Geek Swagger.
Posts tagged Rock Band
Flogging Molly: Live at the Greek
Apr 8th
If you know me you probably know that my music interests vary greatly. If you know me well you probably know that Irish folk/punk makes up a great deal of the music I love. As a result, one of my favorite bands is known as Flogging Molly - an LA-based Irish “punk†band fronted by Dublin-native Dave King. Well, they recently released a live album called “Flogging Molly: Live at the Greek Theatre,†and I must admit it’s an amazing accomplishment.
If you purchase the “Live at the Greek†box set you get 2 CD’s including the entire performance as well as a DVD with the video from the concert, including some bonus material. All this can be had for only $13. Because I’m a fan of theirs and tend to check their website every now-and-then I was able to get in early with a pre-order which included a Flogging Molly t-shirt. So I got a shirt, a DVD and a whole live album for only $13. Not a bad deal in my opinion!
That’s only the start though. Their performance is a great mix of new and old material played to a loyal crowd of Flogging Molly fans, and if you’re a fan you’d love it. However, in the same week as I received my copy, two Flogging Molly songs became available on the new “Rock Band Network†initiative for the Rock Band game platform. The songs are “Requiem for a Dying Song†from Flogging Molly’s latest album titled “Float,†and a live performance of “Drunken Lullabies†taken from the “Live at the Greek Theatre†performance itself. If you’re a fan of the Rock Band games and especially if you’re a fan of Flogging Molly or Irish music in general, you MUST purchase these songs.
I’ve been playing Rock Band for some time and I always somewhat joked about there being a “Folk Band†or “Folk Hero†game which included some of my favorite Irish songs. Sure, there has been the occasional foray into the genre previously with music from the likes of Dropkick Murphys and Bob Dylan, but I’d love to get a full game dedicated to one of my favorite musical styles. That may be a pipe-dream, but I’m hoping that if Flogging Molly gets enough love via Rock Band Network they’ll release more songs in the future, and possibly other folk acts will see a potential in the medium.
So please, if only to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, pick up the two Flogging Molly songs on Rock Band Network and have fun with them! They’re both a good time and you’ll be supporting a worthy cause. 
The future of music games
Jan 6th
If you know anything about the gaming industry, you know that music games have been extremely successful lately. Whether Rock Band or Guitar Hero, this new peripheral-based spin on gameplay has garnered a ton of fans over the past year or two. Me personally, I've started to get over the "fad." I don't necessarily think these games are just a fad, but the appeal has worn off on me after playing 3 successive generations of Guitar Hero, and 2 of Rock Band. I'm not sure how many more times I'll be asked to purchase new plastic instruments to keep up with the games as they evolve, but I'm sort of ready to hang up my guitar and retire at this point.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially because a lot of my friends still play Rock Band or Guitar Hero, and I'm wondering what could keep people like myself interested moving forward. First off I think they need to standardize instruments. Perhaps each console maker could cut a deal with the developers to create first party peripherals, and give a cut of whatever money they make back. All I know is that I can't be bothered to buy a new set of instruments every few months...I'm already running out of room to store all of my plastic instruments in. It seems like a bit of a scam, doesn't it? First we had wired guitars, those were fine. Then wireless, that's a desirable upgrade. Then Rock Band came out with the drum kit, microphone and a new guitar with solo buttons. Now Guitar Hero has a full kit as well (thought it should be noted that you can use these cross-platform) including a guitar with a slide on it. It seems like almost every time there's a new game released we get new, slightly improved instruments which have some new janky feature. I'm the kind of person who wants to buy this new revision because I feel like if I don't have solo buttons or a guitar slide I won't be getting the most out of the game. But no more!
The most important part about music games is, of course, the music. The only problem is that the music is getting more and more obscure as the well-known artists become tapped. The first few Guitar Hero games plus the first Rock Band game already have a lot of the songs that I'd want to play in a music game. I was playing Rock Band 2 a while ago and I thought to myself "man, these songs are okay to play but I don't know who half of these artists are." Not only that but there's a lot of overlap between the two franchises - you'll find songs in Guitar Hero that were already in Rock Band, and vice versa. How can Harmonix and Neversoft keep things fresh as more and more games are made, especially with the requirement of downloadable songs not included on the initial disc? One way might be to lock up artist-specific versions of the game. The Guitar Hero franchise is already headed in this direction with Guitar Hero: Metallica slated for early this year.
Rock Band on the other hand has a huge library of songs ready for download. It seems they're more prepared to supplement their current games with downloadable content moving forward. This is more appealing to me. I'd rather buy one disc every 2, 3 or 4 years and then just buy the songs I want as DLC in the time between major releases. I'd also like to see the DLC bundled in with future releases, something they didn't do with Rock Band 2. If, with Rock Band 3, I could pay an addition fee and get all of the DLC released between RB2 and RB3 I'd jump on that in an instant.
Ultimately though I'd just like to be able to choose which songs I want from the get-go. Rather than having Harmonix or Neversoft choose what songs will be included with their game, why not just let me ask for what I want to play? I know, it sounds ridiculous. What, they're going to make a custom version of the game just for me? With all of the legalities involved it's an impossible task. Still, a little personalization wouldn't hurt. That way I wouldn't be stuck playing Mighty Mighty Bosstones tracks (no offense if you're a fan), asking myself all the while why there hasn't been a Deftones song available yet.
What I really want is a version of Rock Band or Guitar Hero with all Irish folk songs though...Folk Hero? Folk Band? Get to work on that. =)
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