Rock Band Turns 5 Years Old! Stories From The Community

[BohemianMatt]

Started with GH3 and got addicted to the plastic guitar. Finally, I got bored with GH3 set list. Picked up RB1 to have more songs to play. Realized HMX released more songs every week (and not just incredibly hard ones). Five years later, they still do.

[GRRRUMBLE]

As a guitar player Tab never fit me well. I had to learn the end of a riff, then add a bit, then a bit more.
Rock band 3 got it right for me. I learn at great speed. I'm old now and the chord shaping isn't so good but I read finger position and attack the strings. I'm getting closer to my retirement plan of a streetcorner with a hat and guitar.

[NEBuc6]

I got hooked on rb because of TBRB but my best memory is playing rock band 2 with my daughter on Christmas. I felt like a little kid playing with his favorite toy! I played for hours and the first thing I did the next morning was to run downstairs and play some more. Thanks to all the rock band people for making me feel like I was 10 years old again!

[Lowlander2]

I didn't type out a story for the fourth anniversary simply because I was waiting for the more definitive fifth. So here we go. From the first Guitar Hero to now.

In mid-2006, the Official PlayStation magazine had a review for a little peripheral-based game. 2006? Yeah, international delays are going to be a running theme for this story. Anyway, I rented that out for one night and immediately fell in love with the experience. I'm usually interested in gimmicks (we were one of the first to line for the Wii at the end of the year) but this was something else, even at the ripe age of 13. I got GH2 for Christmas that year and that game successfully ended my Oblivion addiction (although my 360 breaking didn't help, I suppose). It was pretty much all I played for a solid year. It just completely immersed me. Which was good, because my high school experience in 2007 sucked. So many magic moments. The evolution from difficulty to difficulty providing a definitive learning curve which provided so much satisfaction. Discovering those bonus songs I kept hearing on the main menu. Buying the sick alternate costume for Izzy Sparks. And of course, the ending, where your avatar heads up into the stars with a bunch of aliens painting the sky with the letters “LIVE AND LET ROCK” as the riff to Free Bird sends it out. Guitar Hero 2 has aged in all respects, but it will never die in my heart.

Then I got Guitar Hero 3 for the PS2, and...the lack of Harmonix was just so evident. The change that pissed me off the most was Casey Lynch's low hung attire. Shamelessly appealing to the frat crowd that got them that $1 billion in sales or whatever it was. And so it went on. The charts were crap. Some of the song choices for the main and bonus setlists were obtuse (why would you have a cover of an 80s song in the bonus section!?). The boss battles. Yeah. Okay. I may have ragged on RB3 a lot, a lot, a lot, but at least Harmonix have always had enough integrity to not introduce anything as stupid as boss battles in a rhythm game. Really, in this genre, it should just be you and the song.

Or, as Harmonix marketed, you, the song AND your friends. So, as I looked at the all the previews and studied the setlist of this brave, edgy looking game, the end of 2007 rolled around and...I could not purchase Rock Band. This was the continuation of a running theme; as an Australian, we were royally screwed. So it didn't arrive in late 2007, but was slated for April/May 2008. Okay, so just in time for my birthday? Evidently not. I don't remember how I heard about this, but eventually it just kind of landed in Christmas 2008. So, along with a World Tour bundle for the 360, I got Rock Band 1 for Christmas 2008.

This game...was damn good. Again, magic moments. Unlocking that hidden South Park song. Truly trying my hand at singing Bang Camaro. Having to play the Endless Setlist over and over because I was stupid enough to not pre-emptively play Green Grass and High Tides to see how hard the chart was. Conquering the Endless Setlist is one of the proudest moments of my gaming story, simply because of how domineering the need to complete it was. The game shows its age now, with stilted animations and proportions and plain bad vocal charts, but for the time, it was a revolution, even as late as 2008.

