Hello again! Welcome
back to the year-end concert on Planned All Along! We've got plenty
of famous bands – even some that have ended years ago – to play
for you today! Oh, and there's a review of Rock Band 3 DS in the mix.
With a lengthy explanation of the story in the game. Where were we
at, exactly? Oh, right! Hardcover, our fictional band, had completed
three tours around Canada and the U.S. aboard their bus, and now they
were ready to go International! They're gonna get free from the vines
restraining them to the American continent!
Oh yeah, have I
mentioned I was trying to fit the title and band of every song in the
paragraphs I write? It's a lot harder than you think! What kind of
misery business did I get myself into? I'm doing all this par
amour (paramore) of music and reviewing in general... why? Why?
Even that last pun was kinda lame!
I
guess I'd better just keep discussing the tours. First is a tour
around the best party cities around the world! It starts off in
Amsterdam (where you'll always find a damn hamster at every pet
store), and then you move to Tijuana, where the ambiance is muy
caliente long before you even get there. By the might of Ida Maria,
OH MY GOD this is gonna be a glorious tour.
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| Rock with that guitar, green-haired dude! |
And
then, this tour brings you to Las Vegas, the city of games, a place
Yami Yugi is forbidden from ever visiting! The city of sin and games,
the place to burn all your hard-earned rock star cash! Doesn't
matter, you're gonna make more money with your shows anyway! Doesn't
matter if you're playing only one song – a cover – during your
show, the fans are gonna love you no matter what! After Las Vegas?
Rio, in Brazil! I hope you're not gonna play during the Carnival,
because your performance will be drowned under all the hard partying
and the parades with the girls wearing those revealing
outfits... Still, that tour went so well, the band starts thinking
about doing a full tour in Europe.
When
you think you're up for a challenge, Europe is the place to go! Say
that sentence out loud. And there the band goes, traveling around
that continent, visiting famous cities such as Berlin, Paris, Rome,
Madrid and Glasgow. If you're a girl and/or you've got girls in your
band, it's time to prove that you're a combat baby! And nowhere can
it be done better than in places that still use the metric system!
Or, well, that's according to my suppositions, anyway.
By
the way, I love the game's comments. Funny comments are everywhere.
The description on how to get each achievement is funny, and the
description that replaces it once you've earned that achievement is
funny as well. There's a funny comment before each Tour, and there's
another funny comment before each show. Of course, since comedy is
subjective, your mileage may vary on how funny each comment is, but
in the end the developers at Harmonix really tried to give you a
chuckle or two, and they succeeded for me, so I can only be thankful.
By the way, most of the jokes come from poking fun at the places the
shows take place in, and everyday problems met by rock stars (like
getting in trouble with the law).
 |
| This could either go extremely well or be a horrible experience. LET'S TRY IT! |
So,
it's time for the big World Tour! It starts in New York (where your
plays only one song – no, really), and then it moves to Reya...
Rajek... Rakvakejig... Rakatakarrakkarettekare...
Vakaratkjaekeajkajerkajrjkjkjereakka... Iceland. The second stop of
the World Tour is in Iceland. Guess how many songs you play there?
Two. The third show in in Dublin, Ireland; the fourth one, in London;
the fifth one, in Istanbul, Turkey; the sixth one, in moscow (Let's
hope you won't be Russian through your solos, or else you'll fail
them); the seventh one, in Tokyo. And the last one in-
...REYKJAVIK!
...I FINALLY MANAGED TO SAY IT! All of my apologies to the people of
Reyakyakjakjev... Dammit! All my apologies to my readers who live
there. I tend to have some problems with pronunciation with complex
names. Hey, at least it's still easier to say than Zasazazasshhh...
Zasaaa... Re-dammit! Zasz... Zsasha! Hey, I succeeded for that one
too!
OK,
so the last show of the entire game is in Sydney, Australia. You
better prepare for it. It's time for some crazy training! If you're
Ozzy Osbourne's drummer, you don't need it, apparently, but everyone
else does.
Forget
Phoenix, Arizona! Forget Texas and its masters of the lasso! Forget
that little Roxette who keeps giving you the look of a fangirl!
You're playing in the major leagues now!
Two
in a row? Aaaaand the award of the most forced jokes ever written on
a video game review blog goes to... Nicolas Hamel, that pathetic
pun-maker! Gotta
know how to make fun of yourself sometimes. Self-deprecation, now
that must be one of the most useful forms of comedy ever.
 |
| Now we'll see if your band is able to stay on the stage for more than three songs! |
So,
this is the very last show, and a big one, too! During the final show of
all 9 preceding tours, you were playing 3 songs. This time? You play
5. This is kinda like the final boss, because you can't save between
the songs and you can't stop playing in the middle of the show. You have
to complete all 5 songs, on the difficulty level you've selected. By
the way, of those five songs, two are ranked among the hardest ones
in the game (in other words, if you picked Intense, you're in
trouble), and the last song of the show is Bohemian Rhapsody, to give this game
the finale it rightfully deserves. Honor the late Freddy Mercury,
play that song like a friggin' BOSS, and then watch the credits roll!
We get to see many key moments of the existence of your rock band,
like a cheap documentary about your band. Come on, this isn't Spinal
Tap!
Holy
crap, those credits are longer than the final show. Or maybe they
aren't, but dammit, it feels as if. No, scratch that. They ARE longer
than the final show. Alright, I can understand, they have to give
credit to everything, from the Fender guitars to all the artists who
accepted the game used one of their songs.
So,
after this final, mega-show, you can complete a few more challenges
just to get more fans. And what happens when, once you've beaten all the challenges, you have all the fans you
could get? Your band gets tired with fame and simulates a plane
crash in the Bahamas to go back to being nobodies.
What.
What.
Whatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhat.
WHAT?
Dahell?
Dafuk?
That's
a joke, right? It can't not be a joke. Then again this game makes
jokes about everything surrounding celebrities, fame and the rest,
so- Oh crap it's for real. It's a joke poking fun at the player. So
after climbing up the ranks and becoming famous rock stars, your
band's members decide to go back to being unknown because they can't
stand fame anymore? They know that April 1st is in about three months, right? You did all this for nothing??? This is one freaking stupid roundabout, don't you
agree? And you better say “yes”. I don't think any gamer likes having their time wasted by a Shaggy Dog story in video game form.
(Well,
at least I got the final song out of the way.) And this is the real
ending of the game. All this work for nothing! I hope you didn't mind
the stupidity of the ending. It is but a small reason why I'm not a
huge fan of this game. Oh, I enjoy it. It IS fun. But it's not in my
Top 10 or anything. I'll never deny its qualities: It's fun,
challenging, the story is alright, the writers inserted jokes
everywhere they could. It has the qualities of a good Rock Band game:
It makes you discover new artists, new songs, it make you play to
them, it makes you want to hear more from these artists and bands. I personally
downloaded every one of those 25 songs, and while I don't like all of
them as much, there are some that quickly grew to become my
favorites. That's the strength of music games: You discover new
stuff. And yes, maybe you were never much interested
in the 25 bands in this game, and maybe the songs sparked an
interest. I gotta say, I really wanted to find more of the songs by
these bands afterward.
 |
| Is it me or that green-haired guitarist appeared a couple times here today? |
Sadly,
as I said earlier, 25 is really not enough. You can beat all the
songs in a little more than an hour. And even though you can beat all
the songs on 8 different settings, it gets pretty boring after a
while. It's not a large diversity of 50 or 70 songs; you'll wind up
playing some of those songs over and over. Also, many of the songs
have been shortened, and the "adult" words were censored
(Walkin' On The Sun is a major offender, no pun intended; it's the
song with the most words censored), leaving an awkward blank. Also, I
will never pretend to be an ace gamer; I'll admit it when a game is
too hard for me. This one is fine, because you get to choose the
difficulty setting every time. And while the “easier” songs do
become a bit of a challenge on Expert, the ones that are considered
“Hard” regardless of difficulty become damn impossible,
especially on Expert. (There's a reason I call Expert/Intense Mode
“Insane Mode” every once in a while.) Seriously, that solo in
Crazy Train is nearly impossible. Probably because I'm not talented
enough to do it. Maybe my reflexes aren't quick enough, or my eyes
can't follow, or my hand-eye coordination... Alright, I'm not good enough at this! However, I gotta admit that the
developers who put the frets on the tracks did a good job. Maybe
there are too many frets on Expert, but that might just be an
impression. Or maybe there are really that many notes to hit when
you're playing on a real guitar.
 |
| Also, that you must play the solos is a rather fun idea. The solos can get pretty hard, so there's a challenge. You get a LOT of points if you miss zero note during a solo. |
The
achievements are a nice touch, and it sure is fun to try and get them
all. Some are plot-related and very easy to get, some of the talent
achievements are a little harder to get, and most of the challenges
about songs are easy, but there are some that are a lot harder. Get
five stars on every song? Relatively easy. Get golden stars on any
song? Very hard. Get 2,000,000 points on Sister Christian? Very, very
hard. A downside, however, is that there's over a dozen challenges that can only be earned in
Multiplayer Mode... For which you need other players, who have their
Nintendo DS and another copy of Rock Band 3 DS. What are the odds of
that happening? They're thin. Sure, it's fun for those who have
friends who also love Rock Band... but the other Rock Band games have
the positive aspect that you need only one copy of the game, one
console, and all the instruments... which are sold with the game, so
you just have to gather your friends and play with them. And since you got the
real fake instruments, you can play make-believe far better than you
can with this DS game. For this one, you need up to four Nintendo DS and four copies of the same game... See the problem? Did I mention that some multiplayer achievements require that you play with three other people?
The
story is nothing special, just what you'd expect from a game about
becoming famous through music. I think the truly awesome part is that
your characters are fully customizable; there are lots of pieces of
clothing to unlock and also a lot of instruments. Your band can look great or lame, if you want. But the most awesome part is that
regardless of what your band looks like, they will appear in the
cutscenes the way they are. The way you designed them, the way you
dressed them. Every cutscene you unlocked will show them with the
style you gave them. Yes, even if it contradicts the first cutscenes
you saw. Heck, the band logo you picked at the beginning of the game
will appear in the cutscenes too! That's taking “customizable
story” a step beyond what most games do. That's pretty awesome. Bottom line, great fun game with only a few defects, but it's not for me.
But remember: Even though I'm ranting on the qualities and defects of games
and movies, what matters isn't that there are qualities and defects.
Of course, its important to observe, to analyze, to check the details
for any type of media, for any work of fiction out there. It's important to come to a
conclusion. You can read what's been said about a game or film,
ponder on what others have pointed out, listen to the critiques. The
most important isn't the criticism, the nitpicks or the humongous
reviews. What matters is whether you had fun playing that game, watching
that movie, listening to that song, viewing that TV show, looking at
this portrait or statue or whatever. That's what counts. For 2015, I
wish to you, reader, lots of cultural discoveries, and most of all, I
wish you enjoy all of them. There's always going to be lesser works,
whether it's a movie that insults a social class, a game made for
quick bucks, an uninspired song or an unfunny cartoon. It's
inevitable. But it's all worth it for the masterpieces that come out
as well. Praise it when it's good, criticize it when it's bad; when
all's said and done, all that truly matters is whether or not you
enjoyed it.
To
you, reader, I wish a happy 2015. May the next year be awesome.
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