Song Request Friday: Andrew W.K.

I’m starting a new tradition for this blog, in which every friday I’ll post some song requests here. And I think the one artist to be the first to appear here should be Andrew W.K.

First of all, the man rocks. His attitude is just really rock and roll all night and party every day. He’s the rock messiah that KISS prophesized. The man lives to party hard, it’s his philosophy of life and he taught us that way of life in his two testaments: “I Get Wet” and “The Wolf”. I believe those two albums should be available to download IN FULL. But I think it’s only fair to priorize the songs that (imho) are his best. So without further ado, here goes. The songs that DEFINITELY should be included in future music simulation games:

1. It’s Time to Party
2. Party Hard
3. She is Beautiful
4. We Want Fun
5. Victory Strikes Again / Long Live the Party (medley)
6. The Song
7. Totally Stupid
8. I Love Music

So no throwing “Party Hard” at us and calling it a day. We need a full Andrew W.K. track pack. Call it the “Party till you Puke” track pack. If you ever considered playing Rock Band while complete and utterly drunk, this is the ultimate pack to fulfill that mission with. And please include a blood-stained t-shirt in the pack as well. I mean, it’s only fitting.

PS: I thought Andrew W.K. was an MTV sweetheart through and through. I really don’t understand why his songs haven’t appered in the Rock Band series yet. It’s really a mystery to me.

Music Videos: it’s an MTV game after all!

Yeah, the title of this post is directed at the Rock Band franchise, even though this is a general music game blog. I’ll explain why later. But first, do you remember the music video for the song “Take On Me”, by A-Ha? If you don’t, go on and check it out right now. It’s awesome. Did you know it won 6 awards at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards? Including Best Concept Video and Best Special Effects. And it deserves it.

Music videos, as I’m sure you’ll agree, are very cool. Generally. Not all of them of course, but at the end of the day it’s all a matter of taste anyway. What matters is that if you’ve ever been young, a fan of music and had access to MTV, chances are you have fond memories of at least a dozen music videos that you cherish to this day. Am I right?

Well, Harmonix has timidly introduced the concept of music videos in Rock Band. Activision hasn’t, ergo the title of this post. What happens in Rock Band is that sometimes you’ll choose a song and then, as a surprise opportunity, a fan or maybe your producer will present you with a chance to shoot a video of another song. If you accept it, a different animation happens and it’s really cool actually. It’s as if you’re playing your own music video.

In the game, one of the videos looks a bit like this:

Notice all the colorful “ghosts” of your character, as one of the effects. Of course, it looks MUCH better in motion, but you get the idea. What really matters is that it’s a really fun moment, and if it’s your first time experiencing it, you might even miss a few notes because you’re trying to pay attention to the effects of your video.

But here’s what happens afterwards: you gain more fans… and that’s it. You don’t get to shoot it again, you don’t get to view your video, you don’t get a review for it… nothing. It fades into oblivion and the game continues.

Can you smell the opportunities for innovation?

Alright I’m sure you all own the Beatles: Rock Band game. If you don’t, you should. REALLY. But I’m gonna assume that you do. Well, for that game, the developers created a set of “dreamscapes” for several songs. Those “dreamscapes” are actually artistic interpretations of the songs’ meanings and “vibes”, translated into graphic animation. So, for example, when you play “Here Comes the Sun”, the game looks something like this:

Which looks amazing. Actually, it looks so good that it’s almost a REAL music video, in the sense that it would be very enjoyable just to sit back and watch it on TV.

Do you see where I’m going?

The current Rock Band implementation of music videos is still very crude. But we know that Harmonix has shown a lot of talent and competence at creating amazing “dreamscapes” for Beatles: Rock Band. Why not put it to good use for Rock Band 3? What if you could ACTUALLY create your band’s music video?

Imagine this: you choose your song. Yeah, you should actually get to CHOOSE it, and not let someone else do it for you. And then, once you’ve cleared it, you’re presented with a timeline of the song, and you can choose from a myriad of special effects, themes and scenarios to make your video with.

