What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me? Well on Friday night’s evidence the answer is “no”, as I had around ten people squeezed into my living room for an “epic night of tunes” (as “the kids” would say). I am honestly not intending to exude laddish bravado when I say I can’t remember a lot of it (for example, the next day I took LEGO: Rock Band out of my X-Box and I don’t remember us playing it at all) but I will summon up what I can remember for this blog.
I know that the night started with either Lady Gaga’s “ Bad Romance” or REM’s “Losing My Religion” (both sung by me!) and went from strength to strength from there. A personal highlight was muting the sound on “Living on a Prayer” during the chorus (in a night club cliché) so that the room was filled with the voices of the drunken multitude. Anyway, I’m told a good time was had by all and this is down in no small part to how Rock Band fairs as a social game.
The genius of Rock Band (and I’m sure Guitar Hero employs the same mechanic) is that each player gets to select their own difficulty level independent of everyone else. This means that a good player can play with a rubbish player and both can play at a level which provides a challenge whilst still being fun. Of course, this is open to abuse. My friend Ally insisted on playing every song on expert and constantly failed, which meant everyone had to keep replaying the same songs as long as he saw fit! However, Ally and I did do an awesome duet on The Beatles “A Day in the Life” in which he was John and I was Paul, so I will forgive him.
I am not a proper musician (I can play guitar chords, but apart from that I know nothing about music) and so it was interesting to learn that my drums aren’t calibrated to go with the music at all! My friend John, who can really play the drums, was having to hit the notes early and was completely thrown by the games inaccuracy. But that was really my fault. Next time I need one of these music people to set it up properly before hand, like a video game roadie.
It was really great to see how people, in a party setting, would pass the mic around mid-song, or start dueting with one another. I wasn’t sure whether the game would work with so any people, but everyone seemed to get to play as much or as little as they wanted and almost everyone took turns singing, which I was really pleased with. My mate Dave from IQGamer (as pictured in the truly disturbed image to the right) looked a little like he was asleep for some of the night, but I think that was down to the fact that he was mixing his vodka and coke a bit wrong (more or less making it a 50-50 split between vodka and coke).It was a really good night, and it made a change to have a night of drinking which revolved around singing and pretending to play guitar. I think everyone enjoyed it and I really want to do it all again!
