Music = 1UP

My early experiences with music games goes back to dance dance revolution. There was a game that swept the nations with a funky storm of J-pop and chart topping hits. I had caught DDR fever. I had even gotten pretty good at it, too. I played that game nearly everyday; my high school had one set up that students could play during the lunch hours. I even lost some weight playing that game. Who knows that regular physical activity could yield such a result? Though, as time went on, and the beats got stale, I moved on to other music games.

When I got my PS2, my library was growing rapidly. Along the way, I picked up the game Amplitude. Amplitude was a game by the company Harmonix, who would go on to create Guitar Hero and eventually Rock Band. Amplitude was a game that was unlike anything that I have played before. Each level was a song that had each part of the song (drums, bass, guitar, synth, vocals, etc.) divided up into different tracks. Amplitude taught me rhythm with flashing visuals and a vibrating controller that would pulsate to the beat. The game was so addicting and so cool that I played it religiously. Getting my combos to run the song throughout and try to get the highest score possible on the song was my goal for that game. Though, Amplitudes song would also come to an end.

Harmonix then came out with Guitar Hero. The first of many to enter households everywhere. This game was the one that started it all. Some loved Guitar Hero, while others scoffed at its inability to actually teach guitar. It was never about that, though. Guitar Hero had done something that no other music game before it had done before: it empowered the player. Harmonix is a studio full of musicians, and they wanted to give the thrill of playing music in front of a life crowd to their players. Great songs and the powerful road of the crowd made Guitar Hero an incredible experience. Sure, the plastic guitar was lame, but it was washed away when the volume was cranked up to eleven! And yet, more lame musical peripherals were to come.

In 2007, Harmonix released their masterpiece: Rock Band. A game that could make the least musically inclined people feel like rock stars. All across the land, every rocking band, was blowing up a storm. Now with bass, drums, and vocals, up to four people could rock their living rooms at the same time. Rock Band was the game all of my friends and I were playing through highs school and the following summer. The Rock Band Music Store only added to the insanity with tracks that we absolutely had to have, and the beat went on. Until one day, it stopped.

You don't see many music games anymore. It's troubling. Rock Band was at the pinnacle, and none could dethrone it. Others tried, mainly Guitar Hero (Harmonix's old project). Yet, music games stopped coming. There wasn't a market for them anymore. Those plastic instruments got traded in, or left to collect dust in a closet. Like many great musicians, Harmonix had made a deal with the devil, and his name was Bobby Kotik, president of Activision. Activision is now notorious for killing games, as it is a company that only works for profit. A company with legions of programmers at its disposal, only to make money. Activision was about to claim another, as it had with Tony Hawk: Pro Skater before it, Activision flooded the market with Guitar Hero games that were dwindling in quality, and the people were starting to lose interest. Harmonix had broken off from the tyrannical empire of Activision, which is about when they started working on Rock Band. Once Rock Band was released, Activision knew that they had no chance or competing, so they began to crank out Guitar Hero games on a yearly basis. Until eventually Band Hero was released. This was the nail in the coffin, not only for Guitar Hero and Activisions run with music games, but for the genre as a whole.

With all of the new technology that we have with gaming systems, I can't help but feel as though more could be done with music games than ever thought possible. Harmonix is still at it with dance central and it's use of the Kinect, but it is merely a drop in a very large pond that is filled with 'dark', 'gritty' shooters.

Music is such an integral part of games. So much so that it spawned an entire genre. Music is important, not only to video games, but in life as a whole. We need music to stimulate, comfort, create, express, and do so much more. Music game can inspire those who play them to maybe try their hand at the real thing, or maybe compose some music of their own, or maybe just get up and dance.