SyndicationRock Band And Novelty In Gaming
This game is a landmark. In years to come, we will look back at this game and see that this, along with Wii Fit, became the point where it all changed.
But for the life of me, I can't see what these changes are, positive or negative.
I have no doubt in my mind that both Rock Band and Wii Fit are fun. Let's not confuse my writing with that of a negative review of these games. For me these games are the catalyst for something much more.
For anyone who doesn't know, Rock Band has the same basic music concept as Guitar Hero. Coloured bars fall from the top of the screen in time with the music, and you have to hit the corresponding colour while strumming your guitar. Except Rock Back have also added a drum kit peripheral, and a singing part, which works much the same as Sing Star for the PS2. And Wii Fit is a series of mini games, all using the Balance Board peripheral, a flat quadrangle split into four pressure sensitive areas. This is all dressed up into a miracle fitness regime, in which you can have fun and lose weight.
I'm not entirely sure why these games cause such an unsettling feeling in my stomach, but they do.
For a minor history lesson, I can tell you firstly that these types of games have been around for a very long time. The guitar peripheral concept has been around in a franchise called Guitar Mania, and so too has the idea of a drum peripheral, in Drum Mania. These are not the only, and probably not the first examples, but they are the most well known after Guitar Hero. These games were limited mostly to arcades. Western arcades have all but died, whereas in Japan these machines still prevail (there's one being used in Lost in Translation), but that's another rant for another time. The Wii Balance Board is a relatively new idea, but having its roots in the Joyboard, a peripheral released in 1982. The peripherals on offer are not a new thing, so no, it's not that that's bothering me.
Large peripherals for controlling games have been around as long as games themselves. Nintendo's Robotic Operating Buddy for example. They have always had the major problem of costing an absolute bomb, especially in the light of regular priced games. £70 on Wii Fit, or £40 on GTA IV? A full Rock Band setup is going to set you back in the region of £150. That's a heavy hit for a video game, but you can buy the different parts separately, making your wallet take a slightly less insulting blow, but a blow nonetheless. But gamers do have a large disposable income, so I don't doubt for a minute that people will pay this price, even if it leaves a slightly bitter taste in their mouths, so no, it's not that that's bothering me, either.
I think, and this is a concept very deeply rooted within my brain, like a psychiatric disorder, that these games signal the next wave of novelty gaming (pejorative). I'm not sure I see myself as a "hard-core" gamer. I don't feel the need to play games' expert modes, for example. But I will strive for 100% completion, and I will attempt to play the best possible game of Halo/Super Smash Bros./Ikaruga/Guitar Hero that I can possibly play, ever motivated towards perfection. And what I see these novelty games as, is an influx of the casual gamer. We've already had a huge influx of the casual gamer in the DS and Wii, and we can already see the repercussions of that. Shelf after shelf of movie and TV tie-in games; poorly produced bilge in the attempt to make a quick buck out of the naïve and gullible.
People had fun playing Wii Sports and Wii Play, so 3rd parties produce more compilations of sports and mini games. People enjoyed brain training, and so we have a catalogue of third party brain training software.
OK granted, it's going to be fairly hard for a third party company to create a clone of Rock Band that people will actually be stupid enough to buy; this game seems pretty contained in itself. But it will still bring a lot of new gamers to the fold, and these new gamers are eventually going to get bored of Rock Band and want another game. Off they pop down to Game (...don't get me started on Game) to buy another game, and what are they more likely to walk out with? The Orange Box? Bio Shock? No, Iron Man, or the Lost video game, because as a new gamer, the only concepts they have in their mind are from other media, and they feel more comfortable spending their cash on a concept they are aware of, than the "unheard of" Crackdown.
But I think more than this, the thing that is getting me the most exasperated, is that for video games to finally get the world-wide recognition that they have been denied for so long, we have had to rely on novelty: The Wii and DS, and games with crazy peripherals. Like a circus clown with a trumpet running up to you in the street, shouting "Video games are fun! You see, look! Su Doku!"