It’s been my experience having played Rock Band several times on a friend’s console for hours at a time, that regardless of how much you like to listen to a song, that it’s not always a joy to actually play/sing it. Such is the case with Metallica songs, a few I like but are ridiculous enough to make your fingers hurt worse than flinging a Wii remote around for an hour. The Hysteria song you speak of (creepy stalker video BTW) reminds me of alternative punk music, I guess.
Now purely my opinion here, but the punk/alternative music in Rock Band is notoriously bad to attempt to play at all because it’s all over the place. Can’t understand it, can’t sing it, can’t play it. Tried several and just gave up on some songs in that genre. Of course, this is probably just me as it comes down to taste and simply what works and what doesn’t for whatever instrument you use in Rock Band. I prefer the old classic rock melodies I grew up listening to from the Stones, The Who, CCR, and several others from the 60s-80s, added with a few from the 90s and today.
I’m still shocked Europe didn’t have Rock Band already, as I thought it was out everywhere sometime ago. I listened to a podcast featuring an American dude living in Japan who from his talking perspective made me think Rock Band was everywhere but Japan. He mentioned they have since completely canned any plans to bring it to Japan at all. So don’t feel too bad. He had to import his drum set and copy to play on his 360. From what I gather you don’t really need all the instruments. Most generic USB microphones seem to work, even the 360 headset mic does. If you got some guitars for Guitar Hero games (like my 360 friend does), they work alright as well. So really just the drums is what differs.
A little reading shows European Rock Band is getting 9 other songs included with its game that will otherwise be DLC for anyone else, hence maybe the price increase for the game itself? Even though it probably deserves more than just 9 to justify the extra expenditure.
But you’re right to be angry at EA, as I’m sure there are just as many angry folks in protest against the upcoming Battlefield: Bad Company game. Having been reported that extra weapons will only be available as DLC for an extra charge unless you purchase the special edition at launch for more. The micro payments thing with consoles for extra content or maps really iterates me. Looking at the PC, that for years has had an open development community who creates free mods, hundreds of free maps, addons, skins, etc. for most games, it just feels like a step backward for the closed console environments in effort to make an extra buck for what is usually so little in return.
In BF2 I still haven’t unlocked all the guns, but that’s part of the challenge… to unlock them, not by paying a little extra to get them. OK, so maybe in some game types like BF2, I’d probably be fine with the option to pay to get the extra content right away, just so long as the it doesn’t interfere with game balancing AND the majority who probably doesn’t want to pay extra (like me) still has the option to obtain it by working for it in the game somehow, completing achievements, other merits, objectives etc.
It’s just going to get worse I fear as every other publisher is closely watching what EA does and how they sinisterly get away with it.
