As many of you know, I stopped playing Guitar Hero III shortly after I bought it. I got stuck on Tenacious D’s “The Metal” on Expert, and after I became frustrated with the game’s arbitrarily difficult note charts, I bought Rock Band in mid-December. Since then, the GH III disc has not seen the inside of my PS3. Consequently, I have not spent a single penny on GH III DLC -- not even when one of my favorite bands, Muse, was put in the game.
Another British alt-rock band that I absolutely love is Coldplay, and I’ve always thought they’d be a perfect fit for Rock Band (especially because I love to belt out Chris Martin’s vocals). However, Activision has sadly beaten Harmonix/MTV Games to the punch here. According to Entertainment Weekly, Coldplay’s new single, “Violet Hill”, off of their upcoming album, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends (set for release on June 17th), will be making an appearance in Guitar Hero III (presumably). Martin, the band’s frontman, mentioned that “[‘Violet Hill’] is the first Coldplay song to be put on Guitar Hero.”
If you haven’t heard “Violet Hill” yet, it’s very good -- it’s more guitar-based, so I suppose it works in Guitar Hero. Still, just as with most songs by my favorite artists, I can’t help but lament that “Violet Hill” won’t be in Rock Band instead. There’s no price or release date mentioned, so I wonder if it’ll be released in a three-song pack with two songs I don’t want, just like most GH III DLC.
Hit the jump for thoughts on this from editors who are rabid Rock Band fans.
[via Entertainment Weekly]
Nick Chester: Harmonix/MTV Games fail AGAIN. Seriously, Coldplay is one of the biggest pop/rock bands in the world right now, and their music clearly lends itself better to Rock Band than a Guitar Hero title.
Samit Sarkar: Oh, fucking hell. I absolutely LOVE Coldplay, and they have no business being in a Guitar Hero title. Even the songs of theirs that aren’t piano-based don’t contain insane shredding. Ugh, this really pisses me off. I don't understand what Harmonix/MTV are doing, sitting on their hands like this. It's not like Coldplay is one of those bands (AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, etc.) that are stingy with their licensing; “Speed of Sound” (the first single off of their last album, X&Y) was in one of the PS2 SingStar games, and I’m pretty sure that it’s DLC for SingStar on PS3 as well. Goddammit.
Nick: It's totally frustrating. I'm wondering if Activision are just aggressively throwing cash around because they feel threatened by MTV Games. Who knows, but it sucks for fans of Rock Band.
Contest:
8:20 PM on 06.03.2008
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/obligatory Coldplay joke
You beat me to it.
*mouth waters*
Definitely won't be buying it for GH3 though.
Yeah, if they have to be in either game, they really ought to be in Rock Band. Coldplay's guitars are nothing special.
As a Coldplay fan, I could care less whether they appear in one of these games. Outside of handful of songs, they songs just don't fit in rhythm games.
I agree with Slick, I like Rock Band with friends or playing the drums. And I like Guitar Hero for the guitar, both the quality of the periph and the difficulty.
News is slow tonight
Honestly, though, yeah, the song is guitar centric but even on Hard they're going to have to fake the notes for difficulty.
P.S. I gave up getting anything done with expert on GH or RB since I probably spend 1/30th the amount of time gaming in comparison to most people here. I'm happy just mastering them on medium and doing well enough on hard.
Probably money though
Chris Martin on the other hand, what a fucking Bono-wannabe, friends of the earth, shitcunt.
Everytime he opens his mouth to "educate" the masses I just wanna fill it will a grenade.
...then go fill his wife with my cocksnot.
I like Rock Band and Guitar hero but I'm so sick of this bullshit with the songs they release. Sure some licensing is hard to aquire but I'm so tired of seeing a track pack for a band I like only to see it's lacking what I would define as the definitive songs for that band. They're all like that, not just the packs but the content too.
Foo Fighters, best song, Learn to fly? Are you shitting me? Chilli Peppers, Dani California? I thought these guys were into music, well evryone's greatest fear is going to a gig and they play a majority of their new stuff and that's what these games feel like.
You go to a gig hoping to hear all of your favourites only to witness a shitty 2 hour plug for their new album. Sure it's got some good songs on it but its just not the same, they haven't had enough time to sink into your mind like the classics.
Someone needs to sort this shit out, every new iteration of the genre gets more emo.
I'm a big Coldplay fan and I agree they don't have a place in Guitar hero. Although they do have some very interesting guitar parts, they aren't finger shredders like the other songs on guitar hero are.
I always wanted to see Shiver on Rock Band.....maybe that might still happen some day....
I can't wait for The Pixie's Doolittle to drop as DLC, but the mass appeal of something like that (which translates to "fun at parties and in groups") is questionable when compared to "dumb crap" like the new Coldplay single (which will not doubt be a huge hit).
Songs like Learn to fly and Dani california are good songs but they're not the biggest and thats what I don't understand. At first I thought it was because some songs aren't really suited to guitar hero but then you have things like Exo-Politics by Muse. Its nothing like, say, Thoughts of a Dying Athiest which is just as reptitive on the guitar but more interesting.
So I'm waffling even more but what I'm trying to say is they should aim to release 3 kinds of songs.
-Mainstream songs
-Music nerd songs
-"Hardcore" songs
Hardcore kind of ties in with music nerd songs. What I mean by hardcore is songs that present a challenge. Guitar Hero is a game after all and if you assume that around half of the audience has completed the game on Expert then they've completed some pretty hard songs. Sure you need slower songs but you need something to keep it challenging. You go from playing Raining Blood to (F)lannigans Ball and its a sharp contrast. From my experience there isn't much insanely challenging DLC.
Throw some songs in there with irregular timing! Get some more blues in there! We've only got one Stevie Ray Vaugh song in there, why not some more? Maybe some Danny Gatton. Gimme some Joe Satriani or some Steve Vai. I mean, the game is called Guitar HERO, not Session Guitarist.
I've been saying that. Activision released a Journey song already. They're ahead by one point.
Because then you'd have to sing Coldplay.
And you know what's the hardest part of singing Coldplay?
Telling your parents that you're gay.
Activision has only one piece of the mystical Escape scarab. I either missed that DLC announcement or I am really waiting for the Steve Perry vocal experience. If Activision offered up "Separate Ways" which is more (as Strong Bad would call it) "chug-chuga-chug" guitar, then I would consider picking it up. For now, I wait and give Activision half a point.