'Rock Band VR' Uses Oculus Touch Controller
Since 2007, the Rock Band franchisehas spawned multiple games in its main series as well as various spin-offs such as The Beatles: Rock Band and Green Day: Rock Band. With VR on the way, the developers at Harmonix put the popular music game on the Oculus Rift, too. At last week’s Oculus Rift Launch Preview event at GDC, I was able to try Rock Band VR.
Sound Check
Aside from the Rift HMD and a Rock Band guitar, you’ll need the Oculus Touch controllers and a clip to mount one on the back of the head stock. This allows the sensor to track the guitar as you play.
Unlike the console versions of the game in which you watch the band play in the background, Rock Band VR puts you in the shoes of one of the guitarists. The start the demo, you have to go through a series of quick checks before the curtains go up, such as making sure that the virtual amp, microphone and guitar all work perfectly. To start the song, you look at the drummer, who counts off the beats.
As the crowd cheers you on, you see the traditional track of notes appear on multiple stage monitors instead of floating towards you in the air. You can also look around at your band mates as they perform without losing sight of the upcoming notes, thanks to the monitors. On higher difficulties, you’ll obviously have to pay more attention to the screen, so you won’t have time to look around as much. (The Harmonix representatives told me to play on Easy so that I could look around and still play the song perfectly.)
Encore
Overall, the experience was as expected. Latency wasn't an issue, and I did feel like I was on stage in front of (digital) fans instead of being in front of my TV screen in the living room. If I had more time in the demo, I would attempt the same song on a harder difficulty, just to see if I could unleash my inner rock god.
For now, it seems that most of the development for Rock Band VR is focused on implementing guitar play, as it is the most popular instrument (according to Harmonix). Of course, that could change in the future. Rock Band VR comes out at some point in 2016, but as it has the Oculus Touch requirement, we’ll probably see the game at the latter half of the year.
Follow Rexly Peñaflorida II @Heirdeux. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.
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Rexly Peñaflorida is a freelance writer for Tom's Hardware covering topics such as computer hardware, video games, and general technology news.
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heirdeux Replyis the pc getting rock band?
That depends. Harmonix has a crowdfunding campaign going on right now on Fig. If it reaches the $1.5 million goal, the company will hire another development team to work on the PC version.
So far, the campaign raised about $446,000. There are two weeks left in the campaign. -
heirdeux ReplyUm, Oculus is a PC peripheral. This is only on PC...
Right, but this is different than the full Rock Band experience. Rock Band VR will only let you use the guitar. If you want to play drums or vocals, or even have multiple friends play with you, you won't be able to play it on PC. -
devonuto Reply17703396 said:Um, Oculus is a PC peripheral. This is only on PC...
Right, but this is different than the full Rock Band experience. Rock Band VR will only let you use the guitar. If you want to play drums or vocals, or even have multiple friends play with you, you won't be able to play it on PC.
I don't think that is what Alidan is asking. Pretty sure they were just confused thinking this was a console game. -
hdmark have fun playing rock band and potentially work on your fear of being in front of a crowd at the same time?Reply
this is kind of the thing im interested in with VR. of course Ive wanted to play WoW and be fully immersed since I was 15 and started playing in vanilla, but the non gaming applications are limitless. -
wifiburger ok last time I saw rockband it was with a guitar and drums, now you have to put a VR headset and have some kinds of AR enabled to see the instruments ??Reply