In another case of "Make sure you read the fine print", Harmonix announced today that if you preorder Rock Band 4, you get 30 bonus songs, and 34 if you go through Amazon. Wow, sounds awesome right! Well, it would be awesome until you read the fine print. You only get the songs if you get the game with a guitar or the band package, which are $129 and $249 respectively. Just for comparison, for Rock Band 2 the prices for these packages was less than $100 and $189 respectively, although to be fair, the microphone wasn't wireless, so maybe that justifies the $60 price difference. Oh, and the 34 bonus songs? Here's the list of them:
Amazon ExclusiveGet 4 Exclusive Tracks from four of the hottest acts out there today. No other pre-order program offers these:
- Alabama Shakes "Don't Wanna Fight"
- Breaking Benjamin "Failure"
- Death from Above 1979 "Trainwreck 1979"
- The Pretty Reckless "Follow Me Down"
30 Bonus Tracks:
- Anarchy Club “Blood Doll”
- Anarchy Club “Get Clean”
- Bang Camaro “Pleasure (Pleasure)”
- Bang Camaro “Push Push (Lady Lightning)”
- Bang Camaro II “Night Lies”
- Blanks. “Lodger”
- Breaking Wheel “Shoulder to the Plow”
- Count Zero “Shake”
- Death of the Cool “Can’t Let Go”
- DnA’s Evolution “The Heist”
- Father Octopus “Blink”
- Freezepop “Brainpower”
- Freezepop “Get Ready 2 Rokk”
- Freezepop “Less Talk More Rokk”
- Freezepop “Super-Sprøde”
- Giant Target “Signs”
- Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives “Entangled”
- Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives “I Get By”
- Megasus “Megasus”
- Speck “Conventional Lover”
- Symbion Project “Synthesized (Inside Your Mind Mix)”
- That Handsome Devil “Rob the Prez-O-Dent”
- The Acro-brats “Day Late Dollar Short”
- The Main Drag “A Jagged Gorgeous Winter”
- The Main Drag “Don’t Let Me Down (Slowly)”
- The Main Drag “What’s Your Favorite Dinosaur?”
- Tijuana Sweetheart “No Mercy”
- Tijuana Sweetheart “Seven”
- Tijuana Sweetheart “Trash Candy”
- Tribe “Outside”
Now I'll be the first to admit that I'm not exactly on top of the music scene and haven't been for over a decade, but the fact that I (and I have to imagine the majority of people) don't recognize any of these songs/groups makes this a laughable offering. And finally, it's looking more and more like the backwards compatibility for equipment will extend only to Rock Band equipment, which compared to Guitar Hero stuff, with the possible exception of the drums, SUCKS.Don't get me wrong, I'm hoping for the success of RB 4, but when stuff like this is thrown out there it's rather hard to get excited about this when I still can just fire up Rock Band 3 and play with the instruments I love. Then again, this isn't the first time Harmonix has been jerks when trying to sell Rock Band to consumers. Let's not forget what happened to Australian consumers who wanted Rock Band 1