Alternatively, the game could automatically generate a video matching the style of the song you chose. The game already does that with the normal gigs you play. For example, I was playing “White Unicorn” by Wolfmother (from the new DLC that was released yesterday) and there’s a section of the song that’s really psychodelic. And the game reflects this by adding a lot of blurry effects to the screen. That same logic could be used for music videos. So if you’re a bit lazy and just wanna try your luck, just go and automatically generate your video and see how the game creates it. On the other hand, if you’d like to get your hands dirty, the game would hand you the tools to make it yourself.

I mean, this is the videomaking generation, isn’t it? The world is filled to the brim with young talented players who WILL surprise us if we just hand them the tools. And this brings me to my second idea. Two words: VIDEO SHARING.

Of course, once you spend some time making your own music video (for your fake, virtual band, no less), you’ll want to keep it so you can watch it again. You’ll probably also want to show it to your friends, right? Now imagine if you had the option to… generate a file that you could actually save in your computer, to upload it to Youtube, Vimeo or whatever? Actually I don’t predict it being too huge a technical feat. In my mind, your console would send the details of the clip (what effects, dreamscape and each character’s antics, each second) to the Harmonix website, which in turn already has your band’s profile. Then, you’d enter your band’s page at www.rockband.com and just download your videoclip. The website would communicate with a server equipped with the automatic generation of the video, and just send you the final file.

If this idea actually proves itself to be too difficult to implement due to the data traffic involved in the procedure, Harmonix could choose to charge a small fee (maybe the equivalent to 80 Microsoft Points, in XBOX360 terms) to let you download your video. This would limit the traffic substantially, I imagine. And I think people would work harder on their videos before choosing to pay for them as well.

There are also many other possibilities derived from this awesome tool. Harmonix could launch contests around music videos, for example. It could also launch additional effects and dreamscapes for download (for a price), for the videomaking enthusiasts out there. After all, if people will pay for avatar clothing, why not for cool add-ons for music videomaking? Maybe even user generated content in the same vein of Rock Band Network? Who knows?

Of course, I might be going too far with this idea, and I’m not asking for the ability to make my own “Take On Me” award-winning video. But I feel that making music videos could be really cool and that the current music simulation games haven’t explored this idea satisfactorily yet. There’s certainly much room for improvement and innovation here.

Lego Rock Band and Band Hero: TRACKLISTS!

Hey folks. Lego Rock Band and Band Hero are coming out soon. Have you decided if you’re gonna buy either game yet?

Well, that cool guy Jeff over at Fake Plastic Rock has posted the tracklists for both games. Isn’t that nice? So head over there right now and check them out.

My own impression is that the Lego Rock Band tracklist is better, even if shorter. But to tell you the truth, I’m not terribly excited by any of those games. I’d really love to pay for the few songs that I like in Lego Rock Band, instead of having to buy the entire package, but I guess that’s asking too much. Oh well. At least you CAN export the entire setlist to your Rock Band 2 for a small fee.

Anyway, personally I think those games are a bad move for both companies. But don’t let my grumpy attitude affect you in any way, please. Go take a look at those tracklists and have fun!

Project Natal and Music Simulation Games

Everybody’s talking about it, it’s the next big thing to hit the XBOX 360 and, according to the lucky fellas who’ve seen it in action, it will kick major butts. Yep, Project Natal’s coming and, according Scott Guthrie:

“The Harmonix development team are working on what is effectively the next game, or ‘Rock Band 3’. We aren’t standing still – we will keep moving into new areas and look at new technologies that our platform holder partners are also developing, such as Project Natal from Microsoft. We’re working with them to pull some things together. So it’s pretty exciting time for the future of our music game business.”

To read the whole interview, click here.

