“Kids these days have it easy with their plastic guitars and fancy toy drum kits. I’ll have you know that in my day, all we had was a controller! And we had to play a track per instrument! Bah…”
That was me circa 2007, when Rock Band was released.
If you’re a closet Amplitude or Frequency-head like I am, you’re going to want to keep an eye (and ear) on Rock Band Blitz when it releases this summer. Much like Rock Band World Tour, Harmonix takes us back to its roots with Blitz.
Even if you don’t have a soft spot for Harmonix’ original rhythm games, you may want to pay attention. Anyone who has any Rock Band DLC may be interested to hear that Blitz has the potential to breath new life into their songs.
Both old and new rhythm game fans may be looking forward to Rock Band Blitz this summer.
Blitz looks similar enough to Amplitude to trigger memories of trying to top my pals’ best scores in the dorms almost ten years ago, but features different controls that is a refreshing change of pace. You control a cursor that is free to move between five tracks (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums) using the shoulder buttons. Each track contains a left note and a right note, which are activated by hitting left and right on either the d-pad or right analog stick. Flicking the analog sticks to activate notes almost immediately felt natural.
The measure of any rhythm game is its ability to make the player say, “Okay. One more song,” over and over again as they fight to best their high scores. As players successfully hit notes, they can pick up an icon which the multiplier for one instrument. These multipliers are capped at a certain number until the next checkpoint is reached. The key to getting a high score is to make sure that you’ve completed enough sequences successfully so that you’ve collected enough icons for each instrument to be at their maximum multiplier by the time the cap is lifted.
Hitting as many notes as possible is also key. And since you’re playing all five tracks, it’s important to really listen to what’s happening in the song so that when you move from one track to another, your fingers know what to do. This jumping from instrument-to-instrument is one thing that I felt made Frequency and Amplitude shine because it forces the player to really pay attention to the song and anticipate what is going to happen next when you change tracks.
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Blitz sports some arcade-y power-ups which involve a bottle rocket and sonic blast which destroy sections of notes far away and nearby, respectively. The most whimsical (and most fun) power-up embeds a game of Arkanoid onto the field that only ends when you fail to keep the ball bouncing forward with your cursor. The ball takes hurdles forward and destroys notes in its path, but it also tests your greed when you have to ask yourself if you want to keep the ball going or go for a multiplier icon.
One of Blitz’ biggest draws is the fact that any exportable song from the Rock Band games that can be played on Blitz. This includes Rock Band 1, Rock Band 2, Green Day Rock Band, and all of the 3,700+ DLC songs (unfortunately, this doesn’t include the original Rock Band 3 tracks and anything from The Beatles Rock Band). Anyone who has Rock Band DLC sitting around on their hard drive will find incredible value in this as it allows you to replay that DLC in a new way on Blitz.
Rhythm game fans who didn’t want to shell out the money for Rock Band instruments will also be glad to find that any DLC can be obtained easily through Blitz’ in-game store.
When Rock Band Blitz is released on XBLA and PSN (read: affordable!), it will attract two major groups of rhythm game fans. One group consists of gamers who may be looking to go back to the Harmonix’ Frequency/Amplitude days, which didn’t include pricey investments in peripherals. The second group includes Rock Band fans who want a new way to play through their DLC. Blitz‘ strength, however, is that the gameplay may be addictive enough to satisfy both of them.
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