Quick Look: Karmaflow: The Rock Opera Videogame

My mistake, although you really ought to give newer music a chance. It's just like ...err ..Roman Reigns! You might not like it the first time you hear it, but if you give it a chance it might grow on you.

Is that the Arch Enemy singer?

@falling_fast: Naturally! Just like Heidevolk and Patatje Metal. You know, Dutch metal bands.

yeah uh *cough* i need to read more carefully, heh...

It's hilarious how Dan will insist up and down that Kansas isn't the south, but his taste in, well...everything is very similar to all of my dad's side of the family from Lousiana. Kansas may or may not be southern, but Dan sure as hell is whether he admits it or not, lol. That three pillars thing made me cringe. Those are the three things I don't want hear in music if I can help it. No thank you. Give me existentialism, anti-corporate stuff, weird scifi shit; literally anything but drinking, women, and fighting. Fuck all. of. that.

Looks nice, not a game but an interactive meditative experience type thing that takes its time.

Man, I love Dan and Drew QL's but this one was tough to watch. The game was kinda boring, and like many said, it's more Evanescence-y than I would prefer. Really could've used more singing too, to consider itself a rock opera.

That said, if Dan's taste in music really is just those three pillars, that's some really boring and narrow-minded taste... But then that's Dan and that's we love him!

Hopefully Act 2 or whatever (if they make it) will be more Meatloaf and Styx than this.

You're not making a good case here

You guys seem to be confusing rock operas with progressive rock!

@darenwasteland: Yeah well. He'd probably think 85 per cent of what I listen to is complete nonsense (it kinda is), but what can you do. Some people only like one type of music. And they're probably completely happy about it.

Yep, current Arch Enemy singer Alyssa is in the game, alongside a pretty good sized roster of singers and musicians if you enjoy the symphonic/prog side of metal, a lot of female vocalists from groups like Epica, Tristania, and After Forever appear to make up the cast. Seems like an Ayreon album made videogame.

http://www.karmaflowgame.com/cast.html

Well, he has professed some love for hip hop like Wu Tang and stuff like that.

It's kinda refreshing and therapeutic to read these comments after having to listen to Dan's narrow views on music. It's like waking from a nightmare and realizing no one had been killed. Or, in this case, that the world hasn't turned into a creatively bankrupt piece of garbage.

I like the art in this but the game itself seems pretty boring sadly.

@danryckert With all the music talk going on in this QL, a quick question. What's your opinion on Whitesnake?

One of my all time favourites and they should be right up your alley, at least from a theme perspective, since they mostly sing about women/relationships and the rock and roll live style.

30 seconds into Quick look a feel obliged to say:

PSA: Rock Opera ≠ Rock ’n Roll

But either way I wouldn't call what we hear here rock opera.

I just listened to an entertainingly dismissive rant about what songs "should be about" over footage of a video game. What a website!

Rock Operas mostly do suck pretty bad like Tommy or The Wall, but Prog Rock can be really good. And the worst song by the Beatles is Your Mother Should Know, Revolution 9 is so much more fun to listen to than that.

Here is a proper rock opera that I think Dan would enjoy, good ol Metalocalpyse

This is a really bad quick look, sadly =(

The game looks kind of interesting, and I may end up picking it up; but the dour attitude throughout this QL is a huge disservice to the game itself. I get if they were expecting some kind of Brutal Legend type game, this would seem completely different; but there's no need to talk down about it because it wasn't that.

Also, music is a subjective taste. Everyone can have their own opinions about music. Dan has his, I have mine, you have yours. Calling Dan's taste in music narrow is rude - he likes what he likes.

Edit: To be fair, this seems like it could be boring; but still. #yolo

Dan's limitations of food matches well with his limitations in music.... beh.

I'm going to go listen to some Holy Diver and enjoy my nonsense.

I like songs about everyday life, but not like "I like this girl, here's how much I like this girl" type shit. That's just boring. Tell me a story in your song, don't give me a facebook status.

"I liked this girl, but she had a boyfriend and he threatened to shoot me" counts as a facebook status.

I couldn't watch the whole thing. I understand this is a website focused on personalities but one personality is a little too over bearing for my taste these days... Let's bring it back to the video games if we can.

There are good Pink Floyd songs? Oh thanks Dan!

I'm guessing Dan and Drew thought this game was gonna be Brütal Legend 2 or something.

Terrible quick look. Is this showing the game or is the game just incidental to a pointless conversation.

