Viva La Revolution

Move over Guitar Hero.

Step Aside Rock Band.

There’s a new kid on the block…

At Konami’s Gamer’s Night on Thursday, Konami announced that they would be bringing us Rock Revolution. Rock Revolution will be for consoles and along the same vein as Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

Rock Revolution is another music game which will allow users to team up to form a band using various instrument controllers (Guitar, Bass, Drums). Rock Revolution will be released for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, and DS. The PS3 and 360 release will feature just the instruments. The Wii version will feature air guitar and air drumming. The DS version will feature “stylus gestures” for “rhythm matching”.

Konami said that 40 songs will be in the Rock Revolution game with more available through DLC for the consoles, while the DS will have “more than 20″ songs. While they haven’t tipped there hat as to all 40 songs, a few songs are already known which we will mention below. Sadly there will be no original master tracks - all the songs in the game will be covers, but Guitar Hero 1 had plenty of cover versions which were nearly identical so hopefully this is done just as well. Konami also mentioned that Rock Revolution will feature tracks from “a broad range of music styles”.

More Rock Revolution information, including track listing, and screenshots after the break

Rock Revolution will be nearly identical to Rock Band and Guitar Hero IV with the availability of the multiple instrument and same note system(colored notes coming down the screen). The drum set however will be slightly different in that it will have 6 pads and a pedal (1 more than Guitar Hero IV and 2 more than Rock Band). The note colors are also in a different order compared to Guitar Hero or Rock Band as well.

The main gameplay method in Rock Revolution will be the career mode, but the game will also feature Co-op and band multiplayer modes, as well as both online and offline versus modes.

Konami also mentioned Rock Revolution’s “Jam Session” feature. “Jam Session” will allow you to create your own songs, using up to 8 ‘tracks’. There will also be a “Jam Mode” that will let you create your own performances ‘on the fly’.

Tracklisting 

These are the songs that are already known to be in the game;

Twisted Sister - “We’re Not Gonna Take It”
Motley Crue - “Dr. Feelgood”
Quiet Riot - “Cum On Feel The Noise”
Avril Lavigne - “Sk8r Boi”
The Ramones - “Blitzkrieg Bop”
Jet - “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”
KISS - “Detroit Rock City”
Joan Jett - “Bad Reputation”
The All-American Rejects - “Dirty Little Secret”
Deep Purple - “Highway Star”
Wolfmother - “Joker & The Thief”
Heart - “Magic Man”
Fall Out Boy - “Dance, Dance”
Jimmy Eat World - “Pain”
Finger Eleven - “Paralyzer”
The Killers - “Somebody Told Me”
Ratt - “Round and Round”
Dream Theater - “Pull Me Under”
Pantera - “Walk”
Scorpions - “No One Like You”
Whitesnake - “Still of the Night”
Soundgarden - “Spoongarden”
Skid Row - “Youth Gone Wild”

While it’s easy to dismiss this as just a Rock Band or Guitar Hero clone, Konami does have some credibility in the rhythm game genre.  Konami was the game company that released the arcade hits Guitar Freaks and DrumMania, which were essentially the inspiration for Guitar Hero and Rock Band.  You also shouldn’t forget the arcade and console hit Dance Dance Revolution. 

It will be interesting to see how Rock Revolution will do in a market that is already dominated by Guitar Hero and Rock Band, especially when it appears that Konami might be trying to force gamers to use only the Konami instrument controllers - remember that Rock Revolution has more drum pads than either Guitar Hero IV or Rock Band, and the guitar controllers don’t use the same Green, Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange order for the fret buttons.

Screenshots: