
"Reptilia" - The Strokes
"Run to the Hills" - Iron Maiden
"Sabotage" - Beastie Boys
"Say It Ain't So" - Weezer
"Should I Stay or Should I Go" - The Clash
"Suffragette City" - David Bowie
"Tom Sawyer" - Rush
"Train Kept A-Rollin'" - Aerosmith
"Vasoline" - Stone Temple Pilots
"Wanted Dead or Alive" - Bon Jovi
"Wave of Mutilation" - The Pixies
"Welcome Home" - Coheed and Cambria
"When You Were Young" - The Killers
"Won't Get Fooled Again" - The Who
Bonus Tracks
"29 Fingers" - The Konks
"Blood Doll" - Anarchy Club
"Brainpower" - Freezepop
"Can't Let Go" - Death of the Cool
"Day Late, Dollar Short" - The Acro-Brats
"I Get By" - Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives
"I'm So Sick" - Flyleaf
"Nightmare" - Crooked X
"Outside" - Tribe
"Pleasure (Pleasure)" - Bang Camaro
"Seven" - Vagiant
"Time We Had" - The Mother Hips
"Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld" - Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld
Downloadable Content
All videos on expert unless otherwise noted. I'm trying to find videos of guitar/bass/drums, but can't find many for the bass.
- Metallica Pack
- Police Pack
- Queens of the Stone Age Pack
- David Bowie Pack
- Black Sabbath Pack
- Punk Pack
- Oasis Pack
- Arguably Punk Pack 2
- Nine Inch Nails Pack
- "March of the Pigs" Guitar Drums/Bass
- "The Collector" Guitar Drums/Bass
- "The Perfect Drug" Guitar Drums
- Grateful Dead Pack
- Earache Thrash Pack
- Boston Pack
- Metal Pack - Date TBA
- "Wrathchild" - Iron Maiden
- "Supernaut" - Black Sabbath
- "Fuel" - Metallica
- "Fortunate Son" - Creedence Clearwater Revival Guitar Drums
- "Juke Box Hero" - Foreigner Guitar Drums
- "My Sharona" - The Knack Guitar Drums
- "Cherry Bomb" - The Runaways Guitar Drums
- "Bang a Gong (Get It On)" - T. Rex Guitar Drums
- "Joker and the Thief" - Wolfmother Guitar Drums
- "Brass in Pocket" - The Pretenders Guitar Drums
- "My Iron Lung" - Radiohead Guitar/Bass Drums
- "Buddy Holly" - Weezer Guitar Drums
- "Attack" - 30 Seconds to Mars Guitar Drums
- "The Kill" - 30 Seconds to Mars Guitar
- "Dirty Little Secret" - All-American Rejects Guitar Drums
- "Move Along" - All-American Rejects: Guitar Drums
- "Song With a Mission" - The Sounds Guitar Drums
- "Gimme Three Steps" - Lynyrd Skynyrd Guitar Drums
- "Limelight" - Rush Guitar Drums
- "Hard to Handle" - The Black Crowes Guitar Drums
- "The Number of the Beast" - Iron Maiden Full Band
- "Die, All Right!" - The Hives Full Band
- "Interstate Love Song" - Stone Temple Pilots Full Band
- "Last Train to Clarksville" - The Monkees Guitar Drums
- "Action" - Sweet Guitar
- "All the Small Things" - Blink-182 Guitar Drums
- "Siva" - Smashing Pumpkins Guitar Drums
- "Ten Speed (Of God's Blood and Burial)" - Coheed & Cambria Guitar Drums
- "Working Man" - Rush Guitar Drums
- "Roam" -The B-52's Guitar Drums
- "We Care a Lot" - Faith No More Guitar Drums
- "Calling Doctor Love" - Kiss Guitar Drums
- "El Scorcho" - Weezer: Guitar Drums Full Band
- "Sex Type Thing" - Stone Temple Pilots Guitar Drums Full Band
- "Why Do You Love Me?" - Garbage Guitar Drums Full Band
- "Shockwave" - Black Tide Guitar Drums Full Band
- "Crushcrushcrush" - Paramore Guitar Drums Full Band
- "Beethoven's C***" - Serj Tankian Guitar Drums Full Band
- "Still Alive" - Jonathan Coulton (Pending for PS3) Guitar Drums Full Band
- "Shooting Star" - Bad Company - Date TBA
- "Simple Man" - Lynyrd Skynyrd - Date TBA
- "Message in a Bottle" - The Police - Date TBA
- "Saints of Los Angeles" - Mötley Crüe - April 15, 2008
Official XBox Magazine Feb'08 Bonus Songs:
Available to the general public on 4/8/08.
