Inside sources in the video game industry revealed today that Rock Band 2, which is rumoured to be production though there is no confirmation from developer Harmonix, would be making a radical evolution with their new title. Instead of offering the “whole band experience” most fans have come to associate with Rock Band, Rock Band 2 will focus specifically on the guitar and leveraging celebrity recognition in order to generate sales.

According to this video game expert, the loss of drums, bass and vocals will seem insignificant when the players see the increased difficulty of the guitar charts. In an attempt to amend the criticisms that Rock Band was too easy, Harmonix will have more “jewels” (the coloured circles that tell you when to hit a note) than actual notes in the song, so even the slowest song will seem frantic and intense.

Another gameplay feature that is rumoured to be in production is a versus or “battle” mode, where players focus on ending the song as quickly as possible by making their opponents lose. Bonus points may be awarded for making your opponent fail before you get to the really good part of the song.


Put this in the rumour bin, it’s a big stretch from what we know as Rock Band today, but stranger things have happened.

Last weekend Steam had Prey on sale for 5 bucks, and like any thinking man I grabbed it. A friend of mine played and enjoyed it, but never bothered to pick it up before.I like it so far, even if the visuals are dated by now.

The characters come off pretty cheesy at the beginning, but as soon as you leave Earth (spoilers) the game hooked me. There's a heavy sense of atmosphere as you start exploring the spaceship, and for some reason I was reminded of walking around in a kennel. I guess I was wondering what the aliens would feel like hearing the constant shrieks and cries of the humans they're mysteriously slaughtering/enslaving. Also impressed with the aliens so far, nothing seems overly cliched, which goes a long way.

Here's the thing about the main hero. He's not silent, and all throughout the beginning the story has made a point of reminding you that Cherokee faith plays a big part of the story, and every time someone brings up the cherokee faith this dude growls something about it being bullshit. Fine, fair enough.

But now I'm at the part were I've fallen off a bridge to my doom. Then I woke up in a rocky canyon valley, following a spirit hawk and talking to my dead grandfather. He tells me for the 30th time that I need to embrace my cherokee faith, and here's what gets me. The dude is still calling it bullshit. Dude got a fucking bow and arrow from GOD and he's not convinced.

Seriously, at this point you need to face the facts and get on the cherokee bandwagon.

Greetings,

I know I said my first meaty post would be about the smash-bros-like trophies in Second Life created by a group a McMaster University, but I also tried to stress that I would be writing impulsively. So when I saw the picture of Guitar Hero: On Tour (Kudos for not using a DS pun like most other games), I couldn't help but think...





Will the DS version of Guitar Hero be a relative breeze for veteran players? Will the game only be as hard as the "medium" difficulty found in all previous games?




Dissecting the video doesn't give us much information. From what we can see, you stroke your stylus across the strings of the guitar, but does it matter which strings you touch? Some parts of the video give that impression but until we get our hands-on it's hard to tell by such small visuals.

One gameplay element that the video displays pretty clearly is what I can only assume is a battle-mode. The guy's guitar bursts into flames, and as he blows into the microphone (presumably to put them out, and not just because he likes looking like a wanker) he looks at her with a "you're going to get it when we get home woman" look in his eye. Frankly I totally disliked the battle mode in Guitar Hero 3 and seeing this makes me weep.

I'm going to wait for them to announce a price before I let my panties twist. I loved Guitar Hero 1 and 2, liked guitar hero 3, but I've moved on to Rock Band; my devotion to GH isn't strong enough to drop more than 50 bucks for a DS version.

PS, 1000 shout outs to power-glove for pointing out the easily visible buttons that I blindly could not find. Thanks!

Hi Destructoid,

I hate writing introductions about myself, they always seem forced and what sounds at the time like a funny way of describing your quirky personality often turns out to sound stupid, clich� and unimaginative later on. I'm not sure if simply talking about this problem is clich�, but it's certainly not as stupid. I suppose it's unimaginative. Fuck you.

Anyway, My name is Bob Forbes but on the internets I go by The Borbes. I'm a 23 year old fledgling game journalist in Toronto. I say fledgling because though I technically meet the criteria of the title (not hard), I'm not actually getting paid to do it yet. But I enjoy it, and I'm always looking for more opportunities. I'm not sure why I didn't join Destructoid before, but last night I was hit by inspiration.

I was wandering around in Second Life (how many horror stories start this way?) when I stumbled upon this:

Kinda reminds you of Smash Bros, with all the trophies eh? That's a tease. My first meaty post that you can sink your teeth into will be all about the second life trophies I found, where they came from and what's their deal.

So, there you go, that's my deal. Say hi if you want, oh, and someone needs to send me the TF2 server info.