Of Plastic Guitars and Rubber Drum Pads (11/18/09)

I HATE ROCK BAND!

Ok, I don't hate Rock Band...I love Rock Band.  I hate the junky controllers that take up an awful lot of space in my apartment living room.  I hate that there's only a handful of games that I can actually play with them.  I hate that they can't actually double as real instruments, though they cost as much as some cheaper sets and/or guitars.  I hate that they don't actually teach you to play and are actually harder to play than actual sets or guitars.  And most of all, I hate that EA can't seem to remember they have them when it doesn't involve the Rock Band liscense.

The source of my ire tonight is, as you may have guessed from my comments about EA and the guitar, Brutal Legend.  This is an RTS based around music.  I'm sorry, but wouldn't it make perfect sense to use this plastic piece of junk to play the Clementine guitar.  However, it's not the only case of the lack of use for the perephiral.

I once read an article about a game entirely controlled by the Guitar Hero controller, however, that has vanished off the face of the planet.  If Samba de Amigo and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat could make entire games out of musical equipment, why couldn't EA do the same with something.  I payed $50.00 for this plastic doohickey, and for it only to work on a few games bothers me.

When I first heard Double Fine's game was being produced by Activision, and that Eddie used a battle axe as well as a guitar one, I instantly thought this is where they were going with the game, using the tilt level built in for Star Power to simulate the swinging of the axe and the playing of the music to move and do other things.

Then, EA bought it.  Hey, even better, I thought.  I already have EA's guitar, it has a better tilt bar, and the five extra buttons, near the point where the neck and box meet, you could use that for targeting in battle, and play other times to move around a somewhat scripted path.  And the RTS portion of the game could have become glorious rock operas designated by what melody you played, like Zelda's music as a key elements (a series of chords for attack, a series of chords for defend, a series of chords for retreat, and, most importantly, a set of series to bring about your awesome god of rock powers).

Instead of that epic set up...we were given the controller based Brutal Legend, and while some of it is amazing, specifically driving the Druid Plow, think if you were able to do that instead on a van by playing your guitar and van-surfing.  It would have become a game on an entirely different level.

Then again, they would have probably bundled it with a 'limited edition' Clementine Rock Band Guitar.

-Sara