- "Sprode" - Freezepop: Guitar Drums Full Band
- "Shake" - Count Zero: Guitar Drums Full Band
- "Rock Rebellion" - Bang Camaro: Guitar Drums Full Band
Special thanks to Houn, Lord Yod, pablo_price and Mr Bubbles for the videos, they are much less lazy than I.
VI. Gold Star Cut-Offs
A Gold Star is like a 6-Star. You do NOT need to hit 100% of the notes, it's just another high score level after 5-Star. Scrolling down your setlist and seeing a bunch of Gold Stars is a pretty amazing feeling, so get crackin'.
Guitar Gold-Star Cutoffs
Bass Gold-Star Cutoffs
Drum Gold-Star Cutoffs
Vocal Gold-Star Cutoffs
VII. Related Links
The Rock Band Warranty Site
Those lovable scamps at OXM review the DLC and let you know if it's worth a purchase.
Possible fixes for your guitar. This will void warranty, so be warned.
VIII. The Credits
(Ooh come on, I wanna take you higher, ooh come on, let's make electric fire!)
A very special to thanks to those who have contributed to the thread, including Houn, Lord Yod, pablo_price, Mr Bubbles, Lunker, Arikado and the countless other regulars in who keep us going through these threads like candy even four months after release.
UnbreakableVow on
Xbox: UnbreakableVows | PSN/Wii U: UnbreakableVow | 3DS: 1521-3241-9354
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
PSN: TheSuperVillain
Nice to see Rock Band filling some noticeable gaps in their song selection though. Even if I'm not a fan of the music I could see they weren't offering up much to the thrashers/metal heads. Now everyone can have Rock Band parties.
twit feed
I'm all for variety too, but they have, like, a whole game.
Xbox: UnbreakableVows | PSN/Wii U: UnbreakableVow | 3DS: 1521-3241-9354
74 DLC songs = roughly $148 = D:
Xbox: UnbreakableVows | PSN/Wii U: UnbreakableVow | 3DS: 1521-3241-9354
Picked up Ten Speed and Working Man instead.
True, there is a whole game dedicated to overblown guitar parts and insane note charts, but its hardly worth getting a group of friends together for. Guitar Hero is like masturbation, Rock Band is an orgy. Not much fun watching a friend play Guitar Hero for hours, even if you like the music. and now they also have vocals and drums. So all those folks that love the kind of music guitar hero specializes in, and love the difficulty, can have some group fun as well. More the merrier I say.
Besides, the less some of us complain about niche stuff we may not like (like thrasher and 30 seconds to mars?) the more willing Harmonix will be to take a chance on niche stuff some of us do like, for example [Insert Favorite Band Here].
Good choices there.
Working Man will give you quite a workout on it's own (drums are an endurance trial and guitar will destroy even the best fingers in the second solo) and Ten Speed is just pure fun. I wasn't a very big Coheed fan till I picked up Rock Band, and now I've picked up 2 of their albums.
I hate to break it to you, but 81% is nowhere near the end of the second solo. The second solo goes until the end of the song :0)
It's usually common to have an unexperienced drummer or an exhausted bassist fail out on GGHT nowadays.
Well said sir.
Is that the start of the descending triplets?
Does it look fun to play? No not really.
