Rock Band, Now With 1% More Pumpkins

Well, it's not exactly the entirety of Siamese Dream, but any Pumpkins is better than no Pumpkins. Their single, "Zero", off of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is now available for download from the Rock Band Music Store.

Everyone needs to download it so maybe Harmonix will get their act together and, at the very least, release a Pumpkins 3-pack. Make sure you download Siva also, if you haven't already.

This week's update also includes two songs from the Mother Hips: "Time Sick Son of a Grizzly Bear", and "Red Tandy". The Hips' song "Time We Had" is included in the game itself so if you like that, you may want to check out the 30-second previews in the Music Store.

As always, these songs will be available to PS3 owners as part of the Thursday PSN Store update.

[via Joystiq]

Rock Band Finally Gets Albums, I Yawn

Before Rock Band even launched The Who's Who's Next, and Nirvana's Nevermind,were the first full albums announced for it. Who's Next was originally supposed to be available the day the game launched. Nirvana and Who fans are going to have to wait a tad (read: months) longer however, as today's announcement of what will actually comprise Rock Band's first downloadable albums contains no mention of them.

Judas Priest's Screaming for Vengeance will have the distinction of being the first album, all 10 tracks of which will be available this coming Tuesday, April 22nd for 1200 Microsoft Points or $14.99.

It will be followed in May by The Cars eponymous first album and in June by Pixies Doolittle.

So, why the long wait for downloadable albums to be realized? Harmonix' Alex Rigopulos explains:

...a big reason that it's taken us so long to get them to market is that the actual technical delivery of the assets required for any one song - they're actually pretty complicated. You're often dealing with masters for the older stuff that were recorded on analog. Often it takes a long time to even locate those masters. The right takes and the right edits have to be found, and in some cases old gear that's not in use anymore has to be resuscitated to transfer the stuff to digital. And so for any one song, the actual process of finding the right tape, resuscitating it and transferring it to the right digital format that we need and all that is an undertaking...

If you're just going for a handful of tracks by a particular artist and they're slow to locate one of them, well you just pick a different track and go on. Well, when you're looking for a dozen tracks in a particular album, you cant really release the album until you've tracked every one of those assets.

Makes sense. I wonder how long it will be before a new album is released in Rock Band at the same time it is released in stores. Harmonix has said in the past that that is their vision for the game.

Kotaku has a nice Q&A up with Rigopulos that has some more info on how albums will be priced and such.

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for the Pumpkins Siamese Dream; none of those first three announced albums do anything for me. Come on Harmonix, the 15th Anniversary of Siamese Dream is July 27th. Make it happen.


[via Kotaku]

Have Your Cake and Sing About it Too

Last week a massive list of possible Rock Band tracks were discovered in a data file on the game disc. Many of the songs have been released as DLC in the weeks and months since the game launched leaving the remaining songs as safe bets for future downloads.

One of the songs in that list was "Still Alive" but since the list didn't include artist names, there was no way of knowing if it was *the* Still Alive. Surely, it couldn't be.

Turns out it's the real deal, as some of the guys from Harmonix got up on stage at one of songwriter Jonathan Coulton's shows last night and performed it in Rock Band with him. The song is listed in game as "Still Alive by GlaDOS".

It doesn't really lend itself well to the game (unless they rerecorded it?) but it should be fun to play regardless, whenever they get around to making it available. This Tuesday's lineup is still up in the air so we could be playing it sooner rather than later.

[via Kotaku]

Harmonix reveals Rock Band for 360, PS3

Today Harmonix, along with their corporate masters at EA and MTV, announced the successor to the Guitar Hero franchise: Rock Band! With Guitar Hero now under the control of Activision and Neversoft, Harmonix needed to create a new IP for their musical gaming endeavors.

The game can be thought of as an almagamation of Guitar Hero II (with its Guitar and Bass play), Drum Mania and Karaoke Revolution. It is unclear however how the peripherals will be packaged. Some reports claim that the game will be bundled with all four but a Gamespot report indicates details are still being worked out.

Seeing as Guitar Hero II for 360 is retailing for $90 with just one wired guitar, Rock Band, which will appear on 360 and PS3, could potentially be one expensive game.

I think this game has the potential to have a scene explode around it like no other game in recent memory but at the same time, it's exclusivity to the smaller user base of the next-gen systems as well as it's no doubt steep cost of entry could hamper its sales significantly.

I'm all about big goofy controllers that give a unique experience. I own Steel Battalion, two sets of Samba de Amigo maracas as well as two PS2 Guitar Hero controllers. This however gives me pause. Four different accessories for one game? It seems more like they are gearing the game towards people buying the accessory that they want to play in their virtual Rock Band and then getting together with friends to "perform".

They definitely have their work cut out for them in deciding the ideal way to present the game. A huge bundle could be too intimidating for most but selling the "instruments" individually could result in huge interest in the guitars but maybe not so much in the drum kit and microphone.

If anybody can pull it off though, it's Harmonix. I know I'm intrigued.