Rock Band turns 10 this month! Share your memories of the series.

[Coconico]

Rock Band was always a staple of parties among friends of mine, but my fondest memory was when my friends and I made our film for RB4's Road Crew contest. It's the closest anything I've ever made has come to how it looked in my head when I wrote it. If I could go back in time, I'd have filmed it in 30FPS instead of 24 to give it that "TV feel," but everything else turned out really well. Ironic, as it had the least planning of any of my other films. Helps that we won, too.

If posting it here violates some sort of self-promotion policy, I'll edit my post:

 

[Alwayscrazybacon]

It was along with Guitar Hero a gaming generation defining title. Dont hate on RB4 now, its been updated a lot since launch to what I feel it should have been at launch.

 

[Caliaztec]

Best memories is having us constantly having the cops come to our party house and telling us "please keep the rock band down" almost nightly haha.

 

[Zalman]

I imported this from the US since it took so long for it to come out in Europe. So many memories with this and Guitar Hero. Love those games. They introduced me to so much new music.

 

[Deleted member 1627]

Rock Band was such a huge thing for me. Fell in love with the drums instantly, eventually got an Ion set and played them for hundreds of hours alone, with friends and online with friends.

The Rock Band thread in the other place also allowed me to make some great friends, alas that burned to the ground.

Had so much DLC on 360 which is now in storage because I went PlayStation 4 this gen. My drums are packed up in a box in a cupboard and I long for the day I can break them back out again when I have the space.

Rock Band 2 was the pinnacle - 3's character creation and animations were just not as good as 2's but kept playing anyway. Made characters for my band... it was freaking glorious.

The feeling in Rock Band one where the crowd starts singing along is a feeling that hasn't been beaten in a videogame since, it was fucking magical. If I'm remembering correctly, I think the crowd even sing along with a bit of the guitar solo in Say It Aint So... so good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neKNXk90_pU

Video quality is terrible but that's not the point :)

Rock Band gave me a new appreciation for music and how it's made as well as introduced me to so many amazing bands and songs.

Thanks, Harmonix.

 

[FroMonk]

Oh man, Rock Band. When this came out I was living in an apartment with 3 other friends, and we lived close enough to most of our other friends that this became an activity that happened weekly, or several times a week.

I remember one of our friends coming by after work and being late because he had to give a statement to the cops because the bank he worked at got robbed for the third time by the same guy and he seized a moment of distraction and beat the shit out of the dude. Somewhere in my RB save data on that old 360 is a bandmate named "The Robber", lol.

 

[Deleted member 21220]

I like 4. I honestly didn't put it in the poll because I ran out of room. And they have s server browser coming in a few months. So I guess that's their solution to matchmaking.

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Oh cool didn't actually know that, okay I take back what I said, 2 still has better music though.

 

[MrNelson]

Damn, this one really makes me feel old. The original Guitar Hero hit just as I was entering high school, and the GH and Rock Band games were probably my most played games in those 4 years by a large margin. Every day after school I would fire up one of those games and just play for a good portion of the evening. I've got a lot of fond memories of playing Rock Band 2 with my friends in marching band after school on Fridays in the band room during the free time we had between the end of school and the start of the football game that night.

I don't play nearly as much as I did back then (and I definitely don't feel like I play on the same level as I did then either) because life gets in the way now, but I still like firing up RB4 a few days a week for an hour or two.

 

[APOEERA]

Beatles Rockband is a work of art.

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This is the only game my sister ever asked for Christmas. She was actually addicted to it and got to the point where she was doing guitar parts on Expert with no problem. I tried doing it and I would fail every time.

 

[Scion]

Still the best multiplayer game series of last gen. Its a shame the fad wasn't longer lived because I still pull out 4 every once and a while to jam out to some of the guitar songs. My friend had the full band setup so I never did it, but my music library has to be bigger than his at this point. He also upgraded to playing actual instruments while I really liked the arcade aspect, so there's that too. I wish my love of Rock Band would have carried over to Rock Smith but it didn't hold me interest for too long.