“Cool” so I said as the delayed for Australia Guitar Hero: Metallica (yes, even the other franchise got in on the action!) approached in May of 2009. “What now?”. Rock Band 2 was out and widely available in America for a while now, and Europe got the first two entries pretty much at the same time. Us? Oh man. Ohhhh maaaaaann. “We're working on it” EA said. “It's coming” HMX said. At least I got an actual RB drum set and some DLC singles (barely worth mentioning) to tide me over.

And then I started doing a mandatory drama production in that year. This might be a real life story, but you have to understand the context as best as possible for the next release to make sense. So, the students got to pick who was who for this production, and because I was a short, uncool kid and the class was filled with the hip kids, I got shuffled to the back. I spent most of my days there hanging back in the production and lighting booth talking with a very musical friend of mine. I got filmed as a reporter for a twenty second piece to use, but everyone was screaming over me for effect, so I may as well not have been in it. And that suited me just fine, because was written not by our teacher, but by one of the Grade 11 students. The concept was that a bunch of supervillains had an idea to “pressure” this band of heroes and make them all get fed up and split with each other. The lead-up to this was forced and trite and the script was just plain poor. Keep in mind that next year, we had to read Rosencrantz and Guildernstern Are Dead. I know what a poor script looks like. And for this petty little performance, we kept getting called back after school so many times. The time wasted on this was so infuriating, I thought there couldn't possibly be anything to make it worthwhile, to remedy the pain.

So before what would turn out to be our final performance (we were heading into the qualifying performance, and really, you could have just failed us then and there), we got to shop around a mall for three hours or so. My friend went into the cinema to see District 9. I considered it, but ultimately declined. I got a few loose DS games, a 360 hard drive, some MSP. All good, but nothing compared to what would arrive next. I walk into GameTraders, walk to the 360 section.

And there it is.

It was full retail price for a game which was about a year old by this point, but I didn't care. When I bought it, I was euphoric, over the moon. I pored over the back, looking over the exquisite, delicious setlist. I lapped the visuals up before I even opened the box. It made the entire experience of feeling redundant in that bad drama production worth it. The anticipation to play it the next week, when I had all my instruments, is still unmatched to this day.

The first bit of DLC I bought was actually the Screaming For Vengeance album, because my mother was very much into Judas Priest at that point, but it may as well have been She Sells Sanctuary. And it was the perfect expansion to this incredible setlist. I played that song over and over. I have bought so much DLC to this day that I've gotten more than a few raised eyebrows, but none are more valuable to me than that song. But how did I get to the level of DLC-ness that I have achieved to date?

After buying and loving She Sells Sanctuary, I spied another single that I loved, so I bought that and played it over the night. Then I spied another the next day. Then the next day it was two. Then it was three. This cycle of two-to-three new songs a night continued for a while. I remember that one was Don't Stop Believing and one was Losing My Religion, and I think another may have been Tribute, but I couldn't tell you. Anyway, eventually, I fully hopped on board the DLC train, analysing next week's DLC and being there first day if I liked it (Queen was probably the first major release day grab). By the time I hosted a massive RB party in a local church in early 2010, I had over 300 DLC songs, which was unparalleled for the time. Or so I thought.

I got LEGO:RB for Christmas and Green Day for the following birthday (yes, I skipped Beatles. I was one of those uptight prunes who really wanted export capability. And, y'know, I wasn't too accustomed to the Beatles. I knew, like, five of the songs on the setlist), but they were just expansions to the glorious RB2 as far as I was concerned. I said once that RB2 was essentially perfect, and I stand by that. There is nothing I could have reasonably asked Harmonix to improve. Even beyond the very personal memories and experiences I have, it was just a damn well put together game in every respect. That they improved it from RB1 so much in less than a year is still crazy.

