Early Morning Pontificating

Let me clarify something...

While I am eagerly anticipating Rock Band, I am doing so with an extremely cautious nature. I genuinely don't expect this to be anything more than a four-player Guitar Hero.

This caution comes from wisdom provided by of years of video game playing. Nowadays when I hear a game concept announced, the "coolness factor" is always surmounted by a sense of where it can all go so very wrong.

My trepidation towards Rock Band is only increased with each article and breaking news hype surrounding the game, because all of those press releases only focus on the track list.

I don't believe the track list can ever satisfy everyone. (Why is there no Huey Lewis, hmmmm?) Even if they put a song of every genre from every era, they'd still be too much of the "other" songs for people to groan about.

And what's the point of having so many master tracks if you're going to sing the vocals yourself?

Speaking of which, the only other singing/karaoke game I've played is Boogie, which you can hum along with and still score well. Will Rock Band be the same? And how close to the original do you need to perform? Isn't the point of being in a band and playing the song live is to vary your performance each time? Liven it up a bit? Jam? Obnoxiously throw in the name of the city you're performing in? Get the crowd to sing the words for you?

There are new features for Rock Band, of course, like making your own characters and designing your band logo... but again comes the caution when you look at Harmonix's leap between Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero 2 was adding more stats and an additional multiplayer mode. Will the tremendous jump to Rock Band be too ambitious and these new features end up as watered down versions of what they should be?

And one of my biggest concerns of all... where will I keep all this stuff? Will the Missus allow the drumset to clutter the living room between practices? How easily will the drum kit collapse for storage, and how many times can you do so before something snaps off and you'll be shelling out a hundred bucks for a replacement set?

Side note:
I went to Gamestop and asked about when they'd be getting separate wireless guitar controllers for the 360. Their book has them scheduled for February... for 80 bucks apiece. So, if you can find one, the Guitar Hero 3 bundle will run you $100, and Gamestop's current trade-in value for the game itself is $30...

My Rock Band concerns will not keep me from buying the game, of course. I have to get it to see if they manage to pull it off. We'll find out in two weeks.