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Wii

Screaming is the New Blowing

by Jonathan Metts - October 29, 2008, 11:19 pm EDT
Total comments: 33

Starting with Rock Band last year, the blatant misuse of microphones in gaming has crossed over into console territory. This is a new development sin, though. Popular music games with karaoke-like gameplay are now asking players to scream into the microphone in order to activate "star power" or some equivalent. Don't get me wrong, screaming is a legitimate element of rock music, but it certainly doesn't belong in every song. Moreover, the mechanic just doesn't work very well. I'm extremely disappointed to hear that this glaring design flaw hasn't been addressed in Rock Band 2, and it seems to have been directly copied for Guitar Hero: World Tour.

When playing Rock Band with friends, I usually spend a lot of time singing; most other people seem to consider it some kind of duty that must be fulfilled until your next turn at the drums. But I like singing, and I'm happy to take care of that role. Sadly, the vocals portion of Rock Band seems to get no love from the developers, either. Putting aside my many qualms with the pitch tracking, it's completely ridiculous that there is no good way to activate star power on the microphone. Screaming sounds terrible in many songs, and sometimes it doesn't even work. Other times, loud noises in the room (a.k.a. the drums) can set off your boost by accident. Hitting the microphone in your hand, as you would for the tambourine beats, doesn't seem to work very well either. Perhaps the most effective way to activate star power is –you guessed it– blowing into the mike. Regardless of your method, it sounds horrible when the game plays the input back over your TV's speakers to everyone else.

If the point of these music games is to make you feel like you're really playing the song, why can't the developers find some way to activate the vocal score boost without totally ruining that immersion? All it would take is one small button on the microphone. These companies are willing to ship $70 guitars and $100 drum sets, but they can't be bothered to include anything other than a cheap, plain $10 USB microphone. Hell, at least give us the option to press a button on the standard game controller! MadCatz makes a premium microphone for Rock Band on Xbox 360, featuring its own D-pad and controller buttons, but these can't be used to activate star power because the game isn't programmed for that functionality.

Am I the only one bothered by the complete disregard for these games' vocal components?

Update: Since I posted this blog entry, some readers have noted in the Talkback thread that Guitar Hero: World Tour does allow you to press a button on the controller. Now we'll see if Harmonix will use the extra three months of development on the Wii version of Rock Band 2 to fix this problem.

Talkback

that Baby guyOctober 30, 2008

I'm mostly angered that Guitar Hero's Wii equipment is as expensive as the other consoles, yet has much less on the inside.  There's not much we can do about it, either, aside from going for questionable 3rd party equipment.

LarsonOctober 30, 2008

You can press a button on the Wii Remote to activate Star Power in GH:WT. Granted, that means you must hold the microphone in one hand and the Wii Remote in the other, but it does work.

StogiOctober 30, 2008

And this game is adored by all while WiiMusic is shunned by many....

ugh....

I still don't think this is a big deal. *shrugs*
If I'm singing in a video game, I'd much rather focus on singing than pressing a button. You don't have to scream either, you can tap the microphone, which is kind of like pressing a button, or you can say something.
For a while, my friends and I used to start singing other songs in the game during star power parts, or during Big Rock Endings on Rock Band.

Quote from: Stogi

And this game is adored by all while WiiMusic is shunned by many....

ugh....

It's adored because it's an amazing game.  The vocals are its weakest aspect, however.

GoldenPhoenixOctober 30, 2008

I have had ZERO problem with the screaming, in fact I found it to be kind of fun with a group of people and it worked 100% of the time for me.

Bill AurionOctober 30, 2008

This is easily avoided by not buying the crappy thing...

NinGurl69 *hugglesOctober 30, 2008

I did not buy this.

blackfootstepsOctober 30, 2008

Quote from: Silks

Quote from: Stogi

And this game is adored by all while WiiMusic is shunned by many....

ugh....

It's adored because it's an amazing game.  The vocals are its weakest aspect, however.

Why is this? Isn't it just Singstar but with good songs?

vuduOctober 30, 2008

The demo of Ninja Town used blowing and yelling to activate some special attacks.  I felt like I was back in 2006!

Quote from: blackfootsteps

Why is this? Isn't it just Singstar but with good songs?

I don't know what SingStar is about aside from singing along with videos, but Rock Band allows you to do a lot of cool stuff.  You can do vocals, guitar/bass, and drums on Easy/Medium/Hard/Expert.  And you can go online with up to four people.  And you can battle other bands online against a certain setlist.  And there's a ton of DLC.  And you can import all of the tracks from Rock Band 1, so you can potentially have something like 300 songs out of the gate.  And you can turn off the ability to fail a song, so even little Timmy or Grandma Ethel can play with you.  And you can create your own character and personalize them with clothes, tattoos, and whatnot.  And you can form a band, name the band, and even create a logo.  And if you want, you can have merchandise made featuring that band name and logo (t-shirts, heck you can even get a figurine made of your avatar).  And of course, new DLC comes out on a weekly basis, and the interface to get it (i.e. Rock Band Store) is easy to use and very well-integrated.

