There are so many different types of games that so many different types of people get most excited about at E3. In some cases, maybe a bit too excited.
Few games though have captured such a wide audience as two in particular -- Guitar Hero and Rock Band -- which is why those are the two games capturing so much of the attention at this year’s expo, even though Activision, which puts out Guitar Hero, isn't officially taking part in the show, though it did take advantage of the crowd to show off a bit of Guitar Hero World Tour.
World Tour has, like Rock Band, a full band of instruments now, in fact developers insist most of the instruments you may have from Rock Band will also work with this. Though you will probably want this new guitar that'll sport a partially touch sensitive neck.
It's the battle of the bands at the E3 gaming conference this year. Our Adam Balkin has the latest on which games are hot right now and which ones are expected to make a big splash once they hit store shelves.
“You can waa, move your hand back and forth and produce a waa effect on the note. You earn extra cash for playing certain sections that way,” said Brian Bright of Neversoft. “There's also tapping and tap sections where you can either tap down here with your fingers without strumming or actually sliding your hand back and forth on the slider bar and catching the notes.”
Guitar Hero World Tour also boasts an obscene number of new modes, including one for creating your own tracks then sharing them with friends.
Rock Band II, with a new wireless Fender Straypcsayer guitar and more durable, sensitive drums, focuses less on new hardware and more on using its extra experience with full band simulation to create a better experience for you.
“We've added a battle of the bands mode so you can compete against other bands online. We've added more stuff to our world tour mode, so it's a more realistic touring experience. We're going to have over 100 songs on Rock Band II over 500 songs on the platform so you can pick and choose and download the songs that you want,” said Dan Teasdale of Harmonix Music Systems.
Now, as much as I'd like to just leave it at that and let you choose between those two, I can't because now Konami's getting involved with Rock Revolution, which focuses more on the drums.
“We also have guitar and bass to play along with, but we really tout this as the most realistic drum experience and you'll see that within the gameplay, but also the peripheral and the way that it's designed, we actually worked with real drummers, real professionals to do the game,” said Mondona Akhavan of Konami.
You have just a few more months to decide which rock game you want to roll with. All three titles out this fall.