I love music games. This looks kind of fun. I will be trying the demo for sure. Hopefully it is as fun and crazy as it sounds.
Harmonix announces Rock Band Blitz
News | April 4, 2012 10:05 am
By Moo Lissa
When Activision hung up their little plastic guitars, it really looked like Rock Band had become the undisputed fake instrument champion of the world. They were free to keep cranking out their games every year without any interference or competition. It's been a year and a half since Rock Band 3 released, however, with no word from Harmonix on any Rock Band 4 development. If you took the silence of the plastic instrument gods to mean the Rock Band franchise is dead, you're... half right? In an interview with G4's Blair Herter, Harmonix project director Matthew Nord unveiled the newest installment in the Rock Band franchise, Rock Band Blitz.
Blitz is planned as a downloadable release through Xbox LIVE arcade and PSN, which might make you ask how you'll get the new instruments that are sure to ship with the game. The answer is... there are none.
"It's a single player game, primarily, you play all of the instruments, and use a controller instead of the plastic instrument to play it, and one of the great things about it is that it works with all the songs that we've already released, so there's over 3700 songs," said Nord in one of the longest run on sentences ever used in the video game industry.
Whoa- no instruments? A controller based rhythm game? How very Nintendo-esque of Harmonix. But not being limited by the instrument you're playing allows you to switch around from part to part mid song, depending on which track looks most fun to you, and which bonus multipliers you are charging up. From watching the gameplay, you'll also want to change tracks frequently to get special power notes, and keep a pinball in play. Yeah- a pinball bounces around as you play. It's not a blitz without a pinball, right?
Besides the 3700 songs that Harmonix is sure we all own already, Blitz will release with 25 songs of its own. These songs will be backwards compatible with Rock Band 3, if you miss banging on plastic instruments. Just like past Rock Band games, new songs will be released weekly so you can talk about how you wish they were different, better songs.
If for some reason you don't own every song in the Rock Band library, Blitz will suggest songs for you, based on tracks you own and tracks your friends own. Also, while it is a single player game, you will have the ability to send challenges to your friends and compete on the leaderboards.
Blitz is being called "brand new" and "totally different," but it would be more appropriate to call it a return to their PS2 roots. Harmonix has already done controller rhythm games, with their first game, Frequency, and its sequel Amplitude, in 2001 and 2003, respectively. Ironically, Frequency was released on Playstation because when Harmonix pitched it to Microsoft, they were told that a music game could not succeed without custom hardware controllers.
Whether the legions of Xbox gamers feel this is true or not will be seen, when Rock Band Blitz releases this summer.
Blastoff!
Photo courtesy of G4.com
Thanks to Mcdevlin182 for the initial report.
Blitz is planned as a downloadable release through Xbox LIVE arcade and PSN, which might make you ask how you'll get the new instruments that are sure to ship with the game. The answer is... there are none.
"It's a single player game, primarily, you play all of the instruments, and use a controller instead of the plastic instrument to play it, and one of the great things about it is that it works with all the songs that we've already released, so there's over 3700 songs," said Nord in one of the longest run on sentences ever used in the video game industry.
Whoa- no instruments? A controller based rhythm game? How very Nintendo-esque of Harmonix. But not being limited by the instrument you're playing allows you to switch around from part to part mid song, depending on which track looks most fun to you, and which bonus multipliers you are charging up. From watching the gameplay, you'll also want to change tracks frequently to get special power notes, and keep a pinball in play. Yeah- a pinball bounces around as you play. It's not a blitz without a pinball, right?
Besides the 3700 songs that Harmonix is sure we all own already, Blitz will release with 25 songs of its own. These songs will be backwards compatible with Rock Band 3, if you miss banging on plastic instruments. Just like past Rock Band games, new songs will be released weekly so you can talk about how you wish they were different, better songs.
If for some reason you don't own every song in the Rock Band library, Blitz will suggest songs for you, based on tracks you own and tracks your friends own. Also, while it is a single player game, you will have the ability to send challenges to your friends and compete on the leaderboards. Blitz is being called "brand new" and "totally different," but it would be more appropriate to call it a return to their PS2 roots. Harmonix has already done controller rhythm games, with their first game, Frequency, and its sequel Amplitude, in 2001 and 2003, respectively. Ironically, Frequency was released on Playstation because when Harmonix pitched it to Microsoft, they were told that a music game could not succeed without custom hardware controllers.
Whether the legions of Xbox gamers feel this is true or not will be seen, when Rock Band Blitz releases this summer.
Blastoff!
Photo courtesy of G4.com
Thanks to Mcdevlin182 for the initial report.
(Source: http://www.g4tv.com/videos/58009/harmonix-announces-rock-band-blitz/)
Keywords: None
