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Rock Band 2

While everyone loves strumming the bass or wailing on lead guitar while someone else screams into the mic, users frequently criticized the drums in the original Rock Band. As fun as they are, they’re too simple, not realistic enough and way too loud (not in a good way). But drums in music games like Rock Band pose a unique problem for developers: They can’t make them too complicated—no one would want to play except professional drummers—but developers need to find a way to make them more similar to the real thing.


Guitar Hero: World Tour

ActiVision isn’t an official presenter at E3 this year. Instead, the company unveiled Guitar Hero World Tour, Guitar Hero’s foray into full-band gaming, at an over-the-top press conference in downtown L.A. Tuesday night. Although we didn’t get an close-up look at the instruments, it seems like GHWT doesn’t cut corners. Its drum kit features five pads—three on the main level and two at cymbal height—and a bass kick pedal. Drum pads are also speed-sensitive, meaning harder strikes sound louder.

But GHWT couldn’t ignore its roots; the guitar got a makeover too. The neck features a touch-sensitive slide bar (though we’re not sure when exactly you’re supposed to use it), and is supposed to be more responsive as well.

Rock Revolution

Before Guitar Hero and Rock Band existed, Konami was in the rhythm games business. In 1999, the label released its DrumMania and GuitarFreaks games, and the next year it added Keyboard Mania to the list. Their first Karaoke Revolution game was published in 2003, so you’d think Konami be on top of its game in this genre. But it missed the boat—the company never combined drums, guitar and voice into a single title. The upcoming Rock Revolution comes close, although without vocals (the game’s just lead guitar, bass and drums), it’s still not 100 percent there.

The 6-pad, 1 bass pedal Rock Revolution drum set looks a lot like the DrumMania kit. Actually, with elevated cymbals and more realistic spacing, the old DrumMania setup is more realistic than the new one. The version we played was just a demo, but from what we saw, the game doesn’t hold a candle to the original Rock Band or Guitar Hero, let alone to World Tour or RB2. The interface is messy and not as intuitive (for example, it doesn’t use a line for the bass pedal, but just a different colored symbol so there’s nothing to alert you that you’re about to be using your foot)—and there are no vocals in RR, just guitar, bass and drums (though the DS version may add that option).


Below, watch a hands-on of us playing Rock Revolution with The Killers’ “Somebody Told Me”—hardly a jumping, head-banging and improvising experience.