Harmonix does it again and makes a damn fine music game
Anyways, living in Boston for college, its hard not to avoid hearing news about Harmonix and their games, and for good reason. Harmonix is the master of music games, and they proved that with Guitar Hero I and II. With Rock Band, they take their proved formula to the next level.
First off we'll get the lesser parts out of the way. The look of Rock Band is a lot less cartoony than Guitar Hero. You start by making your own band in a huge amount of customization. It's comparable to Forza 2's car graphics, you can just do a ton to edit the appearance of your band. The next thing that is a much needed improvement from Guitar Hero is the animation system. While watching the characters and crowd on screen, you'll see everyone moving as if they were in a band. Their movements change depending on the parts and tempo of he song (sometimes though it doesn't really match well) and you'll see the guitarist and vocalist singing together during chorus and stuff like that. It's a LOT better than the likes of Guitar Hero where your guitarist and vocalist loop the same animations, your bassist just sorta bumps up and down, and your drummer is a robot.
Moving on, the songs on Rock Band aren't as good as Guitar Hero, I'll say that. Thats because they're not all geared to guitar playing, like Faith No More's "Epic" there are just big parts where you don't do anything. So if playing through the game on solo tour you'll be a bit underwhelmed by some of the songs.
The difficulty is a lot easier than Guitar Hero. Playing it I was wondering if it was just Harmonix's attempt to tap into the casual market or if Guitar Hero note charts were just bull. I've come to find that its pretty much a mixture of the two. At parts where there should be multi note chords, Rock Band will have single notes but still in Guitar Hero some of the note charts are complete garbage IE "3's and 7's" on hard/expert setting.
Another difference that doesn't really matter is the timing for the note window is less forgiving than Guitar Hero, this doesn't get in the way usually. The only time I really noticed it was playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band side by side.
That being said, I just like the feel of Rock Band a bit more than Guitar Hero. I'm a loyal Harmonix fan and will stand by their games with pride.