Yesterday, when we had a few dubious words to say about the upcoming AC/DC LIVE: Rock Band Track Pack from Harmonix and MTV Games, a fair portion of our assessment was based on conjecture. We made a few guesses about the game’s functionality and feature list, so we couldn’t deliver a concrete judgement at the time. Today, on the other hand, Variety (via Joystiq) has answered a few of our uncertainties in a brief Q&A with MTV’s Paul DeGooyer. It’s always best to have as many facts as possible before forming an opinion, but in this case, our initial opinion remains unchanged — it turns out we were largely correct in our guesses.
Here are some of the factors we guessed at yesterday, now confirmed by MTV:
- There are no custom avatars or venues for the Track Pack, unlike the band-specific Guitar Hero spinoffs. You will not be playing as Rock Band-ized (Rock Bandaged?) versions of AC/DC.
- The Track Pack is a truncated version of Rock Band, so there’s no character creator. You therefore can’t make your own AC/DC avatars, either.
- The Track Pack will allow you to “tour” through the 18 songs, though it will not force you to unlock any; you can play any of your favorites immediately. There’s tug-of-war and score duel, but no online play whatsoever. You shan’t be battling your friends’ bands unless you export the tracks into the main RB2 game.
- As we assumed, you’ll be able to export the AC/DC tracks once, and only once, through a single-use redemption code included on the game manual. This was really a no-brainer from a business standpoint, but if you want to play the songs in RB2, that means a rental or a pre-owned purchase is out of the question. That’ll be $40; please drive through.
And, as we mentioned before, if you do intend to play the AC/DC tracks in RB2, that means you already own RB2, are getting no value from the standalone game included with the Track Pack, etc. You’ll buy the disc long enough to export the tracks, maybe get the achievements, and then never look at it again. AC/DC, I love your music, but you’re making it very hard to want your game.
To top it off, you’re making me go to Wal-Mart to get it. I don’t intend to go into an anti-Wal-Mart diatribe here; my opinion of the megastore chain doesn’t really add much to the conversation. My problem is one of personal inconvenience — I can’t walk down the street around here without tripping over a game store, yet my nearest Wal-Mart is an hour away by car. If you’re going to make me shop online to get your game in the first place, why not just let me download the freaking tracks? Why would you tempt me with one of the greatest bands in the world and then place so many barriers in my way?
I’m just sayin’.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:46 pm
If they had announced AC/DC for download, fine.
Instead they’re announcing them for “download” but with a big hassle. I think I’ll pass.
I can’t even come up with a hypothetical buyer for this. Someone who normally would play Guitar Hero but wants to try Rock Band and AC/DC is JUST the incentive they need?
October 1st, 2008 at 4:16 pm
@ Timmo Warner:
It may be simpler than we think.
http://www.gamecyte.com/did-acdc-band-members-prevent-individual-rock-band-dlc