Game Info
GAME NAME: Rock band Blitz
DEVELOPER(S): Harmonix
PLATFORM(S): Xbox 360, PS3
GENRE(S): Music
RELEASE DATE(S): August 29th, 2012
Music games have never done much for me; they seemed highly overrated. Being a real musician, playing guitar and singing in a real rock band, I found no entertainment value in the Rock band series. I also refused to purchase and have plastic fake instruments strewn about my apartment. I loved the concept in general; jamming out to awesome rock songs and timing each note at the right second. I just didn’t see value in the way these games were built in the past. Rock band Blitz is what I’ve been wanting and waiting for, for a very long time. A no nonsense music game with strategy involved and without the lame plastic instruments. Unlike prior iterations that focused on buying the lastest tracks and begging for your money, Rock band Blitz stands out. For $14.99 you’ll get a game that focuses on high scores, challenging your friends and taking music to the extreme each time.
In regards to controls, I was skeptical at first but then I realized the intuitive nature of the gameplay involved. Rather than having instruments in your hand you use your controller in a very creative way. You use the L, R trigger and LB, RB shoulder buttons to jump to each track either on the left or right side of you. You can move your way through the drum, bass, guitar, vocal and even the keyboard track. After you get confortable with jumping between tracks to execute a note you just hit the “A” button on the Xbox 360 for the right-side note and either the D-pad or analog button for the left-side note. The awesome part is that the controller is fully customizable so if a certain setup doesn’t feel natural, you can adjust it for your comfort. There is also a nifty calibration wizard to help the latency if you are experiencing audio to visual lag issues. The great thing about this game is that you can be as casual or hardcore as you want to be, the possibilities are endless and the replay value is extremely high. You compete on a global level so there is always a score to beat either from your friends or from random strangers across the world.
A very large gameplay tweak that Harmonix has brought into Rock band Blitz is Multipliers. When you hit a number of notes on a specific track, you raise its multiplier, adding to your score. The caveat is you can only raise it so many times within a given section of a song. Once you cross a checkpoint, the max multiplier will increase giving you a new ceiling to shoot for. It may sound a bit confusing but once you get in there and give a track a play through you’ll get it pretty quickly.
Jumping into the game knowing you cannot hit every note in every track seems daunting but with added multipliers its a heck of a challenge. It really is a high intensity race to jump between tracks, balancing out all the instruments in their rankings. You’ll be screaming OMG, more vocals, more drums, and so forth. The trick is knowing when to jump to different tracks, not to stay on a vocal track or drums too long, you’ll have to master the zen-like balance between precision and strategy. Especially with multipliers in the mix you’ll hopefully find yourself subconciously choosing the right path.
In terms of graphics, Harmonix did a fantasic job with the visuals. There are plenty of vibrant colors and graphics that will satisfy your visual sweet tooth. The music is obviously the keypoint here as well, and you will not be dissapointed. There are plenty of tracks for you, your girlfriend and your roommates to enjoy as you blast through the playlist. There are also plenty of options to expand your playlist by purchasing more songs. The sweet feature of backwards compatibility expands your library as well by allowing you to enjoy Rockband songs that you may have purchased in the past.
Overall, Rock band Blitz is great and I highly recommend it. It’s perfect for a novice player and also provides that extra challenge for a hardcore player. Controls are intuitive and gameplay is very entertaining, not to mention no plastic instruments. With plenty of new features you’ll find yourself busy for hours. It’s great to challenge friends, share scores via social platorms and compare against global rankings so you know you’re competing with people all over the world. For $14.99, it comes with 25 songs in a plethora of genres so everyone’s taste will be satisfied. You just simply can’t go wrong.
Rockband Blitz at E3.
