Band Aid
Band Hero continues Activision's shameless milking of a genre we never thought we'd get so burned out on so quickly.
Published: December 1, 2009
Quick, take a guess as to how long it's been since the first Guitar Hero[/i] game was released (no cheating, now). Five years? Six? It's been just four short years since Harmonix took the infectious peripheral-based fun of Konami's Guitar Freaks, blended it with their [game=11]FreQuency and Amplitude formula and wrapped around one of the best compilations of music we've ever seen.
Now, how many games have been released since then? Counting just the Guitar Hero entries, there have been a dozen across multiple platforms. Throw in your Rock Bands and Rock Revolution and that number grows to almost 20. 18 games in just four years, and Band Hero makes 19. Toss in DJ Hero and Guitar Hero: Van Halen[/i] and we're over the 20 game mark. No wonder music game fatigue has set in.
But it didn't have to be this way. These games, by their very nature, were designed to live on not with numbered sequels and newly-pressed discs, but to expand and grow online. I've caught more than a little flack from Sony for suggesting that all the disc-based entries into the [game=2076]SingStar franchise could be sold as song packs at the very least alongside the retail versions, so why shouldn't the same criticisms be leveled at Activision as they pump out a half-dozen new music games in the span on one year?
What makes it all so deplorable in the case of Band Hero is that there's nothing happening here that is an improvement over the genuinely progressive Guitar Hero 5. Same engine, same mechanics, less modes and a smattering of new songs. Why, then, wasn't this just sold as a download pack? The game is sold in a bundle-less version already, and if it was a rights issue, one may ask why more time/effort could have been spent on just securing those publishing rights and releasing the game, when, I dunno, there wasn't already many, many Hero games coming out this year?
Ranting aside, I honestly don't know what else to say about Band Hero. I like pop music, but the song selection here (65 of them in all, 20 less than Guitar Hero 5) is going to be the big selling point. If you're comfortable mixing Taylor Swift with Maroon 5 and No Doubt, then you'll be happily served here, but given that there were no attempts to distance this game from its progenitors in anything but name creates the inescapable feeling that, yes, this was a cash-in effort. More to the point, though, it's adding to an oversaturated market and destroying the very fanbase that gravitated to the series so much in the first place.
Released as a download pack, Band Hero could have been the stepping stone to something far greater -- a way of getting a bunch of songs aimed at a specific audience out there without adding yet another SKU to shelves. Without any of the additional content of the Metallica spin-off, this is literally clogging the retail channel with another disc that doesn't need to exist. As such, it certainly works as an additional set of Guitar Hero songs, but does far more harm to the sense of burn-out than it does widen the available audience.
Now, how many games have been released since then? Counting just the Guitar Hero entries, there have been a dozen across multiple platforms. Throw in your Rock Bands and Rock Revolution and that number grows to almost 20. 18 games in just four years, and Band Hero makes 19. Toss in DJ Hero and Guitar Hero: Van Halen[/i] and we're over the 20 game mark. No wonder music game fatigue has set in.
But it didn't have to be this way. These games, by their very nature, were designed to live on not with numbered sequels and newly-pressed discs, but to expand and grow online. I've caught more than a little flack from Sony for suggesting that all the disc-based entries into the [game=2076]SingStar franchise could be sold as song packs at the very least alongside the retail versions, so why shouldn't the same criticisms be leveled at Activision as they pump out a half-dozen new music games in the span on one year?
What makes it all so deplorable in the case of Band Hero is that there's nothing happening here that is an improvement over the genuinely progressive Guitar Hero 5. Same engine, same mechanics, less modes and a smattering of new songs. Why, then, wasn't this just sold as a download pack? The game is sold in a bundle-less version already, and if it was a rights issue, one may ask why more time/effort could have been spent on just securing those publishing rights and releasing the game, when, I dunno, there wasn't already many, many Hero games coming out this year?
Ranting aside, I honestly don't know what else to say about Band Hero. I like pop music, but the song selection here (65 of them in all, 20 less than Guitar Hero 5) is going to be the big selling point. If you're comfortable mixing Taylor Swift with Maroon 5 and No Doubt, then you'll be happily served here, but given that there were no attempts to distance this game from its progenitors in anything but name creates the inescapable feeling that, yes, this was a cash-in effort. More to the point, though, it's adding to an oversaturated market and destroying the very fanbase that gravitated to the series so much in the first place.
Released as a download pack, Band Hero could have been the stepping stone to something far greater -- a way of getting a bunch of songs aimed at a specific audience out there without adding yet another SKU to shelves. Without any of the additional content of the Metallica spin-off, this is literally clogging the retail channel with another disc that doesn't need to exist. As such, it certainly works as an additional set of Guitar Hero songs, but does far more harm to the sense of burn-out than it does widen the available audience.
