By Jake (
August 31, 2010 at 4:21 pm)
· Filed under Games, News, Music
It’s official; both Guitar Hero and Rock Band have the full setlists for their new games online. Guitar Hero went the press release route and Harmonix went for the information contained within a joke. They also name dropped some sites who were spreading disinformation. Regardless both setlists look amazing, with a few notable “I’m only playing this song so I can beat the game” songs in there (I’m looking at you Nickelback and Amy Winehouse).
Now before anyone gets too excited and/or starts spouting fanboy fervor, cross referencing these lists shows one game stealing from the other and vice versa.
The addition of the keyboard to Rock Band is either good or bad depending on how you feel about keyboards in general. It will surely make certain songs more exciting with a full band (Bohemian Rhapsody, Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting, Just Like Heaven, etc…), while other songs won’t even use the instrument which makes it hard to justify buying it.There’s also the issue of needing to have a (much) larger screen in order to see all 10 parts of the note highway for the keyboard. All in all, it’s a moderately welcomed change and I’ll definitely enjoy playing The Power of Love on both vocals and keyboard (at the same time).
Standout tracks:
The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations Live (You’ll have everything in this song including awesome harmonies, some wicked keyboards and high pitched Mike Love singing)
David Bowie - Space Oddity (This is the song to bring the house down [along with Bohemian Rhapsody])
The Vines - Get Free (cheap choice, but it’s fast, loud and will force you yell into the microphone for 2 straight minutes)
Ida Maria - Oh My God or Rilo Kiley - Portions for Foxes (The girls I know always complain about not having enough to sing. This Rock Band seems to remedy that pretty well with a wide range of voices and more male fronted songs that the ladies can hit pretty easily)
On the other end, Guitar Hero (officially sub-titled Warriors of Rock) hasn’t really changed much this time around. New songs, with the same formula: you start a band and do well. If you win you’ll be treated to a complete play through of Rush’s album 2112. Depending on how you feel about Rush this is either awesome or eight kinds of pain. The track list for GH has a more fast paced, arcadey feel (even though there are 10 more songs in GH than in RB).
Standout Tracks:
Poison - Unskinny Bop (It’ll be fun, plus you can pretend that Bret Michaels never turns into the balding bachelor on VH1)
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Setting Fire to Sleeping Giants (Epically crazy if done right. If done wrong, you’ll look lame)
R.E.M. - Losing My Religion (Not the most difficult song, but anyone can enjoy trying to be Michael Stipe every now and again, plus bonus flailing arms).
No matter which game you decide to go with (I think I’m going with Rock Band 3 in order to avoid the previously mentioned Nickelback track), I think we all know who really wins in either of these games…
