Music Games

[Stiganator]

Which ones were your favorites and which ones were duds that buyers should beware?

 

[destrekor]

Guitar Hero 1 and 2.
Rock Band, and likely RB2. Have yet to play it (released already for 360), but will get it for PS3.

For older, controller-only games, definitely check out Frequency and Amplitude. They are PS2 music games made by Harmonix (makers of the first 2 Guitar Hero games and the Rock Band series). Damn fun games, and challenging even with only a PS2 controller!

DDR, I don't really know the various games released, but a few on the PS2 were really fun. I couldn't stand one I had played on the Xbox, just felt the arrows were thrown in strange spots.
I think I liked a couple of the 'Xtreme' mixes, but not sure. Buddies owned a couple DDR games, and I liked a few. A few I didn't like the music selection. Song preferences will mostly be the factor for the DDR games, although I'm not sure how the more recent ones play compared to the PS2 releases.

I don't like Guitar Hero 3 because the songs seem artificially harder than they need to be, note placement is chaotic and just doesn't feel like it flows compared to the previous two... but then again, when the game is the first music game developed by the developers of the Tony Hawk games, I didn't have much hope going into it. May be biased too, but I've heard many agree with the note/chart issues.

Karaoke... hell if I know. 😛 Never play singing games, and have never done the singing in Rock Band.

 

[Oyeve]

GH2, RB1, RB2. Are my favorite Guitar/music games. I disliked GH3 and GH: Aerosmith as the music was not as good as GH2 and the Aerosmith just really sucks. Its built on the GH3 engine which is trash and I only bought it for the one Cult song and Sweet Emotion. These are all 360 versions which differ from other consoles. GH2, IMO, has better songs than the PS2 version even if is only a couple of different songs. My biggest peeve is the DD sound quality in ALL of the GH games just pure plain sucks. RB1 and RB2 did a much better DD encoding than any GH game. I cant even play GH unless its on a 2.1 sound system as 5.1 is just so bad in GH.

 

[CKDragon]

Unless you absolutely have to own one of the songs in GH1 or 2, the Rock Band series makes them obsolete in my eyes.

Rent (or borrow) Rock Band 1 and export 55 of the 58 on-disc tracks for the $5 re-licensing fee. Then when you buy Rock Band 2 there will be no need for the RB1 disc unless you require "Run to the Hills", "Enter Sandman", or "Paranoid".

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
My biggest peeve is the DD sound quality in ALL of the GH games just pure plain sucks. RB1 and RB2 did a much better DD encoding than any GH game. I cant even play GH unless its on a 2.1 sound system as 5.1 is just so bad in GH.

Don't most receivers give a two-channel surround field as an option? Personally, while I think Rock Band sounds better, it's not like GH3 is THAT bad in surround mode.

 

[JE78]

I think I might be one of the few that actually enjoyed GH:Aerosmith. You'll have to really like the band to enjoy the game IMO. I have to agree also with the DD sound for the GH series compared to RB1, RB1 sounds 10 times better in 5.1

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: Oyeve
My biggest peeve is the DD sound quality in ALL of the GH games just pure plain sucks. RB1 and RB2 did a much better DD encoding than any GH game. I cant even play GH unless its on a 2.1 sound system as 5.1 is just so bad in GH.

Don't most receivers give a two-channel surround field as an option? Personally, while I think Rock Band sounds better, it's not like GH3 is THAT bad in surround mode.

Yes, thats what I have to do, switch my system into 2.1 for the GH games. And yes, GH3 is that bad in digital SS.

 

[jdport]

I liked GH:Aerosmith as well, but it's true that naturally you won't like it if you don't like Aerosmith. It didn't have the issues that the previous poster mentioned about GH3 though... the note charts were good and the Hammeron/pulloff timing wasn't wide open like in GH3. Also, I think the previous posters are overly hard on GH3. It's not as good as GH2 no doubt, but it was still a good game 🙂

All of the GH games are good with GH2 being the best, and GH:80's being the worst. Both Rock Bands are great... though you only need to bother buying rock band 2 since you can just get a RB1 rental and import the songs into rock band 2.

I only played one DDR game on the ps2.. it was pretty fun. I think it was Extreme. I was never that good at it. The Karaoke games are ok if you like to sing... not bad for a party game, but overall you'll get a lot more out of something like rock band for that type of game.

 

[Aikouka]

I have the DDR games for the 360 and they're not too bad, but they love the nickle and dime-ing as the song packs they release are already on the disc itself (as a full pack of songs is only maybe 200kb). Although, I read that some of the crazy DDR enthusiasts think the 360 DDRs are too easy, but I have fun with them. I think DDR Universe 3 is coming out soon too.

EDIT:

Yeah, it looks like DDRU3 has a 10/24 release date.

 

[Dessert Tears]

Originally posted by: destrekor
For older, controller-only games, definitely check out Frequency and Amplitude. They are PS2 music games made by Harmonix (makers of the first 2 Guitar Hero games and the Rock Band series). Damn fun games, and challenging even with only a PS2 controller!

I like these games a lot, but Frequency's required precision is pretty tight, making it unplayable with the HD scaler lag on my TV. Amplitude is more forgiving, but I haven't tried it on my current setup.

The Karaoke Revolution series plays exactly like the singing part in Rock Band. I don't think they're worth full retail considering the number of new music games available.

 

[Tiamat]

Para para paradise is the only one that I didn't really like at all. DDR, Drummania, beatmania, and guitarfreaks were pretty good.