Jammin With You‏

I’m a bit late to the party, but have you taken a look at both the new Rock Band 4 and Guitar Hero Live? I’ve seen a few videos and I’m tempted to start playing again. The problem here is which game will steal my money?

I’ve seen a couple of videos on IGN and GameSpot, and my feelings are that Rock Band 4 will stay the course and be more of the same we’ve seen in the past. On the other hand, Guitar Hero Live is making some major changes to refresh the genre. The real question is which one will appeal to more people?

What united both series previously is now what will be dividing the two in their new iterations: the hardware. The controllers vary greatly from each other. Take a look at the Rock Band 4 hardware and it’s generally unchanged. It’s all the same layout for all their controllers. Looking at Guitar Hero Live, you’ll notice that it’s not the same 5-button layout for the guitar. Instead, it’s 6 buttons split on 2 strings (if you can imagine that they’re strings). Oh yeah, no more drums nor mic on Guitar Hero Live.

We haven’t seen any live gameplay of Rock Band 4 as of writing this, but we can however comment on how different Guitar Hero Live’s gameplay looks like. Instead of cartoony characters, we have live video and the game is presented as if it was in first person.  It’s a creative change that I think will immerse the player much more than ever before. This, plus the new hardware seems to tell us that Guitar Hero is truly trying to stick out as a fresh take on the genre.

I’m going out on a limb here, but given the fact that all the Rock Band 4 hardware will remain the same, I’m willing to bet that this will also translate over to the gameplay. Bah, what does it matter anyway? You’re barely ever going to focus on the animations in the background since you’ll be playing the game, concentrating on which note to hit.

So Guitar Hero Live looks new and interesting, but it requires new hardware and will not include gameplay on other instruments (drums or mic). On the other hand, Rock Band 4 will be iterating on the same type of gameplay and hardware, so you won’t necessarily need to buy new guitars and drums. With all that being said, I’d personally choose Guitar Hero Live, but in an age where couch co-op is making a small comeback in indie games, I’m thinking the vast majority of consumers would rather dust off their old Rock Band controllers and jam with their buddies.