Plastic Instruments - The Bear and Badger

regmcfly

Both the plastic instrument games have tanked. Quelle surprise.

Tempy

Those new solos are an utter pile of shite for plenty of songs though. No nuance, very little attempt to match the tone of the song, very sad inclusion all told.

pantyfire

regmcfly wrote:

Both the plastic instrument games have tanked. Quelle surprise.

Which is such a shame because it means meh after support when it comes to new songs.

regmcfly

Yeah, I'd much rather have to actually do the solo (WHICH IM AWARE IS AN OPTION SO BACK OFF BUT YOU AVE TO PAUSE FOR EVERY SONG) than have my wiggling slight delayed and transposed to nonsense.

pantyfire

I wonder why they have both tanked?
Is it because they released at the same time again?

Would it have been better if one came out a year before the other and whetted the appetite for a different game from a different manufacturer?

Do people not like music anymore?

OMG SO MANY QUESTIONS.

Tempy

regmcfly wrote:

Yeah, I'd much rather have to actually do the solo (WHICH IM AWARE IS AN OPTION SO BACK OFF BUT YOU AVE TO PAUSE FOR EVERY SONG) than have my wiggling slight delayed and transposed to nonsense.

It's like playing a Shredz video

pantyfire

regmcfly wrote:

Yeah, I'd much rather have to actually do the solo (WHICH IM AWARE IS AN OPTION SO BACK OFF BUT YOU AVE TO PAUSE FOR EVERY SONG) than have my wiggling slight delayed and transposed to nonsense.

So hang on how does this work?
There's a new solo section is it ad-lib or scripted like in some of the old RB games?

regmcfly

That's a deep cut

regmcfly

pantyfire wrote:

regmcfly wrote:

Yeah, I'd much rather have to actually do the solo (WHICH IM AWARE IS AN OPTION SO BACK OFF BUT YOU AVE TO PAUSE FOR EVERY SONG) than have my wiggling slight delayed and transposed to nonsense.

So hang on how does this work?
There's a new solo section is it ad-lib or scripted like in some of the old RB games?

There's a wee mad solo section that's like the old drum fills where you go to town and it kind of transposes it into the right key. It's a bit wank

pantyfire

Oh, that sounds a bit pants.
I dont play these games to be creative or musically leaning.
I guess if I was i'd play a guitar and do it for realz.

Is it on every song?
If so fuck that noise.

regmcfly

Also mind how they changed the drum fills because they realised people WANTED TO PlAY THE SONG

pantyfire

Yeh, its instrument karaoke not a personal recital.

regmcfly

pantyfire wrote:

Oh, that sounds a bit pants.
I dont play these games to be creative or musically leaning.
I guess if I was i'd play a guitar and do it for realz.

Is it on every song?
If so fuck that noise.

The actual solo is still there but you have to pause at the start of EVERY INDIVIDUAL SONG and select it from the pause screen. There's no main option to say "just gimme the actual songs"

Tempy

pantyfire wrote:

Oh, that sounds a bit pants. I dont play these games to be creative or musically leaning. I guess if I was i'd play a guitar and do it for realz. Is it on every song? If so fuck that noise.

You can turn it off. It has its place: songs that are big hair metal stompers are great, trying to get it to work for Friday I'm In Love by The Cure or Birth in Reverse by St. Vincent is just a recipe for disaster, the style just changes massively and it feels awful. The thought process behind it is sound: solos are rarely played the same twice, but that doesn't mean guitarists just throw out the book and play something that totally ignores the structure and tone of the song. When they're on point, they're on point. When they're off point, it's fuck awful. But, as said, you can turn 'em off.

The issue is that you have to pause to swap between it as H says, you can't just select it alongside the difficulty, which would make so much more sense. One extra option before locking in the song, or having to pause at the opening because you've swapped to a song you want to actually nail the solo for.

pantyfire

Yeesh.

Skerret

Er, you can switch it off for all songs in the options. We're talking about RB4 right? I did the solo tute and once you learned how to play em proper I could see it being ok. I've turned it off for now cos I want to play the actual solo for Can I Borrow a Feelin'.

