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.
Sorry guys. I guess I'll lock it.
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