 

[Panther2103]

I loved Rock Band so much. My friend worked at Gamestop and we used to play Rockband so frequently that he ended up checking out Rockband 3 2 days early and we got to basically FC most of the basic songs by the launch. It was the first game that I've ever played co op through every song in that insane playlist with what 85 songs or something in it. I miss those days.

 

[Xyber]

While RB3 technically is a better game than RB2, they fucked up the multiplayer completely for someone like me who just liked to do quickplay with random people. That alone makes RB2 a better game than RB3 to me.

There was just these unwritten rules most people followed. You picked 1 song you wanted to play, if you played the guitar you usually played the guitar part on the song you picked and then alternated between guitar and bass with the other person.
RB3 just fucked that up completely. You got people who made complete setlists of like 10 songs, which meant you were stuck on bass/guitar for pretty much your entire play-session and you probably didn't get to play any songs you liked.

I played RB2 online quickplay almost daily, I barely touched the RB3 online quickplay because of how much worse it was.

 

[ghibli99]

That RB2 era was just the best. Also the most I've ever spent on DLC of any game. Played drums mostly, got an Ion kit, upgraded mesh heads, real kick pedal, cymbals, nice throne, etc. Graduated to a real kit shortly thereafter and then a Roland V-Drum kit once my wife got fed up with the noise. LOL I credit the game for getting me to play a real instrument, and drums in that game were about as good an approximation of what it's like to play the real thing than anything out there in the videogame realm.

I also adore The Beatles RB. They did such a nice job with that one, and it gave me an even greater appreciation for their music.

 

[Scythesurge]

My favourite memory is when everyone got permabanned from that special place for talking about Rock Band. Oh and jamming to Nine Inch Nails!

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Lmao, glad to see some familiar names over here now. Rock Band (and GH) came out while I was in college which was perfect for me, I lost many hours to the RB games. It was always a blast getting groups together to play and the music selection was just great between all the games and downloadables.

A standout memory for me was the launch day of RB1, I was so excited the night before that I couldn't sleep. I remember there was a mad rush to the giant boxes when the store finally opened, and then I spent the rest of the day & night playing with my roommates and our buddies. Since then it has been tougher to get groups to play and it takes a bit of an effort to get back to playing on expert, but whenever RB is brought out I'm all over it.

 

[PROh1bited]

Oh cool didn't actually know that, okay I take back what I said, 2 still has better music though.

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Yep. 2 does indeed have the best soundtrack.

 

[jblanco]

Had a lot of fun with friends playing this almost every Saturday. I always prefered drums or vocals (I excelled at neither of those lol). It was always a blast.

I don't understand how it went from "yay Rock Band!" to "meh, it bores us to death now" so quickly.

 

[chrominance]

Rock Band 2 and Beatles Rock Band were the pinnacle for me as well. Rock Band 1's instruments were poorer quality, but more importantly I didn't have a group of people to play with so it was mostly a solitary affair. By the time Rock Band 2 was out, I was living in an apartment with other people who were also into the game, and I remember many nights of playing a few songs before dinner or whatnot. One of my roommates was really into AC/DC and so of course we bought that live pack and played it a ton. At one point I bought a cheap mic stand (that broke after only a few months!) so I could play the drums and sing Spoonman at the same time. I think my roommate and I talked about doing The Ultimate Setlist (or whatever the equivalent was) in Beatles Rock Band, but we never quite carved out the time. He's in another city now, so I guess we never will.

It was also the height of Rock Band's popularity in general, so I got to participate in a charity event where people formed bands and played live Rock Band on stage at an actual venue and were judged by a panel on how awesome we were. I can probably still knock out a decent drum performance of Don't Stop Believin' by heart.

The beginning of the end was when I moved to a new apartment in a condo building and suddenly got real paranoid about making too much noise. Rock Band 3 still got some play for me, but the lack of a comprehensive career mode and the return to no-roommates living meant there was a lot less incentive to play, even as I bought the pro guitar and the keyboard and all that. Ironically, the MIDI adapter I got for the pro guitar almost never got used as a guitar adapter; instead, it allowed me to hook up a real electronic drum kit to my PS4 when Rock Band 4 came out years later.

