Phee-roo!

I’ve had Rock Band for 36 hours now, I’ve probably spent about 6 of those hours actually playing it, but they have been the best 6 hours of my video game life.

I’m a rhythm gamer, I’ve been playing Dance Dance Revolution for 5+ years, I’ve played every Bemani and Harmonix game ever made. I’ve even mastered the rare treat from Koei in the form of Gitaroo Man. Karaoke has been around since before I was born, and in video game form for a few years at least. There have been many guitar simulators since Harmonix first hit us hard with Guitar Hero, and before that Konami had Guitar Mania in Japan which was roughly the same formula. There have also been drum simulators from Konami in the form of Drum Mania. Drum Mania and Guitar Mania would even link up in the arcade to let you rock out together. But never has it all come together as awesome as this.

Maybe it’s the licensed tracks that are popular enough that you’ve heard them before, maybe it’s knowing that every sound produced is coming from something you or one of your friends is doing, or maybe it’s just the energy presented on screen, probably a combination of all three, it doesn’t matter because after your band gets used to playing it’s instruments and it all comes together, you just zone out and feel like your really on stage. I don’t expect someone just reading this to understand, you really have to try it for yourself.

I came into this a bit jaded. Playing rhythm games as much as I have, the fun is gone. It’s all about hitting every note, getting the timing perfect and getting this highest score. Even when new games came out, like Guitar Hero did 2 years ago, I instantly went into it and wanted to be the best. However, there was something different with Rock Band, when I was behind the drums with my friends playing ‘Say It Ain’t So’ by Weezer, I stopped caring about score, about hitting every note… I just wanted to rock. And rock I did! I rocked so much my neighbor came to tell me and my band to shut up. So we took it down a notch, which wasn’t AS fun, but still freakin awesome.

I’m sure there are gonna be some things to nitpick, this isn’t a review so much as a commentary and right now I’m riding high on the euphoria of my first night rocking out on Rock Band, and hopefully there will be many more to come.