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Game Informer Exclusive Bonanza Part 2: Rock Band

Lips have been pretty tightly sealed over at Harmonix regarding Rock Band, the most incredibly complex music game in the history of music games, but they absolutely let loose in this interview.

First, lets get some track announcements out of the way. These are all original recordings, as it's expected most of the tracks in Rock Band will be:

• Weezer - Say It Ain't So
• Black Sabbath - Paranoid
• The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again
• Nirvana - In Bloom

Not a ton of tracks, but hey, it's a nice strong start. If you don't like 'em, Harmonix have currently got a form up on the official Rock Band website where you can submit song suggestions.

Right, on to the real goods from the article:

Basic Gameplay & User Interface

• Single Player is going to be split into "campaigns", so you'll be able to play through different difficulties of the core songs (I say core, since they're shooting for a ton of ongoing downloadable content) as a Guitarist, Bassist, Vocalist and Drummer, in whatever order you want.
• The UI isn't totally nailed down, but the basic layout for four-player is Guitar on the left, Bass on the right, Drums in the middle, Vocals across the top. I swear I predicted this at some point. Since all this stuff fills the screen, the visual "fretboard" is now transparent, so you can see what's going on in the background. I'm not entirely sure this is a good idea, but whatever.

Massive Customization

• Rather than just letting you pick from a set number of characters, Rock Band is going to let you make your own, buy clothes, guitars, etc from the in-game shop (with in-game money, we hope). You'll also be able to pick what kind of animations they follow, which will determine how they dance around on stage while you rock out.
• In addition to naming your band, you'll be able to make your own logo. I'm not entirely certain how this will work, though, as the 360 and PS3 aren't exactly high quality graphics design environments.

Multiplayer

• There will be full four player support for both PS3 and 360, online and off, and in any combination thereof. So if you've got a local guitarist and a vocalist, you can go online to find your bassist and drummer.
• In Co-op multiplayer, one person failing isn't the end of the game. They just get greyed out, and they stop playing. If any other player gets and uses star power, though, failed players will pop back in and get another chance.
• Also in Co-op mode, if no one fails, you'll all be rewarded with some manner of free-form jam session at the end of a track.
• Players will be able to independently pick their difficulty level, just like in Guitar Hero 2.

Guitar / Bass Stuff

• While your Guitar Hero II Explorer guitar will work fine, Harmonix has some new stuff planned for the Rock Band axes. For starters, new buttons. Your 5 standard fret buttons are still there as they always have been, but down near the base of the guitar's neck are five additional smaller buttons specifically made for wailing on solos. These new solo-mode buttons will purely work with hammer-on/pull-offs, but will go a step further, by not requiring any strumming at all. But again, they'll only work during solos.
• The new guitars will also have a 5-way knob for special audio effects, which you'll be able to buy in the in-game stores. Stuff like reverb, echo, chorus, flange, etc.
• Whammy bar and tilt-controls are both being carried over from Guitar Hero.

Vocal Stuff

• Harmonix has souped up their Karaoke system from Karaoke Revolution, so now it's more precise than just checking pitch and word length. Now it looks to match specific phonemes, rather than just words, resulting in a much finer grain detail when it comes to scoring. How tightly it judges you will be what changes between difficulties.
• The 360 headset won't be permitted, as it doesn't provide enough range to really work as a microphone. Instead, there'll be a Rock Band-branded USB Mic, and other generic USB mics might work as replacements.
• Vocalists won't have to feel left out during epic solos, as the mic can double as a tambourine (or, as I personally hope, a cowbell).
• Star Power for vocalists will work similar to how it does for Guitarists, though it will be auto-activated. If you nail a tough segment, it'll trigger a "free-form" mode. Do well in "free-form" and your star power will start.

Drum Stuff

• The Drum peripheral is apparently still not finalized, but from what they've got now it seems pretty damn complex. What they have right now consists of four pads, a kickpedal pedal, an optional stand, sticks and everything. The left pad will always be snare drum, while the others will be cymbals or toms based on what the song calls for.
• Star Power for drums sounds similar to how it is for vocals. Do something difficult and you get to do a free-form solo. Do well in your solo, start off star power.
• It's going to be hard. Both Hard and Expert difficulties are supposedly going to be very close to how you'd actually play the drums for those songs.

So . . wow. That's a ton of stuff. And the actual article has pictures, too, which of course we aren't able to republish because magazines get testy about things like that. The really big questions are still left unanswered. Specifically, "When?", "How Much?" and "No seriously, how much is this going to set me back?"

Rock Band is still somehow on track for a late 2007 release. I'm not entirely sure how that's possible, since the hardware isn't finalized yet, the UI isn't finalized yet, and they're still taking suggestions for songs, but hey, Harmonix hasn't missed a release date thus far, and they don't really seem very phased by the absolute epic scale of this game, so maybe they can really pull it off.

Source: Game Informer, by way of NeoGAF.

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