I don't have the space or time to play Rock Revolution, Guitar Hero IV and Rock Band 2. I can only choose one and Rock Band has my attention. It's all about the songs.

/P.S Guitar Hero 3 note charts are garbage.

My brain hurts. So, Guitar Hero rips off Konami, Rock Band rips off Guitar Hero and Konami rips off Rock Band?

Ow.

I need something cold... refreshing... possibly brewed in the heart of the rockies...

someone help me out here.

Oh hey, Konami woke up?
Kinda sounds similar to what they did with DDR Supernova.

I wonder if they will incorporate some of their Drummania/GuitarFreak tracks.

yeah trucker hats and staged gaytar antics are awesome...way to go Konami...way to go back in time...all they need to do is add a few white belted / girl panted characters. sweet!

i think i like the 2d vertical approach to the note chart better. i used to play pop n music at the arcade sometimes, so i got used to it. for some reason, i find guitar hero 2 & 3 make me slightly dizzy following each song. it fades away in a matter of seconds, but it never happened in pop n music or guitar freaks. then again, neither of those games had good enough music to keep me playing beyond 1 or 2 songs.

Actually quiet drums?

...you have my attention.

@Komrade_Kayce:

Technically, Rock Band is Guitar Hero. Harmonix made the first two GH games and then moved on to make Rock Band. Activision picked it up from there.

Ugh...not another one. Ah well...competition is the key to consumer happiness :)

So Flynn, no picture of the drumset in question?

OK Konami. Please quit faking the funk. America needs more IIDX.

@Stratovarius:

Im not going to poke you in the eye for you thinking you just told me something I didnt know.

Instead, we will share this two-four of ice cold coors light together.

When will companies learn that people don't want 50,000 fake plastic drum kits in their home.

Ugh.

I'm going to need to sell my couch so I can fit more plastic drum sets into my living room at this rate.

@Ryfael: Why is everyone on the "GH3 Note Charts Suck" bandwagon? I don't see the problem with them. Yeah the overkill use of chords (both double and triple) kinda pisses me off but they are used only when it sounds right. With the exception of Before I Forget, that bridge is awful and too god damn hard.

The game is still fun, and after playing through Rock Band on expert guitar, I don't see RB as any better in terms of note charts. Ryfael, this isn't directed to you, but just everyone who is harping on GH3...who gives a shit anyways? Is the game fun? If yes, kindly shut the hell up. If the note chart really bothers you to the point that it ruins the game, then maybe you should work on setting your priorities straight. I'll take fun game over 100% accurate note charts any day. You all should too.

@Komrade_Kayce: Samuel Adams!

Why are they building this game from the ground-up? Was it really too hard to just port over any of the million Drummania games they've already released in Japan? Makes no sense.

Nope. No more plastic drum/guitar peripherals for me. Make them compatible with Rock Band or I'm not buying it.

All these games better work with Rockband Drums =/

"They also made sure to show us who quiet the pads themselves were"

best part, and also the 2d note charting.

Looks like it'll be awesome, the drums really shine in Rock Band.

Kinda like the shine of the midday sun off the top of the rockies. The refreshing taste that one can tap into with an ice cold bottle of Coors.

Dammit...here's 3 drum kits I'm going to have in my room...I won't have room to walk!

Isn't Guitar Freaks from Konami!? So haven't they invented the whole thing?

Well, I find it cool to see a rhythm game centered on drums..

Rock Band... GHIV... And now this...

How many toy drum sets do these people expect us to have in our homes?

finally konamki coming back!!

please release beatmania here in the US as well!

Those songs are in every music game. Seriously, not interested.

While GHIV will at least sell a good amount, if for nothing else than for the guitar riffs, this will most likely do relatively poorly. Who gave this the go ahead? The market for over sized peripherals is saturated. End of story.

"Rock Revolution is mainly centered around the drumming although there will be guitar and bass available as well."

Kinda like how Guitar Hero IV is mainly centred around the guitaring but it has drums and i assume bass available as well?

Will it have beer sponsorships?

@Iceman B.: This might sound crazy, but Konami Original songs would be the only reason I'd be interested in this game. Otherwise, I'm sticking with Rock Band.

@CheckersMcGavern: BLASPHEMER!
Also, does this feel like the "MOAR BLADES" phenomenon, except with "MOAR DRUMS"? Rock band had 4, GH4 will have 3 and TWO cymbals, and Rock Revolution has a total of six? Calm down with the drums already folks.

@Stratovarius: technically, rock band is based off of guitar hero, which was based off of the dope nose stage of amplitude, which was the direct sequel of frequency...

but it's good that konami's finally trying to get their groove back.

Uhg this genre is really set to implode on itself. I already have 3 guitars, 1 drumset and a micrphone. I AM NOT BUYING ANYMORE PERIPHERALS! They need to standardize this stuff instead of thinking the whole, ooooh but our drum kit has an extra cymbal is enough to spend around or over $100.

@Komrade_Kayce: How did rock band rip off, guitar hero. The same people made Guitar hero 1 and 2.

I just hope this and GH4 will be released like yesterweek in Europe with a sane pricing so EA/MTV is forced to actually push the cost of Rock Band here into the regions of affordable ... and maybe forcing them to actually release the game outside the 3 countries that will get it next week... and on consoles beyond the 360...

*sigh*

And I know for sure that I will only have one of those fake plastic drum sets in my apartment... who ever caters my need in Sweden first will be my sole provider from there on. I just hope it will be Rock Band with sane pricing...

