Evolution of the Music Simulator

A few years ago I decided to pick up Guitar Hero. At the time I was watching E3 and they were showing a demo of Guitar Hero 2 and I was really interested. The very next day I picked up the first game for the PS2 and immediately fell in love with the franchise. Naturally I researched who made the game and the publishers and was curious on how the series would evolve. This was a game genre that I had not been exposed to and didn't really know existed and if done correctly could really change how people viewed music and more importantly viewed gaming as a social event instead of games just being viewed as a toy created for nerds.

Harmonix's first foray into the music genre was Amplitude and Frequency which honestly I don't consider "music simulators." They felt more like games that were trying to accomplish something more and now looking back I think those goals have now been achieved and it was nice having these games as the biases, the foundation, of what was to come.

First up was the very limited but the Godfather of music games in North America, Guitar Hero, which opened the floodgates to the world that we know today. However it did not contain a single master track even though some of them were decent but most got in the way and were just bad. One interesting aspect of the game was the inclusion of multiplayer. The reason this is interesting because the game completely lacks any options, modes, and has no ingenuity in the multiplayer whatsoever. This multiplayer mode consisted of someone playing a few notes and then the other person playing the second bit of notes and so forth from there.

Just around a year later Guitar Hero 2 arrived on a white horse of Amesomeness, with a fucking capital A. The song list was a lot of fun even though only a couple of songs had a master recordings in the game. However the co-op was a lot of fun since bass was finally playable in co-op and reinforced the social aspect of the game. My friends and I played countless hours of GH2 either trying to beat each others high scores or playing co-op. And it seemed we weren't alone, the word started spreading. More people were playing the game and telling others about it.

Activision then became greedy and decided they new best. Naturally Harmonix became pissed and the two companies split creating a rivalry that is far from over. Activision took the GH franchise and gave it to Neversoft a company that will do everything that Activision tells them too. This match made in hell birthed GH3. GH3 added a lot of elements that turned this series into more of a game than an experience of playing music which is what made everyone fall in love with the series to begin with. Examples would be the addition of boss battles and silly inclusions into the multiplayer, like invisible notes or the lefty switch which had more in common with a Twisted Metal game then a music game that allowed you to experience the music that you were playing. Not to mention that the difficulty skyrocketed due to the addition notes that didn't even exist in the songs themselves.

One thing out of this there was some good. Harmonix had been learning from their own mistakes and understood what music games could be. Music has always been a form of self express, music is a social interaction and even if you are playing fake instruments its the fact that you are sharing the experience makes it all the more meaningful. This is precisely what Rock Band accomplishes. The first Rock Band focused heavily on the fact that you are playing together and playing by yourself it isn't that much fun. Mostly this is due to the fact the song choice is focused on everyone playing together and not just playing one instrument.

Music games are still transforming and right now I'm playing Rock Band 2 as if I stop I'll be raped by the hobgoblins that live in my 360. What I am scared of though is the fact that Activision is going to flood the market with Guitar Hero products that if anyone even sees another plastic guitar they'll hurl vomit so hard they'll end up on Venus. I haven't played Guitar Hero World Tour so I'll reserve judgement until I do but if Activision's business plans and Guitar Hero On Tour and 3 are any sign I don't think World Tour will be that great not to mention that I don't really like the set list.

In the end I just hope that Harmonix will be able to continue their evolution of the music genre after Harmonix makes everyone sick of it.