I still worry about making too much noise, I still haven't really gotten used to the different geometry of a real kit versus the Rock Band drum kit, and it's hard to just leave the drum kit in the middle of my living room (not to mention the frankenstein laptop/USB-to-MIDI interface setup required to make it work). So after I completed Rock Band 4's career mode, I sort of shelved everything and haven't touched it since. One day, I'll get all that stuff out again, I'm sure.

 

[Beanman25]

Oh gosh! I love RB. Still play it from time to time. Had the ION Rocker set back in the day. No better feeling then expert gold starring whole playlists on drums. hah

 

[PROh1bited]

Had a lot of fun with friends playing this almost every Saturday. I always prefered drums or vocals (I excelled at neither of those lol). It was always a blast.

I don't understand how it went from "yay Rock Band!" to "meh, it bores us to death now" so quickly.

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The market got over saturated. In 2009 alone there was several games. And people just didn't wanna have a bunch of plastic instruments lying around anymore.

 

[MrBS]

I loooooved Rock Band for years. RB4 launch soured me greatly. Kudos to Harmonix for making so much effort to 'fix' the game I should go back to it now. It's a shame that we couldn't get it back this gen but at least they tried. I never got a current gen DJ Hero :(

 

[Alwayscrazybacon]

The market got over saturated. In 2009 alone there was several games. And people just didn't wanna have a bunch of plastic instruments lying around anymore.

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That was one part of the problem, too many plastic instruments and partners of gamers got sick of them filling up their homes. Rock Band didn't exist in a bubble, a whole load of games for all formats had additional controllers included with them as publishers rode that wave.

 

[Sygma]

Ride the lightning in expert on the drums, first time ive 100% it. One of the very definitive FUCK YES moments of my life lol.

Felt even better when I did it at the japan expo, live, with of course people on the guitar. Game was fucking amazing but as many others I broke the pedal of the drums set so riperino :(

 

[Excelsior]

The Beatles Rock Band was incredible! Sparked my love for that band

 

[Pokemaniac]

There was a period of my life where I was really into Rock Band. I had all the games on Wii. Unfortunately I sort of had a falling out with it towards the end of high school thanks to a combination of getting pretty busy and the general bugginess of Rock Band 3 sort of wearing me down (For those who aren't aware, despite largely having feature parity with he other versions, the Wii version of Rock Band 3 had a ton of bugs in it which could do stuff like crash the game or cut off all input from the instruments).

I'd sort of like to get back to playing Rock Band a bit now that I have actual disposable income, but I sort of doubt that's going to happen unless Rock Band 4 gets ported to the Switch.

 

[tarman76]

Probably my favorite game series. Been with it since RB1. RB2 came out when my apartment was flooded during Hurricane One and I bought it and played at my parents house.

We played RB2 at my wedding reception and even had a custom message of the day for us.

Love the series and hope the fans buying DLC is enough to keep it around for awhile.

 

[Caeda]

I used to play the original Rock Band on PS2 with my friends and dad all the time, and then my dog chewed the drums cord up and the drum sticks. Didn't play again until university because of it !

 

[Whitemex]

I'll never forget buying the band set at Best Buy on a whim and lugging that huge ass box home. Only ever played as a full band twice but what crazy fun I had

 

[Ludono]

Seriously? Here in the US we can't even sell them. Lots of places, especially game stores and pawn shops won't take them or they'll give you almost nothing for them. There's too many out there and they take up too much space in their stores.

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Yeah, I guess it just wasn't as big here. But importing from the US kills me on shipping. Not sure what I'll do yet.

