Although we’ve had an idea for a while, it’s nice to have something a bit more official. Mike Ness of legendary punk band Social Distortion will be appearing in BandFuse: Rock Legends alongside legends such as Slash, Bootsy Collins and Zakk Wylde, as well as a few more, as an in game mentor. The classic Social Distortion track Bad Luck will also be making an appearance in the game too! The trailer showcases a bit about Mike Ness’ songwriting, specifically how Bad Luck came to be. From the looks of it, we may be getting these songwriting stories from the other legends too!
Check out the press release here, and check out the trailer below.
If you weren’t picking up BandFuse already, is some Social D what you needed to convince you? Tell us in the comments!
This styling is sublimely dark and stylishly understated, I just love it!
https://www.trueachievements.com/n15106/bandfuse-rock-legends-shows-more-screens
I’m a fan of Social D, but with no PC version, I won’t be buying it.
I’ll pick it up as long as it’s not a complete mess.
Rocksmith has sold me already, Bandfuse I’ll have to see out in the wild.
There’ve been a lot of delays and a lot of quiet time on the approach to launch… and that usually doesn’t mean ‘Things are going great, guys!’.. just the opposite.
We’ll see! Anything that assists my practice is a good thing.
Also, protip: if you listen to the Rocksmith and BandFuse songs in the sidebar to your right, you’re just going be that much more sick of them once you’ve played them a gajillion times.
What’s with all the BandFuse hate? I’m not defending it; I just haven’t been on here in a while and I’m curious.
I quite like both games, especially since RS has upped its game with RS 2014. It’s not the hating that annoys me so much, it’s the hating for stupid nonsensical reasons. Hating of things without even knowing how they will work in practice.
I’m actually not quite sure how I feel about Bandfuse. The tech is interesting, the soundtrack is great, but the interface seems a bit clunky from what I’ve seen (I actually prefer Rock Band 3’s Pro guitar interface to that of Banfuse, since at least you see the chord shapes instead of just the individual finger placements).
It also seems to answer to some of the complaints about Rocksmith, but then Rocksmith 2014 answers them even better. I would’ve been more interested in it if they released it a year ago like they planned originally, but now I’m not sure about it.
I like the way everything on BandFuse is styled like ‘actual guitar equipment.’ The pedal and amp controls look the business. Nothing looks gamey or toy-like. If you need to change effects or adjust your amp, you use controls that are exactly like they would be on the real thing. The lessons and techniques are superb (and it still covers more techniques than RS 2014).
The Tab Interface isn’t a pretty 3D note highway, but it is a tried and trusted way of presenting written guitar music and was chosen because it’s extremely practical. People who have managed to get a go with it at game conventions have found it very easy and intuitive. And, as you say, the music tech and multi-track stems are superior to RS, and allow instruments to be muted for the players (up to four) to take on the band roles in the song.
Having said that, RS have upped their game, redesigned their note highway, increased the techniques covered and produced an even better set of arcade games, and now have a neat ‘Session Mode’ with AI band players for practicing scale improvisation.
I already have RS 2014 on pre-order, but I’ll also be getting BandFuse. After all RS player owe one thing to BF, if it hadn’t existed, RS might not have bothered to improve their game, at least not to the extent they did.
While not actually part of the game, the pre-order incentives for Bandfuse are also much better than those of Rocksmith 2014. DR Neon strings are some of my favorite strings (and a great conversation starter when playing guitar), and alongside the coupon, it’s a serious value. Having just a single song as preorder incentive for Rocksmith 2014 came as a bit of a shock, as you actually lose value from preordering the game, but since Rocksmith 2014 is much more established than Bandfuse, I’d rather just get Rocksmith 2014 now and then wait for a price drop from Bandfuse, if at all.
Aren’t “chord shapes” exclusive to “Rock Band 3 Pro”? Isn’t that why Rocksmith can’t use them? Chord shapes made Rock Band playable. Just having straight tabs may be confusing. But, Harmonix and others are saying BandFuse is an advancement! So, we’ll see!
I’ve never played ‘Rock Band Pro,’ so I’m not sure what you mean by ‘chord shapes’ or whether Rock Band displays them in a different way from traditional fret boxes.
Rocksmith uses traditional Fret boxes in its ‘chord lessons’ and in its ‘chord book’ as well as video and hand diagrams to show where to put your fingers, but if you’re using Rocksmith standard layout (as opposed to TAB layout), these will be mirror imaged.
During play, strummed chords will come down the note highway as ‘chord frames’ containing the notes, and the fingering will appear as fingerprints on the virtual strings at the bottom of the screen. The chord name, e.g. Am7 appears above the frame and above the strings. Arpeggio chords simply appear as fingerprints on the string and the chord name appears above the strings and the notes come down the note highway in succession. (Rocksmith 2014 also shows numbers over the fingerprints to represent which fingers to use).
BandFuse has more serious and less ‘gamey’ in its approach, using standard TAB and fretboxes, with the intention that the player will be able to move seamlessly from Bandfuse to reading TAB and chords from books, Guitar Pro and other media. BandFuse has been designed by serious musicians for musicians. video lessons will be hosted by real guitrists and bassists and, visually, everything in BandFuse including amps, effect racks and pedals have been designed to look like ‘real world equipment.’ Some gamers don’t seem to like this because they want rainbows and fantasy, I guess it all comes down to whether you really want to learn guitar or just play a game.
