Gadgetory

if you've ever wanted to feel like a rockstar you might have lived out that fantasy through a little video game called rock band but what if you could do the same thing in virtual reality and make it feel more real than it ever has that's what harmonic music system which has made games like Guitar Hero rock band and Dance Central is trying to do rock band VR isn't just the normal rock band chord it into the oculus rift it's a total rethinking of the system and what it actually means to play rock band and live out the fantasy of being a rock star so we went to the Harmonix offices in Boston to check it out for ourselves rock band VR uses the same plastic guitar as older versions of the game but it's not the rock band you remember for one thing you'll be adding an oculus touch motion controller which brings that guitar into the game for another you'll be playing with a completely different system this is your classic rock band formula when the song starts individual notes start rolling down what's called a note highway to ace a song you have to hit the right buttons on your guitar at the right time unfortunately this doesn't work in virtual reality on a normal TV you don't really care about what's behind or around the note highway you're pretty much just staring in a box in your living room in a headset the point is that you feel like you're on a stage with your bandmates as it stands you're spending the whole time staring at that line whether it's floating in the crowd or coming out at the end of your guitar what harmonics came up with turns a game about notes into a game about chords instead of a highway you can see the structure of the whole song with dots that represent different chords when one is coming up your guitars headstock starts flashing the pattern you need to play you'll get points for hitting it on the bead and well that's it if you're doing the bare minimum the rest of the song you can play whatever you want or you can stop playing altogether in teleport around the stage for casual players the game is more about having the rock star experience than nailing guitar riffs the VR crowd isn't going to start booing and whatever you play it'll sound alright the game also gives you specific optional challenges to meet being a high level player means finding good rhythms for each song and staying on beat while still mixing up your chords and patterns or at least that's what Harmonix tells us I didn't have time to go deep into this one of the great things about non VR rockband is that it's such a social approachable experience and right now VR isn't great at those things instead of a full band rock band VR only has one instrument the guitar you've got band mates inside the game but the rift separates you completely from the real world if you get embarrassed by other people watching you rock out rock band VR will at least let you avoid seeing them but if you like putting on impromptu concerts with your friends it's a little isolating and even if you're totally alone not being able to see your own fingers is weird in future generations Harmonix wants to put the band back into rock band but it'll be a different kind of social experience instead of making you round up for headsets to play locally the game will let you team up with people around the world if everything goes right you'll feel as close to them in VR as you would with your friends in real life but there's still something intimate about playing with people in the flesh and VR hasn't captured it yet rock band VR is a launch title for the oculus touch controllers and it's one of the most exciting games we've seen for the rift not because it's the most polished one but because the underlying formula is so solid but we still haven't been able to answer one big question how much of a game will it be being a rockstar in VR is fun for a while but without a challenge or with a challenge that's too confusing to meet it's hard to imagine coming back to it over and over and that's the kind of thing you can't figure out in a few songs so are we fans right now definitely will we still be fans in October when the full game comes out that we're still waiting to decide