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Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 8:09 am
by Teancum
Let me just do this "Pros and Cons" style

Rock Band series
  • +Rock Band 1, all track packs and LEGO Rock Band export to play them in Rock Band 2. That means one disc is needed to play all your favorite tunes - no swapping out to play a song from a different game
  • +Rock Band Unplugged, which is basically a modern version of Harmonix's Frequency and Amplitude games (which were awesome!)
  • +The Beatles: Rock Band, which shows how a game based on one band should be
  • +Superior song selection. True, I miss probably 20-30 songs that are only in the Guitar Hero games, but I have so many awesome Rock Band songs I can't complain
  • +Superior scoring system. Although there's a meter for the whole band, one player can fail out and the song doesn't stop, but rather you get to try and save that person with your overdrive (called star power in Guitar Hero)
  • +Superior gameplay. Harmonix is the name you think of when you think of when you think music games. They created the Guitar Hero series, they were the modern pioneer for karaoke games, and they had Frequency and Amplitude. Plus most of these guys & gals have bands anyways, so they put a lot of love into what they do.
  • +Music "charts" are accurate. I play the guitar and have for years. If there's a note I'm supposed to play, it's there in the guitar chart. They don't add "ghost notes" either.
  • +The Rock Band Network, which allows for anyone who owns the rights to a song to make their own note charts, then get it reviewed by peers and Harmonix themselves, who then will put it up for download, giving you a cut of the $$ made from every sale.
  • -Sad lack of celebrities avatars to play as

Guitar Hero series
  • +They have a lot more "exclusive" characters. Aerosmith, Metallica, Van Halen, Santana, Jimi Hendrix, etc. If they allow for exporting of old characters like Aerosmith or Jimi Hendrix to Guitar Hero 5, or add them as downloadable content that'd be awesome.
  • +GH3, GH: Aerosmith and GH: World Tour are available on PC (though there's no downloadable content)
  • +Guitar Hero: On Tour. To make the Guitar Hero series work on the DS is just impressive, and they way they did it was brilliant. Of course this time around it wasn't Neversoft that developed it, it was Vicarious Visions.
  • +The "open bass note" feature (starting in GH: World Tour). This is the one innovation that the main GH series has had that meant anything. Bass is now less boring. Even still, I like the 6x "Bass Groove" you can get in the Rock Band games better.
  • -+Guitar Hero 5 is the first game to allow exporting of songs from previous games, but no Metallica exporting is allowed. (To be fair, you can't do that with Beatles: Rock Band either).
  • -+A drum kit with a "true" hi-hat and cymbal. Nice, but they aren't as sturdy as the RB1/RB2 drum sets, nor are they accurate.
  • -New game every ~5-6 months (which is a ripoff if you asked me)
  • -Scoring system in band-based games. It's an overall score, so if three of you are doing good but one guy sucks, you all fail.
  • -Developed by Neversoft. Think about it. These guys when paired with Activision are the kings of shovelware, pushing out a new Tony Hawk game every year but 2008, and lately every year they get worse (Tony Hawk 4 was the peak of the series). They know how to make things "pretty", but not fun, which makes being "pretty" pointless.
  • -Poor song creator tool. Sure, some semi-decent, sounds-like-a-Mega-Man-tune tracks have come from it, but it sucks to build something with your plastic instruments.
  • -Gimmicky - the slider bar introduced in GH: World Tour is stupid, and most of the time they malfunction. They also try to just add features that don't add to gameplay, which irritates me.
  • --Weak song selection
  • --Poor song charting. I can say how many times they made [x] or [y] song more difficult by adding notes that aren't actually in the song, or making a two note power chord somehow be green, yellow and orange notes. That's retarded.
  • --Bobby Kotick as CEO of Activision. The guy is a not-so-nice work when it comes to gamers, and milks every franchise they have. Don't get me wrong, sequels are good. Sequels are welcome --- but only if they improve on the previous title.

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:21 am
by Moving_Target
When I saw this thread, I was thinking Teancum came in said his thoughts and locked it. I'm surprised you started it. You have very good points. I'm neutral for the matter of which I like. I have GHWT and will get GH5 later, because HMX screwed us over with the first rock band. Both are great games and we're lucky to have a choice coughmaddencough.

I'd like to discussion some points you have:

Disc swapping: It's getting better for GH, but yeah, it'll be that way. Actually it's rumored for Metallica to import/export (whatever you want to call it).

RB Unplugged is a brilliant move.

Neversoft removed that stupid one person fails the whole band tanks. Instead the whole band now has to get a streak to get them back. So you decide if that's a + or -.

