Gamer Dad—Part 2: The Family Band
Part of the fun of being a Gamer Dad is playing with the family. The more people that can participate in a game, the better. Our family received Rock Band 2 as a gift from my brother. The kids had played it before at his house and really enjoyed it. So they were really thrilled that they could now play it at home.
The nice feature about Rock Band is that four people can play at once with each person having their own unique role in the band—lead guitar, bass guitar, drums, and vocals. While one person can enjoy the game by his or herself, Rock Band really rocks when you have a full band of four players. Guitar Hero World Tour is another band game for up to four players.
In our family, the drums are popular and the kids usually take turns playing them. (Gamer Dad is not as good at the drums since he does not get a chance to practice) They also enjoy playing the guitars; however, the vocal parts are more popular with my daughters.
One of the fun features of Rock Band is creating a band. We came up with the name for our band as a group and then my oldest daughter designed our logo. Once the band was created, our family began the tour. In Rock Band, you begin in one city and can play at a single venue. As you play different songs and song sets, you can unlock other venues as well as other cities. The songs in the early cities are fairly easy, with songs in cities farther away from your home city getting more difficult.
While many may think that Rock Band only offers heavy metal songs, in reality it actually offers a wide variety of music. In addition to metal, punk, and contemporary rock, the game includes some softer and older hits as well. Plus, you can purchase and download songs from several different genre. Recently a country pack was released with five songs by some of the hottest country singers and groups. Despite initial conceptions, these songs can be challenging with one by the Dixie Chicks actually quite difficult. More oldies are also appearing such as Roy Orbison and even Jimmy Buffet. Gamer Dads should have no trouble finding some songs from when they were younger and hipper which they can share with their family.
From first hand experience, Rock Band or other musical games which let several family members play together can provide some great family entertainment and together time. It looks like the future will offer even more songs of all different types including the Beatles and who knows what else since every week new songs are available.
If your family has a music game they like to play, chime in and share with us.
