Rock Band 4
Platform: PS4, Xbox One
Developer: Harmonix
Publisher: Harmonix
Release Date: October 6th, 2015
Author: K.D.
It’s that time again, where dusty plastic guitars leave the closet to participate in one of the world’s greatest party games (and no, we’re not talking about DDR—but close). Rock Band is back with its fourth instalment of the series, whose focus is to rock out! This addition is set to have a wide number of new features that will enhance the already popular series’ play style and story mode.
The story mode follows your group’s progression from a small-town garage band to immense show venues, giving the players the opportunity to determine what type of gigs they play next. Options will vary from corporate venues, which draw lots of money, but has the potential to be labelled as “sell-outs”, to dive bars where income isn’t as great, but band notoriety bumps significantly. Shows will consist of some pre-selected songs while others will be on-the-spot decisions the band makes during a song (in a section where a part is not playing, they can cast a vote towards the next song) or between songs. To really sell the band progression though, there is a stage performance bonus for when certain actions being met, like all group members activating overdrive at the same time happen, or when individuals successfully improvise. The avatar customization has also been updated and something to note, restrictions on gender-fixed items are now removed. Hurray for progressive equality!
“That’s not a woman, that’s a man, man!” Boy George confusing everyone since 1982.
There are some improvements with instruments. Vocalists can opt to sing with harmonies, however they can choose to improvise! As long as the singers are in-tune with each other, and somewhat harmonized, they will receive points. Guitarists (unsure as of yet whether this applies to bassists or not) have the option to activate “Freestyle Guitar Solos”. When this mode is on, solo sections of a song are replaced with suggestions of styles of playing that fit within the context of the song. Examples of that may be longer, sustained notes or quick licks, and it may even highlight particular notes/scales to use during the section. The scoring is based on how well the suggested style is matched. Lastly, for drummers, they can now count in songs! Their overdrive activation has now been changed so that there’s no separate pad to hit, a randomly-selected, predetermined fill will appear once the overdrive gauge is full. Apparently, this feature will be backwards compatible with older songs in the Rock Band library.
Let’s talk controllers. PS3 controllers (guitars, at the very least) have be confirmed to be backwards compatible with the PS4 release providing you have a particular USB dongle. Xbox users aren’t quite as lucky since their controllers were wireless, and may not be able to use their controllers. As it stands, there are two types of bundles of the game: the full rock band set (one guitar, a drum set, and a mic), or with just a guitar.
Oh, and did I mention that all of the songs in the Rock Band library are accessible in Rock Band 4? Heck yeah. So party on!
“We who are about to rock salute you”
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