When a new music franchise launches (and trust me, this is from Konami, so there’ll be at least ten sequels), I’m generally the first in line to try it out. The prohibitive cost of importing the awful-looking PS3 or Xbox 360 drum “kit” meant that the Nintendo DS edition was the way to go for a distraction.
Rock Revolution looks…well…horrible. The DS edition was never going to be a wonderful visual treat, but the cartoon graphics just simply don’t cut it. If you ever get a chance to look away from the touch panel, you’ll see a set of animations that could well have been created for (and output via) the Commodore 64. But, we can ignore that. Music-based titles are ALL about the gameplay and for a little cartridge; Rock Revolution provides a large, if somewhat inconsistent mix.
The career mode puts you into a band and tasks you with breaking into the charts, inevitably aiming to get to the top. Sets of tracks are put together as gigs, single tracks are recording sessions and rehearsal “challenges” are available to help you complete your task. I started out as a drummer, and found the first few tracks to be somewhat dull to play. A picture of a drum kit is placed on the bottom screen, and your task is to hit the indicated drum as its icon passes through the box at the top of the screen. Funnily enough, this works very well indeed. As I say though, a few of the tracks are as dull as hell. “All The Small Things” (a cover, as with all of the tracks in the game) has a relatively fun drum pattern to play when you’re using a real kit, but due to the limitations of the system, you’re simply tasked with hitting bass, snare, bass, snare over and over again. When a drum fill comes in, you’d expect the pattern to change up, but in some cases, it doesn’t – which leaves you with a somewhat disjointed feeling – as you’re distanced as far from the song as is humanely possible. Some tracks are genuinely fun to play though, and the drum controls do actually work relatively well. As you progress through the stages, you’ll find that you get more into it as the more challenging tracks come up. Needless to say, the drumming portion is by far the standout portion of the game, and is highly addictive.
This is more than can be said for the other instruments, quite frankly. The guitar controls are simply horrible, and generally don’t match up with the music at all. You control the guitar by either strumming upwards, downwards, clockwise or counter-clockwise on the touch screen as symbols appear. These are generally not in time with the music, and in some cases, make no sense at all. In Rock Revolution, you’ll play the first copy of a phrase by strumming up, down, up, clockwise, and then the second phrase that is EXACTLY THE SAME sound-wise, will require you to strum counter-clockwise, down, down, up. Totally random. As for the bass, you get four strings running across the screen, and have to strum up or down in time with the arrows, on the correct string. It isn’t easy to do, but once you get the hang of it, it’s an easy enough control system. The only issue is that the patterns are generally so far off the actual song that you’ll not bother. The ability to play guitar (bass or lead – take your pick, they’re both as bad as each other) adds nothing to the game whatsoever.
The most interesting part of the game should have been the vocals. Using the DS’ internal microphone, you’re tasked with actually singing the song as it plays, being judged as you go a la SingStar, Rock Band and GH: World Tour. However, the microphone simply isn’t up to the task, and even with my limited singing ability, I’d expect to be able to finish a song without being gonged. However, the amount of times you’ll hold a note, only to find that you’ve been awarded a good score for the first part of it, and booed for the second part just beggar’s belief. This isn’t really the developer’s fault, and the fact that they even attempted it is to be applauded.
All-in-all, the twenty or so tracks included on Rock Revolution are relatively well selected and for better or worse, relatively well covered. The problem is that the fact that the guitar sections are so absolutely terrible, and that the vocals simply don’t work means that you essentially have three quarters of the game that nobody is ever going to touch more than once. The drum section may be enough to save the package, but again, some of the tracks are terrible to play and even if the game does hook you and reel you in to bash the skins again, you’ll soon get through all twenty tracks and the old repetition issue will creep in.
Rock Revolution is a package that is spot on in terms of the idea and the amount of options available to you, and is certainly miles in advance of the likes of the dire Rhythm ‘n’ Notes. Unfortunately, the game is ultimately unfulfilling when you consider extended play – even if you do get in to the drumming side of things. Here’s hoping that the PS3, 360 and Wii editions are better…