Alright, so Rock Band 3 is going to use Natal’s technology. That’s awesome news, I’m sure you’ll agree with me. Right off the bat, there are a few functionalities that come to my mind:

1) Being able to just SAY the name of the song you wanna play, instead of looking for it in your immense library.
2) Being able to draw the logo of your band and let Natal scan it.
3) Being able to show Natal the tattoos you want inside the game.
4) If you’re a musician, you could show Natal your own real instrument and it would scan it.

Those are all really cool features… but of course, when you think about Project Natal, something else comes to your mind, right? I mean, the biggest functionality would have to be… having your own antics appearing in the game, of course! That would be awesome, right?!?

Well, not so fast. As a plastic guitar player, let me say something first. I suck at stage presence. When I’m playing my songs, I’m generally staring with eyes wide open at the TV screen, usually tapping my foot and only rarely doing something weird like changing facial expressions in a funny way and dancing. So that functionality would definitely fail with me. I mean, look at this posts’s title picture up there. Do you see that guy doing a high kick? I can’t do that while playing my guitar, unless I wanna miss a bunch of notes.

Nowadays, the characters of the game already have some really awesome animations. The guitar player breaks his guitar, the singer jumps into the crowd, the drummer throws his drumsticks in the air. We, poor mortals, having to pay attention to our note tracks, barely even move around. Most of us don’t jump and play our intruments backwards, that’s for sure. So what could Harmonix be planning?

Now, I’ve thought about this and the singer could have a better time being tracked. I mean, think about it. It’s much easier to sing and move around, change facial expressions to deliver a passionate interpretation of the song, dance and all that. But the other players… I’m not so sure.

So right now… I still don’t know how Natal is going to be used in terms of motion capture. I don’t think it’s gonna be an obvious solution, unless they want people to play like really lame blasé bands who don’t care about their crowd. Remember, real musicians know all their songs by heart, they don’t need note tracking. It’s their jobs to know how to play their songs. Therefore, since they don’t need to look at a TV screen while performing, they are free to do whatever they want onstage. We gamers play the game to have fun, we don’t memorize all the songs we download every month, so we need to pay attention to our note tracks.

So how could it work?

I feel the developers are going to start to have some good ideas as soon as they start testing the technology with real people. I’ve read in a magazine that the Activision developers once thought that the peripheral for DJ Hero should have 2 turntables. But when they tested it with real gamers, they noticed people tended to look more at the controller than the screen, which fatally killed the whole experience. So they designed a peripheral with only one turntable instead.

Project Natal has a lot of potential, that’s for sure. But since it’s major innovation comes in using the whole player’s body as a controller, voice included, a lot of real human simulation is in order. There’s no easy way out of it.

“Ring of Fire” (by Social Distortion) kicks ass

Guys, I’ve been absent for quite some time, but please forgive me. I’ve been really really busy. I’m just writing this post to inform you that no, this blog isn’t dead yet, not by a long shot.

That and also to advise you to download a particular Rock Band 2 song from your music store. It’s “Ring of Fire”, a cover of the original Johnny Cash song, by Social Distortion. It freaking rocks. I downloaded it yesterday and I kid you not, played it at least 10 times.

It’s also an awesome song to finish a setlist with. It’s incredibly fun, fast, has an awesome sing-along chorus and a big rock ending. If you have the points to spare, go and get it. You will not be disappointed.

Ars Technica: Review of Band Hero Demo

Holy crap, Taylor Swift looks ugly in that CG image above. Anyway, Ars Technica has released a nice little review of the new Band Hero demo. I recommend you check it out.

As stated some time ago in this blog, Band Hero is just a Guitar Hero for girls, and it seems like the biggest selling point in the title is to be able to play as computer-generated versions of pop artists. Did you expect anything different, though? And by the way, let’s compare the image above with the real Taylor Swift:

Come on guys, let’s be honest here. It just doesn’t look very good. Taylor Swift is not the only musician to have had her representation fall into the Uncanny Valley in a game, though. And I really don’t get it. Again, why would you wanna play as someone else? I mean, it’s a game in which you can build your own character and rock your way to success, why play as someone who’s already famous?

