Please explain this to someone who is not a gamer

[ms.peachy]

I see commercials for this "Rock Band" or whatever it is called game thing for xbox all the time. What I'm trying to work out is, what's the point of it? How can it be any more fun than, like, playing some music really loud and playing air guitar and jumping around the room?

Just wondering. I don't have any of these game system things so in general the appeal of them escapes me, but this in particular I really don't get. But I don't really know anything about it, so anyone care to enlighten me?

[Guy Incognito]

I see commercials for this "Rock Band" or whatever it is called game thing for xbox all the time. What I'm trying to work out is, what's the point of it? How can it be any more fun than, like, playing some music really loud and playing air guitar and jumping around the room?

Just wondering. I don't have any of these game system things so in general the appeal of them escapes me, but this in particular I really don't get. But I don't really know anything about it, so anyone care to enlighten me?

Its just easier and you dont have to spend months learning how to play the guitar learning rubbish songs like "he's got the whole world in his hands" etc. But i do get your point. If you get proficient on guiitar hero you should be capable of learning the guitar.There is an episode of south park called Guitar Queero that you should watch which makes this point very well.

[na§tee]

the whole world in his hands, lol! oh man, do kids even sing songs like that at school nowadys? heck, do kids even SING? maybe the christian theme is a bit un-PC in today's multi-cultural yadda yadda school environment.

koom-by-ya my lord, koom-by-yaaaaa....

[Funky Pepp]

You don't need to know the song very accurate to play air-guitar or jump accross the room. Playing guitar hero or rock band you listen to the song more closely than you do usually. You hear passages or melodys in the song which are usually way in the backgroung. And it is a real challenge to hit all the notes in time. It's a good exercise as well if you don't have a choice to rehearse guitar or drums every day because of living in a rented flat. I really like it. :)

Although it is not possible to play Guitar Hero I on LCD-TV because of the latency. And part one had some very cool songs... :(

[gbsuey]

I'm not a gamer by any stretch but i would love to get rock band-i'm totally a supressed drummer and i'll probably never have a drum kit or learn to play!! also my eldest son just has a guitar and would love it too.

i think they do some singing at school still but it's mainly god-bothering stuff. i always thought cumbaya had something to do with crumpets

[Jitters]

Plus, for Rock Band you can play with a group of people so there's the social interaction aspect as well.

I've never been crazy about the GH/Rock Band phenomenon but I guess I can see why people enjoy it.

[camo]

They are games that give you the impression that you are actually playing an instrument by tapping a few buttons in time to descending colours. Each colour corresponds to a note or chord. Miss-time a button press and the note doesn't play and is replaced with a duff note. The harder the setting the faster the notes come down. Hard and expert levels require Rainman levels of concentration, dedication and time. Time, that I argue, could be spent learning a real instrument.

It actually seems quite fun at first, especially when you add friends and alcohol into the equation but if your like me I soon found it to be pretty boring.

[Jitters]

but if your like me I soon found it to be pretty boring.

Same. It's alright but once I go through the songlist once or twice I just put it down and play another game. I only own one game from the GH series and it's probably going to stay that way.

[Dorothy Wood]

I really like guitar hero...it's a game of timing and coordination. I would say that it's way easier than playing an instrument, but it's also easier for people that play an instrument already I guess.

it's pretty boring to play with other people though, because of the waiting (unless you have 2 guitars and 2 people). I think people like Rock Band because you get to do all different things. I've never played Rock Band though. I've heard it's fun.

the whammy bar is very satisfying.

[jabumbo]

^ always a gratuitous amount of whammy bar!


i really only enjoy the game when i'm drinking, to be honest. its fun to try and keep your fingers up to speed beer after beer

[Guy Incognito]

the whole world in his hands, lol! oh man, do kids even sing songs like that at school nowadys? heck, do kids even SING? maybe the christian theme is a bit un-PC in today's multi-cultural yadda yadda school environment.

koom-by-ya my lord, koom-by-yaaaaa....

i was just thinking back to when i was 8 trying to learn guitar with a crap hippie teacher and a rubbish book full of songs like whole world and home on the range and Michael finnigan.

