As someone who has played Rock Band since day one, and still plays 3 with tons of DLC and customs, everything about RB4 has been super disappointing for me. No online multiplayer makes the game not remotely interesting to me. I don't have any friends who want to regularly play Rock Band but over the years I have made several online friends that I'd play with frequently and for a couple years did DLC videos each week with them at 5am when the new songs would go up. This blows. I switched to PS4 this time around and have had no reason to get an Xbox One, but I was ready to buy one for this game after they announced the DLC would transfer and old instruments would work. That would have been worth it to update one of my favourite series to the current gen and get back to playing with friends who don't live in the same city or state or country as me, but it becomes almost impossible to justify for myself when the game now offers me a RB1-era track pack with new lighting, cool stuff for vocalists (I never sing because I am a bad person,) and a feature that couldn't be any less appealing to me.
I like playing plastic guitar. It's the best. It's really fun and I'm really good at it. The best part of playing my stupid fake guitar to rock songs is the solo! Freestyle solo mode is a neat feature for a lot of people and seems technically impressive. Makes sense to me why it's a big feature, but oh man is that not something I want to hear or play, I like note matching the actual solo and hearing the actual solo. So this neat feature is something I can't see myself ever using except maybe once or twice as a novelty or on songs I don't really like.
No online multiplayer is fucking crazy though! I can't think of any other franchise where people would be so OK with that feature being removed from it after being there since the beginning, but I guess no one besides me and my weird online friends care. Everyone has Rock Band parties and multiple people down anytime to play with them nearby I guess? I'm not so lucky. I hope Harmonix has something definitive to say about online. I can't buy your game until that happens because as it stands I still have my 360, Rock Band 3, my wired guitar (that works great but wouldn't work in RB4 because the required adapter doesn't support wired) and a whole disgusting amount of customs. And the only downside to those customs is the fact I can't play them online...oh shit. That sucks. Wish I had a stream of new songs to play AND play with others online.
I really hope this game is successful enough that they are able to get RB4 even remotely close to the feature list of RB3. I realize I'm probably a very specific demographic, but it sucks how much almost everything about RB4 has bummed me out. On the bright side I am saving a bunch of money. Maybe it's money worth spending in 2016 at some point. Can't wait to see if any reviewers give a shit about the lack of online multiplayer or if I'm the edgest of edge cases here and no one else notices. I'm not even mentioning all the tiny things that are baffling omissions or the song selection menu that is rather lacking, but I have faith those are the kind of thing that will get addressed whereas I really can't get a read on Harmonix's intentions with supporting online features.
PS the Canadian dollar stinks right now oh god does it stink. $350-400 Xbone. $180 for game and guitar. Nope.
PPS I realize how bitter/angry this may all sound, but it's just disappointment. I hope lots of people enjoy the game!
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