Initially, video games based entirely on the concept of music was something to imagine only. Aside from a few arcades titles that crept by the majority of the gaming community, music-based games were something that simply didn't exist. This all changed in the mid 2000s as RedOctane teamed up with Activision to release Guitar Hero upon the masses. Ever since then, the music-based gaming genre has been a huge success with Guitar Hero and Rock Band brands leading the pack. With such huge innovation already stocking the shelves of today, what can we expect from tomorrow?
Game Informer Magazine has already revealed that the newest installment of Guitar Hero, titled Guitar Hero World Tour, will feature the ability for players to create their own songs along with their own guitar, bass, vocal, and drum patterns. It has also been revealed that players will be able to upload and share these songs with other Guitar Hero fans. As extreme and innovative as this new is, things can certainly become even more extreme in the future.
I believe that the crew behind Guitar Hero has definitely got the drums right with this installment by adding on cymbals to the drumkit – an obvious nod to the predated DrumMania. However, I think that the future will bring about the introduction of more than one bass drum pedal. The addition of this pedal will be essential because it will allow the series to expand toward songs with more complex drum patterns and it will give users the ability to create some awe-inspiring drum patterns to perfect and upload for everyone else to try. I can't entire speculate on the use of cymbals until the game releases and reveals exactly how the cymbals will come into play.
A very interesting feature that may appear in the future is more colored buttons on the guitar to drive gamers even crazier. I believe that this will be absolutely necessary because as insane and challenging as the patterns can become, they rarely represent what is really going on in the song. It becomes an unflattering mesh of colors assaulting the retinas of a would-be guitar hero. The addition of extra buttons would help smooth out patterns and reduce the amount of blobs that appear on the screen during solos – not to mention create a whole new level of difficulty for the true Guitar Hero experts. This addition may create a feeling similar to learning to walk again for Guitar Hero and Rock Band fans, but I believe that this would create a better and challenging environment that proves to be more fun in the end.
The addition of extra colored button can either be implemented by placing them further down the neck of the guitar-controller or by increasing the height of the guitar's neck and slightly shrinking the size of the buttons. The latter will probably be the best approach mainly because adding more buttons down the neck would mean eliminating the touch-key buttons that Rock Band introduced for fast soloing.
Possibly the largest talking point concerning music-based games this year is Nintendo's Wii Music that is set to release possibly by the end of the summer. Demos have already shown players using two Wiimotes to represent drum sticks so they can play a virtual drumkit. They have also allowed fans to view the orchestra mini-game where players use the Wiimote as a baton to conduct an orchestra of several instruments. The game also boasts the ability to simulate forty instruments, with guitar, trumpet, and drums mentioned in 2006. These instruments are supposed to be played by movement from the nunchuck and precise clicks with the Wiimote. Personally, I'm not buying this.
What made Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DrumMania, GuitarFreaks, and KeyboardMania great was the simulation was very hands-on to give the feel of actually playing the instruments. Players literally held a guitar-controller, sat at a drumkit-controller, or rolled their fingers across a keyboard-controller. I believe it will be almost laughable to watch Nintendo try to convince players that this nunchuck and remote in hand is the new wave in simulating guitars and keyboards. It might work with drums, Nintendo, but I'm not buying the rest of the instruments. How on earth would they handle something as simple as say a trombone? I'd assume a plethora of add-ons, and I'll also assume that gamers will turn their heads and refuse to buy in.
Americans and the rest of the world alike have fallen in love with Guitar Hero and Rock Band, the more modernized versions of GuitarFreaks and DrumMania. The booming success of these two arcade concepts may have game developers and publishers looking toward the third child in this family of music-game franchises: KeyboardMania. Though is has never seen American soil, I believe that this concept of this game is quite fresh and stands a very good chance of being successful in the 'States.
The concept behind KeyboardMania is close to the same concept as Guitar Hero or Rock Band: strike the correct keys as objects scroll down the screen to a specific zone. Striking the key at the right team means playing the note, and the song continues. The game may have to be simplified, toning down the number of keys on the keyboard. Twenty-four keys currently line the KeyboardMania board, so perhaps it would be best to cut the amount down to twelve keys instead.
Arguably the product of a more complex instrument, the KeyboardMania port will also need a well planned learning curve so players do not become overwhelmed by the difficulty of more traditional piano pieces. The game could serve players well under the same four difficulty settings that have now become staple(Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert), and it would be a great idea to start the Easy mode off using only one hand. Players could become more familiar with the keyboard-controller and comfortably shift into using both hands to play in the Medium mode.
Music tracks used in the game could vary immensely considering the instrument being emulated. Perhaps classic pieces of famous composers could be waiting in Expert mode while interesting keyboard pieces from various pop and rock music could be played in Easy and Medium modes – with the original track playing of course. There could be plenty of fun and interesting possibilities with this idea. Players might even be able to RickRoll themselves daily with "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley.
Of course this is all speculation coming directly from me. Will any of this actually happen? I can't promise it, but I do believe that we will see something similar to a "Keyboard Hero" or "Piano Hero" appear in the future. Only time will tell how correct I am, but one thing is for certain: music has never been more fun.
For a better understanding of KeyboardMania and what I'm talking about in this article, look at these videos.
KeyboardMania
More KeyboardMania
