Jump to content

Power-Ups


Azgard12

Recommended Posts

So Rock Band Blitz is basically a spiritual sequel to frequency or amplitude with perhaps a greater focus on arcade play than ever before.

 

From RockBandAide.com:

Rock Band Blitz gameplay first asks you to choose a song from the 25 in-game songs or from your previously purchased Rock Band DLC library. Once selected, the player is prompted to pick one of 16 unlockable power-ups, which help the player maximize his score. While only a few of these power-ups are available at the start of the game, players can permanently unlock power-ups by earning “Cred” through song playthroughs, and purchase single song usage of the unlocked power-ups by spending “Coins,” which are also earned through successful completion of song playthroughs.

 

Before the song starts, you’ll notice a familiar note highway across the screen laid out in a green, red, yellow, blue, orange pattern. In Rock Band Blitz, each colored note highway corresponds to one of the five standard instruments available in Rock Band (green is drums, red is bass, yellow is guitar, blue is vocals, and orange is keys). If the song you are playing does not have a corresponding instrument, the particular highway will be empty. Using the standard instrument Rock Band charts, two lane note charts are generated for each instrument using an algorithm developed specifically for this game. Unlike similar predecessors, two lane note charts were decided upon based on the complexity of additional gameplay features we will explain below, as well as several other factors including surprisingly ergonomic strain on current generation input devices.

 

The game has only one difficulty, and is based on expert difficulty. Video was shown of how the algorithm would populate the Rock Band Blitz charts using the other difficulties, and because of the two gem lanes for each instrument, the game’s pace was too slow, the difficulty was too easy, and it just looked “odd.” If you’re not the world’s best player, or like to torture yourself with ridiculously difficult songs, it’s good to know that there is no way to “fail out” of a song in Rock Band Blitz.

 

At its core, Rock Band Blitz is a beatmatch title where you have to hit as many notes as possible, but this is a massive understatement. Unlike Rock Band: Unplugged, where you can complete all the charts thrown at you (if you don’t miss anything), Rock Band Blitz throws every note chart at you that has an instrument playing in the song. Part of the strategy is for you to figure out which note track to play to maximize your score. This is why you may have seen me describe this title as an exercise in efficient and effective “plate spinning.” The exception to this is when an instrument solo is initiated, which is unique to each song, where only the instrument with the solo is playable. If there are two instrument solos at once, the current algorithm will select one of the charts for you to play.

 

Then we add in multipliers. Just like Rock Band, multipliers increase based upon successful gameplay, but in this title, breaking a streak won’t reset them, and each instrument has their own multiplier. This comes in to play as the multiplier window, or the difference between the instrument with the highest current multiplier and the lowest current multiplier, is only THREE. For example, no matter how hard you work increasing your drums, bass, vocals, and keys multipliers, if your guitar chart has been untouched (assuming it has a note chart), those instruments won’t go above 4x. Again, there’s a lot of “plate spinning” in this game.

 

Once you pass one of several checkpoints, your multiplier level cap is increased to three spots above where your lowest instrument multiplier is currently resting. For example, your drums, bass, vocals, and keys multipliers are all at 4x, but your guitar is only at 2x. Once you pass the checkpoint, your level cap is increased by one, as your lowest multiplier is now 2x (instead of 1x), and you can raise your other four instrument charts to 5x.

 

While breaking a note streak won’t reset your multiplier like in standard Rock Band games, it’s still important. If you don’t break your streak on whichever charts you are flying around on, you fill up the BLITZ meter at the top, which helps to maximize your score.

 

Power-ups are selected prior to each song. The build I tried had two different flavors, but it looks like there may be a total of three in the final version. One class appear on purple gems across the note charts during the song and are deployed when they are properly hit. The other style of power-ups are accumulated using the familiar white overdrive notes and deployed at the player’s discretion. On the beta we played, we selected Pinball, which fires a ball bouncing further down the note highway and racking up points as it knocks out gems, as well as Bottle Rocket, which lets us fire a rocket further down the note highway, destroying gems and earning you points, as well.

A sample song:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg7DV1ji30Y&feature=player_embedded]Rock Band Blitz - Bang Camaro Gameplay - YouTube[/ame]

 

Some power ups in action:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6furl1DQTck&feature=player_embedded]Rock Band Blitz Power-Ups: Bandmate and Pinball - YouTube[/ame]

Edited by Azgard12
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

adding funds today or tomorrow, then straight home to buy this, been installing my last obtained RB games, extra track packs and DLC songs so I'll have a library to play with, only been playing RB1 and the addons I had that worked for that.

 

Time to finish off RB1 and move on to 2 or 3, way behind on these :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whats the best set up with the power-ups? I usually use the band mate, the think that plays some notes and the guitar multiplier. Also, how do you get gold?

 

Since using the Bottle Rocket, I've got 5 stars on every song I've played and even my first gold. It clears notes in every lane, so if you've maxed your levels, you can build up energy and then use it after the next checkpoint, giving you a great headstart on maxing your instrument levels again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since using the Bottle Rocket, I've got 5 stars on every song I've played and even my first gold. It clears notes in every lane, so if you've maxed your levels, you can build up energy and then use it after the next checkpoint, giving you a great headstart on maxing your instrument levels again.

 

Thanks! i will give it a shot!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since using the Bottle Rocket, I've got 5 stars on every song I've played and even my first gold. It clears notes in every lane, so if you've maxed your levels, you can build up energy and then use it after the next checkpoint, giving you a great headstart on maxing your instrument levels again.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'm going to try your tactic this evening. Usually I run with jackpot, the bomb and an instrument boost. I love using the jackpot powerup -- you can easily get 40,000 points per use.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the tip. I'm going to try your tactic this evening. Usually I run with jackpot, the bomb and an instrument boost. I love using the jackpot powerup -- you can easily get 40,000 points per use.

 

I'd stick with Jackpot if I was you, at most I've got about 60k in an entire song from Bottle Rocket, but I've got 70k+ a few times from a single use of Jackpot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd stick with Jackpot if I was you, at most I've got about 60k in an entire song from Bottle Rocket, but I've got 70k+ a few times from a single use of Jackpot.

 

I think the jackpot, bomb power and whichever instrument up are best. I can't figure out how to rack up big points with the bottle rocket and the pinball is too distracting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


×
×
  • Create New...