@FullyShadow: They *did* release a beatmania game in the US.

[www.konami.com]

Or do you mean that they need to release more beatmania games in the US?

This genre of gaming is about to experience some serious overkill... I thought having Rock Band AND Guitar Hero was pushing it.

The only way I'd consider this or GHIV is if this drum kit or GHIV's drum kit works with Rock Band. Then I can just sell my RB drum kit and only have 1 drum kit sitting in my living room.

I did see a few that were available on the demo which were "Blitzkrieg Bop, Detroit Rock city, We're Not Gonna Take It and All The Small Things..."

Note to Konami: When trying to set oneself apart in the suddenly saturated "full-band experience" genre, it's probably a wise idea to not release a demo in which 75% of the songs area already available in a competitor's product.

@Komrade_Kayce: "My brain hurts. So, Guitar Hero rips off Konami, Rock Band rips off Guitar Hero and Konami rips off Rock Band?"

Guitar Hero ripped off Konami. Then the guys who made Guitar Hero left to make Rock Band. Meanwhile the new Guitar Hero guys rip off Rock Band, and then Konami wakes up and cries: "Me too!"

Of course, they're spin is the 6th drum pad (as though GH's 5th weren't absurd enough).

They may have started it, but HMX pulled it all together and made it work.

@half-beast: Europe as well.

I'm also wondering if Rock Revolution is getting grouped under the BEMANI label or not.
Either way, I SO do not get this. What the FUCK is Konami thinking? They HAVE all the GuiterFreaks/Drummania games, is it so hard to adapt those to the western market?

I assume they have their reasons to make a new IP but don't they realize that this will simply appear as "a GH4/Rock Band clone"?

Someone just copied revolutiontt.org bigtime.

@half-beast: IIDX crash & burned so badly in America. I highly doubt we'll see more IIDX on this side.

We already have rock/pop music games and the few token metal songs in GH/RB aren't enough.

Put another kick pedal on that set and toss out the pop/rock, make it all metal. Metal Revolution.

@ElMuerte: With 6 pads in Konami's and 5 for GH, I highly doubt that will be the case.

And if it somehow is made compatible, I fully expect some very awkward "layouts".

Is this all we can come up with, developers? Drum kits and guitars? And the five fret keys for guitar are it? I guess Rock Band/GH did so well that a piece of that music game pie is too tempting to pass up. If this generation is known for anything, it will be known as the generation of plastic instruments. I'm going to have to devote an entire room to store all my junk at this rate.

But seriously, where is the innovation? And I don't mean gimmicky gameplay mechanics like Battle of the Bands for Wii. If we're really going to progress in the genre I think we need to change how we interact with the instruments rather than just hit the right colored circle at the right time. I was really hoping Guitar Hero IV would have stuck with the guitar only - but dug deeper into the technical guitar playing mechanic so that it was actually more like playing the real thing. Instead, we get the same experience but with drums and vocals added to the mix (a year late to the party, mind you).

I'd love to see a game devoted to the keyboard. It doesn't have to be overly complicated like the real thing if execs want it to appeal to the masses (heck, just give it one or two octaves of keys, dumb it down or whatever). At least that would be different. And it'd be much easier to make your own music that way through create a song.

I bet retailers are concerned about this too, particularly smaller shops like Gamestop. How in the world are they going to have the floor space for a third oversized music game bundle?

Oh Konami...

Now this sounds interesting. I bow to Konami for finally stepping up to the plate and showing others how it's done. I love the DrumMania symbal/tom-tom setting which GH IV obviously wanted to rip off. Konami already has a HUGE library of songs around arcades in Japan, so picking the right songs would be easy. And as a bonus I might get to download japanese songs from PSN store. Ajikan FTW.

This sounds like a great game to play with some mates and a few bottles of coors light.

@TRT-X: @steve86uk:

OW OW OW MY BRAIN.

I know who made Rock Band you chuckleheads. Rock Band still ripped off Guitar Hero the same way Guitar Hero ripped off Guitar Freaks. As in, it did not. It evolved it.

@Jakuub: How about some Samuel Jackson?
Well? How's it taste, motha fucka!?

@Nate128: "If we're really going to progress in the genre I think we need to change how we interact with the instruments rather than just hit the right colored circle at the right time."

I always viewed the next step in the genre to be the compositional side, allowing gamers to write and share their own tracks and charts. Something both Guitar Hero IV and new Rock Revolution are going to supposedly provide.

I have a feeling, though, that this is something HMX was already planning for Rock Band 2. And now that both Konami and Activision have made their annoucements, it gives HMX a chance to sit back on that feature and further tweak it based on what works and what doesn't in these two clones.

What I liked about Rock Band is the character customization and it was just more fun than GH3. The boss battles were just kind of meh. I only go back to it so I can play Tenacious D and Pearl Jam. We need some of the D on Rock Band. Like Kielbasa or Fuck Her Gently.

I'll wait for reviews of this game and I'm still not sure I'll buy it. It's gonna take a lot to make me buy another set of plastic gear.

"Me too" has never been more annoying. Or expensive.

As the Mortal Kombat announcer would say..."choose your destiny." I'm taking the Rock Band path.

and konami finally arrives to the party...

if all instruments aren't compatible with each other, it's gonna be a really ugly fight.

what someone should do is introduce a new instrument, the synthesizer.

GO KONAMI, GO!
KICKETH THINE ASS OF THE IMITATORS.