I really could care less about music games, but this new one sounds bad ass

[The_vagabond7]

I like alot of the songs mentioned, and the variations on a theme sound really cool, plus the control sounds pretty interesting as well. I might actually get this.

 

http://wii.ign.com/articles/850/850132p1.html

February 6, 2008 - Planet Moon Studios, a game development firm that's worked on games such as Infected for the PSP and Smarty Pants for the Wii, has been quietly milling away in its San Francisco-based studio for the past year and a half on one of the most unique and clever takes on the music and rhythm genre seen yet on the Wii. Band Mashups is nearing completion, and the team stopped by the IGN offices to give us a taste of what it created for the Wii and its motion sensing controller.

Band Mashups is a rhythm game that spotlights 30 licensed songs across all genres, and then covers those songs five different ways: rock, funk/hip-hop, country western, Latin and marching band. All told there will be more than 150 different tracks: five renditions of these 30 songs. As a bonus, three additional tracks have been recorded for the game's boss battle in full-blown orchestral form.

In the current track list, you'll be waving your Wii remote to the rhythm of such contemporary hits such as The Gorillaz "Feel Good Inc.,"Tag Team's "Whoomp! There It Is," and Tenacious D's "Master Exploder." Then you've got classics like "Blitzkrieg Bop" from The Ramones, "Brick House" from The Commodores, and the song that's in pretty much every music game since they've been invented, "That's The Way (I Like It)" from KC and the Sunshine Band.

Other song include Adios Mexico from The Texas Tornados, Dum Diddy from the Black Eyed Peas, Insane in the Brain from Cypress Hill, Jungle Boogie from Kool & the Gang, Mama Said Knock You Out from LL Cool J, One Thing Leads to Another from The Fix, Spoonman from Soundgarden, and Photograph from Def Leppard. And for fans of The Cohen Brothers' O Brother Where Art Thou, the game has a treat for you: the tracklist includes "Man of Constant Sorrow" from The Soggy Bottom Boys. Heck yeah.

Wave the remote in the air like you just don't care.

Now how does it all play out with five different versions of each song? The game's theme is, pretty much, a Battle of the Bands where 11 different bands of the different genres are duking it out in one-on-one battles for supreme musical dominance: the better one band does against another, that version of the song will be heard more prominently. It's an audio tug-of-war, so to speak, and you'll be using the Wii remote to make it happen.

 

Band Mashups plays much like Guitar Hero, but in reverse: notes scroll up from the bottom. Each "note" is a motion from the Wii remote: left, right, down and "stab" with the Wii remote, all done to the beat of the song. Planet Moon has done an impressive job visually representing the motion of the players' Wii remote: at the top of the note scroll is a needle that's moving in relation to how little or how much you're motioning to the left or right. It's one of the coolest and one of the most impressive implementations of displaying accelerometer motion in a third party Wii game so far…and it's far better than games that just give you a "thumbs up!" after a left or right motion. In this game you know you're waggling because it's being displayed in real time.

As you successfully string motions together, you're performing different attacks on the other player (computer AI or second Wii remote) that will screw up his timing. Some are projectiles that need to be "Blocked" with a press of a button (also to the timing of the beat), and others will do things like electrify the edges of the scroll bar that force players to limit their waggle, shrink notes to make players hit them more accurately, or flip them to turn right into left and left into right.

The single player game progression features unique storylines for each of the different bands in Band Mashups as they fight their way up the chain to the game's nemesis: the evil Mr. Hong and his Violent Orchestra.

The game clearly takes a lot of its inspiration from Guitar Hero, and yet the game has a unique feel due to its humorous take on the music industry, its different music styles for familiar songs (I dare you to not crack a smile when you hear Mariachi "Insane in the Brain" for the first time), and its clever use of the Wii Remote for a battle-based rhythm videogame.

Band Mashups is currently scheduled for a spring release. Check out some of the first screens and video clips of the game in action by hitting our media links.