For the charts, HMX loves music and want it accurate as possible. Neversoft is a game company, so they chart theirs to be challenge. Which I don't like sometimes.

RBN is going to be hot.

Setlist. Being owned by MTV kind of helps. Also the artists know that HMX takes care of them more. Activision is a business.

And yes Activision is the new EA, as in the old EA. Which is sad.

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 10:46 am
by Fluffy_the_ic
Hehe... I am so biased against guitar hero. Kinda funny on reflection, I used to be biased against RB, lol.
:Ah yes, poor song charting and the slide bar. I played Livin' On a Prayer at a friends house in GHWT. It ended with the freakin' slide bar. Now please tell me if the ending is actually like that, and not just ending on a single note. Rock Band had it right, for sure. Then they screwed Hotel California, too, by taking the studio version (IMO the Unplugged session sounded better, why couldn't they get the unplugged session for Hotel California if they could get About a Girl?) and then they stitched on the ending they use live. So the music starts to fade, softer and softer and softer and then BAM 4 notes at the normal volume that aren't in the Studio version. Other people may not be affected by that as much, but they took two of my favorite songs and murdered them. And they did the same iwht many other songs.
And then there are three pros I find in guitar hero.
-The pausing. I'm not sure if it's only in On Tour, but even so, I loved how when you paused, once you unpaused you got a 2 second break. Or mayube it was 3 seconds.
-Joining mid-song. I think that feature looks epic, since my friends are impatient and tend to actually turn off my Wii if they get over while I'm mid-song. Of course, it'll only be in GH5 so far, possibly in Van Halen.
-Multiple of the same instrument. Again, not even out yet and for GH5 and possibly Van Halen, but still. My friends are also always complaining that I play guitar too much when they want to, and usually I let them, but I'm immensely bored by bass, and also get screwed up because I can't hear it sometimes, and then all of my friends except one or two love to sing, with improvised lyrics of course. So that will be a plus.

Although, I hate how on the wii, GH guitars aren't RB-compatible and vice-versa.

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 11:28 am
by RogueKnight
I hate how half of the GH:M charts are twice as hard and have waaaay more notes on the chart than the actual guitar tabs.

I like how you can make your own charts for GH:3, and put em in your game, so you can basically play any song you want, but you only have to buy one game to do it.

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 1:30 pm
by Teancum
Fluffy_the_ic wrote:-The pausing. I'm not sure if it's only in On Tour, but even so, I loved how when you paused, once you unpaused you got a 2 second break. Or maybe it was 3 seconds.
-Joining mid-song. I think that feature looks epic, since my friends are impatient and tend to actually turn off my Wii if they get over while I'm mid-song. Of course, it'll only be in GH5 so far, possibly in Van Halen.
-Multiple of the same instrument.
Three things I hadn't considered, and all awesome features. RB still beats GH in my opinion, but now that I know about these I'd say GH/Neversoft have a little more "in" with the Rock Band-only gamers.

Oh, and one other plus for Guitar Hero 5 is that it looks STUNNING! Rock Band Beatles looks great, but it still has the toon-styled characters. Guitar Hero 5's screens look much more realistic, aside from Kurt Cobain, who looks sortof plastic.

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 2:27 pm
by Fluffy_the_ic
Oh yeah. GH looks more realistic, but RB's custom characters don't look so creepy. I haven't seen any GH5 characters, although I have seen GHWT's, and they are, well, creepy, lol. at least, the custom ones are.

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:28 pm
by Maveritchell
Versus threads count as... wait, what? :P

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:54 pm
by Teancum
DOH!

I didn't even realize. :oops: Sorry guys. I guess I'll lock it.

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:55 pm
by Maveritchell
Teancum wrote:I didn't even realize. :oops: Sorry guys. I guess I'll lock it.
Teancum, I was totally kidding. There's a big difference between "who wins: Boss vs. Master Chief" and "which game should I spend my money on." The word "versus" doesn't always mean something's spam. Totally kidding pal.

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:35 pm
by Moving_Target
Well so far I still see this as more of a discussion.

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:43 pm
by YTF
Teancum wrote: Oh, and one other plus for Guitar Hero 5 is that it looks STUNNING! Rock Band Beatles looks great, but it still has the toon-styled characters. Guitar Hero 5's screens look much more realistic, aside from Kurt Cobain, who looks sortof plastic.
Well, it's not like they could get motion-capture from HIM, ya know. :wink:

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 6:33 pm
by Teancum
Yeah, it's just more that they tried to do his hair and facial hair and failed. At least in comparison to other models like Santana, which are awesome.

