With the recent (and expected) official announcement of Guitar Hero 4 and it’s succession of Rock Band’s extra instruments (vocals and drums), it’s clear to see that the music genre is no longer what it used to be. Merely 5 years ago, I would be hard pressed to get any one of my friends to pick up a controller and play a console music game. Then again, five years ago, there wasn’t anything quite like Guitar Hero or Rock Band.

Oh wait, yes there was.

There was a great arcade game (still is), that was even available as a Japanese import on the original Playstation, dubbed Guitar Freaks. Part of Konami’s immensely successful music games, along with Dance Dance Revolution and DrumMania, Guitar Freaks is still currently in (mostly) foreign arcades, in something like its tenth mix. The game was a little simplistic by today’s standards, with only three buttons, but I remember playing it for hours upon hours in any arcade that I could find it. It had original music that was essentially just riffs (no pun intended) on pre-exisitng genres and multiple difficulty levels, and there were two guitars on the console for multiplayer battles. And this was in an arcade setting, no less, making it all the more competitive, showing off your skills with a bunch of people observing you and making comments. Those were the days.

I used to want to get a mod chip so bad for my PSX, but never did, and the sole reason for my desire was to be able to play Guitar Freaks at home. This is almost 10 years ago now. Yet another example of something completely awesome that I enthusiastically present to everybody I know, yet no one catches on until they “discover” it 7 years later.

So now, we’ve got the guitar peripheral accompanied by a microphone and what looks to be a more advanced drum kit. While much has been said about the old argument that if players were to spend as much time learning the actual instrument as they do playing the game, they could be pros by now, I don’t want to delve there. What I would like to comment on is the illusion that music games are only any good when there is some elaborate fake instrument to play it on. As an example of yet another gold mine that all of my friends passed up on when I offered, I ask you all to look no further than the greatest music games ever made, the Harmonix created Frequency and it’s superior sequel, Amplitude. Two games that, because of the success of the mainstream Rock Band and Guitar Hero series, will never see another installment nor probably ever get the recognition they deserve.

These games were amazing. They featured licensed music that was split into different tracks for the different instruments. This could range from anything like guitars to synths, from vocals to percussion. The track moved to the beat of the song like most rhythm games, with three different locations in each track to hit to keep the beat, with the L1, R1, and R2 buttons. Once you completed a certain amount of measures on one track, that track in that section of the song would become automatic, and you used the D-Pad to direct yourself to the next track, your goal being to get all the tracks going at once, and keep them going. Throw in some crazy distracting backgrounds featuring music videos and lasers, a variety of powerups, freestyle tracks, online play and a rather in depth remix mode, and you’ve got one hell of a game.

But no. Stop. I think I might need to hear The Allman Brother’s “Jessica” just ONCE more. Give me a break. Either smash your Rock Band drum kit and go play real drums, or go buy Amplitude. Seriously. I saw it in the $9.99 and under bin in Gamestop. Five dollars. It’s a shame.

For other awesome music games you probably missed, see also:

-Gitaroo Man
-Donkey Konga (yes, it’s sweet)
-Taiko Drum Master
-Rez

-Joey Esposito

Tags: Rock Band

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 7:28 pm and is filed under All, Cross Platform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.