Since the release of the first Guitar Hero by RedOctane and Activision in 2005, music video games have grown and expanded from the single or double player guitar and bass.
DJ Hero, a music video game that is an expansion of Guitar Hero is set to be released on Oct. 27. To score points, the player has to "scratch" the turntable on the in time to marks that scroll on the screen. It features some DJs such as DJ AM, DJ Shadow, and Daft Punk.
“It’s kind of funny how the gaming trend is starting to follow the ‘hip’ music scene,” said Ross Bennett, public relations major and music minor, “Who ever thought Daft Punk would be on a video game?”
Bennett has played guitar for over seven years, along with piano for a year and half. He is the keyboardist in a regional “dance-punk” band called Zlam Dunk.
“DJ Hero doesn't look like it is anything similar to DJ'ing though,” he said. “Probably as similar as the guitar is to real guitar playing.”
The turntable controller includes a rotatable turntable, three “stream” buttons, a crossfader, effects dial and Euphoria button. Euphoria is the Guitar Hero equivalent of Star Power.
The newest Guitar Hero was released without much attention on Sept. 1.
Even though it has new features, such as: drop-in/drop-out play, bands composed of any combination of available instruments, a Rockfest competitive mode consisting of several various scoring mechanisms, and both song-specific and general Challenges to unlock new avatars, clothing and other extras in the game, The Beatles: Rock Band stole the stage.
The Beatles: Rock Band was released Sept. 9 and was the third in the series of Rock Band.
Rock Band, a music video game that includes guitar, bass, drums and microphone, introduced the multi-instrument version of the game, along with downloadable tracks in 2007. Rock Band 2 followed shortly after while Guitar Hero released two more guitar games. Soon, Guitar Hero released Guitar Hero: World Tour in 2008, including the multi-instrument settings.
“People associate themselves with guitar hero or rock band,” said Andy Slagle, business management major. “It's sort of like Coke and Pepsi.”
With the new features in these games of creating your own songs to play on the game, the question of what the technology is doing to the art of creating comes up.
“The fear of loss of originality only reminds us that something new has to come,” said Daniel Vega, Sound Recording Technology major at Texas State University.
Bennett agrees.
“How can you create a song with five buttons on a fake instrument?”
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This article was really interesting. I think she should try to add another paragraph about DJ Hero because that was something I was unfamiliar with and it was really interesting to read about. I didn't find any major grammatical errors, other than one long sentence that may need to be re-structured to make it more clear and a few places where short, unconnected sentences should be weaved into paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteThe only other problem I saw with the article was at the end. The last quote she uses brings up a great point that should be further developed. The quote talks about the "fear of loss of originality" regarding the creation of these video games. I think Katie should elaborate on why this is an issue and include examples like the disappointment and anger Courtney Love and Dave Grohl had when they found out Kurt Cobain's character could be unlocked to sing on songs other than Nirvana's. Another example is in the new Beatles Rock Band, they show Ringo playing drums on a song when it was actually another Beatles' member.
Alternate Lead: The release of Guitar Hero in 2005 has spawned a new era in the gaming world. From Rock Band to DJ Hero, interactive video games that allow players to shred on the electric guitar, bang on the drums, or belt out a killer solo have taken over the youth of America.