The download size is 27Mb (I’m reviewing the game using an un-timed demo), but once installed is over twice the size. We’ve had an excellent run of games over the past few months. I’ve noticed many commenting on the inordinate number of repeats we’ve been having of late, but in actual fact since the project went to weekends, just under 66% of the games have been first time giveaways. Out of 38 games since March, 24 have been originals, so we can hardly complain; then, even complaining is rather rude (IMO) as many are newcomers to the project, so, will not have had the opportunity to download them before. I’ll be losing some of the games given away since my last format last September as I’m in the process of re-formatting all my hard drives, so repeats of some games that I’d not bother buying are always welcome. I thought it was time to clean my computers thoroughly so that I can recapture those long gone days of a reasonably fast computer. :lol:
Some may say that we’ve had an over abundance of Space related games (assault droid,
supernova: galactic war, astro avenger 2, alien terminator, starship tycoon, planetary defense, jets and guns gold, star fighter, and star warrior) which is certainly true, but still, there have been an excellent range of games from match three games such as puzzle hero and age of Japan and bubble shooters such as aquatics of Sherwood, phantasia 2 and ozzy bubbles), arkanoids such as Egyptoid 2, troll, arcamania 2 and phantasia 2, board games such as mahjong and checkers, card games such as solitaire epic, strategy games such as kingmania, Theseus and the minotaur, Zamby and the mystic crystals and strateg, as well as a whole host of other genres including online strategy games such as SAGA, management games such as Jane’s hotel and starship tycoon, point and click games such as East Side story, and various puzzle games such as rubicon, bloom and ingenious, as well as several shooters such as humvee attack, enemy at the gates and archmage and some old favorites such as super cubes, pacshooter 3D and aqua words. Anyway, I’m drifting from the point.
Introduction:
I’ve taken the liberty of copying the information found over on the developers web site because it was scattered over several pages:
Quote
The game is part RPG, part life-sim, part tycoon game. You are a struggling rock singer who puts together their own band, and tries to achieve fame and fortune, from humble beginnings as a starving garage-band. Pick your band-members, choose the band name, and write the songs...play the gigs...
Rock Legend is a turn-based game. Each turn of the game represents a single day, and it's up to you to decide how the band spends their time. Some of the activities you will need to spend time on include songwriting, rehearsals, auditions, publicity events, practicing individual instruments, and of course, recording your latest album.
The game has sophisticated AI that controls your band members (you are the singer, they are your backing band) and decides how motivated, energetic and happy they are. If you work the band too hard, arrange poorly-attended gigs, and don't provide your band with the lifestyle they expect, you will have resignations on your hands. Running a successful band is part financial management, part people-management, and part creative struggle. Would you survive the music business?
More info…
Why a Game about the music business? - because in a previous life I was a guitar player and wannabe rock star. I did the classic 'playing gigs around the country and traveling in a cramped van full of guitar amps' thing. We even slept in the back of the van on top of our amps one night when our accommodation fell through...Somewhere in Cornwall. Ahhhhh those were the days eh?
KRL does not model the current trendy way to put bands together, which is done on reality TV shows or by marketing and PR depts. of large record companies. The game is dedicated to musicians who made it the hard way, when bands were groups of friends who rehearsed in their parent’s garage, and who made it due to gritty determination rather than by record company spin. If you have ever been a gigging musician, you should give the game a try. If you haven't gigged yet, but you play an instrument, you should definitely give it a try!
KRL was put together by people with real love of the subject matter. For a good 7 years, making it as a gigging musician was my aim in life. I never made it (although I did get offered a record deal once...nothing puts you off the music business quicker than reading the small print). Julianne Regan is someone who *did* make it, and I'm really pleased that the game features her music. Jean-marc lederman also made it, and his l33t music skills provided various music and sounds for the game. If you want to see how seriously we all used to take ourselves in the eighties, you should check out the games 'credits' page. Tragically, those pics really are us.
Above everything else, Kudos: Rock Legend is about gigging bands. Remember the good old days before commercial factory-produced identikit pop bands? When bands met in pubs rather than on TV audition shows? Some of the band names and song names in KRL are made up, but some of them are not. These are the independent bands who kindly allowed the use of their names and song names. Check em out...
http://www.positech.co.uk/rocklegend/bands.html
reference: http://www.positech.co.uk/rocklegend/ accessed Sat 13th August 2008
The game also has a forum where you can discuss the game if you wish:
Forums:
http://positech.co.uk/forums/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=8&sid=527dd953acec27466768430a6a5e5a91
The following link takes you to the support page where there is information on what to do if certain bugs appear; there’s also a link to update your drivers, which can sometimes be a reason why a game doesn’t work. There’s also a read me file in the games folder that lists the possible problems and solutions, but I doubt most will require help as the game should run on any computer that’s less than four years old.