Anyway, its a new Guitar Hero 5, with the same old gameplay, only with pop songs and a lot of pink and purple. In other words, the Marketing professionals at Activision have identified a potentially juicy niche for music simulation games, which is the children, and are about to release their first product aimed specifically at them.

Adding spice to your concert 3 – Reviews

Have you ever played “Rock Manager”? It’s a really cool game, and funny as heck. In that game, you had to create a band, produce their songs, release albums and book venues for them to play at. Well, you actually get to do a bunch of other stuff, but that’s beside the point. What really matters is that when your band performs, you actually get a mini review of their performance. And sometimes, the newspapers or magazines would actually release an article about your band, which was cool.

Now, in Guitar Hero, when you finish a song, you get your score and how many stars you got. Rock Band goes beyond, and informs you the score, the stars, how many fans you got, how much money was earned and if you unlocked any new venue. That actually just shows which game is more “arcade-oriented”, and which one is more “experience-oriented” of the two.

But if you’ve been reading the other 2 posts in this “adding spice to your concert” series, you must have noticed that there’s certainly room in music simulation games for tons of additional gameplay elements to enhance the player’s experience of actually planning and delivering a… well, more kickass show to the audience. So I was thinking… maybe it would be kind of a letdown if, after playing a big gig, the only thing the player received was the same old screen with score, stars, fans and money. I’m going to be completely honest here, most of the time I don’t even read those screens.

But what if something extra did happen? Imagine this. You have all the same usual venues of the other Rock Band games. You have single songs, “mystery setlist”, “make a setlist”, “80s marathon”… but also, “BIG GIG”. I really like that name. It’s cacthy. Big Gigs would be those concerts where you’d plan the special effects, drum solos and guitar duels, changes in costumes, songs in the encore, all the details we discussed before. And since those Big Gigs would be those “this is it” moments of the band in every city, I think special rewards would be in order.

One of these rewards, I think, could be in-detail reviews of the concert, and maybe even how each little success of the band in that show awarded the player in some way. Maybe a rock magazine would publish an article reviewing the concert, and what were the strongest points and all that.

Now, that would already be cool on its own, because it would give you a bigger sense of accomplishment with the concert. But maybe some extra rewards could be tied to it. For example, and I’m just imagining here, great concert reviews could open up some temporary bonuses for the next shows (more people would get interested in the band). Or maybe, if you’re starting your carrer, other musicians would be interested in sharing the stage with you. Or your label would be interested in booking bigger venues, or willing to pay for more expensive effects for the next shows etc etc etc.

Anyway, Big Gigs would be the ideal moment for the band to prove to the world that they really mean business. Reviews and rewards should reflect that. And the best way to reward the player after a job well done, is to throw a fun surprise his way. Make the band appear on TV, or actual pictures of the performance on pages of a magazine, complete with praises to the guitarist that won the guitar duel. Give the player the option to save that magazine review. Let him even share his magazine reviews with other players. Make the reviews really funny.

The possibilities are vast indeed. I once read a review of Guitar Hero 5 on Ars Technica (which is a great site by the way) that proposed that it would be ugly to “be on the team that has to think of the next random feature to make Guitar Hero: World Tour: Band Hero: On Tour special enough for a full $60 retail release”. I certainly disagree with that. I think there’s a LOT of stuff that can be done to breathe more fun into these games, if only people took the “roleplay” aspect of the genre more seriously.

Rock Band: Advance into Overdrive!

Hey folks, check this out!

Beginning today, October 15th, Rock Band and Energizer are teaming up for this enormously cool new Battle of the Bands contest. And one of the prizes is… ALL THE DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT IN THE ROCK BAND MUSIC STORE. And that’s just scratching the surface!

