Guitar Hero 3 vs Rock Band

As a fan of music/rhythm games, I find the upcoming duel between two big-hitting publishers to have the best peripheral based music game to be quite exciting. Of course, I’m talking about Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock (Developed by Neversoft and published/distributed by Activision/Red Octane) and Rock Band (Developed by Harmonix, published/distributed by MTV Games and EA Partners.) Never in the history of video games have two similar music/rhythm games released in such close proximity - Guitar Hero 3 coming to PS2,PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 in late-October and Rock Band coming to PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime in November. My main goal here is to give both objective and subjective sides and keep prospective consumers in the loop. I’m tired of hearing information on forums that is absolutely wrong.

Features

Rock Band features up to 4 players at a time rocking out on 4 different tracks. The 4 tracks are vocals (ala Karaoke Revolution with a new phoneme detector), Drums (ala Drum Mania), Guitar and Bass (ala Guitar Hero 1/2 or Guitar Freaks). Drums/Vocals/Guitar will each have their own single player campaign, while bass will only be available in quick play modes or in multiplayer.

Rock Band will also feature full-fleshed online modes and supports a “World Tour” mode (also available in single player). Online bands will be able to be formed together to play through the campaign. The World Tour mode hasn’t been fully announced yet, but here is what we do know: The player will play gigs and earn money/fame to progress through the game across 40 different real-life venues. As the user progresses, he/she will customize his/her character with new clothing. Speaking of customization, the game also features a fleshed-out Avatar creator. The avatar creator could either by pretty bare, or very deep. Until we see more, that is up in the air.

Guitar Hero 3 is pretty similar to Guitar Hero 2. The “set-list” style of campaign returns, and the game also now features online multiplayer on the Xbox 360 and PS3 for all game modes. Wii online hasn’t been announced yet. Returning will be the Lead with Bass/Rhythm co-op.

New to the series, battle mode. This is very similar to the multiplayer versus modes in Frequency and Amplitude. Power-ups are used to hinder the opposition through a variety of ways. Some powerups double notes (makes single notes chords), breaks the whammy bar, breaks a string, or blows the amp. It is a pretty good variety and looks to make for some fun multiplayer. Also new for Guitar Hero 3 - Boss battles. These are just like the multiplayer battles except you play against the CPU. The only confirmed boss battle so far is with Slash of Guns ‘n Roses fame who is featured richly in the game.

Edge: Rock Band - It is pretty hard to justify giving GH3 an edge on features, when Rock Band will have full features for four instruments.

Track Lists

Music/Rhythm games could have all of the features users want, but without a solid track list the game will fail.

Rock Band Track list - Features 40 licensed tracks, bonus tracks not announced yet.

Guitar Hero 3 Track list - Features 70+ tracks.

Edge: Guitar Hero 3 - Right now, having almost double the amount of announced tracks and about equal quality or maybe slightly better gives GH3 the edge.

Both games will feature downloadable tracks, but only Rock Band has confirmed weekly releases with the occasional full album.

Pricing

Rock Band has no official pricing, but the game by itself (compatible with the Xplorer guitar) will retail for $60, with the bundle with the microphone, guitar and drums coming in somewhere around $200. The extra peripherals are not required to play Rock Band, but instead further the experience.

Guitar Hero 3 will be $60 for the game itself, and $100 for the bundle with a guitar.

There is no pricing on Downloadable Content yet, but Activision has proven it doesn’t care at all about price gouging.

Edge: Even - while this might sound like heresy, Rock Band gives the most possible options to users and allows the consumers to pick/choose their price. Guitar Hero 3’s full experience can still be had for about half the price of Rock Band, though.

Overall

While it definitely comes as a surprise that Guitar Hero already has another game nipping at its heels, it is also a relief. We’ve seen what happens when developers get complacent (look at Neversoft with the Tony Hawk series, or EA Sports with the Madden series). This gives developers a reason to work hard and impress consumers. What game will I buy? I’m buying both. As I said before, I’m a music/rhythm junkie. What should you buy? That is up to you. Hopefully you’ll follow news on both games and make an educated decision when the launch of each game arrives.