Kurt
Hidden/Spoiler:
Image
Santana
Hidden/Spoiler:
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Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 8:59 pm
by Lord Bardar
Looks like I'll have to disagree with you there, Tean.

Guitar Hero is more challenging than Rock Band (and is meant to be).
Guitar Hero's charts are closer to playing "the real deal" than Rock Band.
I personally think the GH songlists are a thousand times better than the Rock Band songlists.
I suggest you play Guitar Hero: Smash Hits. That entire game alone defeats Rock Band IMO (save a few RB songs).
The GH drumset is more realistic to me.
GH5 will have a "play any combination" feature, i.e. you can have two or more people playing the same part.
Guitar Hero does have better characters to play as, but I like the originality that Rock Band went for.
GH3 on the PC gives you the option to make and download your own tracks, like so for the console versions.
Guitar Hero has also been around much longer than Rock Band.

I do think that Rock Band: Beatles is better than the GH band-concentrated games (except Metallica maybe, but that's cuz I love metal :D)
The drums on Rock Band and RB2 are much easier than the drums in GH:WT and Smash Hits.
Rock Band did make a breakthough with introducing the microphone and drumset.
I do like the "Bass Groove" you can earn in Rock Band.

Overall, I say Guitar Hero clearly beats Rock Band.

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:03 pm
by Moving_Target
IGN's wii review of GH5 wrote:In case you miss our weekly reviews of new Guitar Hero games, Activision's franchise is quite popular,

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:44 pm
by Teancum
Lord Bardar wrote:Guitar Hero's charts are closer to playing "the real deal" than Rock Band.
Do you play any instruments?

*EDIT*

To back up my statement, take a look at this comparison video of "When You Were Young" by The Killers. Now this song isn't hard in real life, and no chord in the song is remotely difficult, but yet there's 3 button chords all over the place when there doesn't need to be, you get 'wide' chords (like Red/Orange) when it's not necessary, and even simple walkdowns are charted weird.

CLICK ME

Same thing happens with Black Sabbath - Paranoid

CLICKY

Or how about Jimmy Eat World - The Middle, where they don't seem to realize what are chords and what aren't:

CLICK TO WIN!

Oh, how about Livin' On A Prayer?

ANOTHER RB WIN

Now, that being said if you're just a gamer and not a musician I suppose it wouldn't matter, and if you're looking for the bigger challenge, the GH series definitely has it with their extra license on some of these songs.

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 10:00 pm
by RogueKnight
Lord Bardar wrote: Guitar Hero's charts are closer to playing "the real deal" than Rock Band.
lolwut?

I've played guitar for 11 years, and it doesn't take a musical genius to tell when the charts are screwy.

Just using GH:M as an example, the King Nothing Intro, main riff, and solo all have extra notes that don't exist in the actual tabs.

I can't speak for Rock Band's charts, but I can say that it is likely that they are more accurate than GH's.

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 10:26 pm
by Taivyx
Teancum wrote:Yeah, it's just more that they tried to do his hair and facial hair and failed. At least in comparison to other models like Santana, which are awesome.

Kurt
Hidden/Spoiler:
Image
Santana
Hidden/Spoiler:
Image
Just making sure, those are on the same platform, right?

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 11:46 pm
by The Nasal Abyss
I personally like Rock Band more simply because of the incentive behind the game. Harmonix isn't going for all these kinds of exclusives like Neversoft (Activi$ion) with Ozzy, Van Halen, and Metallica. They have never said anything about aquiring exclusives in any of their interviews or trailers, yet Neversoft screams "We got Ozzy, you don't!"

Harmonix just wants to make the game they and the fans want and do a stellar job at it.

BTW, Rock Band's charts are leagues ahead of anything in Guitar Hero, and if you disagree with that, you don't have the guts to face the truth :D

The cool thing about Rock Band Network is that you can make your song and send it to your Xbox and play it without paying a penny, you only have to get the license ($99 a year) to publish your songs and make money at it.

I do have to hand it to Guitar Hero 5 with the totally FREAKING AWESOME ANIMATION! I totally freaked out whenever I saw the drummer actually playing the right drum part whenever I was playing A-Punk by Vampire Weekend today. (Yes, I did buy Guitar Hero 5, just so you know, I like the both)

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 12:00 am
by Lord Bardar
ar, i meant as in you play more notes like you would on a real guitar, not necessarily more realistic than rock band. i still <3 GH over RB any day.

Re: Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... AGAIN!

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 8:13 am
by Teancum
And yet another fail for Guitar Hero. Less than half the songs they said would export to GH5 will actually export.

http://kotaku.com/5350579/guitar-hero-5 ... Bupdate%5D