Guitar Hero: Rock Opera

[SFR]

I can almost say with 100 percent certainty that if someone made a game like this and you reviewed it, Yatzee, you'd absolutely hate it. Seriously. It contains a bunch of things you've said you disliked in the past... what be up with dat?

I AM TYPING IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!

YOUR VALUED EMPLOYEE BEN "YAHTZEE" CROWSHAW IS OBVIOUSLY FEVERISH AND DELUSIONAL!!! HE HAS SUGGESTED MAKING AN ENTIRE GAME OUT OF WHAT AMOUNTS TO GUITAR HERO BASED QUICKTIME EVENTS!!!

AS THE GOLDEN GOOSE WHO SUPPORTS THE ESCAPIST, YOU SHOULD GO MAKE SURE HE'S WELL. IF HIS BRAIN IS BEING HELD PRISONER ON PLUTO BY ALIENS, PAY THE RANSOM! PLEASE! WE NEED ZERO PUNCTUATION EVERY WEEK TO AVOID HORRID AND POTENTIALLY LETHAL WITHDRAWAL... NOT THAT WE'RE ADDICTS OR ANYTHING!!!

Hopefully that will get attention. Don't worry Yahtzee, I suspect paramedics are on their way right now. If not I'm sure the management on The Escapist will be sending someone with the ransom. I hear the natives of Pluto highly value those old weeble-wobble toys from the 1960s.

Besides I can't write a message in all caps non-stop, I just don't have it in me.

See here? Yeah, he seems to agree.

 

[Heirel]

I admit I wouldn't buy it. But I'm a stickler. I'm not going to suck up, the game sounds good but it's not amazing. Sure, it would be great for people who bought guitar games and became rather good at them, but those who never spent the time to achieve the ability to play on hard or expert levels would likely find your game at most mildly entertaining. One of the appeals of the rhythm games was that their drastic difference in difficulty levels allowed players of even minimal skill to have fun feeling like they had some semblance of talent. Your game would make players who couldn't work past medium feel like they were being pandered to. Sure, they could play songs on 2 keys, but that's even less than the people who could play easy mode on guitar games. I think the boss combat would be better arranged such that the motion sensor would allow the player to jump out of the way of the boss rather than taking up some of the fret buttons with this function. I understand this comes dangerously close to "quick-time" events which are admittedly deplorable, but it would allow your players to play on their actual level of playing ability under all circumstances where they're given the option of playing the music.

I also think that to make the entire band feel welcome you'd have to adapt the controls such that if someone wanted to just be a drummer or just a singer they could still play the game. Not everyone plays guitar.

All-in-all a good idea though. If it was given some more developmental thought I think you could make something of this.

As for those who claim that this is already a game full of quick-time events, you obviously don't understand the difference between the entire game hinging on you hitting a button that is feverishly flashed on your screen and which in no way relates to a regular game mechanic and an established mechanic that relies on the player's hand-eye-coordination to react with quickly enough to survive.

Also to clarify, I wouldn't buy it, but I would pirate it if I already had a controller.

 

[dubious_wolf]

Don not as a general rule like rythme games why spend all that time learning to play a fake instrumnet when you could play a ral one? But this rakes it to a new and far more interesting level instead of simply pretending I could actually go around and spread the goodness of music to the opressed, the combat needs some work preferably a ranged gadget of some sort but I honestly like the boss fight mechanic idea. I'd buy it, and I don't have those pesky plastic things lying around stealing the space in my living room from my liquior cabnets.

 

[Axle_Gear]

I've seen that a few people have already mentioned Gitaroo man in this thread, but no one has really elaborated on it and how it comes close to the idea Yahtzee presented.

So, a helpful link to those of you who have never heard of this game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8-4K5Q0Zc8

Now, if your eyes didn't melt at all the bright graphics, I'll try to describe what's happening here. The first part of the song is a "charge-up" phase, which determines how much health you have for the rest of the song. After that, it goes into a back and forth of doing an 'attack' phase where you drain the enemy's health by playing the guitar, and a 'defense' phase where you must hit a button to dodge musical attacks the enemy launches at you. After the enemy's health is low enough, you go into a finale where you get rid fo the last bit of their health bar.

It's one of those rare incidences where a rhythm game has a plot and implies any kind of combat with its mechanics. At the very least, they're much more fun to watch than a couple of characters dancing aimlessly to no beat in particular, or a bunch of bars and arrows sliding towards the top of the screen.

Heck, I'd buy it, but it sounds -good-, ensuring that no one will ever do it or execute it properly.

 

[bruffterman]

i like the idea, i've had similar thoughts before. I think you need a method for attacking mobs of bad guys, being able to easily switch between them to kick their asses with your kick ass rock. I also think you want a range of special moves which would be fret conbinations you'd have to memorise that corrispond to some of the all time greatest riffs. i'd say the game some have a generic background track, with the various songs mixed in such a way as that they all work over it and allow seamless transition between them.

 

[Optimystic]

It sounds awesome, but it really is a QTE extravaganza. Maybe he really is ill?

 

[ckam]

What an interesting concept.

 

[Arcadia2000]

Damn yahtzee thats got to be the best idea since jesus grew a beard. Youve got me sold!!!

Bah, Jesus's Beard came from Chuck Norris. Everyone knows this.

But yes, I'm quite disturbed by how much fun it sounds. Let there be fun!

 

[Lady K]

Brilliant. Simply.

 

[J-Alfred]

Re-reading old Extra Punctuations, and realized I had forgotten how good of an idea this was. So I thought I would reiterate it here: this is a brilliant concept for a game, and I would love to play it. That is, as long as it has a decent soundtrack.

 

[Gilfareth]

To be honest, I really like the idea here. Sure, a lot of it will likely fail or need a bit of tweaking in development to be playable/interesting, but the idea as a whole is something that I personally would love to play around with.

I must admit, though. When I first started reading, this reminded me of an extremely cringeworthy bit of Kingdom Hearts II, where you go to the 'Little Mermaid' world.

 

[johnmurdochyes]

That sounds awesomer than sliced braid, but the title gave me an idea of playing through a rock band:beatles-esque game where you play different rock operas (like the wall, tommy, that dream theater one, etc.) and I say RB: Beatles specifically because of the psychedelic visuals that would visually add to the experience.