First looks at Rock Band

A few lucky game bloggers got their hands on the upcoming Guitar Hero killer, Rock Band, at a journalists-only, pre-E3 preview event held by EA Games in June 2007.

The game will be released by Harmonix (as well as MTV and EA), makers of Guitar Hero, for the PS3 and Xbox 360 during the 2007 holiday season. The game will work with guitar, drum and microphone peripherals.

From the initial impressions, everyone loves the game and likened it to the other sim musician games. As for the controllers, they pretty much dug those as well. the drums have four pads, a single foot pedal 9all are color coded) and a collapsible stand. The guitar is larger than the Guitar Hero controller with less obvious color coding to offer a more realistic guitar experience. Nothing speceial was noted about the microphone, though actual song vocals are also included with each song and played at a lowered volume so you can still hear your own, glorious voice.

Below are a few excerpts from initial impressions posted on various sites.

From Kotaku:

“The game was being shown off in a small office that had been packed with the drum kit, two guitars, a microphone, a clutch of Harmonix employees and quite a bit of whiskey and beer. …To summarize: Rock Band is every bit as fun, cool, and addictive as any fan of Guitar Hero could have hoped. It takes the franchise and turns it up to 11.”

From IGN:

“In addition to the tracks that have already been revealed — “In Bloom” by Nirvana, Weezer’s “Say it Ain’t So,” “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath, and The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” … [The buttons] flowed into the natural wood color of the neck, with the only colors apparent on the top of the buttons so you can see them as you look down. In addition to the five buttons near the top of the headstock, there were five more buttons positioned close to the body of the guitar.”

From GameSpot:

“Mechanically, the two guitar players in any given song will see the exact same fret-board-based five-note patterns they’re familiar with. . … Harmonix is specifically emphasizing Rock Band’s multiplayer action with some of these new features… sometimes you’ll hit a “unison phrase” section of a song that will require all players to perform perfectly for the duration of the phrase to nab a big score bonus … [T]he game will generate custom loading screens and band T-shirts based on the custom appearances (and presumably, on the silly name) that you’ve come up with for your characters and band.”

Read [Kotaku] Also Read [IGN] Also Read [GameSpot] Site [Rock Band]