I honestly can't poke many holes in Rock Band (especially Rock Band 2).  For a Guitar Hero-type game, it just does everything right.  I wasn't even into music games, and I bought the original Rock Band more out of curiosity than anything else.  Little did I know that it would become one of my favorite all-time game series.

GoldenPhoenixOctober 30, 2008

Lindy is right (Can't believe I said that ewww).

blackfootstepsOctober 31, 2008

:-[ Sorry Lindy, you misunderstood me! I've heard of Rock Band (despite the fact RB1 isn't even out here yet).

I was more wondering why the vocals were the 'weakest aspect'? I just assumed the vocals portion would be like singstar (ie fun with mates round drinking) except with rock songs and therefore a lot better. Is it only because the guitar / drums etc are more fun?

S-U-P-E-RTy Shughart, Staff AlumnusOctober 31, 2008

You can also get it to activate by just making a "pop" sound with your mouth.

Or hitting a button on the controller.

Ah, OK.  Well, I think they're the "weakest aspect" because it's kinda one-dimensional.  I mean, you can hum the song and still score perfect.  There's just not much to it, but that probably isn't any worse than games like Singstar.

Quote from: S-U-P-E-R

Or hitting a button on the controller.

Was this added in RB2?  I checked online and couldn't find any confirmation that it is possible in any of the games.  (Larson says above that it's in GH: World Tour, but I couldn't find anything about it on the official site or GameFAQs.)

KDR_11kOctober 31, 2008

The microphone should NEVER be used for any game features on the DS. The DS is a portable and making noise in public is NOT AN OPTION. I have no idea what those game designers expect you to do, only play the thing at home or something?

I used to scream into my Donkey Konga bongos instead of clap...

S-U-P-E-RTy Shughart, Staff AlumnusOctober 31, 2008

My bad, I thought you were talking about GH Woot Tour

Yeah, I'm glad they added that in World Tour... very much needed.  A button on the microphone itself would still be better.  It's really sad that Harmonix didn't add it to RB2 since that game is supposed to be all about refining the first game and adding little tweaks for a better experience.

Flames_of_chaosLukasz Balicki, Staff AlumnusNovember 02, 2008

Well Rock Band 2 did refine a lot of things, the reason why the vocals are the weakest part in Rock Band is because Harmonix also created Karaoke Revolution (KR 1,2,3,Party) before they created Guitar Hero, and the Karaoke Revolution singing engine is pretty much the same as the Rock Band vocal parts.

Yep.  I think it's sad that they haven't made any improvements to the vocals engine after so many chances.

After playing both Rock Band and Guitar Hero: World Tour, I still prefer the Rock Band vocals.
The GH:WT are set up very weirdly and there's no feedback to tell you if you're doing it correctly besides your multiplier/streak going up. Although the button for star power isn't too bad.

Quote from: Jonnyboy117

Yep.  I think it's sad that they haven't made any improvements to the vocals engine after so many chances.

I don't know what they'd improve it TO though, short of improving the speech recognition.

Flames_of_chaosLukasz Balicki, Staff AlumnusNovember 04, 2008

Well the problem is that the system harmonix uses is the most practical way to use in music games since it will be way to complicated to set up a robust voice recognition system for the amount of songs RB and GH has.

I just got Rock Band 2 for 360 and had a fun local band session with a friend.  I did the singing... and got hoarse from trying to activate my Overdrive.  grrrrrrrrrr

IceColdJanuary 12, 2009

Wait, so instead of people receiving sexual favours they're now getting yelled at instead? What a gip.

StratosFebruary 13, 2009

I just tapped the mic to activate overdrive. That's how my friends taught me to play it. I didn't know you could scream until I read this blog.

Nick DiMolaNick DiMola, Staff AlumnusFebruary 13, 2009

I usually blow directly into the mike in one quick burst to activate star power. So Blowing is the new Blowing?

Quote from: IceCold

Wait, so instead of people receiving sexual favours they're now getting yelled at instead? What a gip.

lulz

Man, all of these unreliable approaches sound really crude for a music video game. I'm with Jonny: give us a friggin' button.

EasyCureFebruary 13, 2009

Quote from: TheYoungerPlumber

Man, all of these unreliable approaches sound really crude for a music video game. I'm with Jonny: give us a friggin' button.

Buttons are sOOoooOoooo last gen tho!

NinGurl69 *hugglesFebruary 13, 2009

Samba de Amigo!

Amigo!

I know this article is from 2008, but Harmonix just patched Rock Band 3 (at least on Xbox/PS3) to allow vocalists to activate Overdrive by pressing a button on the controller. FINALLY!

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