Time to get serious...
2. Guitar HeroWe nearly wet ourselves with excitement when we first heard about Guitar Hero. The series is notable for its use of a guitar-shaped peripheral to simulate the playing of music, represented on-screen by colored notes that correspond to fret buttons on the controller.
The series has had phenomenal success and did as good a job as we could have hoped at creating all the sensations of being a rock star.
It's going to be sometime before a music game can make us feel like the first time we picked up the X-plorer guitar.
Click for larger image1. Rock Band
Rock Band took the Guitar Hero phenomenon and expanded on it. Just look how far we've come in this genre over the last 15 years. Rock Band gave gamers the previously unimaginable chance to perform in virtual bands by providing up to four players with the ability to play three different peripherals modeled after music instruments (a guitar peripheral for lead guitar and bass guitar gameplay, a drum peripheral, and a microphone).
The HEXUS team had the pleasure of playing Rock Band on stage in front of 3,000 people earlier this year and we were blown away by the experience and astounded as to how much the game made us feel like we were actually part of a band and glad to be part of a defining moment in gaming history.
Click for larger imageThe thing is that, despite the music and rhythm-based genre almost reaching its peak in recent years, there's still room for improvement and we feel we'll see the pinnacle of that when the next Guitar Hero and Rock Band games arrive.
Where now though for the genre? Surely Rock Band is the best it can get? Don't count on it, this is one area of gaming that will continue to push the boundaries and already we have two challenges stepping forward to be counted, in the form of Wii Music and Microsoft's answer to Singstar, Lips.