 

[Aprikurt]

Begged my Mum for £150 from my savings account so I could buy the Band in the Box edition for Xbox 360. Obsessively mastered the guitar. Wasn't half bad on vocals. Sucked dust on drums. My friends weren't quite as enthused, and we had just the one summer gameplay out of it. Was one hell of a summer though. Hoping my 360 doesn't die anytime soon, the instruments are gathering cobwebs in my parent's attic and I'd love to make them a permanent fixture of the living room when I get a place of my own.

Would love to eventually buy a second guitar and complete my set...

Beatles Rock Band was amazing, but the others never really lived up to the original.

 

[MikeProtagonist]

I got Guitar Freaks and Drum Mania around 2003 and impressed people with them, so I considered Guitar Hero a bit of a clone. I did end up getting it on PS2 though. I had recently moved when Rock Band released and was strapped for cash, so I only played it at friends' places. RB2 was also fun, but I avoided getting it. I couldn't resist The Beatles Rock Band though, and picked up that along with a RB2 pack that was slightly cheaper at that point. Really loved that game and it rekindled my Beatles fandom. I don't think we'll ever see such a loving project again.

Then Rock Band 3 introduced the keyboard and I was hooked. Not only did it add a new type of gameplay that I always wanted, it made it reasonable to add tons of songs like most of the Queen and Billy Joel stuff. I quickly graduated to the MIDI adapter and bought a keyboard just for this. I kept lugging that stuff around at Rock Band parties. Only problem was that the old songs couldn't be played to I sometimes had to drop out to play some classics.

I was convinced that Rock Band was dead, and was really happy to see Rock Band 4 revealed. But then Guitar Hero Live had to muddy the waters and divide the audience, which was a complete dick move by Activision. They just wanted a last sip at the plastic band teat, and ended up stealing a lot of Rock Band's thunder. Rock Band 4 was a great game for what it was and the guitar solos were a lot of fun. I'm really impressed that they eventually got all the old song packs up, even if it took ages in Europe. And they still release two-three songs almost every week, after TEN YEARS! Of course, without keyboard it's not quite the same thing. But I still have my two RB4 guitars in the living room. In fact, I think I'll play some now.

Best memories:
* Finding out that my martial arts group liked it, and then consequently arranging Rock Band nights every time we had weekend training. Playing "Somebody to Love" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" with a full group including chorus. We even brought this to a European camp and got a whole bunch of middle-aged martial artists singing along to "Run to the Hills".
* Everything with The Beatles: Rock Band, but "Here Comes The Sun" most of all.
* Learning about entirely new artists to me like The Protomen and The Killers.
* Discovering "Piano Man" and diving deep into Billy Joel's discography.
* 100%ing vocals while also playing the keyboard.

 

[BareKnuckle]

Convinced my mate to spend his savings (a mere £170ish) on a band in a box for all of us. Hooked it up to a friends home cinema and must have left it hooked up for a year straight.

No idea how his parents didn't ONCE tell us to keep it down. Immense game.

 

[softfocus]

The only game I've really invested tons of money on the DLC. I was mad on it at its peak but when the fad died and by the time Rock Band 4 came out, I became bored of it. I play real instruments but this game was so fun to just pretend that you could play that stupidly hard guitar solo without many nights of practicing.
The Beatles version is so underrated. It's only a couple of quid now but I definitely recommend it if you've got a spare plastic instrument lying around.

 

[MikeProtagonist]

Oh, and one more thing. How ridiculously generous Harmonix were to ensure backwards compatibility with every damn guitar ever released including the Guitar Hero ones. And how they added in backing vocals to every legacy song that didn't have it. On top of putting every old song back for free.

The only problem is that eventually this generation too will end and there's NO way in hell we're getting Rock Band 5, so it's just a question of how long you can keep those instruments working...

 

[PROh1bited]

Oh, and one more thing. How ridiculously generous Harmonix were to ensure backwards compatibility with every damn guitar ever released including the Guitar Hero ones. And how they added in backing vocals to every legacy song that didn't have it. On top of putting every old song back for free.

The only problem is that eventually this generation too will end and there's NO way in hell we're getting Rock Band 5, so it's just a question of how long you can keep those instruments working...

