Power Gig focuses on story, according to dev diary

Developer Seven45 Studios has released their first dev diary (via YouTube) for their upcoming music rhythm game Power Gig: Rise of the SixString. In it, design director Jack Davis talks about the game’s storyline and its importance. Scroll to the bottom of the article to watch the 3 1/2 minute video.

Unlike the Rock Band and Guitar Hero franchises, in which the storyline in campaign mode takes a back seat to gameplay, Davis stressed that this is not the case with Power Gig.

“From the beginning of development, story has been important to us in the game. We wanted to make much more than a performance game. We wanted to establish a world and a brand that people could get immersed in, and learn its history and its characters, and after playing the game want to learn much more about the world,” Davis said in the video.

The story takes place in Ohm, a Brutal Legend-esque type of world where music plays a prominent role in the environment, and everything and everyone around it. It’s like the Force — it surrounds them, it penetrates them, and binds Ohm together. The people of Ohm live in clans, with each clan protected by a magical, musical agent of sorts called a Rocker.

All is not well in Ohm, as a particularly powerful clan called the Headliners has established a monarchy, suppressing the other clans to the point that they can’t play live music. That’s where you step in, to help the people of Ohm rebel against the Headliners.

The story sounds fine, but I fear that it may be wasted on this game. There’s a reason why story plays a minor role in the Rock Band and Guitar Hero series. You don’t play those kinds of games for the story — you play them because you want to pretend that you’re playing music using controllers shaped like instruments.

Whenever there’s an announcement for a new Rock Band or Guitar Hero game, the first thing people want to know is the setlist: how many songs will be available, and which songs? The second thing people want to know about an upcoming rhythm music game is regarding the instruments: how they will be improved, or if there will be any new ones introduced (e.g. the keyboard in Rock Band 3). Rarely do you hear about people asking about what the storyline is like.

Then again, it’s another way for Power Gig to differentiate itself from the Big Two music rhythm games, minor as it seems. After all, their major ace in the hole — using real instruments — may have already been subverted by Rock Band 3, which will also have the option to use a real guitar and keyboard.

Power Gig is slated for a fall 2010 release for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Nope, they haven’t announced their full set list yet.

Site [YouTube] Site[Power Gig: Rise of the SixString]