Rock Band 2

[Afrobean]

Meh

I still stand by what I said before anyway: vocals suck and are not a worthwhile contributor to the quality of the game as a whole.

And did the video even indicate any sort of difficulty level on it at all? I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that fly on the lowest difficulty, even on a not "dumbed down" karaoke scoring system.

ps squeek: any reason you used the word "is" instead of a verb that implies derivation then? For example: "vocals were horribly dumbed down for RB2," or "vocals got horribly dumbed down in RB2."

[dore]

From what I can tell the talkie system is just like the singing system now where you just have to be making some sort of noise during the talkie rather than enunciating anything. Since the timing window for RB1 talkies was so ****ed up they had to really dumb it down to make it playable, rather than having songs that were impossible to FC because of a timing window that's impossible to see.

[the following paragraph is based off of reviews of top RB vocalists playing GHWT at PAX]

The great thing about RB vocals is that it allows a little interpretation. I can SING a song and still get 100%. The GHWT system is so tight that you are basically required to hum a song because if you're not pitch perfect the entire time you won't even some close to 100%. If you add any expression or inflection you will miss phrases, which defeats the purpose of singing, IMO. Hopefully they change this before they release the game otherwise it will be beyond tedious to even attempt expert vocals.

[MalReynolds]

Well, I mean, on Expert Rockband vocals sometimes my vibrato will take me out of the pitch by a tiny, minute amount and lose my 100%. And it's not like you can do runs or anything outside of the free-style sections.

[dore]

Originally Posted by MalReynolds

Well, I mean, on Expert Rockband vocals sometimes my vibrato will take me out of the pitch by a tiny, minute amount and lose my 100%. And it's not like you can do runs or anything outside of the free-style sections.

you must ahve some crazy vibrato lol RB gives you a semitone and a half of leniency IIRC

[Squeek]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

Meh

I still stand by what I said before anyway: vocals suck and are not a worthwhile contributor to the quality of the game as a whole.

And did the video even indicate any sort of difficulty level on it at all? I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that fly on the lowest difficulty, even on a not "dumbed down" karaoke scoring system.

ps squeek: any reason you used the word "is" instead of a verb that implies derivation then? For example: "vocals were horribly dumbed down for RB2," or "vocals got horribly dumbed down in RB2."

I said "the one instrument... is dumbed down.", so I can't use a plural verb. I don't know why I would use "was" either, since it's not like it used to be dumbed down but no longer is. When you compare it to RB1, it is dumbed down and probably will be forever since they wouldn't release a patch or anything to improve its functionality.

Knowing Harmonix, you'll have to buy another microphone for $50 to get what you should get out of the box.

also since the discussion of wt/rb/rr blends into all of these threads:

http://kotaku.com/5050749/konami-no-...ock-revolution

wait what

pps - DeepDiscountDVD is selling RB2 for $20 off the retail price. You can get the drums, the guitar, or the entire bundle $20 cheaper. Free shipping too.

http://www.deepdiscount.com/Rock-Ban...VVviewprod.htm

Their shipping is slow as hell but you get $20 off and no tax (which would be another $10-$20 depending on where you live).

This deal applies to all three consoles.

[Plaguefox]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

But how much would a "proper" one cost? Quality is not exactly all that important to me, so long as I can sit on it and it doesn't break, I would probably prefer to save some cash, particularly after spending so much for my kit (which still hasn't shipped yet FROWN).

A buddy of mine picked his up for less than fifty. And the Ion one is forty. With the one at Best Buy being garbage at thirty, the price versus quality increase is skewed. Trust me, it's a better buy.

Actually, I can't claim I know what the Ion drum throne's quality is, but I am making the educated guess that it is at least on par with standard issue thrones at music centers. The one I bought at BB is not.

Oh, and watching you and Squeek go toe to toe is hilarious. <3

[Gano]

Picked this up a couple of days ago and is it awesome, so many sweet songs. Sucks about the vocals being broken but meh don't sing anyways.
<3 Steely Dan

[Tokzic]

i get to play rb2 this weekend

is it sad that i'm more excited for this than i get for christmas

[ddr_f4n]

Got to play the Impossible songs list (no overdrive)

Everything was awesome...until I played Visions by Abnormality.

All I can say is...WTF! That song definitely isn't the greatest (metal screamo?), but there is one part on guitar that you have to strum EVERY NOTE THAT IS USUALLY A HO/PO ACROSS THE FRETBOARD! **** that song was retardedly hard especially without Overdrive.

[Gano]

lmao I tried Abnormality, it did not go well :<

[Plaguefox]

God, the Impossible Challenge is ridiculous. Tried it on drums, got 45% into Panic Attack and my leg fell off.

Okay, it didn't, but I still can't dent that song on X drums.

Also, vocals are not broken. That's a byproduct of the "fanboy versus fanboy" wars the band games are generating. Certain sections of vocals were (arguably) broken in the first game and now certain sections of vocals are way too easy. It's a far better problem to have than *no one ever hitting* certain sections.

The pitch detection is still challenging and if you look at one talkie-laden song being easy and decide "vocals are broken" you're either not familiar with the system or you're intentionally fueling the fanboy fire. Tsk tsk!

I disclaim right here and now that I'm going to own and love both GHWT and RB2. Just so you guys know.

[Squeek]

Some of us don't have enough money for both and need to justify our decisions with poorly-credited theories.

Hell I don't even have enough for one. It's highly likely I'll never own a band game because they're all insanely overpriced.