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They did a survey before RB4 was announced asking what the audience wanted. And the top 2 picks were old dlc being compatible and same with the instruments. And that's what they delivered.

 

[MikeProtagonist]

They did a survey before RB4 was announced asking what the audience wanted. And the top 2 picks were old dlc being compatible and same with the instruments. And that's what they delivered.

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It's still a huge cost to them, and still people whined about not having a practice mode.

 

[Justsomeguy]

Click click clack clack click click clack clack... And I loved it!

 

[Ravensmash]

Used to play this a lot at Uni, some of my fondest memories.

Friends gathered round a TV, few beers, blasting away on plastic instruments.

I really want the whole musical genre to make a massive comeback.

 

[cakely]

Absolutely loved this game. Used it as a party karaoke machine with fun toy instruments to play. I even bought the crazy Fender Squire for pro mode. It also taught me the basics of rock drumming (minus the left foot) which I eventually got to use on stage with my actual band. (Nothing fancy, but I didn't suck). Rock Band 3 was the highlight for me ... loved pro mode, loved the keyboard, loved the vocal harmonies. They nailed it.

Jumped on board with Rock Band 4 on the Xbox One but the magic just wasn't there. For some reason there was a huge amount of input lag that I never could fix, even with the same TV I had used on the 360.

 

[kdoll08]

Has anyone tried playing the game on Xbox one X?

 

[Joe]

Rock Band has some of my best gaming memories. I don't have a PS4 or XB1, so I haven't gotten the most recent version, but I really want to almost every day. Sooner or later I should jump in, before it becomes impossible.

 

[-PXG-]

One of my exes LOVED Rock Band. We played all the time. I'd be on drums, she'd do guitar or vocals.

Miss those days sometimes.

 

[PROh1bited]

Rock Band officially turns 10 today.

 

[Allforce]

We still trot this out from time to time on 360. Still have the original RB1 stock drums and guitar too and they still work great.

 

[Lady Gaia]

I didn't touch the series until Rock Band 3, and it's easily my most replayed game of all time. Why didn't I find it earlier? That's easy enough. As a musician I'm a complete hack but I am a musician. I had zero interest in learning to play a plastic guitar-like thing. Being able to play keys, an actual guitar, and MIDI drums alongside friends who played whatever they were comfortable with? Awesome fun and something that was building useful skills at the same time.

I bought hundreds of dollars of DLC and an electronic drum kit I'd been eyeing for some time anyway for another $1500, plus the MIDI adapter for my Xbox 360. Then I re-bought the DLC and MIDI adapter all over again for the PS4 when Microsoft refused to support the 360 MIDI adapter for Rock Band 4, leaving hardcore fans stranded without a solution for a year.

I'm sorry the bubble burst, but I'm still thrilled with the experience. I moved a few months back and still plan to get everything up and running again for the Beatles, Rock Band 3, and Rock Band 4 once we've finished settling into our new home.

 

[firehawk12]

I was convinced that Rock Band was dead, and was really happy to see Rock Band 4 revealed. But then Guitar Hero Live had to muddy the waters and divide the audience, which was a complete dick move by Activision. They just wanted a last sip at the plastic band teat, and ended up stealing a lot of Rock Band's thunder. Rock Band 4 was a great game for what it was and the guitar solos were a lot of fun. I'm really impressed that they eventually got all the old song packs up, even if it took ages in Europe. And they still release two-three songs almost every week, after TEN YEARS! Of course, without keyboard it's not quite the same thing. But I still have my two RB4 guitars in the living room. In fact, I think I'll play some now.

Click to shrink...

I just starting thinking about this because of that free song pack that came out, so I'm LTTP. lol

Anyway, I don't blame Guitar Hero Live for anything - they tried to do something to make the genre fresh again and the chord-based guitar play combined with the idea of a free streaming service really was a good idea. I just think at that point the genre was tapped out entirely. If GH didn't exist, I don't think RB4 would have set the world on fire either. I think it captured all the people who had the previous games with large song libraries, and that's about it.