Hello, and welcome to the final review of 2014 on Planned All Along! ...What do you mean, I'm one week too early to say that? Just wait, this review is pretty long. How can I top last year's Just Dance 3 review, entirely made in rhyme?
I can't, and I
won't. Yeah, I decided not to do a review on the style of what I did
last year. The reasons are... personal. My real life has been rather
hectic, so I decided that instead of making things even more
complicated for me, I'd just make a regular review and put all the
songs from the game around the text.
Anyway,
better start now. Do you like rhythm games? I'm not talking DDR or
Just Dance, here. I'm not talking about games that demand a lot of
energy. Or am I? If you've played an instrument, you know it can get
quite physical. Think about your favorite guitarist, and then tell
yourself he/she has to hold that guitar and keep playing for a few
minutes. For your enjoyment, sure. But it takes some training. Heck,
imagine how much energy a drummer needs! No wonder some of them are
hyperactive wackos! They need all that energy!
Since
music is an important part of our lives (seriously, try to calculate
the number of times I've made musical references on the blog –
there's a LOT), some game companies soon had the idea of a musical
game that involved guitar-shaped controllers with buttons on the
handle. For those who haven't guessed yet, I'm talking about Guitar
Hero.
Yeah,
yeah. Despite the cost of these games (due in no small part to the
price of the mock-guitar), the Guitar Hero franchise has known a
massive success. First developed by Harmonix, and later by Neversoft
and Activision, the game is simple: You follow the series of notes (AKA "frets") on
the screen by hitting the colored buttons on the guitar while
strumming, and activate a bonus every once in a while to rack up your
score. Fair enough. Plus, the large majority of the songs are actual
rock songs, whether they're classics, recent successes, songs that
aren't that well-known, or covers. Heck, it expanded to include genres outside of rock.
Sadly,
the series has been rather... dead since 2010. However, Harmonix hadn't spoken its last words. In 2007, they released Rock Band, which
was Guitar Hero (almost) taken to its logical extreme. Now, you can
play just about any part of the band, from the main guitar to bass to
drums to even the freaking vocal track. But one thing remains: These
frets, the need for a perfect rhythm, and the fact that you're
leading just a cover band that can't make its own damn music. Today, I'm
looking at Rock Band 3... But not any version. I'm looking at the
Nintendo DS version.
“How
can there be a Nintendo DS version of a game like this?” You ask
me. “Aren't these games all about pretending you're really playing
music?” You're right, but at the same time, as I've learned recently, money is money, and to many companies, more money is always welcome. Besides,
multi-platform ports of the same game are rather common. The true
question is rather: How do you adapt this concept to a handheld
console? Guitar Hero succeeded by having a fret controller plugged
right into the GBA slot of the first Nintendo DS (which also means you can't play that game with a Nintendo 3DS - Whoops). Here? Let me
explain.
Guitar, keyboards, drums. Two of the 4 (technically 5) instruments that you must play. Note how the white symbols are getting some orange on top. |
Sometimes,
during the song, you may encounter a Solo section. You're
automatically redirected to one track on the song, and you have to
play the solo in its entirety. There's even a percentage counter that
tells you how many notes you've hit! Once you've completed the solo,
the song resumes as usual. When you perform very well on a song, you
get stars. If you miss zero notes on the easiest difficulty, you can
get 5 stars halfway through the song! You can only get golden stars
on the highest difficulty setting (appropriately named Expert), and
only if your performance on that difficulty is spectacular. ...Then
again, in a game where the entire point is to have your band go on tour
and make shows, it HAS to be spectacular. Also, it doesn't matter
what your band members wear, it doesn't matter if they've got white
stripes or purple polka-dots with emo bangs; On Hard and Intense
difficulty, every song has moments in which you'll find the hardest
button to button.
That's the first of 25 cheap puns.
Nintendo
DS cartridges have a lot of data storage space, but apparently not
enough for full songs. Or, well, the shorter songs haven't been
modified, but all songs above three minutes in length have been
shortened, with maybe one verse cut from the full song. I strongly
suggest you find the original songs, just to get an idea of their
sound outside of the game (actually, that's why I'm showing you the full versions here). In a way, I can understand why they
shortened the songs: It's difficult for the fingers. Seriously, on
the harder difficulty settings, there are so many frets to hit that
you will go crazy. I remember when I first tried the hard difficulty
on a song; Since I'm from Quebec, I was cursing like there was no
tomorrow, like a white snake had poisoned me or something. I was
yelling choice words such as ”Tabarnak!” or “Ostie!” ...Oh,
ha ha, here I go again with my expressions. I'll never change, will
I?
All
this to say that it takes a LOT of practice to hit all the frets on
any of those songs on any difficulty, but it's particularly awesome
if you manage to do it on any song on the later difficulties.
Alright,
so... Now that we got this out of the way, what shall our band's name
be? ...I have a penchant for Cowardly Covering Coven. Or Hardcover.
Or Cover My Eyes. As long as it has “cover” in it, to make it
clear we're making covers of songs. Hm, I like Hardcover.
And yet, somehow our singer will always sound exactly like the singer of the song... regardless of the original singer's gender! It can lead to hilarious moments where a man sings like a woman (sometimes) or a woman sings like a man (which will happen most of the time!)
And yet, somehow our singer will always sound exactly like the singer of the song... regardless of the original singer's gender! It can lead to hilarious moments where a man sings like a woman (sometimes) or a woman sings like a man (which will happen most of the time!)
