superfro

There's just too many variations available and it changes with each song. IMO the score system is kind of a pain in the ass. Love playing the game, and it's a fun new way to play the same tracks I've been playing for years, but the scoring field is just all over the place.

flashburn

Hey, I beat a few of your scores. Good luck finding them!

Experiment? With every song? Yeah... right.

Brooklyn

That's crazy.
Not sure which system you're on, but I'm on the PS3 and it took no longer than maybe 2 or 3 minutes tops to check my DLC the 1st time around (I have around 1200 songs). The only thing I seem to have done differently was to purchase the full game (downloads demo + unlock key) instead of trying it in demo form first.

As for the gameplay, I find the X + D pad easiest, but I have trouble not counting the lane change button press as part of the tapping rhythm when playing. D'oh!

Shagrath

After looking at a chart once, you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what powerups would work on it. I'm sure there will be some type of site like scorehero that comes up with "pathing" for these songs for optimal scoring if that's something that interests you.

I just want to get cheevos and complete goals. I could really care less about high scores outside of needing to GS a song to complete one of those things.

pinata242

Jonathan Coulton's "Betty and Me" is absurdly fun in this game.

Also I got my 100% guitar solo ach on "Jesus of Suburbia", probably because I knew it was coming so I was already on the guitar track to not miss the first note or two like I constantly did last night

Shagrath

Next week's DLC?

Decker

pinata242

? That's the dumbest thing you've ever posted!

Liver&Onions

Decker

Thanks, I guess.

I'll translate : Love the first track, like the second, never heard of the third.

Sorry the post drew your ire.

GuessWho

I concur.

pinata242

No ire, just disgusted at your incorrect opinion. This is the correct order:

mortalplague

I can't get the scoring down. Havnt' been able to gold anything got somewhat close definately have to use power ups. I'm glad i got to play Dandy Warhols - Bohemian Like you in this game even if it does disconnect you from the network afterwards

UncleGramps

Very excited for "Burnin' for You". I'd probably get the Carole King song as well. As for Hum, I sort of vaguely remember them, but I'm not a fan of that song at all.

Decker

So I assume it's not possible to play Blitz with Rock Band 3 (non-DLC) songs? How about if you bought the Games On Demand version, could you play them then?

pinata242

No. RBB only looks for DLC and exported-to-DLC packs in the "Rock Band" folder on the system. This is why the song pack for RBB was a separate download from the game. It has to go there for both RBB and RB3 to see them.

RB3 songs, even GoD version, are embedded into the disc image so it can't see them. You'll have to wait for an official RB3 export.

superfro

That's cause it's terrible.

Matt

I've got the GoD version of RB3 and what pinata said is accurate--those songs do not show up in Blitz.

pinata242

I find Rock Band Blitz to be completely unsatisfactory. As a deeply-discounted track pack, it's marvelous and I'm glad those songs are in my RB library. But as for RBB? I'm already over it.

It's a decent enough distraction. Something to do when you can put headphones on while the rest of the house is sleeping and listen to music while pushing some buttons. But that's about it. It's not a "game", per se, it's just another way to experience the music. That's fine.

The sole reason it's not a game is that the scoring just makes no sense. There's no way to truly better yourself on any song without playing it over and over and trying different combinations of powerups. I've done one challenge 7 times and each time I got fewer and fewer points. I started at 167,000 and ended up around 115,000. And that was after analyzing the situation and adapting my strategy. Clearly I'm doing it wrong and I don't hold it against the game, that's on me. But the fact that there's no real way to tell what you're doing wrong or how you can improve means there's no satisfaction. No reward for my effort. It's just dumb luck wrapped around the rhythm game.

I'm not saying the powerups shouldn't be there, they're fine, but they shouldn't cost you to use them. Right now you have to play songs without spending credits to build up a decent bank to experiment on songs all the while knowing you're going to get a terrible score. Plus it's a real kick in the dick that restarting a song loses the credits you spent for this run. If there was a practice mode, then that wouldn't be an issue.

It boils down to this: the fact that you can nail a song and only get 4 stars because you didn't spend any fake coins for the right to use powerups means there's no way to beat a song. The songs should stand on their own. 2x overdrive should be there every time, it's a staple of Rock Band (and Guitar Hero before it).

It's supposed to be a game built around challenges and leaderboards. The fact that you can't see what powerups your opponents or the people on the top used doesn't give you anything to shoot for. As frustrating as it is to not beat a score because you don't know what they did, there's also no satisfaction in beating them with "lesser" powerups.

I'm going to spend some more time with it before I write it off completely because it's only been a day. I just expected more.

And why are we still dealing with an archaic song selection system? It's a step backwards from RB3. Where's the search function? Where's the Kinect/Bing voice integration? Harmonix, put someone on the UI for your next game. Figure out how people really use your system. You know most people have hundreds of songs, some with thousands. You're making the devoted suffer the most with that antiquated interface. Think forward, it's been 5 years!

pinata242

I'm being petty when I say this, but I'm going to do it anyway... I foresee there being "DLC" packs that you can buy to give you instant coins in the game. This is the start of "freemium" on XBL. That's the only logic I see in having the powerups not be available at all times after unlocking them.

We know MS is bringing freemium to the platform and even Magic: The Gathering had the option to buy fully unlocked decks without going through the need to play the game.

I just can't fathom why a game built around scoring combinations restricts those combinations if they weren't angling for that sweet, sweet back-end.

Decker

Pinata, I agree with you about the Freemium concept. The moment I saw that I needed Coins (groan) to use my power-ups, that was instantly my first thought. Yuck. But I still enjoyed playing with it a little -- just kind of a cool way to play around with the DLC and finally a motivation to get me to import Lego and RB2 tracks. Also bought a few new songs as well. (And that Suggested Track thing actually worked -- I had no idea that 1901 by Phoenix was available and the wife and I love that song)

Fro, I can totally see what you meant about eye drops. My eyes really hurt after only an hour of messing around with this game, which is weird since I can't quite figure why I'd be blinking so much less than if I were playing Rock Band instead.

Shagrath

Someone on GAF had said something along the same lines, and a dev that has an account there (Matt Nordhaus, lead designer) said that they have no intentions of ever selling coins for real money. However, there will be "other" ways to get coins in the future.

Were you doing the facebook stuff? That's racked me up to a good stockpile of about 30K coins, and I just have one challenge left to do (GS the 3 songs).

Brooklyn

I agree. Unless I'm missing something, it appears you can't sort your songs by recently purchased.

Mad Dawg

I'm not bothered by the coin business right now because I'm getting crummy scores whether I use 3 power-ups or not.

From the little play time I've had, this seems to fit right where I expected it. Very fun and a nice way to rediscover songs I haven't played in a while, but it probably won't consume me like RB titles in the past.

Mad Dawg

Here's a tidbit I found from reading the dev posts on RB.com. Apparently, you can complete goals (and thereby get coins) by playing songs in RB3, too. And that's not just Blitz songs or DLC, but RB3 disc songs as well. I guess since Rock Band World is linked to both games. That's a pretty nice feature.