Would Rap/Hip-hop fit in Guitar Hero or a GH insiperd game?

[GFreeman]

He was shot to death by the white man for making too much sense.

 

[블라스]

Oh...

 

[SupahSaiyangirl]

tupac wasnt shot by the whiteman, the only thing the whiteman did was not find his killer(s)

 

[GFreeman]

Whatever, cracker lady. You frosty looking mother****ers killed tupac for speaking out against the man.

 

[SupahSaiyangirl]

i'm.....black.......

 

[Warhammer]

Whatever, cracker lady. You frosty looking mother****ers killed tupac for speaking out against the man.

i'm.....black.......

Damn.

 

[GFreeman]

I'm white. What the bad place is going on here

 

[SupahSaiyangirl]

this is awkward......
um.......uh........umm....wow this is really awkward

 

[Timstuff]

I just remembered that there was this crazy arcade music game that had a turn table and a set of musical key buttons. It got a PS2 port a while back, but it didn't get good reviews because people said it was too hard. Maybe someone like Harmonix could simplify the turn-table controller concept and set it to hip hop / rap, possibly with someone else using a microphone to put out the lyrics.

Gah, why do I care? I hate rap!

 

[GL1]

First of all, rap does not suck. Neither does rock. Neither does the air that carries music. If a rapper sucks, that's one thing, but to say "No good rap exists" is to make a long story short, ignorant and extra annoying because of the 'me toos' who have equally little thought processes or experience.

Best put on a comment from the link:

"I don't like it so its not music!"

Whenever anyone even mentions rap. So annoying.

In other words, some of you guys sound like the losers who listen to Fall Out Boy and pop in just to say "Rock sucks." Surely we don't tolerate such ignorance?

That said, it certainly is hard to find good rap on the radio... As for substance, off the top of the head: Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Kanye West (sometimes), Andre 3000, Big Boi, Fort Minor, Lupe Fiasco, Twista (pre-mainstream), KRS-1 and yes, Eminem, to say nothing of Tupac, Biggie and all the kick-ash old school rappers. Big Daddy Kane, RunDMC... even MC Hammer was relevant at one time (hard to believe, I know). And lets not even get into the massive numbers of rappers who are NOT mainstream, whom you will NEVER hear on the radio, who are busting their asses just as hard as anybody's garage band. So please, lets not allow the subject of rap as an excuse to be ignorant. That, after all, is why "rap sucks," isn't it?

Aaaaaand back on topic: A Rap-styled Guitar Hero game...

Can it be fun?
Hex, yeah! The challenge is in hitting all the words on beat, and fast enough. The different word lengths, structures and syncopation in a verse of music provide the variation as you work through the song, and as you advance in the game, songs become denser and faster. An easy mode may give you a wide berth of starting and ending a phrase, while on hard mode you may have to be spot on, or perhaps add in the ad-libs.

This could even be two player with dueling rappers going back and forth, or cooperative rappers collaborating, one as a the main rapper, and the other as the front or 'hype' man. Perhaps the second player could even 'sing the hook.' It'd be, as stated before, a lot like singstar, except instead of the challenge being to holding out long notes or hitting a certain pitch, the challenge is hitting a lot of little short notes... and you have to know a lot more words and you still have to find a place to breathe.

Another fun dynamic of the game would be the crowd... as I understand, especially at small venues, rap crowds can be a bit more interactive than mosh pits. A call and response mechanism could be fun on songs that have it, or once you get to a big venue you can 'hand over' the mic to the crowd, perhaps even by pointing it at the screen and the audience may or may not fill in for you, depending on your popularity at the time. It gives you a chance to breathe, and you get the points from the audience hitting the words, but it's always a risk.

Even a turntable device holds gameplay as DJ Heroes try to bring in different songs on a given beat, and match up with scratches on beat. Depending on the software capabilities, they might even be free to do simplified mixing on the fly (select songs with one hand, pull them in with the other), and be scored for style.

I also imagine a 'freestyle' mode where some game-exclusive beats could be played and you and your friends could just play around. Something like that could be a LOT of fun for rap-lovers.

Can it sell? Does it have an Audience?
Are you kidding? If 50 Cent's Bulletproof is any indication, people are HUNGRY for Rap games. And if they'll buy up that crap in truckloads, just imagine what they'll do if you make a rap game as good as the Guitar Hero series.

Song List ideas? (Rationales, please, not just 'me likey')
Yeah, we need E-40 and Twista in the later levels, but the first set has got to have "Party Like a Rockstar" or RunDMC/Aerosmith "Walk this Way," just as a nod to the Guitar Hero Series. Otherwise, we'd need to make a nod to Parappa the Rappa, and that is SO out of the question.

Rap in Guitar Hero
Nah. Most hardcore rockers think that all rap sucks, so it'd hurt the franchise, even if it's not true. It'd be a bad marketing move and it wouldn't bring in rap-lovers to GH. Rap Hero should be it's own game.

Residual Rant
It wasn't very long ago that rock was new and people were complaining about how it 'wasn't music.' Strange how quickly we forget where we came from.

 

[William_C]

First of all, rap does not suck. Neither does rock. Neither does the air that carries music. If a rapper sucks, that's one thing, but to say "No good rap exists" is to make a long story short, ignorant and extra annoying because of the 'me toos' who have equally little thought processes or experience.