Support:
http://www.positech.co.uk/rocklegend/support.html
The following images, excellent reviews and a couple of you tube video’s should give you a good idea as to whether or not you are going to enjoy playing this game.
Video of Gameplay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2qdbwkmaIg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9-lIXwIiz8&feature=related
Online reviews worth reading:
http://www.gamezebo.com/games/kudos-rock-legend/review
http://www.itreviews.co.uk/games/g347.htm
http://www.gametunnel.com/gamespace.php?id=368&tab=3
http://compsimgames.about.com/od/kudosrocklegends/fr/kudosrocklegend.htm
Images:
I haven’t labeled any of the images yet. There are approximately 100 images which follow a typical progression up to the bands first gig. I’ve also created a zip file containing all of the images, which you can download from the following link found in the information section of this review.. If anything the images are useful for having the hints, which only appear in game once. They are for the most part unlabelled though. I may label the ones I’ve uploaded to my photobucket account sometime today, but no promises.
All on one page:
http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/Rock%20Legend/?start=all
As a slideshow:
http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/Rock%20Legend/?albumview=slideshow
Googled:
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=Kudos+Rock+Legend&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2
The Game
The options menu is relatively simple with button toggles for enabling full screen mode, as well as enabling music and auto saves. You’ll also find the usual volume and music sliders as well as one for mouse sensitivity.
When starting a new game you can select your character from thirteen different images (follow link below to my photobucket account); each image has several variations with different hair styles and color. It’s amazing how different each character can look just by changing the hair style and color as well as adding accessories such as shades or in the case of the males a beard or moustache. You can also choose your own name or randomly generate a name. The same goes for the bands name. I eventually settled upon Zachariah Blast {Z.B.} after the name I would have named my band if Id ever finished the synthesizer I was building in the early to late 70’s. ( It was a practical electronics project that spanned 12 issues of the monthly magazine – though it actually it took me several years to build, by which time my brother, whom I’d originally intended to form a band with had gone ahead and had become reasonably successful in the UK with a band called The Notsensibles. I’m sure you can guess by the name I originally chose {Z.B.}, that the band was heavy rock orientated. I was influenced by bands such as Hawkwind, Black Sabbath, Groundhogs, Atomic Rooster as well as Velvet Underground and several other bands of that ilk from the late 60’s early 70’s; a sort of a psychedelic progressive rock band. :lol:
Once you’ve chosen your name and band name you can choose from a couple of visual styles. There’s no significance between using either of the styles available apart from the look of the background. Once you’ve selected your character and visual style you are required to hold auditions to recruit your band. Auditions cost money, and you start with a limited budget, so there’s no room for mistakes early in the game; for example choosing the wrong band member. You start with $35. You’ll need to recruit a drummer, guitarist and one other member from a choice of keyboards and saxophone. Each audition is for one type of instrument and you can choose from several musicians, all of which have their own particular musical style as well as personalities; these can be important for creating a band that will work together well and be creative. Once you’ve completed the auditions you’ll be upgraded from dreamer to amateur. You’ll be given some advice as to how to progress; for example you’ll be asked to start writing songs. The quality of these songs will depend upon your level of inspiration and influences. Band members supply some of this, but it’s suggested (via a hint) that you check out rival bands for inspiration and also buy more music to inspire you. All this is accomplished via the tool bar which is situated to the bottom middle of the playing area. Once you’ve written enough songs - 6 including the three that you get as default - you will be able to start playing gigs. (See below for more information **) You can select various tasks from the toolbar, such as writing a song, holding auditions (you can always add more band members and even sack current members if you wish), buying new equipment – lighting – instruments and inspirational music amongst other things such as merchandise that you can sell at gigs as well as special effects, managers, roadies lighting and sound engineers etc to improve the bands status. You can also practice your music skills from the tool bar as well as access the list of special events that are scheduled every day and to see if any of the band members has anything to say. The special events are important for building up the character of and inspiration for the band. At the beginning of the game there are a few tasks on the tool bar, such as selecting venues for your gigs, which are grayed out. At the bottom of the list of special activities you’ll see quotes from famous musicians, which change every time new items are posted, for example:
