Rock Band Updates Galore

My enthusiasm for Rock Band has died a little bit in the last few weeks, probably due to the holidays and class starting up again. But in the last week or so, some very exciting news has come out. Let me share it with you.

It's good to see that the people at Harmonix have lived up to their promise of new songs being released every week. This honestly will keep this game going for a long time. But I was thinking: the average downloadable song goes somewhere between $0.99 and $2.99. Which isn't a terrible deal, until you start thinking about how the original disc had almost 60 songs on it (45 of the songs were ones you had heard of) that would put the original disc at about $120 of song prices alone. Obviously this is not the case, the game goes for the standard $59.99 without the peripherals. So would it be a better deal for us to wait until the next version of Rock Band with 60 more songs for 60 bucks or should we keep buying a few songs every week at a higher price. (Obviously, RB has said they won't be coming out with a new disc for a while, so it's a moot point, but I was wondering is this new way of getting songs better or worse?)

Anyways back to the fun stuff.

Like I said each week RB releases some new tracks. Sometimes you know exactly what song they are selling just by the title, other times it's not so obvious. Next time before you buy check out the Official Xbox Magazine online where they review each song right when it goes up on Live. Here is the review from the latest batch. [Update: Here are the three songs that come out tomorrow... Yay! Monkees!]

OXM doesn't just review the tracks, they also give you three free ones not available anywhere else in their latest issue. It's supposed to hit newsstands tomorrow, but I got mine on Friday night, not sure how. The three songs are Sprøde by Freezepop Rock Rebellion by Bang Shake by Count Zero. You may not know these songs but I instantly recognized Freezepop from my days of playing the grandfather of all rhythm games, Frequency. In fact Sprøde is a song from Amplitude, Frequency's sequel.

As we discussed in a previous post, the favorite instrument for some KofCer's is the drums. And while the drum set that accompanies RB is leaps and bounds above what previous peripherals were like, it's not quite as sweet as this.

This is a prototype of Ion Audio's new Rock Band drum set complete with beefier drums and some cymbals that was displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show this year. There is no release date for this set nor is there an approximate price. And while this set is pretty awesome, I am not sure if it will fit in my studio apartment. Source: Engaget Spanish.

In the meantime if you want a more realistic drum set and have an old real drum set lying around do what this guy did and turn it into a Rock Band set.

If playing the drums isn't your thing and you would like to make your guitar playing a little more realistic pick up this device from SoundTech to attach to your guitar. Here's how it works: The Windows XP and Mac compatible peripheral measures the notes being played on the guitar. After Ediface detects the real notes, it turns the sound into MIDI. With the above device, it then switches in any other alternative instrumentation much like a synthesizer. For RB/GH support, program in corresponding colors for notes — the first five frets of the top string, for example. [Source: Kotaku]

If playing the real guitar and real drums wasn't enough to make you feel like a real rocker, pick up this sweet add-on in June. GameStop's website accidentally put up the image of the Official Rock Band Stage Kit. The kit will include an interactive light and smoke stage show. I can't see how it could get much better than that... well, maybe this.

That's about it for this Monday morning.

One last non-Rock Band related video:
OMG, this is so sweet. Even though you don't go through a shark tank, this seems way better than any of the water slides at Atlantis. (Note: This could also be considered old news but I found it to be worthy of sharing, in case someone hasn't seen it yet.)