Plastic instrument band

Well its been thirty years since the death of a certain lead singer from a little known band. Who am I talking about? Its Bon Scott the more famous of the AC/DC singers so link wise I am going to get my moan on about these shitty plastic music interment based games.

(Yeah I am listening to some Scott era of AC/DC)

Yeah games like Guitar hero, Rock band, DJ Hero (less so as it trys to be different) and the other ones that I cant be arsed to remember. I do enjoy them, but I stopped buying them after the second Guitar Hero (mainly due to losing my job), but then I saw they had two coming out soon after Guitar Hero 80s and 3. Now its seems like we have at least one coming out every few months.

Its not a new concept. Oh dear me no. Its a style of game that has been going on since 1979 if you count the “Simon” hand-held as a instrument. Well thats what the Wiki says is the start, but if you ask me its not really music based. So skip forward a few years(over ten).

Then we had Konamis Guitar Freaks in the arcade witch is the first remembered one that relied upon plastic interments. Then they made Drum Mania, but these games where mostly made for the Japanese market. So along came Harmonix with there Guitar Hero. All the music fans rejoiced HERE WAS A GAME FOR US TO ROCK OUT TO! Ok so the track listing had a whole bargain bin rock compilation feel to it with songs that most of us are probably sick of hearing on lesser rock stations (yeah Im sick of Ace of Spades and Smoke on the water), people like me bought the game anyway and enjoyed it. Then about a year later the second came out. Same idea different tracks and less of the ones that get over played. Yep we all got that one as well. Then it came to Rocks the 80s Interest was wavering at this point as there was Guitar Hero 3 round the corner. In the mean time EA started on its Rock Band series of games. Yeah here was more than just a guitar here was a full band so what did Harmonix do? Made Guitar Hero World Tour. So now we had two company's basically making the same game and these “band in a box” games weren't cheap and at first weren't backwards compatible so if you wanted them both you had to buy BOTH SETS!! and at over a hundred quid each they weren't cheap. Thankfully later versions of the games rectified that, but they also in the mean time made some single band based ones like the shoddy AC/DC one that is just there live album and the over hyped band Beatles one (yeah Beatles aren't that good and by the end of Retro Rewind I was sick of hearing there songs), but by now these games had become well known (there was a stage for them at Donington), but these games required next to no musical talent to play (heck even people that made the songs tried the game and got a fail)

Now we have more than one lot as theres also Band Hero (poptastic mate), DJ Hero (Urgh JZ), Lego Rockband to name, but a few.

To put it simply there replacing Karaoke, but are more expensive if you want to keep up to date. So what now?

Well there are free versions the most well known of them is Frets On Fire that offers users the choice of what songs they want in there (No Tokyo Hotel for starters) so its play-list is all down to the user. It keeps it simple with no mass of wires connecting up to a console. Frets on Fire was originally made to be played on a keyboard, but you could wire up a PS2 Guitar to it.

So I think ill stick to the free one and playing on other peoples proper copys of the game.

So now the company's are saying that there games aren't selling as well WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? The market is so flooded that its now like the set of Water World and equally as tedious. They have said that they are not going to be making as many any more or could that be due to there running out of different well known songs?

Another point is that you cant exactly get the same effect when burning a plastic guitar while playing it and smashing it on the floor wont have the same effect as a wooden one

I did leave out some games and ill give them a mention now.

Samba De Amigo – Only well known to gamers that knew what a Dreamcast was and owned one and owned by even less.

A fun little game that gives you a pair of Maracas to shake along to the music for more info “google it” and avoid the Wii version as I hear its hit and miss

Donkey Konga – Bongos your given a pair of very robust bongos sadly every version has the same tracks on it, but ill tell you what, the games fun and satisfying after a long session on it you will feel relaxed with no stress.

These are all ones that have came out in the UK there are ones like Taiko Drum Master that are yet to come out over here so I cant pass judgement on

also there is Cool cool jam on the Neogeo pocket that from what I have been told makes full use of the consoles portability.

Of all these games out WHERE IS COWBELL HERO???

Theres one I will be good at.

Thanks for reading.