[Plaguefox]

Originally Posted by Squeek

Some of us don't have enough money for both and need to justify our decisions with poorly-credited theories.

Hell I don't even have enough for one. It's highly likely I'll never own a band game because they're all insanely overpriced.

Oh, I understand that. To be honest the only games I've allowed myself to buy in the last... six months or so have been rhythm games. Wait, that's just Rock Band 2, really. Oh, wait, Castle Crashers. Does that count? I've been selective enough in game purchases lately to have enough budget for both of these delicious games. And I'm about to sell some old games to make way for an Ion purchase. (Note: I'm hoping against hope that there will be some method of using the Drum Rocker on GHWT without sacrificing one lane of gameplay.)

Anyway, the thing about the dedicated-to-one-side arguments is that they're so full of contradictions and logical fallacies on both sides. You can definitely tell just by reading one person's "reasons for choosing one over the other" whether or not they have real, personal reasons for preferring one or if they're just subscribing to internet forum wankery. While it's true that those aren't mutually exclusive ideas, someone with a level head and legitimate reasoning won't cite the latter stuff; afterall, it's typically just recycled FUD.

Like people who slag on Neversoft for being a "sequel factory" or people who slag on Harmonix for "never making any good peripherals". Or the circle-versus-cylinder argument. Or the "exclusives are garbage" argument. So on, so forth.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by Squeek

Some of us don't have enough money for both and need to justify our decisions with poorly-credited theories.

Hell I don't even have enough for one. It's highly likely I'll never own a band game because they're all insanely overpriced.

The game is no more expensive than any other game on the system.

Separately sold peripherals need not be a part of the cost of the game, not when the controllers are cross compatible. You could get a RB bundle for a fat wad, but you could use those same controllers for a standalone copy of GH (or vice versa, but why would you want to?).

For example, I recently bought RB2. I did not go to the store and say "I want Rock Band 2, here is hundreds of dollars." I already had a mic, drum kit, and guitar sitting at home. When I pick up the new GH game, I won't say "I want the new GH game, here is hundreds of dollars", because I've already got a guitar, mic, and drum sitting at home for me.

See, I spend a few hundred once, and it applies to many games. You can figure the cost of the peripheral based on how many games you'll be playing it with. So if you get all 3 (lol konami) of these band games and get a bundle for like 200 bucks for one of them (or 140 for just the peripherals), that's 140$ spent for 3 games. Figure that per game, that's roughly 47 dollars per game for the peripheral. And if you had Rock Band before, that's a 4th game, so the peripheral's use and cost per game functionality becomes 35$. Then, if you take good care of your ****, you'll have a guitar, mic, and drums when RB3 and GH5 come out.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is this: it's not as bad as you make it out to be, yes it is a relatively large amount of money to drop, but the investment you get out of it can be spread out very easily. And even if you can't spread out the investment for some reason (such as hating one of the games lol konami), it can still totally be worth it, because these games are simply amazing, and frankly, they're like many music games put together into one.

And if you simply are unable to afford it, I say you should stop complaining because if it's not a high enough priority for you to go out of your way to keep some money in the bank for it, then you don't deserve to complain about it.

[Squeek]

My current plan is for World Tour, since its instruments are the most compatible with everything else. They're supposed to work with all RB games, so I could get RB1, RB track pack, RB2, GH3, GHAero, etc. if I wanted to.

Activision gave me $132 for returning GH3 to them, so once World Tour drops under $150 or $140 I'll probably get it.

And if you had access to ffya (sry lol~) you'd see my plans for reals.

[Tokzic]

i feel really sorry for afrobean

i mean seriously i don't get why he's not in ffya

[Plaguefox]

Interesting update for those who like the idea of cymbals in Rock Band 2: Reports are coming in that if you play on Lefty Flip (like I do) the cymbal differentiation code shuts down completely and your cymbals will play the same exact sounds as their equivalent toms during sections where you are not tied to a chart (that would be before a song, after a song, during a BRE, during a fill, and in Freeplay mode.)

This is pretty deal breaking for me. Figured I'd let everyone know.

Chances are this is a bug and will be fixed, but until we know for sure, the come-away is this:

Cymbals do not differentiate themselves from toms if you're in Lefty mode. They work as advertised without lefty mode active.

[Afrobean]

Plaguefox, that's the sort of thing they could fix in a patch.

Also, I don't see how that's all that important. You really need to fool around and hear cymbals before the song starts? You really want to hear cymbals during fills (other than your ending crash, that is)? The freeplay thing sucks, I'll admit, but if you want to just freeplay drums, I doubt if it'll be long before software is developed which supports the RB2 drum kits and allows them to freeplay with even more customization than choice of a few ****ty preselected drum samples.

tl;dr: most of that **** doesn't matter, and the one that does is replaceable by using a computer.

[t-rogdor]

One of the songs i was looking forward to (Read: They said beck, and i thought "Hey, it must be loser, because that's the one everyone knows!") and they put in E-Pro instead.

Oh well, Vocals on Master Exploder will be win.

[Plaguefox]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

You really need to fool around and hear cymbals before the song starts? You really want to hear cymbals during fills (other than your ending crash, that is)?

Are you kidding? Absolutely! Only a blasphemer would ask such a question.

I heard that one of the higher-up developers said that the game was supposed to function differently, so hopefully they'll acknowledge that it's a bug and will be patched.

Otherwise I won't be able to fool around to my heart's content.