[Lyman Zerga]

gh bores me after like 2 songs

[ms.peachy]

OK. I understand a little better now. I think I'm gonna stick to air-guitaring tho.

[Guy Incognito]

OK. I understand a little better now. I think I'm gonna stick to air-guitaring tho.

you could always get one of these instead then (http://www.i4u.com/article17143.html)

[ms.peachy]

No.

[Guy Incognito]

No.

lol

[Freebasser]

you could always get one of these instead then (http://www.i4u.com/article17143.html)

Holy fuck!

I want one!

[Audio.]

aaaah god. I suck at these rhythm games. I'm more into the competitive fighting games so smash gameplays plus rhythm should be easy but ... I cant play guitar due to my finger which I get cramps if I do a guitar grab on the tabs.

Many people who are not gamers or are just the common gamers will find any game boring. But for those that are competitive we play on and on. And because Guitar Hero and Rockband and soon some other rhythm games have rankings and online ladders it allows us players to play these games more than just for the entertainment but also for its fun factor.

[Bob]

there's a certain sense of accomplishment with rock band/guitar hero that you don't get with air guitar either. like someone else said, it's a rhythm game with various difficulty levels, so part of the fun, i'm guessing, is trying to do the songs on the higher difficulty levels, trying to get higher scores and stuff. there are no scores with air guitar, the only score is "you look like a tool"

[insertnamehere]

as a big fan of both games, i'll give you my history with music games, and it may make things a little more clear

i originally started playing ddr... about 4 years ago i reckon. yeah, it looks stupid, but it's fun as shit. the game is mentally challenging, but also physically challenging, and the jumping around like a maniac and peppy music and the challenge just make it a lot of fun. for anyone unfamiliar with ddr, it works like GH/rock band except instead of different colors, you get different arrows, and instead of fingers, you use your feet. see here http://youtube.com/watch?v=M1EaAZlYwx8&feature=related

i think its tons of fun, and an excellent source of physical activity, but in no way does it make me feel like im doing anything close to dancing. that video is the type of difficulty i would normally play, but my fatass would probably get out of breath before it was over with these days.

when donkey konga came out, my friend got that, and having already gotten the feel of "hit this button at this time according to the things scrolling across the screen like this," we destroyed the game. it's probably one of the easier games of this nature that has come out. it was still enjoyable though, and more like actually playing some bongos along with music

then guitar hero. guitar hero provides the same mental aspect as ddr without the physical exertion. to be honest, i have gotten bored of guitar hero, but when it first came out i really liked it. i really liked the music on the game but to me it was still more about the concentration/coordination than pretending i was playing a guitar. i played guitar for a few years and sort of fell out of it, but having done both i can say its not a valid argument to say "oh you might as well just learn to play guitar rather than waste your time on that" just like ddr doesnt make me think i'm dancing, guitar hero doesnt make me think i'm playing guitar. guitar hero and playing guitar are different experiences and once cannot replace the other.

now rock band. first of all, with rock band, you get karaoke. fun. then theres the guitar/bass which is exactly the same as guitar hero. but then... theres the drums. i love the drums. you get the mental stimulation of all the others, the good music, plus, the stuff you have to do is pretty drummer-y. ive always wanted to learn to play drums but it's one of those things ive always wanted to do in theory but would never put in the money and time, and for that, rock band is perfect

edit: if anyone cares to see it, these are the arrows for the song the guy was playing in the first link i posted http://youtube.com/watch?v=DJpt8IBXUMA&feature=related

[ms.peachy]

there's a certain sense of accomplishment with rock band/guitar hero that you don't get with air guitar either. like someone else said, it's a rhythm game with various difficulty levels, so part of the fun, i'm guessing, is trying to do the songs on the higher difficulty levels, trying to get higher scores and stuff. there are no scores with air guitar, the only score is "you look like a tool"
Yeah I mean, I guess if someone's into the ranking aspect of things, I guess the scoring and such might be appealing, I dunno. To me a bunch of people trying to outscore eachother on a music video game is a lot more "tool-like" than just dancing around with wild abandon for the sheer joy of it, because it's like they need that score and to be 'better' than their competitors to justify what they're doing, instead of just, you know, diggin' the music. But as I say I'm not a gamer so I don't really care much about it, if other people get their kicks that way, so be it.

