'ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?' 'Not today, thanks'

If you’re reading this I’m guessing that at least once in your life, you’ve had a crack at a rhythm action music game. I’d like you to remember the first time you held that dinky little plastic guitar in your hands, and wailed on it to the computer generated crowd. You felt good, didn’t you? You felt like a mother effing rock star, and you showed them exactly how it was done on the easiest setting.

What I want to ask today is, where did that feeling go?



You know what I mean. Remember the excitement when Rock Band came out? I ventured out the day after my birthday, with a HORRIFIC hangover, to procure that box of delights. I NEEDED it. It not only had the guitars, but a drum kit and a microphone too! You knew what this meant, don’t you? KAREOKE PARTY!

Ahem.

Anyway, round our way the night wasn’t complete without a late night wail along to Don’t Stop Believin’ (before Glee ruined it forever) and the like. We maaaay have had a few complaints from the neighbours. Ah well. I’d hazard a guess that for a while, this happened in your neck of the woods too. Controllers were swapped, drum pedals were snapped, and songs were fought over. But have you got your kit out lately?

Thought not.



The whole rhythm action genre seems to have taken a huge nose dive as of late. Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock and Rock Band 3 came out last year and they sold poorly. Plastic guitars everywhere are gathering dust and it seems like no one cares anymore. What’s happening? Well, I have a few theories.

One, there seems to be a dearth of original, good tunes available on the recent titles. Back in the days of Guitar Heroes 1 and 2, they were jammed full of rock and metal classics, like I Love Rock and Roll and Killer Queen. They were instantly recognisable and ridiculously fun to play.

These days, the games are rammed full of songs that are lesser known, to put it nicely, and the (whisper it) foreign language titles. I’m not going to argue that the games are a brilliant way of giving up and coming artists a break, but we’ve got to remember that they’re mainly there to be fun. Fun? Remember that? Half the appeal of Guitar Hero and Rock Band was pretending you were Jimi Hendrix playing Woodstock, not an unknown face toiling away in an underground bar. Plus, no one can sing along to the foreign stuff if they don’t speak the language. I’m just saying.



While we’re talking about the tracklists, I need to cover the issue of overlap. There wasn’t a problem when Guitar Hero ruled the roost, because there were only a couple of titles and there was plenty of music to go around. Now though, with multiple titles and reams of downloadable tracks, the games are pretty much interchangeable. Yawn.

Another problem is the hardware issue. At first the games came with guitar controllers. That was fine, it was new and exciting, so we coughed up and rocked out in our living rooms. Then Rock Band came out, and we bought the overpriced box o’ plastic because, well, a whole band? Count us in! Then there was DJ Hero with its decks, and Rock Band 3 with the keyboard... nah, count us out, thanks. No one wants to keep shelling out with big lumps of plastic that’ll just end up taking up space in their homes.



Well, there’s the few problems I’ve got space for. If the genre wants to survive, I think it’ll have to scale back production for a while to give us all a breather. Obviously the industry saw we liked it, so went ‘HERE! HAVE MORE! LOTS MORE! GIVE US MONEY!’ And now, ladies and gents, we’re suffering from overkill.

Rock Band party tonight? Thought not.