Will I ever get to play that with friends over? No. Unknown band + that being the least popular style of music for rockband in my experience = no knew DLC for me ;_;
Still no damn Journey. This angers everyone.
Someday, love will find you
Don't stop believing.
It's one of the triplet strings, yes. I don't recall what keys they are although I think it involves blue. She'll usually have Overdrive for the last 10% but a minor fuck up before that means she's gonna have to pray for some luck. But again, even if she does fail out, there's a good chance we can still clear the song since it's right at the end. It's another story for solo, of course.
The wheel in the sky keeps on turnin...
Am I doing this right?
twit feed
What does surprise me is that outside of the OXM DLC, there hasn't been any stuff released from bands the HMX employees are in.
You're muckin' with a G!
Because it would require a much more direct comsumer purchasing type relationship than getting those songs on a demo that came w/ a magazine, and having people direclty purchase songs as DLC that belong to HMX employees might come off as double-dipping to some of us. At the very least they would have to be at the sale price I'd think.
twit feed
I think you're mixing 2 issues here. Yes the bonus songs have always been primarily bands related in some way to HMX (employee members, usually) but I don't think the Harmonix Emplayees have much say in what gets released as DLC, I'm sure they have some kind of DLC team that decides that.
How is Ten Speed?? I've been thinking about picking it up, but I didn't like the cover vocalist that sang it.
YES YES YES!
Opeth isnt overly insane or brutal either.
Trust me. This song is harder than those two. Unlike those other two, this song is fast the whole time. At least the other two have slow downs here and there. Thrasher has none of that. It would rather cutoff your hands than let you take any kind of breather.
tails Gets trolled
Indeed, they aren't. Although some of their works might not work all that well given the shear length of them. Of course with stuff like Foreplay/Longtime, GG&HT, Working Man, ...And Justice, etc... already in, that might not be the case.
I dont know. This song is what, 3 minutes? GGHT is 10. At minute 9 in GGHT on that last solo you are pretty wrecked.
While the length does play a part in GG&HT difficulty, at least it isn't constantly throwing you fast HOPO or insane double strumming. Really, there are only two parts in GG&HT that make it unbearable. Everything else isn't any worse than any other Nightmare level song.
tails Gets trolled
Of course, the speed issue is something I'm sympathetic to.
Thanks, 360.
Don't toss out your broken/unusable/worn out Nintendo (especially Gamecube/N64) controllers! Donate them to me!
When they say double strumming they don't mean alt strumming. Alt strumming is being able to strum up and down, which is really the best way to be playing the game. Trying to do pretty much any song on expert with nothing but downstrums will probably destroy your wrist eventually. Double strumming means strumming in double time. You know those gnarly drum rolls in songs like The Perfect Drug, Won't Get Fooled Again, or at that bridge in Train Kept a Rollin'? It's like that, but strumming, every single 16th note of the bar.
I remember the old GH2 thread, where some people were talking about how they beat Misirlou and Hangar 18 on Expert by only downstrumming. D:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Kols9wQQPzs
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hM_-L4tOQkg
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dllO08Wkx1o
http://youtube.com/watch?v=msFQBNo3Pn
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zk2uPZF8NyM
If I could find better videos of some of their other songs I'd post them, but those ones are fucking wicked as is.
Seriously, imagine how fun those would be.
*shudder* made in mexico...
Yes, ultimately someone at Harmonix makes the music choices, and I doubt we'll ever get a band in that everyone there hates. However, they know what people like, generally. I'm sure they have people they're paying just to figure out the kind of music we want. I just think the less shit we give them the better. We won't slowly skew them to our tastes. They might be more willing to include things like instrumentals or certain songs that wouldn't necessarily fit Rock Band. Its hardly worthwhile to try things like "Still Alive" when people get all uppety when just thrash metal is included. Hell, I wouldnt be surprised if some dope on the RB forums has started a boycott and/or petition against what they've included. All that will do is motivate them to play it safe with generic recent rock titles.
More RB DLC, I don't care what it is, as long as its well made.