Best of the Decade: Rock Band

Rock Band

Platforms: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Playstation 2, Wii

Release Date: November 20, 2007 (360 and PS3)

Publisher: MTV Games, Electronic Arts

Developer: Harmonix

I still remember how stupid I felt walking through the mall back to my car with the gigantic box of plastic instruments tucked under my arm. For a brief moment, as the mall patrons stared at me with confused looks in their eyes, the thought occurred to me that perhaps spending a large wad of cash on peripherals with which to pretend I was playing music by following along to colored button prompts wasn’t exactly the coolest thing I could be doing with my money.

Once I got them all home and started playing around with them, I never looked back. 

Technically the only instrument the genre hadn’t seen was the drums, but putting all of the instruments together in one game was Rock Band’s real stroke of genius. Everything came together for one of the most brilliant multiplayer gaming concepts ever produced.

The Rock Band series is the culmination of Harmonix’s long quest to perfect the music game. They remain one of my favorite ways to relax and release stress. Even five years or so since the original Guitar Hero, it’s still just as fun to pick up a plastic guitar, fire up my imagination, and pretend I’m a rock star for a little while by jamming out to awesome music. There’s something primal and satisfying about the experience music games provide.

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Best of the Decade: Guitar Hero

As 2010 draws to a close, I figure it’s a convenient excuse to look over the rather stunning number of awsome games I have been fortunate enough to play over the last decade and choose my favorites. This isn’t definitive and it isn’t comprehensive. It’s simply the games that mean the most to me when looking back over the last decade of my personal gaming experience, presented one a day for all of December with commentary and personal anecdotes and in no particular order. It’s been a great decade for gaming. Please chime in with your own thoughts in the comments. 

Guitar Hero 

Platform: Playstation 2

Release Date: November 8, 2005

Publisher: RedOctane; MTV Games

Developer: Harmonix Music Systems

It’s easy to forget while you read recent news stories such as “Viacom Planning to Sell Harmonix” and “Warriors of Rock Sales Disappoint” that the plastic instrument genre was once a new and magical thing. 

In fact, the whole idea spawned just five years ago, which is pretty incredible when you think about it. It sure feels like they’ve been around longer than that.

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Guitar Hero Smash Hits - Just the Essentials Review

In this Zestful Contemplation Just the Essentials video review, I let you know exactly what you need to know about Guitar Hero Smash Hits in order to make an informed purchase and get to the heart of the game without wasting too much of your valuable time.  It's the first in what I hope to be a series of short, to the point reviews, giving me an exercise in both conciseness and basic video editing.  

As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions, please let me know.  I'm always looking to improve.

Update on Fri, August 14, 2009 at 6:17 PM by Brendan T. Smith

It would appear that I made a slight mistake when posting this for the first time and made the video private when I hadn't meant to.  That would explain why not one other person ever watched it.  I've now fixed the issue and would greatly appreciate it if some of you could finally take a look at it and tell me what you think of it and whether it's worth it for me to do more of them.