Dan's super meat n' potatoes with music and it's great! I dislike Seeger's and Springsteen's music, but Dan riling people up is so worth it.

Lots of people here need to get that pole out of their ass--man.

Also this game seems like a cool idea, but it really flopped on its execution.

[Edit] I do agree with Dan that Revolution 9 is horse shit.

I also agree with Drew that I can't listen to Pink Floyd's albums on shuffle--give me the whole thing!

Getting rid of long opening credit sequences is my favorite thing about modern movies.

The utter dislike some people have for metal baffles me. It's so incredibly untrue that they have no personal stories.

Also peoples disdain for Rock Operas baffles me. Tommy, The Wall, Rocky Horror picture show... all fantastic films with fantastic songs.

That being said I hate most modern day music so it's whatever. We're just old people arguing about music that doesn't get made anymore anyway.

This game is decidedly not rock. I'm not sure the developers of this game know what a Rock Opera is. It doesn't help that the game on it's own looks tedious and dull so even if you mute the terrible "music" it'd still be no fun to play.

@cannibalferox: That actually shows just how bland the game is. It had a rather strong start with the music gradually shifting to a metal crescendo and then silence as the game starts with no real clue as to what that all ment and how it relates to what you are playing as.

Dan and Drew bullshitting shows just how uninteresting the game had become in such a short time. A good rock opera needs to keep your attention at all times with good music and visuals. Its more of a failure of the developers than anything.

Dan would get alot farther in life if his opinions were not stated as concrete facts all the time, I appreciate that he has his thoughts and I agree with some of them...but calling a band like Tool "complete garbage", that spends years working on a handful of songs and having a sound that they want and not want the radio wants, its just offensive to musicians in general

either way, I like that a game like this can exist, I just hope it is found by the people that will enjoy it

Are you doing this on purpose at this point?...It's kinda tiring.

You know, the more I hear of and from Dan's dad the more I understand why he doesn't like to try new things.

Oy. It's one thing to be opinionated, it another to be ignorant. But when you are opinionated, and ignorant, well, it's more annoying to listen to that than it is to watch someone play this game.

This game looks boring but the end of this QL was worse. Come on guys, all they wanted you to do was the only thing you had been doing up until that point.

of course dan has dumb taste in music, he has dumb taste in everything, but that's why he's endearing.

also i found this game boring and dumb despite the fact that I think you can do story-songs really well (Coheed and Cambria being a stellar example through their first few albums, and again lately) and that I really love metal (albeit the tech death/deathcore/slam metal variety that probably isn't this game's bag)

"Tool is a garbage kind of band" sigh. I know I'm not supposed to care about what Dan says but I like him, so I do. He needs to stop talking in absolutes. Just, you know. As a people skill.

"Dharma" is a concept in Hinduism, Buddhism, and other related religions that has to do with ideas of right conduct and living an ethical life. It often comes up in yoga classes where the moves have not been renamed by a pro wrestler

Wanting to only listen to songs about drinking and fighting and sitting by a river is the biggest disservice to music that I have ever heard.

This game seems almost as bad as Dan's opinions about music.

(He's right though, Tool is a garbage band.)

@amyggen said:

Well it's tough to say off the top of my head, but it always felt to me like quick looks happened after they had played enough of the games to understand what they were doing and about where they were going. When I see a video labeled quick look that is what I expect to see. The Ziggurat quick look is a great recent example of that format as are I would say most others. I don't think that covering games blindly based on their names is necessarily a bad thing, but to me it's not what the term quick look has come to represent. But props to Drew for disclosing the looseness of this quick look up front.

@underthere: GBEast does their job the way it was supposed to I think. They always know almost everything about the game before doing a QL, that's why I get so giddy when I see "posted by Vinny Carravella"

Paul Ryckert does quick looks now? weird.

Kill it Drew

I'm sure many people like you (and me! I love Dan!) exist, but more fans of the site definitely need to see this.

my video game content is super serious and factual

@teaoverlord said:

On man, I love "To be or Not to Be"! Check it out at 1:00:30

It starts of a bit slow, but once it hits the chorus at 1:01:40 , It's so good. I always find myself singing it to myself.

I don't know, having seen and performed in Tommy and Jesus Christ Superstar I can say that in my opinion, those are both pretty good, if flawed, rock operas.

Also, there is a harmony in Pinball Wizard that isn't on the album version and only in the musical version and it is amazing.