What you gotta do is build your own rock band using the “Energizer Rock Band Advance Into Overdrive” facebook application. Then you gotta fill it with photos, videos and fun updates of your band. Once the entry period ends (November 3rd), the band with the most fun and fan driven page will get to play, LIVE, for 20 hours straight, at the MTV Store in Times Square!

Here’s an excerpt taken from the full press release:

ST. LOUIS, MO–(Marketwire – October 14, 2009) – With its cross-generation appeal, “Rock Band™” has given consumers of all ages a new way to interact with and perform the music they love. And on Nov. 3, one lucky “Rock Band” band will show their new found skills, performing live in New York City. The winning band will rock out for 20 straight hours at the Energizer “Advance Into Overdrive” event at the MTV store in Times Square.

Beginning Oct. 15, Rock Band bands can visit www.rockband.com/energizer to learn about the contest and create a band profile within the challenge Facebook Application (Energizer Rock Band “Advance Into Overdrive”). Groups will have until November 3 to populate their page and gain fans. Once the entry period ends, the band with the most creative, interactive, entertaining, and fan driven page, will get the chance to perform live at the Energizer “Advance Into Overdrive” event on Friday, Nov. 13.

Not only will the winning band get the chance to perform at the MTV store in Times Square, they will receive rock-star treatment throughout their visit including luxury ground transportation, a hotel suite, and dinner at one of New York’s hottest restaurants. Fans will be able to catapult the winning band into internet stardom as all of the action will be streamed live throughout the 20 hour performance on www.rockband.com/energizer.

The band will perform for 20 straight hours, signifying the 20 additional hours* of continuous playing time provided by using Energizer® Advanced Lithium batteries instead of Energizer® MAX® standard alkaline in their gaming accessories. In addition to offering long-lasting power, Energizer® Advanced Lithium has a shelf life of 10 years and weighs 33 percent less than an ordinary alkaline battery. The entire 20-hour performance will be streamed live at www.rockband.com/energizer.

 
So do you have what it takes? Visit http://energizer.rockband.com/ and get ready to rock!!!

 

Thank you Cullen for the great tip!

Adding spice to your concert 2 – Drum Solos and Guitar Duels

Do you know that band called “Children of Bodom”? Let me tell you, I’ve been a fan of them since their Hatebreeder album. It’s been a while now, and I remember that album was the one that managed to spark my interest in black and death metal soon afterwards. I rarely ever listen to metal nowadays, but I still love it. Anyway, this is off-topic. But let me ask you a question: have you ever watched a Children of Bodom concert?

There are two things that happen in a Bodom concert, and they are the subject of this post. The first one is the drum solo. In a certain moment the band leaves the stage, and Jaska (the drummer) remains. He then does an awesome drum solo. And by the way, have you ever watched Alice Cooper’s “Brutally Live” DVD? Well, Eric Singer also performs a drum solo in that show, only he does that… with flaming drumsticks! KICK-ASS!

This is the kind of thing you could implement in the game. Imagine I’m playing with my brother (he plays on the drums) and we’re making a setlist. Then we talk “hey how about a drum solo right after “Ace of Spades”?”. My brother says “yeah, alright, let me try one solo”. And then maybe the game could have a list of maybe 10 drum solos or so, with 2 or 3 minutes each, with a lot of fills. A LOT OF FILLS. WITH FLAMING DRUMSTICKS!!!!

I imagine a lot of drummers would be interested in this feature. I’m guessing my brother would. He just loves drum fills, and I bet he’d like to roleplay the virtuoso drummer every now and then.

The second thing that happens in a Bodom show is… the guitar battle. Now, to be completely honest, it’s actually a guitar versus keyboard battle. Alexi, the singer and guitar virtuoso usually battles Janne, the keyboard virtuoso. Yeah, it’s a band with a lot of virtuosos, for sure. Anyway, but we don’t have a keyboard peripheral yet. Well, no sweat! The bass player could just pick the guitar and step up to the duel!

