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Previous rants:

The Sims
EA Sports
Electronic Arts
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Guitar Hero/Rock Band (Part 3)
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You might be thinking "Hey Bahamut, I thought you were done with ranting on Guitar Hero and Rock Band." I thought I established enough with what's wrong with the craze but as a matter of fact, a fair amount of things were left out because I either forgot or simply didn't bother mentioning them at the time.

Another thing I have to say is that I actually haven't completely lost interest in these games as I stated a few times before. There have been two occasions recently where there were people around and I was requested to play a few tracks on Guitar Hero III. I decided to go along for the heck of it and I have to admit, I did have fun playing certain tracks again. However, most of my gripes with the games still stands. If you checked back, I never said the games themselves are bad but only had my interest killed up until recently.

The recent talks about the games in real life have given myself some thought on getting Rock Band sometime. Whether I'll get the first or second game I'm not sure yet but at least all the DLC is available for both games. And yes, I'm aware of my rants on the DLC expenses but I'll only buy tracks that I like. No good in buying tracks by artists who I don't even like such as blink-182 and Evanescence (if you like them, I have no problems with that but that's not the issue here).

Of course, if I get another game, I definitely won't be extremely obsessed with it like some who aim to get 100% on Expert for every track available. Sure, I might give myself a challenge by trying to do better with playing songs on Hard/Expert but it won't be anything extreme. There's a difference between giving yourself a challenge by trying to play songs on higher difficulty and playing until you got 100% for every track on Expert mode.

Anyway, that's enough about me. Now to explain the other things wrong with the craze that I previously forgot to mention. To start off, if you've heard of Guitar Hero Smash Hits then you'll know how utterly ridiculous this release was. It was nothing more than re-releasing a selection of songs from every game before World Tour. The only reason why this was done was to make songs from the previous titles playable with drums and vocals. Instead of making a huge DLC pack for the newer games, they had to go and make a whole new game. That is really low of Activision to make a quick buck for this shit load of fuck.

Another problem with Guitar Hero specifically is the technical issues with the instruments. Apart from Rock Band peripherals not working with Guitar Hero games and vice-versa (this problem appears to have been solved, though), Guitar Hero has had a few mishaps with their drum peripherals. When World Tour just came out, people were experiencing problems with playing the drums when it was failing to register hard notes. If you never bought this game when it first came out, you can easily feel how frustrating it must have been for those who were having such troubles with the game and in the instrument. I'd sure as hell be frustrated if it ever happened to me.

The other drum problem on Guitar Hero's side is with the latest game when you play on Expert. Supposedly on Expert, the game thinks you're playing Expert+ and the drums won't respond well. It really makes you wonder how Activision (or rather Neversoft) overlooked these two issues when they were developing the game. You'd think at least someone at the office would bring these problems up and try and fix them immediately but they didn't. Perhaps these games were rushed so they could be released in time to make as much money as possible. Shame on you Activision and Neversoft.

As for Rock Band, they have been milking their franchise as well but it's not gone as far as Guitar Hero. While the occasional spin-off title like The Beatles Rock Band is perfectly acceptable, does there have to be a LEGO ROCK BAND?! Maybe I just don't agree with the idea of Lego video games, especially when there's a whole series of them but really now? Lego Rock Band sounds plain silly.

The other main problem with Rock Band are the extremely ridiculous release dates for non-American territories. The first title had the PS3 and 360 platforms released in November 2007, 18th December for PS2 and then 22nd June 2008 for the Wii. For Europe, it was Xbox 360 only from its release in 23rd May up until 22nd September when they finally got it out for PS2, PS3 and Wii. Although there are three different developers for Rock Band (one for PS3 and 360, another for PS2 and Wii and the last for Japan), they should have put the effort into releasing the game on all platforms simultaneously. Despite getting it after Europe, Australia had Rock Band released on all platforms simultaneously. EA have the decency to release EA Sports games and movie-based games on the same day for all platforms!

It didn't stop with the first Rock Band. While the gap lengths between the American and European releases were much smaller for the sequel, they failed to release the game on all platforms simultaneously once again. European Xbox 360 players only had to wait 2 months after the American release while it's taken 4 months, 5 months and a terrible 10 months for PS2, PS3 and Wii respectively. As a matter of fact, Rock Band 2 on the Wii isn't even out yet and guess what? The Beatles Rock Band on the Wii came out BEFORE and that's a newer game!

Speaking of The Beatles Rock Band, that game was actually released on all four consoles simultaneously worldwide. Although 9/9/09 was a "Beatles Day" (isn't that meant to be 10th July?) where the video game and the remastering of all their studio albums were released, it really makes you wonder why there was a lack of consistency with releases for Rock Band 1 and 2. Who knows, maybe they'll do a better job with Rock Band 3 but it still seems like they're penalising non-American territories.

The only other things in mind are Rock Band Unplugged for the PSP and the recent controversy with Kurt Cobain on Guitar Hero 5. PSP lacks guitar, drums and vocal peripherals which makes the gameplay different to the main titles. However, when you look at it, it just seems like a poor cash-in attempt and nothing more. It makes sense to have a Guitar Hero game on the DS (even though there's a few too many) but these kind of games for the PSP? Doesn't sound like a great idea.

As for Kurt Cobain's appearance on Guitar Hero 5, this was actually going to be covered on the rant I was meant to make before this but due to lack of sufficient sources for the subject, the rant on how deceased people are treated in video games is put on held for the time being.

So that concludes all the missing points on the wrongdoings with Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Like I previously stated, I have regained some interest in these games but my points still stand with what's wrong with these games. Hopefully that's the last time I have to mention these games for a long time with the exception of the next two rants (NOT GUITAR HERO RANTS!). Be prepared, the next two rants will contain extreme rage and I might explode from it.