Review – [Revisited] Rock Revolution

The ‘Revisited’ review series allows me to go back and play a game from yesterday year! Maybe I just missed it the first time round, or just didn’t finish it when I first bought it! I aim to offer a quick read as opposed to an in-depth review.

Should you go back and play this one? Or should it be left in the past…

I’ll be the first to put up my hand and admit that music games have become a little stale, but while it is very possible that you have fallen out of love with music games recently, it’s not until a game like 2008′s Rock Revolution from Konami comes along, appearing to be trapped in the past of the music rhythm genre, and you soon realise how strong the competition is in comparison. This one doesn’t deserve to share the shelf with Guitar Hero or Rock Band.

Going by this games features it might sound pretty competent, boasting 40 tracks, a full music studio, online play and a full career you would be hard pressed to knock it, that is until you compare it to a Rock Band or Guitar Hero title. Taking Rock Band, a Harmonix title from 2007, a full two years before Rock Revolution, here you have 58 tracks, vocal support as well as a huge online store with new releases every week. While I can understand that RR was definitely had a smaller budget and development cycle, the production team should have seen that there was no way that they could compete and should of instead gone in a slightly different direction, offering something new to the music genre therefore giving it more of an identity. Also, no vocals is a huge knock (not for me personally) but for the gamer’s casual friend who might not be willing to learn how to master a plastic guitar.

Stylistically, average is the perfect word. Character models are decent, only, their animations are rather limited and there is a huge lack of any type of customisation. A huge draw of Rock Band is the tools they give you to make the game your own, with a full character designer, where as well as creating your musician you also create the band and even their logo. Here you choose a generic looking character and that’s that. When you inevitably hit the stage, you will find nothing to be impressed by. Both Rock Band and Guitar Hero make a feature out of the over the top aspects of stage performances, but here you are presented with bland camera angles, stiff characters and a drummer who sometimes gets tangled up with their own drum kit.

For anyone new to this type of game, the basic premise is that you are presented with a column of continuously falling coloured symbols, and using your guitar or drum kit controller, you are tasked with hitting them by tapping the button and strumming at the same time. Higher difficulties add new colours, as well as new techniques which you need to learn if you’re going to progress including hammer ons, bull offs and the all wonderful whammy bar.

The main career is probably the best part of the game. Instead of playing through a setlist, it is split up into Albums and Shows. Each Album consists of usually 3 or 4 songs, and you have given a choice over which you play, usually featuring some objective to go with it, such as missing notes or memorising certain sections. This at least means that you are not forced to play a song you can’t stand, as you only need to complete 3 of the 6 challenges available. After 3 albums, you then perform a show at a new venue that allows you to customise a setlist of your favourite songs so far.

The songs however are another point of contention. 40 tracks sounds good on paper, but if you’ve played other recent music titles, not long into the career you will soon find a lack of anything new, as it seems that about 80% of the tracklist is recycled from a previous Rock Band or Guitar Hero title, and most of them are covers. Although none of which are terrible, it does further push this game to the sidelines as it literally offers nothing new. The track list of a music game is the first thing I look at, and there is just no way that you can reuse this many tracks from competing games.

The music studio as expected is overwhelming. I did dabble with it lightly but it wasn’t as intuitive as in other games, and seems like a feature they threw in to say ‘Hey, we have one of those to!’

You might say that I am comparing this game too much with the competition, but given how small the actual range of titles in this genre is, you can’t help but see the shortcomings from a mile off. I do give the team credit for attempting to play with the big boys, but they are better off leaving the training wheels on for a little while yet. I’d happily pick the original Guitar Hero over this one.