I have a love/hate relationship with Konami, because they make a few amazing rhythm games here and there, and then just totally fuck up all the localized versions of them.

In the case of Rock Revolution, Konami doesn't seem to realize that the "band game" craze is really about an arms race of sorts: Guitar Hero brought rhythm gaming to the casual console crowd to a magnitude DDR had only flirted with; Rock Band one-upped the game by networking guitar with drums and vocals: Guitar Hero 4 looks to up the ante by releasing similar game with an arguably better drumset (ok, "objectively better"). However Rock Revolution's failure to deliver the vocals means it will necessarily fail to compete with the "big boys." The sad thing is that in a developer interview, they said they didn't include vocals "for whatever reason." No really, they thought that was an acceptable answer. Whether or not they think it will make for a better game or not, the truth is they would be able to compete much more easily by including it in the total package.

Of course, there is the silver lining of the Rock Revolution drumkit, which will have six pads and a bass pedal (oddly enough I can't find all of these pads represented in any of the screenshots so far). Also, I love that the notes are presented in overhead perspective, which is clearly superior. And yet, those are just about the only positives I see. One thing that's truly unfortunate is the absence of note judgments a la every other Bemani game ever made (ie perfect, great, etc). Not that casual audiences care, but if the devs made an effort to include just a few small things such as judgments, display mods, and higher difficulty levels, they could successfully attract both the casual and hardcore rhythm game players (beating "Through The Fire and the Flames" on expert has nothing to do with this kind of "hardcore," by the way).

So by once again failing to please both hardcore and casual players in their approach to marketing a new rhythm game to Western audiences, we'll just have to hope that the one thing we don't know about yet--the quality and difficulty of the note charts--may be able to outshine the competition. Otherwise, things look dire for Rock Revolution.

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