Me and Rock Band 2 had some incredible times throughout 2010, which is good, because once again, that high school year sucked. I remember that time I got Bladder of Steel in one try. ONE TRY, MOFOS! I remember getting Moving Pictures, which kickstarted my love of Rush. I remember getting the Ministry 02 pack at launch and hating it. Really, I only ever hit one real slump during that period, where I got played the game for a straight number of hours and it devolved into hitting coloured blocks at the right time. But that was very short-lived. So yes. As far as I'm concerned, Rock Band 2 is the crowning achievement of Harmonix' career.

Rock Band 3, thankfully, would be the game to end the curse of the extremely late release date. Hell, I remember looking at the EB Games site, and it was slated to release a week early! Finally, some payback, I thought! That didn't last, but at least it arrived very shortly after the US got it. For once. I actually got RB3 on the very last day of high school (exams and leaver's ceremony notwithstanding) so I guess there was some sort of metaphor in me “graduating” from one game to the next. I also ordered the keyboard, and got that just as soon as my exams were finished. The learning curve to that was exceptionally harsh, but I eventually managed.

Before I get into the nitty gritty of RB3, I just want to say how much of a genius idea the overshell was. I took RB3 to my leaver's getaway party thing, and if it weren't for that and the non-existent load time, it would not have been the huge hit that it was. That was one of the few times in my high school years that I got some real social time in, and I suppose I have RB3 to thank for that, too. I actually attended quite a few parties that year and during that period, but I was always the sober one while everyone else was getting drunk, so I wasn't terribly fond of them.

That was the absolute end of my high schools years. Now, I'm studying journalism and it 's been exciting but uneventful. Rock Band has gone from a huge portion of my youthful memories to just an enjoyable way to fill up a block of time in my day. Even while RB3 was something of a disappointment, basically due to a lack of QA (but it's a tale I've already told too many times), and even though my huge attachment to this franchise has wound down a bit, it's still something I'm forever tied to. In a lot of ways, Rock Band has been with me throughout my entire teen and young adult years. Testament to this is the fact that this story is easily the longest yet.

And while the actual playing experience has received a lot of criticism from me, I still enjoy the **** out of this game. It's still the most played game of mine this year if you ask Raptr. It also introduced me to the community at DLCQP; maligned around these parts, and they were a bit harsh at the outset, but it helped me get my internet wings. Only at the tail-end of last year did I really try to come and interact here, and we've seen how well that turned out (at least at the beginning). But that this game even has enough of a community to satisfy three full boards (this, DLCQP and ScoreHero) has to mean something. The popularity may have received a comedown in recent years, but we're not done just yet. We'll be done eventually, but not just yet.

So, I guess I'll end on this:

Rock Band. Eh, I guess I kinda like it. It has its moments, I guess.

[jibjqrkl]

Wanted to make 1 more post to give a big thank you to all RBN authors as well, for bringing a lot of great songs to rock band that I doubted would have ever made it into rockband otherwise. And for bringing some of the great songs from the older Guitar hero games to RB as well <3

I know you guys don't really make a lot of money out of this, but you're making a lot of people very happy with those songs =)

[ThatAuthoringGroup]

It's funny that I'm a 'professional' writer (comic books count damn it ), yet I'm going to try and keep this short and to the point. As someone who is paid for the amount of verbal vomit I spew onto a page this is pretty antithetical for me

Short and simple Rock Band has changed my life, and the lives of those around me that have been jamming out since the midnight launch back in 2007.

From drastically altering my tastes in music, picking up and slowly learning a real instrument, my nephews trying to get a band of their own going, making us all feel like rock stars despite any musical talent, to the rock band network and allowing me to work with awesome bands, and contribute to an awesome game.

My daughter was born on Halloween, a few weeks shy of when Rock Band was launched. So she's grown up with an appreciation for all styles of music that most children don't get exposed to, and she has an extreme love for music even at five.

To say that Rock Band is the greatest gaming franchise in the history of video games doesn't do it justice.

Because calling Rock Band a 'game' is a disservice to the experience of what it truly encompasses.