Diluted Dante

I would disagree, I like them a lot, but then I'm mainly playing the big hair metal stompers et al. I'll let you know how it works or not for Miley.

pantyfire wrote:

I get that RB has new solos added to it but you dont know how different GH is until you play it now. It's the same old rhythm game like RB but its so very, very different at the same time. So glad I bought it.

I'm not knocking GH here - I know that it's a very different game. But I was under the impression that RB 4 was RB 3 on an Xbox One. It isn't.

Little changes I like as well - counting you in, even during breaks in songs.

Diluted Dante

Skerret wrote:

Er, you can switch it off for all songs in the options.

Aye, when not in a song, press start on the guitar to pull up the menu tab. Down to Options, and you'll be able to switch off freestyle solos in there. This also has lefty flip, breakneck speed and no fail in here.

I think Tempy wants to be able to set it for individual songs though, rather than a binary on/off which makes sense from what he's said.

Skerret

Ah. I wondered that but then H went off half cocked and I opted for sledgehammers.

regmcfly

Shiiittttt boys colour me unawares. My brief time with it involved turning it off each song.

nick_md

Diluted Dante wrote:

Ok, having now played it, to say RB4 is just more of the same is bollocks. New solos are gamechangers.

You have a low threshold for 'gamechanging' it seems.

Granted I haven't played RB4, but if it's substantially different from 3 then my eyes are lying to me when watching youtube, and every review I've read is way off the mark.

It looks fun and as good as ever, to reiterate, but gamechanging? C'mon man.

@Skondo - If you're still on the fence maybe consider that RB is likely to have the best chance of survival in terms of long-term support. GHL is made by the same studio who did DJH, which whilst similarly well received didn't register more than a blip. As much as I'm enjoying the new approach in GHL I wouldn't be surprised if it went the same way.

In terms of why both have under-performed in sales, I dunno. I think perhaps a lot of GH's traditional fanbase are put off by the lack of grrr metal (even though there is ample), the omission of practice mode and the reliance on the GHTV format, rather than free-plays. Plus yeah you have to relearn to play.

For RB, to hazard a guess, I'd say it's simply that it's a party game for a lot of people, the general crowd seems more casual, and they're less inclined to jump onto a new release quickly.

Tempy

Diluted Dante wrote:

I think Tempy wants to be able to set it for individual songs though, rather than a binary on/off which makes sense from what he's said.

I feel it would just be easier to select it when you select your difficulty, because pause doesn't work when you're playing with friends, hotswapping instruments etc. Same issue with fills on drums as well. People prefer different styles but you either have to remember to change it on the menus or in the song rather than having it an on/off in the song select. Makes most sense for me because then you can't really forget it if you were drinking or whatever during the selection process.

pantyfire

regmcfly wrote:

Shiiittttt boys colour me unawares. My brief time with it involved turning it off each song.

Muppet.

Skondo

Cheers chaps. I'm leaning towards Rock Band, but that's mainly because of some of the available songs. Disappointed that The Cult's presence is so poor in both games.

Diluted Dante

Skondo wrote:

Cheers chaps. I'm leaning towards Rock Band, but that's mainly because of some of the available songs. Disappointed that The Cult's presence is so poor in both games.

Aye, I couldn't hammer buy soon enough when they put She Sells Sanctuary up.

In other news, that I've waited nearly a decade to be able to do, I just scored points for both guitar and vocals on the same song. You are probably sat there going 'so?', but you have no idea how much this has irritated me since RB1.

I'm also going to have to keep Mad Catz afloat by purchasing a new guitar I think, as the old RB wired ones don't work, and the GH lower touch things aren't recognised.

Diluted Dante

Don't bother with the legacy instruments on Xbox one - waste of fucking time. You can only sign in with one profile.

Create a character has been gutted as well.

Excitement levels rapidly dropping.

Skerret

Is SSS available? Couldn't find it in the store. These things will hopefully reappear in updates, practice mode will return. If they don't go out of business first.

Diluted Dante

What's sss?

Skerret

She Sells Sanctuary. Sorry, tendency to acronymise.

Diluted Dante

It should be, doesn't appear on the list of de-listed songs I found.

Apparantly Harmonix were 'surprised' with the level of importance people placed on character customisation. They sent out some surveys close to launch about the game, and character customisation consistently came either at, or near the the top of people's lists.

It seems I'm not the only one who has had the same character throughout every game, and this caused quite a backlash.

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