Rock Band Unplugged

[miffy495]

Going into this knowing full well that I'm one of only a few PSP owners on this forum, I'd still like to know what people think of this development. I downloaded the demo tonight, and was quite impressed with what I saw. Unfortunately, what I saw was quite minimal. While I expected a demo to only give me three or so songs (these songs are "Miss Murder" "The Middle" and "Everlong") I did not expect that each one would cut out at around the point the first verse ends. For christ's sake, they don't even let you demo a full song!

While this fact drives me crazy, I have to grudgingly admit that the game itself seems fantastic. Those of you who have played Frequency or Amplitude (which personally are two of my favorite games of the previous generation) will know exactly what to expect. This is because RB:U is simply a reskinning of those games with Rock Band trappings. And it plays brilliantly on the PSP. Taking it as the third game in that series rather than simply a portable Rock Band, I'm beginning to consider this a must-buy. When you let one track cut out, you feel bad. When you get all of them working perfectly together, it's a fantastic groove you get into. Love it. Going to have to go back and play those earlier titles for a while now.

Those who haven't played, let me explain. Frequency and Amplitude divided songs up into chunks. I believe, though I may be mistaken, that these chunks could number anywhere from 4 to 8 depending on the complexity of the songs. As the soundtrack was mostly electronic, there was often a bunch of complexity. After nailing a string of perfect hits on one track, it would play for itself for a few bars, allowing you to pan over to a different track to activate it as well. With proper timing and a little bit of strategy, one could keep the entire song running jumping back and forth from track to track. Great gameplay, and managed to keep the game from simply being that "simon says" thing that most people who don't like rhythm games often complain about. (Hi, Twmac!) A lot of the time, this is a valid complaint, so it was very cool that Frequency and Amplitude mixed in what could almost be considered a puzzle game.

Well, Rock Band Unplugged is this. Simplified to the four instruments that you know from Rock Band, which makes it a bit easier, but with those tracks being much more difficult, which throws the balance right back to where it should be. It also has Rock Band music, which is a plus. Honestly, I don't like AFI and I'm puzzled that they put that in the demo, but the RB soundtrack is definitely more hits than misses. It's really encouraging to me to see that Harmonix hasn't forgotten its roots with those two games and has even found a way to sneak out a letter to fans of the old days under the guise of Rock Band. Going to buy this. It's a matter of when.

Anyone else tried the demo? Anyone just want to talk about portable music games? Ouendan, EBA, Gitaroo Man Live, Beats, Guitar Hero On Tour, whatever? Anyone besides me wish to wax nostalgic on Frequency and Amplitude?

[SiN]

Finally, a reason to dust my PSP off! How do I get my hands on said demo? I've been looking forward to this for a while, especially because I *haven't* played Amplitude/Frequency before, but have always been intrigued by the mechanics.

Mo

[miffy495]

It's just on PSN. I updated my PSP, mostly for the hell of it, and noticed the Playstation Store was now available through it. First thing I saw was the demo.

[MonkeyWrench]

Yeah the demo is a complete prick tease, but it was enough to confirm that this will indeed rock. I can't wait to get my grubby mitts on this, it looks to be a good start to what might turn out a decent year for PSP software.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Guitar Hero World Tour looked wank, but I never played it so I can't totally slam it.

Anyone played it?