BandFuse’s multi-track sound files are a major advancement in tech that gives superb sound quality and allows the players to do things that are impossible in Rocksmith, like muting instruments to allow the players to take over the roles of band members, and recording your own efforts.
Another difference from such as Rock Band Pro, is with Rocksmith and Bandfuse, when you play your guitar, you hear *your* guitar – they do not trigger samples.
For someone who has never played Rock Band 3 on Pro, you speak a lot about the differences between it and these other games. Even if you don’t know anything about Rock Band’s Pro mode, why not at least look up to find out what “chord shapes” are so you know what you are talking about when you are trying to compare differences between the three?
re: “I’ve never played ‘Rock Band Pro,’ so I’m not sure what you mean by ‘chord shapes’ ”
and then by the end “Another difference from such as Rock Band Pro, is ”
Thanks for your review of BandFuse and Rocksmith 2014! That sounded informed, even though you’ve never played them either since they’re not even out yet. Great stuff.
To be fair you don’t have to “play” RB Pro or BandFuse to comment on audio capabilities/limitations.
Thanks, Elliott!
I was just miffed that this person does not know what “chord shapes” are – they were super helpful in Rock Band 3 Pro … you should really try it, but I do think everything else you wrote was truly put together well.. I just wish you knew more about chord shapes and how helpful they are in RB!!
WTF??
As much as I love Social D, still not picking up Bandfuse. I can’t stand that layout, plus I hate games that use music videos instead of an actual interface.
Mike Ness is an incredibly underrated songwriter and guitarist though. Good to see he’s getting recognition alongside the rest of these guys.
Without an actual interface? Did you really just say that? WTF are you talking about!
Reading between the lines, the BandFuse game interface looks shit and displaying the music video where they have put it is lazy, distracting and just looks like they needed some filler for the screen real estate.
Ah Trolling and stupidity! OK. 😉
Maybe but, lets be honest, the interface sucks compared to RS 2014.
Both interfaces are good for their individual approaches. The BF interface is designed to prime you for sight reading TAB as well as showing what to do. The RS simply shows you what to do, but the RS interface wasn’t without it’s problems. It was often hard to tell the fret number and the chords gave the finger positions but not which fingers to use, and didn’t show the length of notes unless they were sustains or bends. It couldn’t show tapping or pinch harmonics, nor could it differentiate between up bends and down bends. It’s had considerable improvement, with RS 2014.
Now when have you been honest? You’re probably tdc002 with a different ID.
Yes, that is why I said RS 2014.
> Now when have you been honest? You’re probably tdc002 with a different ID.
Not guilty.
I think you do make a lot of good points about BF. It will likely be (slightly) more appealing to those folks who knocked Rocksmith for being too “gamey” and for failing to teach “serious” musical study. Having said that I think all the points made above tdc200 & Manuel are also valid. The BF interface doesn’t look “gamey” – it looks like educational software. I think that’s a perfectly valid decision regarding the interface, but to my mind this makes it all the more baffling that they’ve opted to release BF exclusively on game consoles. It just seems like a very odd marketing decision to me, but maybe I’m not understanding their target audience as well as I think (which is likely). At any rate, this will likely be the number one reason I take a pass on BF. In order to play my PS3 I need to compete with the rest of the family for TV time. Conversely I have two PCs running Steam, so sneaking in some practice time with RS has never been an issue. 🙂
I agree entirely, and don’t get me wrong, I think RS is great and can’t wait to get my pre-ordered copy of RS 2014.
I don’t like to see BF unfairly put down though. I think the interface is good, It’s certainly a very long way from being ‘shit’ as some people have suggested. Markus and the guys don’t deserve that kind of put down – they’ve put a lot of work into this. I expect to be using both next year (we’re unlikely to get a release date for this year here in the UK). Several members of the family are using RS on their PCs. BandFuse will be more of a sociable thing as the Xbox is in our living room – but then, BF is more suited to that role.
Great point about the party game atmosphere in BandFuse. I spose if my kids were slightly older, I’d be all over that. And you’re right about the interface – there’s certainly nothing inherently wrong with it. I looking forward to seeing BandFuse in action, and as far as RS goes there’s nothing wrong with some healthy competition! I’m really interested to see if BF manages to eliminate some of the lag issues that have been a sticking point with some Rocksmith users.
Yes! Me too! What ever happens it’s going to be interesting.
Nope not even this will be convincing me to get this. I have a feeling I wi pick it up about a month after release in the pre owned bin for half the price. The way the makers have handle the launch made me give up on this title. I keep going back just to see the next f up!! Lol
Gah! I was really hoping for some Social D in Rocksmith, but I still don’t know that this will convince me to pull the trigger on BandFuse. The jury is still out for me.
Well, guess I Was Wrong about my prediction to what song it could be, Story of My Life
Well despite your best efforts sometimes you still end up Down Here (With the Rest of Us). Don’t let it get you Down on the World Again. 🙂