The Beatles: Rock Band

While my Guitar gently clacks.

Source // PlayStation

I'm going to come right out and say it. I'm not playing The Beatles: Rock Band.

I'm not going to hunt down plastic instruments and multiple USB microphones - I don't even know how they'd all connect to the PlayStation 3 anyway. I'm not going to welcome people into my home to join me in clacking and bashing those instruments or wailing into those microphones. I'm just not going to do it.

(Insert record scratch here)

But part of me wants to.

Rhythm Heaven

How many times will I mistype Rhythym?

I'm not terribly in sync if this 1001 list is any indication. There have been many different must-play rhythm games for me to practice with, some I like, some I hate, and pretty much none that I'm skilled enough to get anywhere with.

And so Rhythm Heaven sounds like it's going to be a challenge, but as its 1001 write up mentions, it's done by the same folks as the later WarioWare titles, and the accompanying screenshot looks like it's welcoming enough for fools like me, so I am feeling quite positive about it.

How long will that positivity last? At least it looks more interesting than Guitar Hero.

Guitar Hero: Metallica

Off to Never-Never land.

Source // Nintendo

I couldn't tell you a single song that Metallica has written. Well, there's Enter Sandman, but I only know that from ECW, and wouldn't have been able to tell you that it was a Metallica track until I looked it up just now.

I am, quite simply, not the target audience for Guitar Hero: Metallica, though it does have the odd offering from much more recognizable bands should you require a change of... musicians?

Look, you know the drill. I don't have the kit, I don't have the desire, I'm not going to be saying a whole lot about this game, and I'm probably going to slag off Metallica, so let's all just ignore this one and move on.

DJ Hero

Wikiwiki clack clack!

Source // Giant Bomb

Guitars? Done. Drums? Done. Keyboards? Don't be silly. Band-specific games? Done. What new territory was left for the likes of poor Guitar Hero and Rock Band games to move into? What new peripheral could capture the attention of the masses. What does everybody secretly wish they had the talent for?

Uhh... turntablism? Time for DJ Hero.

Bit.Trip Core

Don't.Trip Up

After throwing seemingly every version of Guitar Hero and Rock Band at us, and then confusing us with Art Style Intersect for a little bit, the 1001 list has found a game that sort of fuses all of those together in an homage to the 8-bit generation that is rhythm game Bit.Trip Core.

D-pads at the ready, eyes front and center, get ready to test your reflexes an- what are you looking at?

Rock Band 2

"Crawling in my skin. These games, they will not disappear."

Source // Nintendo

From time to time I've spoken about how this 1001 list makes some pretty awful decisions regarding which games to feature, to the point where basically identical games are listed to justify a new sentence that has words to the effect of "this time they got it right!"

Part of the appeal of this 1001 list is seeing the evolution of video games through the decades. Milestones in technology are important things to remember, be they successful or not. A game can introduce the world to something, it's sequel can perfect it. You can argue for the inclusion of both games - after all, there's still room for 999 more games, right?

But Rock Band. Bloody Rock Band, and it's spin-offs, and it's competitors... they can get a goddamn 1001 list of their own at the rate they're going. Here's Rock Band 2. This will not take long.

Let's Tap

Let's not?

Source // Nintendo Life

"Wii" and "Gimmick". Two words that are often found together, but whether that's for a good or bad reason largely depends on who you ask.

Having not owned a Nintendo Wii in its prime, and finding no major reason to keep the batteries in the Wiimote in 2021, if you ask me, the two words have a slightly negative lean to them. A Nintendo Wii game has to be really rather special to overcome that feeling, preferably making use of the controller in a way that no other console can do.

Let's Tap goes a step further, and gets players to use the Wiimote in a way no Nintendo Wii game ever did: by not even touching the fancy motion-sensing controller at all.

Bold move? Must have worked at least well enough to warrant a look in by those who follow a 1001 must-play video games list for fun...

Guitar Hero World Tour

When will the noise end?!

Source // Nintendo

So, Harmonix made a few Guitar Hero games, unleashing the plastic plague upon second-hand electronics stores the world over, before they swapped bands for whatever reasons and played for Rock Band, which introduced more plastic peripherals into households that really didn't need them, proving that there was - somehow - a market for this tat.

Not wishing the up-and-coming competitor to have all the fun, whoever was left in the original Guitar Hero band thought they too could pull off a microphone and drum kit and here we are: Guitar Hero World Tour.

Yes, it's got one fewer drum, but it has two more cymbals, so ner. Is that enough to get me to play it? You know the answer to that.

Audiosurf

Ride your Music

If Patapon is too heavy on the drums, and Guitar Hero too focused on guitars, and Frequency too far in the past to remember much about, where are you going to turn to get your rhythm game kicks? What title will offer you the best selection of music tracks to zone out to? What game serves you your own music tastes to play with, and actually makes it all sound good by not cutting your favourite tracks up and forcing you to get good to hear them again?

Apparently, it's Audiosurf, a rhythm puzzler that has you drift and zip along whatever music you want in an attempt to hit the high scores. Let's find some tunes to surf.

Patapon

Pon Pon Pata Pon!

