Rock Band Questions Answered
We’ve had a lot of question mailed our way about details on some of the finer points of Harmonix/EA/MTV’s genre defning Rock Band game, out November 20th for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The title gives players a chance at living out the fantasy of being rock stars in their own living room using specially designed guitar, drum and microphone peripherals included with the bundle.
Question: The question that fills our in-boxes more than anything is “Will my Xplorer Guitar Hero controll work with Rock Band and vice versa?”
Answer: Yes and no (in that order). Harmonix has stated they believe in an open architecture for peripherals, so they proudly announced that the USB based controls from their older games will work out of box with the new game. However, players WILL NOT be able to take the new Rock Band Stratocaster over to Guitar Hero. Sorry, sports fans, but if you’re lookin to hold a guitar battle in GH3 with your old axe and a spicy new one from Rock Band, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.
Question: If my buddy and I are on one console can we compete/co-op with two others online?
Answer: Sure can. Any combination of local and online players totalling 4, can play simultaneously online and locally without any snags, just in case you can’t get the bandmates together for every practice… just like real life.
Question: So we’ve got 360 and PS3, I’ve got a Wii… what gives?
Answer: Well, if you do business with Euros and not Dollars, you’re in luck. The European market will see a Wii bundle sometime in 2008 which still isn’t necessarily bad news for the americas, since european releases are typically a good sign for the U.S..
Question: Guitar Face-Offs are great and all, but can drummers go head to head?
Answer: You betcha. I don’t have anything realy witty for that, just know that two drummers can compete online for bragging rights.
Question: How much will new song downloads be available for, and what can we expect.
Answer: EA recently announced the first downloadable content will be two albums from The Who and Metallica respectively and I confirmed that you can choose to download a full album or individual songs for bands to be as picky as they like. Unfortunately no pricing structures have been announced, nor as to when the albums will become available.
Question: Will online players hear a remote vocalist?
Answer: This might require a little back story. On reader brought the point to me that with Rock Band being a rythm based game and all about timing, low bandwidth could be crippling. Normally wouldn’t be an issue because for the instruments, you’re simply hitting single buttons, considerably less network code required than a game like say Halo 3. The tricky part comes in when you factor voice transmission. Vocal timing + net lag != succesful timing. So, the answer? Sadly, we didn’t get one. Our representative didn’t have any details from the technical perspective, so we’re waiting to hear back. When we know, you’ll know.
