Rock Band series (Harmonix)

From Harmonix:

THE ROCK BAND 4 LIVE GAMEPLAY WORLD PREMIERE!

Tune in to twitch.tv/ign at 3:00PM EST / Noon PST this Friday, 5/15 to catch a livestream of Rock Band 4 at IGN. This is the first time anyone will be seeing the game!

They're playing another session of RB 4 right now on the same stream. Or maybe it's the replay, I dunno.

So, any thoughts on the songs that have been revealed so far?

Didn't catch a lot of them, but the ones I've seen (Hail to the King and The Seeker) has me excited.

• Avenged Sevenfold — "Hail to the King": I don't know this song, but it looks like a blast to play, and I actually rather liked it.
• Fleetwood Mac — "You Make Loving Fun": I'm not familiar with the song, and it didn't seem like the players on the stream were either, so I can't really tell what this one is like.
• Jack White — "Lazaretto": Again, I don't know it, and neither did they, so I don't even really know what it sounds like.
• The Killers — "Somebody Told Me": Love it. Surprised it wasn't already available, actually.
• Spin Doctors — "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong": Seem like lots of fun to play.
• The Who — "The Seeker": Nice to have a song from The Who that doesn't make your fingers want to fall off by the end. :P

Oh yeah, Lazaretto. I saw that one too, forgot to mention. I actually own that album and it's a pretty good rocking track.

It's apparently going to be murder to sing. Very fast, and some of it isn't in English.

I wouldn't know, since I was watching the drum track, but they were saying that. :P

Engadget article on how Rock Band 4 started up.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/6/1/8687867/rock-band-4-preview

Some circles of the internet I frequent having been riffing this article to hell and back. And for good reason. Then again, I would expect no less from Polygon.

Rock Band for was playable at E3, and apparently they rocked the place.

So, apart from the six songs revealed so far, five other songs have been unveiled.

• Benjamin Booker - "Violent Shiver" (ie. "The Rock Band 4 Trailer Song")
• Elvis Presley - "Suspicious Minds" (!!!)
• Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars - "Uptown Funk"
• Queens of the Stone Age - "My God Is the Sun"
• Scandal - "The Warrior"

Additionally, "Everybody Talks" by Neon Trees appears in a screenshot of Rock Band 4 X Box One Page.

I... really like these. "Uptown Funk" is probably best choice for the obligatory contemporary hit song we could get, and definitely a lot better option than "Moves Like Jagger" was in RBB. "My God is the Sun" has been on my wishlist ever since I first heard the song, and "The Warrior" is one of my favourite songs from GH80's. And freaking Elvis? I thought his music would be one of those 'Obvious but impossible to licence' cases like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. Simply amazing.

edited 18th Jun '15 4:01:39 AM by Xeroop

Gamespot is about to finish their E3 stream with Rock Band.

http://www.gamespot.com/e3/gamespot-stage-day-3/

Okay, normally I like a good guitar solo, but so far these freestyle solos sound just-plain noisy.

Hey cool, they've got "I Believe in a Thing Called Love"

Wish somebody would calibrate the instruments. The Gamespot crew is failing badly (on "Somebody Told Me" of all songs)

edited 18th Jun '15 5:46:33 PM by Alucard

"I Believe in a Thing Called Love" was a DLC song for Rock Band 3, so either they're playing that old song to prove that RB 3 DLC is compatible, or that's an "RB 4 Version" that they're showing.

The lack of online play at launch has generated a great deal of ire and loss of hype among my fellow rhythm gamers that I know online.

I feel like the online-playing Rock Band community (as opposed to the Rock Band community as a whole) isn't big enough to be worth pandering to by incorporating such a thing (which has to be tons of work to implement especially on a new console.)

But yeah, this looks to be a decently solid setlist. The legacy stuff looks to be what interests me. Hopefully we won't need a code from the instruction manuals from our old Rock Band copies, like we did for the other stuff.

Anyone know if Xbox360-formatted USB sticks work with an Xbox One?

It may not be fully unveiled but it's certainly a more interesting-looking setlist than GH: Live's setlist, in my opinion.

I might dislike the GH series with a passion, but I can safely say I'd take Alter Bridge or Anthrax over Avenged Sevenfold any day.

I'm not fond of newer Ax7 myself, but after listening to "Hail to the King" I can safely say that's going to be a killer song on guitar.

Hail to the King is one of the songs I was really hoping would get in there, super glad it's going to be :D

Another batch of songs for Rock Band 4 was announced on Facebook. Here they are:

• Aeromsith - "Toys in the Attic"
• The Cure - "Friday I'm In Love"
• Dream Theater - "Metropolis, Pt. 1: The Miracle and The Sleeper"
• Foo Fighters - "The Feast and the Famine"
• Judas Priest - "Halls of Valhalla"
• Live - "All Over You"
• The Outfield - "Your Love"
• Ozzy Osbourne - "Miracle Man"
• Paramore - "Still Into You"
• St. Vincent - "Birth in Reverse"
• Van Morrison - "Brown Eyed Girl"

While not as good as the last set, there are some good choices here. Two songs off my wishlist made it. Nice to see Dream Theater again, should make some fans happy as well. Some choices feel a bit weird: out of all the Judas Priest songs we have a single from last year, and instead of something like "Hellraiser" or "Shot in the Dark", we have an Ozzy song I have never heard or heard of. I'd also picked a different song from Aerosmith and Paramore, but those two are perfectly serviceable. And I guess we can't avoid having Foo Fighters as long as they keep making music.

I'd probably be much more "meh" about this whole thing but seeing "Birth In Reverse" there just makes me so damn happy.

edited 13th Jul '15 4:01:21 PM by Xeroop

"Toys in the Attic" is one of Aerosmith's first hits (it's the title track off their breakout album), so that makes a certain amount of sense.

I listened to the Ozzy song and actually kinda liked it. Not my favourite of the bunch by any means, but it's not bad.

I don't care for Dream Theater, so...whatever.

"Friday I'm in Love" is a fantastic song and I'm happy to see it. For that matter, so is "Your Love." Really underrated.

And I will never not be happy to see a Foo Fighters song. :P

Most metalheads I've heard think Halls of Valhalla is pure gold, even on an album that's almost universally praised. Miracle Man was a solid hit when it came out, and it's been a regular on my hard rock playlist for a while.

Not a bad Aerosmith pick either.

I'm happy with this set of songs. I'm especially excited for Friday I'm In Love and Miracle Man. No strong opinions on Toys in the Attic or Brown Eyed Girl, the other two off this list that I know. Given Dream Theater's other RB songs, I'll bet Metropolis Pt. 1 will be crazy on everything, which should be lots of fun.

Brown Eyed Girl is just a lot of fun. Very sing-alongable song.

I bet that will be a popular vocal song, then. I'm not really into 60's rock of soft rock, and I'm guessing it will be super easy on drums and guitar, so I'm not very excited for it. It's probably the most high-profile song on this list, though.