[Sayburr]

I had heard of Guitar Hero before, but the thought of playing a fake guitar didn’t really appeal to me. It wasn’t until I heard about Rock Band that I got interested, now playing fake guitar wasn’t all about one person playing along, it became about four people playing along. It just sounded like the best multiplayer game ever!

I told Alesia about how much fun I thought it would be and how it would be a great addition to our upcoming New Years party. I told her that the company plans on releasing new songs every week for the game and that The Who would be releasing an entire album. I must have done some smooth talking because on launch day she came home from work with a Rock Band bundle.

We broke the game out, set it up, and played until 3AM. We worked hard to get all of the songs unlocked, but I just couldn’t get past “Enter Sandman”… on easy… I tried and tried and tried, until I called my daughter up and got her to help me get through it. Yeah, she had played guitar hero before and was able to easily get past the song. Funny, thinking back, about how hard that was back then and how boring playing easy is now.

New Years was a hit, and the game was also. I know of five couples who ran out the next week, bought a system and a bundle so they could play at home. We would have people call us up and ask to come play. Rock Band wasn’t just a hit, it was a phenomenon.

I never expected Harmonix to actually keep their promise of new weekly DLC, especially for five frickin’ years, but they kept to their word and every week we have seen new songs released by Harmonix and now even songs being released by independent charters. Harmonix has had its own ups and downs over the past five years, but they never let the fans of the game down.

When the Halloween party came along, Hellen was nice enough to give us a shout out on the Rock Band title screen, which really took some people back. Here I was dressed up as a knight standing next to a TV with Rock Band on it saying the best Halloween party would be at Sayburr’s house… and it was... with 296 songs ready to play. There were over 100 people there that year, the house was packed and Rock Band was loud. People were amazed that one game could have so many cool songs. Being that we are all old, it was the Classic Rock that got the most love.

Harmonix, you have done an amazing job over the past five years and I thank you for all of the wonderful memories that you have provided Alesia and I. I also look forward to the future, and what it might hold.

For our Thanksgiving get together, I am betting that Dance Central will win over, but after everyone has left, I think I will sneak in a little Rock Band solo gaming just so I can relive those wonderful times.

[hmxhenry]

It kind of is.

if they had the time i'm sure they would tell all these stories on the livestream.

and i'd want to read yours <3

DEFINITELY not a competition. Everyone should post stories because they want to post stories, not in the hopes of some fleeting 5 second fame on a livestream. The livestream is fleeting, forums are forever.

[LoopyChew]

Rock Band isn't my first community, it won't be my last community, but it's always been there for me. And even five years after it started, it's probably the most passionate community I've been part of, and definitely the most passionate official community in which I've partaken.

None of my stories regarding Guitar Hero and Rock Band can really compare to the stories I've seen posted here. For me it's been a way to blow off steam and bond with friends through the power of song. I may be the biggest champion of the game as pastime in my group, but it's helped us through some hard times and some good times too. One of my friends was in a hospital after an accident for something that thankfully didn't leave any lasting physical trauma on him; when he was recovering we spent time going through World Tour (back when you couldn't solo it). By the time he was through he could manage Hard-level charts without much difficulty. If nothing else, it brightened his mood a bit.

Outside of that, it's been five years and I still play and look forward to the next weekly fix of DLC; no other game can lay that claim to fame! Thank you guys for being this ridiculously awesome, and here's to the next five years!

[Meat-Popsicle]

I used to read Wil Wheaton's blog every once in a while, it was amusing to discover that (of course!) he is not his [often annoying] character from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I remember reading about him getting Rock Band the day it came out, and he wrote about how much fun it was to stay up playing it into the wee hours with his friends. I decided right then and there that that was the life I wanted to lead too!

I was trying to find that first post and ran into this instead, he hears "Green Grass and High Tides" on the radio and (of course) flashed back to a Rock Band story.

http://wilwheaton.net/2011/03/see-th...all-ring-true/