Now there are several ways that this duel could function. If you’re playing solo, maybe you’d battle the computer in a random challenge. For example, get 5 stars in the solo or maybe get 90% of the notes, or get at least a 100 notes combo. Or maybe (and this would be closer to how duels actually happen), each one plays a phrase and the one who wins over the crowd wins. That means you’d have to top your “rock meter” so people would cheer for you.

If you’re playing with a friend, though, things could get kinda wild. You could use all the ideas above, yeah… but insert some parts in the song which would be like “fills”… only you just improvise in that part and your adversary would have to copy you. The one who manages to better mimic the opponent’s improvisation would then get a serious boost for his cheer meter. And when the song ended, well, the winner would be announced, the band would come back onstage and proceed to kicking more ass, as usual.

Drum solos and guitar duels could provide your band with some unique bonuses in-game, yeah, but they are mostly aimed at pure entertainment value, in my humble opinion. Still, players love to receive prizes for their performances, so maybe a successful drum solo could add an extra chance for an encore, while a successful duel could add 1 extra star to the overall performance of the whole concert. And if the battle has happened between 2 players, the game would then consider the performance of the winner to see if it was worth the extra star, for example.

I think those would be really cool features, I’d definitely add duels and drum solos to my concerts. Oh, and by the way… online battles, eh? It opens a lot of fun possibilities, doesn’t it?

P.S.: The pics I used for this post are actually of members of Children of Bodom: Jaska is the drummer in the first pic, and Alexi Laiho and Roope are in the second pic.

Adding spice to your concert 1 – Planning and Effects

There’s something that I really love in Rock Band, and that’s the “Make a Setlist” concerts. Sometimes I just pick a bunch of songs I feel like playing, sometimes I treat it more “seriously”. I imagine myself planning a real concert, so I think “ok, we have to start with a bang, then keep it up with the second song, then we can follow with a pop hit, then a mellower piece… and the last song definitely has to have a big rock ending”.

Have you ever done that? Or am I some kind of freak? Anyway, I have found that when I actually do that, when I plan my concert as if it was real, in the end the feeling of satisfaction with a “job well done” is much greater.

This is the first of a series of 3 posts with ideas on how to add more customization options to your Rock Band concerts. And by the way, I’d like to comment on Guitar Hero 5 here as well. It was a big disappointment for me the fact that you don’t play a bunch of songs in a sequence, instead picking them one by one. It totally breaks momentum and keeps the experience from being really immersive. In fact, you only make setlists in Quickplay mode. Setlists are a GREAT idea, and Rock Band have used this very well.

One thing that I’d definitely like to see is an option to know in advance if a specific song has a big rock ending. This could be turned on in the “Modify Game” menu. Nowadays I have to remember which songs have it, and my memory sucks, frankly.

Ok, so anyway… planning a concert can involve a lot of different things. If you’ve ever watched Alice Cooper or Malice Mizer shows, you know that costume changes can play a very big part. At the beginning of the show, Alice will frequently be this scary figure dressed in black leather and, later on, he dies. And when he comes back, he’ll be dressed in white, with a white tophat, and all is well and fun. Falling balloons, pyrotechnics, confetti rain… everything at once. It’s awesome.

I’d like to be able to add such moments to my concert. I’d like to have a huge array of costumes to choose from. Even silly ones, like teddy bear or austronaut costumes. Wouldn’t it be cool to add a big finish to the concert where everyone in the band changed their clothes, say, to egyptian costumes and played “Powerslave”? What about adding special pyrotechnics to this moment of the show? Plan your lighting effects?

Maybe in the “planning menu” you could choose to change the background of your stage or even invite some people from the crowd to sing in the microphone with the band. I’ve watched a video in which The Offspring is going to start playing “Session” and Dexter invites THE WHOLE AUDIENCE to come up onstage and sing it with him. That’s the real spirit of rock.

Of course, planning a concert would take some time, and sometimes you just wanna play some songs. But I’d like to have the option to plan my “Make a Setlist” concerts. I think it would add depth to the experience and it would be a lot of fun.