The PlayStation Portable was home to a fair few oddities, with two big titles coming to mind, famed for their charmingly simple looks and catchy music. The one I'm more familiar with will appear elsewhere on this 1001 list, but the other is the rhythm strategy side-scrolling beat 'em up, I guess, that is Patapon.

You are the Almighty, God of the Patapons, beating the drum that leads them towards... It.

What is "It", anyway? I've no idea, but it's all the way over at Earthend, presumably quite far to the right. Get your rhythm going and watch your believers march to the beat of the drum.

SingStar

Bo-re-me-for-the-las-tiiiiime

Source // PlayStation

When your mates kick you out of your Rock Band, fear not, Sony has your back, so long as you've got some microphones and/or a camera and a copy of SingStar, and a desire to have machines and code judge your warbling for all within sight of the TV to see.

I don't, of course. Neither the desire, nor the microphones, nor SingStar in any form, of which it's hard for me to pin down just what it is. It doesn't quite look like a standalone game, certainly not in its latest form. Looks like more of a service where you pick and choose what to 'sing along to' according to your own tastes.

I bet the moneymen love that. Let's find out what I'm missing, then.

Rock Band

Clackclackbashclackbashclackbash

Source // Nintendo

By 2007, Guitar Hero was, unquestionably, a rather large success. The sequel proved that, and the stage was set for the actual next step in rhythm-based gameplay: Multiplayer, with multiple instruments.

Guitars? Two flavours of those. Drums? Gotta have a bald guy at the back making a racket. Microphone? Well you don't expect this band to get anywhere without someone wailing about life's troubles, do you?

All I need know are three willing friends to gather around the TV, plastic peripherals in hand and... what's this? Oh, no, that's unfortunate. It's 2020, and there are no indoor household visits. What? Play in the garden? No can do, it's winter. It'd be a washout. Think about Glastonbury? Listen, I'm not playing Rock Band, alright?

Guitar Hero II

Clack Clacklack clack Clack Clack Clack

I am so close to writing "It's more of the same, move along" and just call it a day, but apparently Guitar Hero II is more than that. It marks the point at which the series showed the music world that these kind of games are going to stay, and at the same time represented the series peak before the developers split off to do Rock Band while the Guitar Hero name was dragged around the world.

Or something. I'm not really interested. One clacky plastic instrument functions the same as another, does it not?

Let's get this over with.

Elite Beat Agents

Agents are... Go?

Music. It's there to soothe, it's there to inspire, it's there to motivate. So, too, are the Elite Beat Agents, governmental Men in Black who will dance your troubles away, their rhythmical moves turning whatever frowns you have upside-down and much more besides.

It's perhaps not the kind of backstory you expected for a rhythm game, but I for one am glad that there is at least something going on here other than my lack of musical talent. Everyone ready?

Guitar Hero

CLACK! CLACK! CLACKLACKLACK!

After playing Frequency, I warned you all that I had no intention of tracking down a plastic guitar for the sake of authenticity when playing future rhythm games. After Amplitude, I questioned just how anybody could enjoy music and rhythm games when their favourite songs get butchered by misplaced inputs and poor timing.

And now we're finally here. Guitar Hero. Where hitting buttons at the right time isn't enough. You've got to stand up and rock as well.

Ugh.

Daigasso! Band Brothers

Say what?

Launch titles and gimmicks go hand in hand, and it was the case with the dual-screened Nintendo DS and Daigasso! Band Brothers, a rhythm game that has you button-pressing and screen touching in time with a whole load of music, from the classics of the past to the ear-worms of video games present.

That screenshot is from the sequel, as I understand it, and I can't read any of it. This might be a short one...

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat

Deserves some kind of applause, surely.

When I slapped those bongos for Donkey Konga, I thought that while a clever bit of kit, they were somewhat gimmicky. Hitting bongos to the beat of the music, yeah, sure, it makes sense. Is it a system seller? Not really. Can you do much else with them? No. No, you can't.

Unless you're the mad developers of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, a platformer - yes, a platformer - that works best with the bongos.

What a world we lived in back in 2004...

Mojib-Ribbon

( t x t )

Vib-Ribbon was odd but charming - so far as a pointy rabbit electronically shrieking in pain having walked into a spike trap could be charming.

Mojib-Ribbon, bringing rhythm-based weirdness to the PlayStation 2, is utterly impenetrable, yet is a must-play, according to this 1001 list. This'll be tricky then...

Donkey Konga

Chump

Source // Moby Games

While I can't see the point in playing games like Amplitude, I can see the point in playing games like Donkey Konga, the rhythm game where you slap a giant plastic bongo in time with the music. Like Samba de Amigo and it's plastic maracas, doing something vaguely similar to the characters on screen seems to add some sense of achievement to what is, essentially, an utterly pointless task.

That could open up a can of worms. Let's rephrase: Playing some plastic bongos makes you feel like you're sitting there on the beach, with Donkey Kong and pals, jamming to the beat of the music for no other reason than to have some fun.

Sure, there are high scores to go after, but that's not the point, is it? The point is to have a good time. Will we have a good time?

Amplitude

Go, Baby, Go go.

Ugh, this again? What's so good about it that I've got to do it twice? Once you've seen one rhythm shooter thing, you've seen them all, right? What could Amplitude possibly add to the formula that Frequency laid down previously?

I suppose I'll have to have a look and find out.