Neversoft, You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me
New writer, Andrew Wallace, submits this editorial on the Neversoft/Harmonix perpetual throwdown! Thanks, Andrew!
Article By: Andrew Wallace
Neversoft, you have got to be kidding me.
Anyone working on Guitar Hero: World Tour has absolutely no right to criticize Harmonix on innovation. It appears that World Tour’s director Brian Bright has forgotten who actually started the series that his company has been riding the coattails of. The name of your game is itself a rip off of the premiere game mode in Harmonix’s Rock Band.
How he was able to say this without either himself or the interviewer cracking up in hysterical laughter is beyond me. Mr. Bright just has to look back to his project’s disastrous debut, when his boss was immediately called out for both lying and copying another company’s innovation.
For some reason Tony Hawk and a drunken Paula Abdul (there is good chance that she still thinks this is the set of American Idol)
Neversoft’s gaff has brought up a larger issue to light though. Why the hell should anyone care for Guitar Hero: World Tour? I’ve read the previews, seen the few unique features of World Tour and I still don’t see the appeal. Why should anyone even remotely consider this game over the Rock Band series?
The vast majority of the features that have been announced are already present in Rock Band and will likely be advanced upon in Rock Band 2. This means that Activision is already playing catch-up in this genre. Yet there is still a great deal of faith being given to Neversoft, believing that they can make a game that has an experience even close to that of Rock Band’s.
Let’s just think about this for a second. Rock Band can easily be described as Harmonix’s magnum opus. This is a company that has made more than 13 music-oriented and rhythm games over the past decade. Most of Harmonix’s employees have substantial experience in music, many moonlighting in relatively successful bands.
On the flip side, Neversoft’s claim to fame is the Tony Hawk franchise. Now maybe I’ve been playing Tony Hawk wrong for 9 years, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t a revolutionary rhythm game. The idea that they can create a better full-band rhythm game than Rock Band on their first try is bat-shit fucking insane.
Before anyone accuses me of being a speculative cynical jerk I should let you know that this isn’t entirely speculation. Neversoft has had the chance to iterate on Harmonix’s success before. While Guitar Hero 3 is probably the best selling game in the series (it helps that it was released on every console known to man) don’t let that financial success confuse you. Most plastic axe battlers probably didn’t know or care about the developer switch until it was too late.
Guitar Hero 3 was the game that turned me off the Guitar Hero franchise for good. I was amazed at Activision and Neversoft’s ability to make a sequel to a game as profoundly simple as Guitar Hero worse than its predecessor. Sure, the game had some good songs (Cliffs of Dover, etc.) but the actual game-play just felt strange. The actual note-charts felt obnoxiously overloaded for the sake of difficulty, having you playing notes that weren’t actually there. The prime example of this is the game’s most notorious song, “Through the Fire and the Flames” the hardest part of which was actually a synth piano opening. These oversights spelt it out pretty clearly. Music wasn’t exactly Neversoft’s strong suit.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’s hard to pick out the perfect Dead Kennedys song to accompany a 720 Benihana, but that doesn’t make them qualified to tell the difference between a C sharp and their assholes. Their game lacked the appearance of any technical understanding or passion for music. While I will never argue that Guitar Hero is a substitute for actual musical talent, the note charts that are in the previous clearly were made with care. They corresponded with the notes in the actual song; their progression followed along with the musical scale, etc.
Even the new features that Neversoft brought to the table were awful and half-baked. The battle mode was just broken and un-fun. It ultimately became a contest to see who could get the first power-up to win. The single player boss battles were even worse. They felt like idiotic wars of attrition that kept you from getting to play real fucking songs. Neversoft even had the gall to take features like co-op quickplay out. Why the hell would you ever want to make a sequel have fewer features? This is one of the best examples of the stupidity that Activision nurtures.
Despite that, Guitar Hero at its core is a fun party game that plays off our wildly awesome and childish rock-star fantasies. The first two games captured that perfectly with notebook scribble menus and epic rock concert venues with animatronic zombies fighting at the Stonehenge. Guitar Hero 3 felt like it was trying to teach us about the sad reality of rock n’ roll where you will be drowned in product placements and dealing with one heroin addicted lead singer.
Lets look to the present now. World Tour is promising to have the full band experience with regular DLC featuring full albums. For now let’s ignore what Rock Band has and focus on what Activision has both promised and delivered in the past.
