I am a real drummer. Even though I have tonnes of real gear, I took the plunge and purchased the Rockband bundle back in February. I thought if I am going to play video games anyway, I might as well play something musical right? Plus I thought it would be really fun to jam with my friends, the musically inclined and not so musically inclined. My impressions of the game will be in two parts: A) Solo as a drummer and B) Multiplayer (not online) with up to two other real life band members. These impressions also include the recently released Rock-band 2. Read on for part one: Virtual drumming in Rockband/Rockband 2 (Or playing with yourself).
Okay, lets start with the kit. I was impressed overall at how portable and yet sturdy the drums are. You have four different colored pads (which corresponds with the colors on the Xbox360 controller) and of course your kick pedal. The pads do not feel like real drums incase you were wondering, and the pedal (from the original Rock-band bundle) is plastic and not very similar to the real thing either. But lets digress, the pedal on my real kick drum probably cost more than the entire rock-band bundle! To date there is currently no foot control for the hi-hat, or for a second kick drum. Oh yeah drumsticks are provided as well with a "rock-band" logo on them. They are small (for me) probably about a 5A size, but they work well in that you don't want to bust your plastic drums right?
Next was the "notation" for the drums on screen. I am sure many of us have seen the guitar hero "template" where the notes come towards you on a "guitar neck" with colored notes on it that you have to play at the correct time. I thought "how the heck can they do that with the drums?" Turns out...the same way! The notes also come flying down a guitar neck...I guess it works if it does bother me a little as a drummer. The actual kick notes are orange lines that lie along the guitar neck itself. Since there are only four pads, they "change" from cymbals to toms depending on what is needed for each song. The hi-hat and snare pads remain constant, and of course the kick drum. *Word of warning: There WILL be times when your pads do not always pick up your playing. I recommend living with it and saving "perfection" for the real stage. Another option are the aftermarket kits and pedals you can purchase for considerably more money and quality than the "stock" kit.
Since playing an instrument is difficult, there are various difficulty settings to choose from. On drums if you play on "easy" you will only have two different pads to hit. The game will filter out the basic drum patterns and totally leave out any and all kick drum. HOWEVER you will still hear the song exactly as it was recorded. This is where those of us who really play begin to be "penalized" for actually trying to play what they hear. No matter what difficulty setting you are playing the game at - you will be rated on the notes it shows on the screen, any other notes (even if they are technically in the song) will be regarded as an error. So for a lot of you real drummers out there, some of the easier levels are HARDER to play than the original song because you have to totally filter out what you hear and ONLY play what you see. Do yourself a favor if you have played drums for any amount of time, skip to the hard level at least.
Now it is time to explain the "other" difficulties. Songs themselves are of varying difficulties. So naturally you start with "easy" songs and gradually move up to the "nightmare" or "impossible" songs. So just because you start the game on "hard" difficulty and breeze through "In Bloom" and "Paranoid" don't think that when "Run to the Hills" or "Tom Sawyer" come along later on in the game you'll get off so easy. The other way that songs can be difficult is that a lot of times a seemingly simple song has a deceptively hard part that even the game doesn't rate properly - so you are caught totally off guard. The Linkin Park song "Closer to the edge" shocked me when I failed the first 3 times I tried to play it (Tom Sawyer gave me no such problem).
What happens when you fail? Well fail and your virtual self (who is onstage performing to a virtual crowd) will be booed offstage and the song will end abruptly (if you are playing solo). There is a crowd meter on display to always let you know how you are doing at any point in the song. Miss a few notes and you drop down the meter, miss a lot of notes - the meter will drop lower, you begin to hear the crowd booing and your screen will turn red in warning. Missing more notes (or playing incorrect notes) when you are near the bottom of the meter will get you ejected from the song. You will also lose fans if you play badly enough to fail a song(new for the Rock-band 2 solo mode). You can always retry the song if you want to, but the fans you lost are still lost. Plus you can lose more if you botch the song again. There is nothing worse than playing a song and failing when there is literally only seconds left in the song. When you try again you start from the beginning, so those long songs can be brutal!
What happens when you play well? Well you get a higher "score" at the end which is based on how many notes you hit. If you hit enough notes in a row, a multiplier begins to add to your points and you can rack up to 8 times the points on each note. Playing well will also cause you to build up energy. This energy allows you to start improvising fills in sections of the song (not anywhere you want but where the game allows you to). When you land correctly on the last note of the fill you use your energy to boost your rating on the crowd meter. You don't have to use this energy when you are doing well however, a good strategy is to build up energy in the beginning of a song and save it for a hard section and potentially "save yourself" from getting booed off stage. Yes you can save yourself by using your energy(which equals in my mind putting on more of a show/showing off) so the crowd will forgive some sloppiness - much like real life!. Oh and let's not forget the thousands of fans you get upon completion of each song and yes money the money you are paid as well. You don't make much money, but the amount of fans you receive seems to be really out of whack with reality. I guess we don't want to burst a fledgling rocker's bubble?
Overall impressions from the drumystic.
Drumming in Rock-band/Rock-band 2 is easily the closest thing to experiencing the fun of playing a kit live on stage as I have encountered to date. Not so much the feel of the kit, but the game experience is a lot of fun. You do care about, losing fans, getting roadies, band transportation, making money and of course "not sucking" live. You will have fun using the cash you get on gigs to buy new clothes, hairstyles, tattoos and even new drum kits.
This game was designed mainly with a casual "gamer" in mind, which includes people who have never even seen a kit before - let alone had to keep a beat. With this in mind I am impressed that it can appeal to real drummers at all (especially those that do already play video games).If you can get past some of the limitations then you should have a blast as a virtual drummer in Rock-Band. Oh and you can finally jam with your buddies who can't actually play an instrument!
copyright 2008 www.drumystic.com Virtual Rock-band still p#sses off the neighbors!
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