[Lyman Zerga]

you could always get one of these instead then (http://www.i4u.com/article17143.html)

now thats more like it! (y)

[yeahwho]

I bought the whole Rock Band setup about 3 months ago and really never play it unless somebody comes over, it is a much more social game than most because it takes two or ideally three people to make it work. When three people pull off a song, drums, guitar and vocals it's a gas. It usually takes a a few rounds at it if there is someone first trying.

The crowd reacts accordingly to your skill level and it really isn't that tough to conquer, but then there are multiple skill levels one can apply to their respective fake instrument.

It's more fun than most any arcade game and it's cheesy, which makes it a gas! My favorite Xbox game because of the social interaction. Everybody wants to try it.

But as far as graphics and stuff it's average. There are some astonishingly beautiful games if you have HiDef and surround sound, even the graphics just listening to shuffle off my hard drive digital music is awesome. Xbox has incredible visuals.

It's cheesy and fun.

[hpdrifter]

I think people like it because it makes you feel like you're actually playing the instrument without the years and years of pain and struggle it takes to learn to play an instrument.

I didn't get it at first because I play guitar. I was like, why wouldn't I just go plug in, turn on the itunes and jam. But I found it to be a pretty different experience from playing an actual instrument and I've grown to enjoy both.

[Freebasser]

Holy fuck!

I want one!

I bought one!

Two in fact!

[funk63]

Yeah I mean, I guess if someone's into the ranking aspect of things, I guess the scoring and such might be appealing, I dunno. To me a bunch of people trying to outscore eachother on a music video game is a lot more "tool-like" than just dancing around with wild abandon for the sheer joy of it, because it's like they need that score and to be 'better' than their competitors to justify what they're doing, instead of just, you know, diggin' the music. But as I say I'm not a gamer so I don't really care much about it, if other people get their kicks that way, so be it.

just fucking try it, I think you can go into Best Buy and test it out.

[ms.peachy]

Nah, I really can't be arsed. If I go over to someone's house and they have it and other people want to do it I'll have a go, but I'm really not inclined to seek it out.

[ET]

I'm kind of between hp's and insertnamehere's POV on Rockband. I like rhythm games a lot but I find that when I go solo, I'm pretty much just doing something while listening to the songs. Needless to say I'm a fan of the selections and I go out of my way to purchase extra songs to play on it. That's something I thought I'd never do. The game is the most fun when people are over though. High scores or just getting through the songs are definitely amplified. Plus I get to show off my David Lee Roth moves when I to sing.

[Echewta]

The only winning move is not to play.

[hitmonlee]

The harder the setting the faster the notes come down. Hard and expert levels require Rainman levels of concentration, dedication and time. Time, that I argue, could be spent learning a real instrument.

true but eg. my housemate has no interest in learning an instrument
he is interested in games. any game, he will beat it, or beat you at the game. he is obsessed.
sooo even though he doesn't even listen to much rock music so doesn't get same joy of playing a song he knows, he enjoys simply conquering the game and getting near perfect scores on expert. he is also a little rainman.

meanwhile i play it on my own, in practice, i play basslines.

[DeeJayZap]

you guys should try out FreQuency or Amplitude. They're for the PS2 and came out way before GH or RB but imho they're much better. You use the default PS2 controller to control your beatblaster and you shoot the gems and it releases a sound. You play all the multitracks instead of just guitar or drums.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ezXUhqlpKbw