Prior to GH3, I remember hearing promises of regular DLC. GH3 went months without having additional content. And even when songs you wanted were added to the online catalogue, you were purchases were forced to endure Activision’s draconian bundle and pricing system. You had to buy songs in 3-packs, regardless of how shitty the other two songs were. The songs were also priced at the uncomfortable rate of 500 points for 3 songs. This comes to about $6.25US. It also helped that most of the songs were present in previous Guitar Hero games.
This record makes it quite clear about what we should expect from World Tour. A feature-lite version of a game that has been out for a year with ugly aesthetics, arbitrarily competitive game-play with an equally limited and expensive DLC catalog. But hey, there is a midi sequencer to make up for all of it.
Please don’t accuse me of actively wanting the release of a bad game. I would love to have two high-quality rhythm games to play with my friends. It’s good to want things though. Unfortunately, gamers have to be both realistic and reasonable about their expectations for the next Guitar Hero. Gamers have already tasted the fruits of Neversoft and Activision’s labor. All I’m saying is that it takes a special kind of idiot to be anxious to eat shit twice.
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Tags: guitar hero, neversoft, rock band
September 16th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Well written. I’ve ben enjoying RB2 for the past couple of days now.
September 16th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I’m not going to judge the game before it is released. I enjoyed GHIII except for the boss battles, which were terrible, and am looking forward to seeing what WT offers. This time around it’s all about the drum experience for me. It’s all I played in RB1 and I’m hooked.
The problem is the peripherals. My RB1 drums were terrible. I had to mod them like almost everyone else to get them to work and even then they weren’t perfect. With cross compatibility I’m waiting to see how the WT drums turn out before I make a purchasing decision. Either way though, I’ll still buy both games since you don’t have to buy the specific peripherals.
As a side note, it worries me that Harmonix has given exclusive rights to Madcatz to make cybal packs for the drums. They don’t have the best quality track record.
September 16th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Ive been playing Rock Band 2 since Sunday and it is by far better than RB1. The new features are real improvements. Creating a setlist so that you dont have to go back to the menu is the best feature.
I agree with Hilden. GH3 was the one that lost me. It was noticeably different than the first 2. The notes were strangely placed and seemed like you had to be exactly right in your timing in order to actually hit them. It looked like shit and the music in the beginning tier was awful.
I will probably download a demo of the new Guitar Hero but i definitely wont buy it right away.
Its a shame that the GH franchise might be driven into the ground.
September 16th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
“I agree with Hilden.”
I think you mean that you agree with Andrew Wallace, the writer of the article.
September 16th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
all this posted by Hilden: Article by Andrew Wallace stuff is confusing.
September 16th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
While I do not condone the shit talking by any means, I have to say that from what I have seen so far the GH kit and gear looks way better.
I’ve had nothing but problems with the original RB gear, enough so that I decided not to get any of the RB2 gear. Even when they were working I could never get into that RB guitars, the action on both controllers I’ve had is so squishy that it makes playing the game more frustrating than fun.
I originally purchased RB for the PS3, but I’m def getting RB2 for 360 so I can use the GH controllers I already have instead.
Will it be morally reprehensible to rent a copy of RB for the to rip the song list if I did actually already buy it for the PS3? I think not…
September 16th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Frankly, as much fun as I’ve had with these games in the past, I’m pretty much done with them. I just don’t get any thrill out of playing them anymore, unfortunately.
September 16th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
The thing I hate about the GH games now is that they have no soul. The first two Guitar Hero games were unlike anything that I had ever seen before. It doesn’t matter if Konami did it before, they didn’t do it so well. Since then, Harmonix is the only dev team that I’ve seen really capture the spirit of rock n’ roll with their games. They make their games so fun to play without feeling cheap or exploitative. They revel in the culture that they are presenting rather than parodying it, which is what everyone else has gotten wrong.
That’s why I’m not going to support another Guitar Hero game with my dollar until I can see that the same care has gone into making it, and with the recent announcement that Activision is going to try to “maximize the potential of the franchise by releasing three times as many games per year” seems to confirm that I’ll never buy another Guitar Hero game again.
September 16th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I’m kinda with John. It was fun at first but those days of complete awesome fun with these games is past for me. Sad.
September 17th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Has anyone else noticed that if you play a set in Rock Band 2 that has a song that starts off being sung by a guy followed by a song that is normally sung by a girl, the guy will sing like a girl?
I laugh everytime.
and the drum trainer freestyle mode is pretty cool.