Rock Band: Soittakaa Paranoid!

December 21st, 2007 by Lee

The last of the previously announced downloads for Rock Band hit this week:

“Brass in Pocket” as performed by The Pretenders (i.e., it’s a cover)

Great song even as a cover, but not that much fun for the guitar. Unless your band’s singer really wants this one, I’d say it’s a pass.

“Buddy Holly” by Weezer

Very satisfying, and heavy on the downstrokes. If you’re sick of “Say It Ain’t So”, get your Weezer fix here.

“My Iron Lung” by Radiohead

The best of this group (with a nice guitar solo finale). While this isn’t one of my favorite Radiohead songs, it’s great for Rock Band. You get variety with some really tricky parts interspersed with long whammy notes. There are also several distinct segments, so as soon as you settle into autopilot, everything changes.

These three aren’t available in a pack, so you’ll need to lay down 160 MS points for each (but that’s not real money, right?).

You may remember from last week that Activision, the makers of Guitar Hero III, blocked a patch from Harmonix which would have allowed GHIII controllers to work with Rock Band on the PS3. Activision spokesperson Maryanne Lataif is quoted in the Boston Globe as saying:

“We believe we should be compensated for the use of our technology.”

While she tries to spin it as being in the best interest of gamers and their “high standards”, the fact that Xbox 360 GHIII controllers are compatible with Rock band out of the box belies the argument.

The Rock Band Community site is live once more. There are some new features like blogs, and it might be fun to see other bands’ names, but do you really need yet another social network in your life? I was able to connect my Xbox 360 gamertag in just a few steps, and it imported my rockers and bands, including Þór, a Swedish punk whom I had deleted on the console. Apparently once you create something, you can’t really ever delete it fully.

On a personal note, I’m still working toward that Goat Head Guitar and spending no hard-earned gig money. Luckily, you can earn instruments as well as clothes or I’d still be stuck with the default guitar. I admit that I might get tired of the game before ever reaching the $66,666 mark, but if they release some Heart, I’m in for at least another couple of tours.