STACK #186 Apr 2020

FEATURE GAMING

together in order for your troops to proceed – pata-pata-pata-pon! If you don’t have old school PlayStations in your gaming arsenal, assorted remastered PaRappa and Patapon games are now available for PS4.

with packed-in microphones - that dominated this space. In its PS2 heyday, new discs were regularly released, compiling hits of the time and past classics – seriously, who could live without the SingStar ’80s disc? The arrival of the PS3 and its ability to purchase DLC saw no abatement in SingStar’s popularity, with its PS2 SingStar disc reading capability a distinct plus. So, when the PS4 released, SingStar was a given – but something went sideways. People who had dropped big bucks on DLC discovered that much of it wasn’t available to redownload on the PS4. Those PS2 and PS3

DJMax

Rock Band

While Guitar Hero went along its shredding way, a company called Harmonix – no strangers to rhythm-based games, having already given us the arcade-styled Frequency and Amplitude – changed things up with the aptly-titled Rock Band . It included the now ubiquitous plastic guitar, but added a set of drums and a microphone. Grab a second guitar for bass parts and your very own plastic quartet was born. Guitar Hero: World Tour soon copied the format – then Activision went entirely elsewhere with the fun DJ Hero , which came packed with a solid turntable controller. Calling on turntablism skills – usually something you’ve either got or you ain’t – players were tasked with combining bits and pieces of various songs together to create hot new mixes. While that one went down like a Phil Collins ballad at a rave, Guitar Hero and Rock Band continued to duke it out. They even released various dedicated band sets – Rock Band ’s The Beatles, AC/DC and Green Day, for example, and Guitar Hero ’s Van Halen, Metallica and Aerosmith. Blame it on the boogie Some people may not be musically minded, but still like to move to it. Once again it was Konami to the rescue, with their Dance Dance Revolution (or Dancing Stage ) arcade games. These involved a large platform with various arrowed pads. Players would jump about to a bunch of upbeat songs, aiming to hit the correct pads with their feet – with bonus exercise! DDR soon came home, with a giant mat requiring a huge play area. Then there’s Ubisoft’s Just Dance series. Having recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, the key to its ongoing success

The PSP was also the birthplace of the DJMax series. Hailing from South Korea, it was a joyful explosion of K-pop (and beyond) that eschewed narrative for pure rhythmic ability. The series continues today, most recently with the superb DJMax Respect on PS4, and also led to many stylistically similar games. These range from the trio of Persona ‘Dancing’ outings that add social aspects of the JRPG franchise, right through to the piano-led – and beautiful - Deemo Reborn , Superbeat: Xonic and several experiences starring Japanese Vocaloid sensation Hatsune Miku.

SingStar

discs? Useless on the new machine. Then came a game update that broke much that people loved about the game, from its scoring mechanism to its difficulty level. New release songs slowed to a trickle and now, sadly, SingStar is history, for Sony closed down the servers and removed all DLC from their store earlier this year. If you still have a PS3 with all that DLC, cherish it – and pray that it never dies, for there’s no redownloading any owned songs. Physical media FTW! Rocking on! While Guitar Hero is no longer a going concern, it may surprise some to learn that Rock Band 4 is still very much alive, with a thriving online community and new DLC still releasing regularly. Those who like to hit things with their rhythm sticks have options beyond Rock Band 4 , too. While Donkey Konga on Nintendo’s GameCube may be a collector’s item now, there’s still the crazy fun of the Taiko no Tatsujin games for PS4 and Switch.

Hatsune Miku

All those wonderful toys! While we played these fun diversions at home, the arcades saw a wild selection of new musical games landing. Going beyond standard button controls, these had controllers emulating turntables, drums, guitars and even maracas (SEGA’s Samba de Amigo ). Konami’s DJ-inspired Beatmania was one of the first, with music keyboard-styled inputs coupled with a turntable-like rotating controller. Meanwhile, the fledgling GuitarFreaks and DrumMania franchises would inspire a whole new home sensation, beginning with 2005’s Guitar Hero .

Just Dance

Guitar Hero

has been the ability to play with either just a controller or mobile phone app. Harmonix also had a stab at this market with Dance Central for the Xbox Kinect, but as the hardware wasn’t particularly popular (despite being in most Xbox homes), that franchise died quickly. I’d rather just… sing! The other big format, dominated by one particular title, has been for those who just wish to get their karaoke on. While many tried, including an official Microsoft franchise entitled Lips , it was PlayStation’s SingStar – complete

Taiko noTatsujin

Or, of course, you can get into the goings-on within the Velvet Room in the Persona ‘Dancing’ trio of games. Finally, if you really mean it, m-a-a-a-n, you could opt for Rocksmith , which lets you plug an actual guitar or bass into your console and learn to play for real. Perseverance is rewarded – and the first time that you bash out a Pixies song that others can actually recognise you’ll be convinced that you really were born to rock. Or maybe that’s just us…

The concept was simple. License a bunch of popular guitar-heavy songs, jam a plastic guitar- shaped controller in players’ hands, and let them pretend to be the next Hendrix – even if they were just pressing coloured buttons to match notes plummeting towards them onscreen.

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