GHII, GHIII or Rock Band for Christmas?

[HUFN8OR]

I must admit, I've never played any of these games and cannot play any real instrument. With that said, I'm looking for a game that me and my 8.5 year old son can play together.

We've played the Lego video games together, and a few others, but his leaning is currently toward Sports games (NCAA 08, Madden 08 in particular), and my leaning to toward FPS, Adventure or Driving games (Half Life2, Assassins Creed, COD4). So I was thinking maybe one of these games would be good for he and I to play in the evenings after homework, and before bedtime.

What I was thinking was either to get Rock Band, or one of the GH games with an extra Guitar.

My main concerns are...1) something that is appropriate in material for an 8 year old (going on 13 it seems), 2) something that starts out easy enough for both of us to play and have fun, 3) something that has some longevity for both of us or either one of us if the other tires of it.

For those of you familiar with these games, your input would be appreciated.

[Causedawg 83]

I have recently purchased and played through Guitar Hero 2 and 3, and I've never played Rock Band.

Guitar Hero 3 was a thousand times more fun to me than 2 was, so I wouldn't recommend that one to anybody, except for one small fact. Guitar Hero 2 has no foul language, and Guitar Hero 3 has a small amount of foul language (I think the F bomb is dropped a couple times in the Rage Against the Machine song).

As I said, I've never played Rock Band, but I do think that they have some great songs, and a pretty neat set up for a father / son to play with (since there are both drums and guitar). And, if you both really prefer the guitar, you can always get an extra guitar still.

If you're both more interested in the guitar, I give Guitar Hero 3 two thumbs up.

Hope you find what you're looking for!

[Causedawg 83]

One more thing to add: I've heard that the Rock Band Guitar works only for Rock Band, and that the Guitar Hero guitar works for both Guitar Hero and Rock Band, so that might help if you're thinking about buying more games later.

[Wondermonkey]

I've never played either but I just purchased Guitar Hero III for xmas.

[namehater]

im not very musically inclined, but learning to play the guitar (w/ GH2 & GH3) wasnt to hard, the drums looks insanely difficult to me, i would advise picking up GH3 myself, get 2 wireless guitars, that game has a few different ways that 2 people can play together on one console, from what i have heard about rockband, the guitar isnt of very high quality

my thoughts are pretty biased considering i havent played rockband at all

[HUFN8OR]

Is there any way of filtering songs in GHIII? For example, not allowing the Rage Against the Machine songs to come up in the pecking order?

[Crippler]

Drums in Rock Band is actually playing the drums, to a point. Guitar in these games is NO where near playing a guitar. I would go for Rock Band myself. It's the next step, IMO. I would love to blast on the drums too. It would be cooler if they were set-up more like a traditional drum kit though. My bro has Rock Band. I need him to get his shit over to my house so we can jam.

One other note, I'm not liking how the DL content is being offered already. I see there are some bad ass Metallica tracks for Rock Band available @ 160 points each. Good lord, just think how much a full album would cost ya.

[Causedawg 83]

There's no way to filter the songs that I know of, and definitely no way to keep that song from popping up on the set list. However, if the two of you just play the game through on easy and medium, which you probably will at first, you can skip that song. It isn't until you play the story through on hard or expert that you are forced to beat every single song to continue.

I've actually read that there are other songs with language in them, but you can hardly hear the bad words in this game over the loud sounds of the strings (which I agree with).

Another note on why this game is better than GH2, in my humble opinion: Guitar Hero 2 has a LOT more cover bands play their songs, and very few of them even seem to make an attempt at sounding like the original. In GH3, I could barely tell the difference in most songs (with the exception of La Grange by ZZ Top), and there were a lot more songs that were sung by the original artist.

On Crippler's notation about the price of songs, I agree that it's expensive, but Rock Band really seems to have a better setup than Guitar Hero when it comes to downloading new songs. There are more available, and you can buy them by song rather than a required 3 pack that GH offers. They are also slightly cheaper for Rock Band.

[Rockstar]

They have edited the songs in guitar hero, and I have not noticed foul language in rock band.

If you can find Rock Band, go with that, It will be hard for me to go back to Guitar hero at this point.

How much does an Xbox point cost?

PS3 price is 3 songs for 5.49 or 1.99 each.

That price seems fair to me.

[Wondermonkey]

Can you battle online against other people in Rock Band as well? That was a hige draw for me in getting Guitar Hero III. Dangerkitty wants to battle some of her friends online, and they are all getting it for Xmas too. You can do that in Rock Band as well I assume?

[Causedawg 83]

You can, but Shibumi or someone started a thread somewhere about his disappointment with Rock Band's XBL counterpart. I haven't read it or tried it, so again, I'm unaware of what problems it included.

[Rockstar]

I ventured online with rockband for a couple of songs last night, and it worked great, but it was a cooperative experience more than a competitive one, but I have not experimented with it to see if it was possible to do a competitive duel.
Of course I was on the PS3 network, not XBL.
It was fun rocking out with whoever joined my band.
I never was able to get the GH3 online thing to work, at all.

[D_Litch]

Wonda! You can play cooperatively with RB on XBL, and I also believe there is a "Duel" mode for each instrument. I know that you can have drum-offs in split-screen, so I'd imagine you can do it online as well.

Huf, the RB or GH games should be easy enough for you and your son to play. I would recommend picking up GH(and 2 Les Pauls) and waiting until February when all the instruments can bought separately for RB. Unless you really wanna play with drums, or with a Strat now.

[namehater]

hey huff, i just read your OP again, didnt catch your sons age, my boys are 9 and 12, they both love guitar hero 2 and really wanted rockband for xmas, but we opted to get them GH3 with 2 guitars instead, my intentions are to pick up rockband separately sometime later and hope that i can find the drums separately, which im sure wont be a problem

[AZRaiderH8r]

The Rage song in GHIII is edited (although it's pretty easy to tell what was said). I think if you both are happy playing only guitars, I'd go with GHIII (definitely not 2 though, because there are way too many cover songs).

Either way, you'll be set and you and your son will have a blast!

[lovekeiiy]

I haven't played RB either. I would say any of the games would be a fine choice and should be family friendly. I've been playing GHIII and didn't notice any inappropriate language in GHIII, but I don't have parental controls on.

GHIII may be a good choice. The only issue, at least from initial starting point, is I haven't seen any two wireless guitar bundles nor have I seen any wireless guitars sold separately. RedOctane does have a nice offer for GHII and two wired guitars. If you get GHIII, you can probably pick up GHII cheap somewhere as well.

RB will have diversity over GH, since there are the other instruments and mic to choose, over the guitar.

Online, the big knock on RB is the no online world band tour. GH does not have a online co-op career mode either; just co-op song sets and battling.

The only concern I would have, which may push more towards GH, is I've read there have been some hardware issues with RB. I don't know how bad it is, but I've read them nonetheless.