After
you've picked a name, you pick a logo, and then you can design all of
your band's members. The game works with a system of achievements, so
I strongly suggest you do all those things right now. Why? Because
every new achievement gains you a few new fans, which means you can
start off with many fans even before you've performed even once! Take
the time to customize your band. You'll get many achievements this
way.
Let's
see... I'll call the bassist Nicolas (Hey! This is not vanity! The
bassist is the least recognized member of the band! Just ask Scott
Pilgrim! ...Okay, bad example), I'll call the drummer Michael (or Keith, why not?), I'll
put a girl as singer because I find it way too funny to hear her sing
like a man on stage (let's call her... Natalie?), and last I'll call
the guitarist/keyboardist.... Um... Corey. Any Canadians reading this
article? Have you watched Grojband? Man, this is one crazy show.
Seriously, if you like rock music, off-the-wall Scott Pilgrim-esque comedy and adventures, and cartoons in general, check it out. The titular band's songs are all short (1 minute or less), but they can get friggin' EPIC. |
Now
you're ready to go on tour. And if you think God will help you, faith
no more. Many musicians who are way past their midlife crisis will
tell you that on the road, you're on your own. ...Unless your manager
is along for the ride, but it seems there's no such thing as a
manager in the world of Rock Band.
It's
not like you absolutely have to go on tour right now, either. You can
familiarize yourself with the 25 songs in the game first, by playing each of
them once. ...Yes, you heard right: 25 songs. Regular Rock Band games
have over 50 songs, but this one only has 25. Once again, you could
justify that by saying that there wouldn't be room on the cartridge
for more songs (and besides, all 25 songs come in four difficulties
and two modes), but even then, the selection is rather... weak. One
of the reasons other music-playing rhythm games are so fun is that
there's a large selection of songs to pick from. Some Guitar Hero
games had over 70 songs. Alright, alright. 25 is diverse enough to
keep you busy for a while. But to put it simply, that “while”
will be a lot shorter than if there was a larger selection. More
songs means more things to try, right? So less songs means you'll get
bored faster. Right? Okay, that's a nitpick, but still, I would have
liked more songs. I checked: Even if you put together all the full
songs, you only have 95 minutes of music.
Well,
then again, each song comes in eight versions. There's still 4
difficulty settings, but there are two Modes: Normal, in which you
play a sequence of notes and then switch to the next instrument...
and Pro. For Pro Mode, you could, in theory, play the same instrument
through the entire song and still win. Pro Mode is special because it
never splits the instruments' tracks into “sections” like Normal
mode does; it just darkens the incoming frets and turns the track
blue as a way to suggest to you that it's time to change to another
instrument, and you can make the choice to stay on the same
instrumental track or switch to another one – which you must be quick to
do. The game never forces you to switch. Except for the solos, of
course. Like I said, you could play only one instrument and it would
still work. Your goal is to maintain all the tracks to best health by
preventing them from turning all orange or all red. You've got a bit
of help, though; if you activate the Trance (a mechanic that turns
the tracks golden-ish and doubles your score), all the instruments
will regain health a little, regardless of which one you're playing.
But of course, all of you night rangers out there knew that; get out
of your comfort zone, leave your sister christian, and give Pro Mode
a try sometimes! (Not like you'll have the choice; some Tour
challenges require you to play in that mode.)
Oh
yeah, by the way, you can also play the Tutorials, which will give
you a few more fans, or go in Practice Mode, which will also give you
a few fans. Always keep that in mind: No matter how many tours you
do, the achievements you can earn are a great source of fans. ...Boy,
that's one sentence you don't say very often... Well, I guess now is
the time to start going on Tours. To do this, you select the first
option on the main menu, and after that you've got three choices:
Quick Play (just play the songs you want to play, or create a
playlist), Random Song (the game will randomly select a few songs for
you to play), and then Go on Tour. NOW we're talking! Don't shut your
smash mouth up, you're gonna need it to sing all these songs! And
you'll see, going on tour and be acclaimed wherever you play feels
like walkin' on the sun!
Get
used to the bad puns. If I want to put all the song titles and their
artists in the review, I need to make them. Yeah, it's silly; I admit
it.
When
you start playing in Tour Mode, you'll see there are 10 different
tours. In the first ones, your band is playing around a city (made
evident by the map on the top screen), and traveling in a metro.
It must be rather difficult to travel by foot with all the
instruments... These drums aren't tiny, you know! However, as you
amass fans, at some point you'll earn a minivan, which will make
transportation much easier and will also give you the opportunity to
go from city to city, and start getting fans further away from your
hometown. Once these Tours have been beaten, you'll get a bus. And NOW
you'll be traveling a lot. You'll have a tour in Canada, one in the
south of the United States, and one that goes through the most famous
cities on the West Coast. Once these are completed, you've earned a
private jet for your band, and NOW we're talking worldwide tours. One
on the American continents, one in Europe, and a final world tour.
Your band members will be the kings and queens of the musical scene.
You'll just have to make sure you still respect the law, because none
of you wants to go through the same stuff as the character from
Bohemian Rhapsody.
...Yeah,
I couldn't find any other way to insert this one in the text. Sorry!
But now, I realize it would be much better if I discussed this Story
Mode of sorts in the next part. Tune in next week, as me and my
“band” rise to fame and discover what it's like to have fans!
Well,
I kinda know what it's like. This site has had well over 75,000
views, and I've got a few people who keep reading my reviews. Thanks
to all of you guys and gals who do that! It makes me feel great to
know that I bring a smile to you!
OK,
see ya next week!
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