The Battle of the Fake Bands

[¹²³]

The American people have an important and historic decision to make this holiday season: Guitar Hero World Tour or Rock Band 2?

Here's how it goes: Fork over about $180 at your local electronics store, and you get a large box. Inside are a drum kit and a guitar -- or, at least, video game controllers shaped as such -- along with a microphone and a game disc. Get a few friends together, and you can put together a fake rock band. Hit the right notes on the guitar controller and sing the right tones into the microphone, and you and your friends can briefly live a videogame version of the rock-and-roll dream.

I've played both quite a bit over the past few weeks and can say one thing for sure: They both offer pretty much the same kick, and neither is a dud. Beyond that, it gets a little more complicated.

One piece of good news for baffled holiday shoppers this year is that all the "instruments" included with both titles are wireless, except for the microphones. They're also all interoperable, meaning that you can use, for example, Guitar Hero's fake ax to play Rock Band, and vice versa. Naturally, some gamer snobs have gone so far as to buy both.

While Guitar Hero is more of a household name, Rock Band has had a year-long head start on the market as the first "full band" game, said Michael Pachter, a game industry analyst who figures that the two titles will divide the market fairly evenly in the coming year. "You can argue over whether this guitar is better or whether these drums are better, but at the end of the day you're doing the same thing and the music is similar," he said.

Odd as it still sounds, this is a big business we're talking about here. The Guitar Hero franchise did around $1 billion in sales last year. When a new version came out this past summer, dedicated to the music and career of Aerosmith, first-week sales of the game more than tripled first-week sales of Aerosmith's most recent studio album.
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As for those arguments Pachter refers to, here's the gist: Some fans, but not all, feel that the latest Guitar Hero offers the superior "instruments." Its drum kit, for example, comes with a set of rubberized "cymbals," which go a long way in selling the illusion that you're actually playing drums and not, ahem, just hitting buttons on a game controller. It's possible, though, for Rock Band owners to spend another $30 or $40 to get a set of cymbals to add to that game's drum kit. For that matter, one company is offering a deluxe drum kit for the game that will set you back $300.

Rock Band's fans say the title has the clear advantage because of the amount of content available for download for people who want to expand their collections. Both game discs feature similar batches of songs from bands including Bon Jovi, Fleetwood Mac and Modest Mouse, but Rock Band has a wide library of 500 songs available for purchase online. Recent additions range from Jimmy Buffett to punk ditties from the Dead Kennedys; so far, Rock Band fans have bought 28 million tracks this way. Guitar Hero World Tour has only 41 licensed tracks for sale so far.

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[Claud]

I'm a rock band fan.

 

[¹²³]

I don't like any of this games.

 

[ToddMacCulloch11]

I haven't tried the guitar hero world tour drums yet (although my friends who have didn't seem to impressed by them).

I have both games, since you can use the rock band instruments in guitar hero for the 360--and to be honest...both are more or less the same thing to me. It's just a matter of what songs I feel like "playing" at the moment.

 

[Moo2K4]

I actually like the drums on the GHWT more than the RB ones. They're awkward initially, but a lot more fun once you get used to them. At the moment, I don't own either though.

 

[Hudge]

I hate both games , it just seems pointless, if you want to play video games, play video games, if you want to play music, play music and if you want to listen to music, then listen to music

 

[¹²³]

I hate both games , it just seems pointless, if you want to play video games, play video games, if you want to play music, play music and if you want to listen to music, then listen to music

Do you play any sports games? NBA Live? Madden?

 

[Moo2K4]

I hate both games , it just seems pointless, if you want to play video games, play video games, if you want to play music, play music and if you want to listen to music, then listen to music

Some people don't have the time to learn an instrument, so it's a fun distraction for those people that may want to at least pretend to be a rock star.

 

[Hudge]

123, you make a good point, but I don't have enough friends or time to play a full 4x15 30-a-side game of football.
Also, having spent a day at my cousins house doing nothing but play GH3, I have been converted.

 

[ToddMacCulloch11]

123, you make a good point, but I don't have enough friends or time to play a full 4x15 30-a-side game of football.
Also, having spent a day at my cousins house doing nothing but play GH3, I have been converted.

welcome to the dark side

 

[Moo2K4]

I actually recently got Guitar Hero World Tour...and I'm addicted...again. Guitar Hero 3 was somewhat of a letdown to me...but I'm loving World Tour. It's much more fun to play by yourself than either of the Rock Band games, especially on guitar.

Also, Death Magnetic is basically the greatest DLC ever. Most all of it is super fun on guitar and there are actually some tricky baselines in it too. Too bad I'll never be able to play the drums on expert.