Best put on a comment from the link:


In other words, some of you guys sound like the losers who listen to Fall Out Boy and pop in just to say "Rock sucks." Surely we don't tolerate such ignorance?

That said, it certainly is hard to find good rap on the radio... As for substance, off the top of the head: Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Kanye West (sometimes), Andre 3000, Big Boi, Fort Minor, Lupe Fiasco, Twista (pre-mainstream), KRS-1 and yes, Eminem, to say nothing of Tupac, Biggie and all the kick-ash old school rappers. Big Daddy Kane, RunDMC... even MC Hammer was relevant at one time (hard to believe, I know). And lets not even get into the massive numbers of rappers who are NOT mainstream, whom you will NEVER hear on the radio, who are busting their asses just as hard as anybody's garage band. So please, lets not allow the subject of rap as an excuse to be ignorant. That, after all, is why "rap sucks," isn't it?

Aaaaaand back on topic: A Rap-styled Guitar Hero game...

Can it be fun?
Hex, yeah! The challenge is in hitting all the words on beat, and fast enough. The different word lengths, structures and syncopation in a verse of music provide the variation as you work through the song, and as you advance in the game, songs become denser and faster. An easy mode may give you a wide berth of starting and ending a phrase, while on hard mode you may have to be spot on, or perhaps add in the ad-libs.

This could even be two player with dueling rappers going back and forth, or cooperative rappers collaborating, one as a the main rapper, and the other as the front or 'hype' man. Perhaps the second player could even 'sing the hook.' It'd be, as stated before, a lot like singstar, except instead of the challenge being to holding out long notes or hitting a certain pitch, the challenge is hitting a lot of little short notes... and you have to know a lot more words and you still have to find a place to breathe.

Another fun dynamic of the game would be the crowd... as I understand, especially at small venues, rap crowds can be a bit more interactive than mosh pits. A call and response mechanism could be fun on songs that have it, or once you get to a big venue you can 'hand over' the mic to the crowd, perhaps even by pointing it at the screen and the audience may or may not fill in for you, depending on your popularity at the time. It gives you a chance to breathe, and you get the points from the audience hitting the words, but it's always a risk.

Even a turntable device holds gameplay as DJ Heroes try to bring in different songs on a given beat, and match up with scratches on beat. Depending on the software capabilities, they might even be free to do simplified mixing on the fly (select songs with one hand, pull them in with the other), and be scored for style.

I also imagine a 'freestyle' mode where some game-exclusive beats could be played and you and your friends could just play around. Something like that could be a LOT of fun for rap-lovers.

Can it sell? Does it have an Audience?
Are you kidding? If 50 Cent's Bulletproof is any indication, people are HUNGRY for Rap games. And if they'll buy up that crap in truckloads, just imagine what they'll do if you make a rap game as good as the Guitar Hero series.

Song List ideas? (Rationales, please, not just 'me likey')
Yeah, we need E-40 and Twista in the later levels, but the first set has got to have "Party Like a Rockstar" or RunDMC/Aerosmith "Walk this Way," just as a nod to the Guitar Hero Series. Otherwise, we'd need to make a nod to Parappa the Rappa, and that is SO out of the question.

Rap in Guitar Hero
Nah. Most hardcore rockers think that all rap sucks, so it'd hurt the franchise, even if it's not true. It'd be a bad marketing move and it wouldn't bring in rap-lovers to GH. Rap Hero should be it's own game.

Residual Rant
It wasn't very long ago that rock was new and people were complaining about how it 'wasn't music.' Strange how quickly we forget where we came from.

Quoted for greatness

 

[tdeverea]

i have SOOOO many things to say about the ignorance in this thread but I won't go off...

I will keep it tactful:

1) True musicians and rockers know the foundation of rap and respect it for the artform it is.

2) The styles of rock that are prominent today are probably a younger form than rap itself... rap has existed since the mid 70's.

3) Rap music is more than just a turntable and a mic. See The Roots and Digital Underground's biographies for reference.

4) The rap that's saturating the airwaves today are pushed and promoted by label execs... and if you think consumers drive the market, then I guess you need to do some real research.

Peace and love,

Hip Hop Lover

 

[tdeverea]

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/11/28/can-rap-find-a-place-in-music-games/

this was on joystiq and i thought i would be a good idea to talk about here...so what do you guys think could rap work in gh with a few tweaks here and there or should a stand alone game be made?t:

Oh crap... I forgot to adress the actual question.

I think it would make a great game and they have had similar ones in the past. I think they should get with a team who really knows about the nuances of the genre before they dive in and do this though.

 

[Colossal Spoons]

I was just thinking about this as I watched my friends play Rock Band this weekend. They should make "Rap Band" and it'd just be 4 microphones so you and your friends can talk over each other and go "Yeah yeah"

 

[GL1]

I was just thinking about this as I watched my friends play Rock Band this weekend. They should make "Rap Band" and it'd just be 4 microphones so you and your friends can talk over each other and go "Yeah yeah"

"Yo, turn up my headphones..."

 

[Colossal Spoons]

Hahaha

If the game was nothing but new Dre, Blaze, and Timbo beats; I'd buy it just to listen lol