Interviews | Rock Revolution
Rock Revolution: Rising Star Or Last Grasp At Rhythm Game Relevance?
October 17, 2008
Despite launching Guitar Freaks – which simulates the experience of shredding along to hard-charging jams on a plastic axe – to arcades in 1999, publisher Konami failed to bring the title home to American shores. Seven years later, RedOctane would wish the company a hearty “Suck our grundle!” to the tune of a billion-dollar empire when it debuted the iconic Guitar Hero. Worse still, developer Harmonix, creator of the latter title, would also couple the experience it gained with vocalized play building Konami’s own Karaoke Revolution (2003) to launch the multimillion-selling Rock Band last year, further rubbing taint in the wound.
Enter Rock Revolution for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii, a seemingly last-ditch attempt to cash in on a craze it by all rights started with its popular Japanese “Bemani” series (which also includes Dance Dance Revolution and DrumMania) and reclaim what’s left of the manufacturer’s ailing dignity. Just one problem: With Wii Music, Guitar Hero: World Tour, Rock Band 2, Pop Star Guitar, Ultimate Band, SingStar Pop: Vol. 2, Lips and 60 trillion other pleather-panted wannabes hogging store shelves this holiday season, it may be too little too late. On the bright side, it costs $60 less in bundle form than genre kingpins, sports a more advanced drum kit, is fully compatible with rivals’ guitar controllers and provides yet another reason to channel your inner Axl Rose. On the other hand, by this point, cash-strapped fans who’ve already taken out a second mortgage to turn their basement into a suburban CBGB (before it become a John Varvatos-mart) might not give a shit.
I cornered associate producer Keith Matejka to find out: Is this puppy a real contender, or mere desperation ploy to salvage what little remains of the proud publisher’s rhythm game cred?
Das Gamer: With so many music games out there, isn’t Rock Revolution arriving a little late to the party? Why should fans even be checking for it?
Keith Matejka: Konami was the pioneer of the music genre. We released Guitar Freaks and DrumMania many years ago. We would have loved to bring these over, but there were many reasons we weren’t able to, which [I can’t go into at this time]. But Rock Revolution is the continuation of our music revolution. We focused on giving consumers a true drum experience by developing a superior drum peripheral, a great song list, unique modes, strong online support, and an all-new studio mode that allows on-the-fly music creation with up to eight tracks to record original songs in.
That may sound all well and good, Tex, but given the high cost associated with most of these games, is the music simulation category really big and strong enough to support yet another upstart?
Keith Matejka: We understand that music gaming can get expensive with all the instrument peripherals. This is why we worked from day one with Microsoft and Sony to build universal compatibility. Users can use their guitar peripherals with Rock Revolution, which lowers the cost of entry for those players. On the other hand, we felt that to truly recreate the drum experience, the user needed more drum pads and that was our reasoning for creating our drum peripheral.
OK, I’ll bite: How does your drum pad differ from Guitar Hero or Rock Band’s?
Keith Matejka: Our drum kit has some unique features. We have more drum pads that have individual lanes on-screen. So, if there are many drums used in the original recording, we can track that movement over more pads than the competition. This gives each pad an equivalent to an actual drum on a real kit.
In most games, if there are fewer pads, then during one song a pad may be a crash cymbal, while in another, it may act as an additional tom. We tried to steer clear of this as much as possible. Our kit is also constructed as one piece plus the stand. It’s easier to assemble and has fewer parts that are likely to break with heavy use. The kits work well on the stand or on a tabletop surface and you can also store your drumsticks inside the actual unit.
Be honest, though: Even with more skins to beat, how tough is it going up against the heavyweights of virtual rock? Is there that much more ground for advancement in the genre that other products haven’t already covered?
Keith Matejka: We all come at it from a slightly different angle. In the end though, we think people are going to really enjoy Rock Revolution and the music games coming from Konami in the future. We have a fan base that loves music games and knows that Konami brings solid titles to the market. Their enthusiasm is motivating us to create the best music games possible.