• “Being sober on a bus is, like, totally different than being drunk on a bus” ……… Ozzy Osbourne (Black Sabbath)
• “I exist in a state of almost perpetual hysteria”………………. Sting (Police)
• “The cool thing about being famous is traveling. I have always wanted to travel across seas, like to Canada and stuff” …………………. Britney Spears
• “My life has been like a really bad soap opera for the past 10 years” … George Michael
• “I’m sorry I can’t speak very coherently”……….Syd Barret (Pink Floyd)
I found writing songs I game was a blast. The basic song is already constructed for you on a strip of music bars, and you have a selection of stickies with different musical notations and music styles such as drum beat, guitar, vocal solo, etc. You just drag the stickies onto the strip to edit the song. Throughout the start of the game, whenever something new is introduced you will get a green pop up with appropriate hints (follow the link to my photobucket account to see lots of example from the 100+ images I’ve uploaded). For example when matching the color of notes on a bar when writing a song, with one of the stickies, apparently this adds to the quality of the song. When you make a match like this there is a stardust effect surrounding that particular part of the music score. As you mix and match there’s a quality rating which appears as a percentage. You can create up to fifteen songs for your band, though as already mentioned you only require six to get your first gig, which you have to book seven days in advance. You can also retire any song and replace it with a new one or improve on one of the songs you already have (via the tool bar). As you gain experience and inspiration through listening to other bands and music the musical stickies increase in variety. (Presumption due to lack of time in progressing with the demo*)
Once you’ve created the song you can see it’s attributes which include quality, boredom factor and inspiration as well as a short review of the song. The first two songs ‘I wrote’ received ratings of 45% and 35% respectively, and the reviews given for these songs were reflected in the percentages I received i.e.
• 45% - “The perfect use of minor keys and groovy jazz influence mark this song out as a likely B side”
• 35% - An uninspired track, notable for the perfect use of minor keys and groovy jazz influence”
Any song can also be improved upon at a later time. You can even change the name of the song.
Practicing your music (accessible from the tool bar) improves the bands musical abilities. This is accomplished by playing back the melody that you hear and see using the numeric keys. As you and your musicians get better their rate of progress will slow down and your band will need to buy better instruments to progress any further with musical improvement. You can see you and the bands progress via bar graphs to the right of the main playing screen, as well as whenever you go to music practice.
** Once the gig option has been opened (need six songs), the tool bar icon for booking gigs appears as a $ sign. You can choose to book any of the available gigs that you can afford; it’s a good idea to go for the best one you can afford because this will help reduce the stress your band members feel as well as give them more inspiration, which in turn helps to improve song writing, which has a knock on effect throughout the game. As you become more famous, you will be able to select from more venues, though to play out of town venues you are going to have to purchase a van or tour bus. Once you’ve booked a venue you will find the daily special activities list has become full of tasks as well as comments and suggestions from the band members. For example you may see comments like:
• I just worry about our popularity. I hate playing empty gigs
• Lets get some more rehearsals done
• So are we planning on doing some more publicity stuff before the next gig?
• If you ask me, the band is under rehearsed right now.
Some of the tasks you may select to carry out to improve the likelihood of more fans attending your gigs and therefore earning more money are fly posting and giving out flyers at other gigs and clubs; which are a sure fire way of promoting your band to a wider audience. When you do this you will be shown via some statistics, the likelihood of how successful the poster campaign was and how many fans as a % of you present fan base you may have increased you fans by carrying out the fly posting and flyers.
I’ve not covered the game in its entirety as I’ve got a limited amount of time, which has already been exceeded with this review, but the above together with the videos, images and online reviews should give you a very good idea as to what to expect.
The game can be closed down from the main game screen via the arrow found to the bottom right of your screen. The game will automatically save provided you have to auto save function toggled on.
Conclusion
There’s so much to this fantastic game that there’s bound to be a large learning curve for the majority of us. There’s no musical knowledge required, and you don’t need to sing, :lol: From the few hours that I’ve explored this game it’s got a rich mix of originality, several other genres rolled into one and enough interest to keep me ‘grabbed’ for quite some time to come. There are so many options that the game has a lot of replay value and makes this game (if you were paying for it) excellent value for money. I’ll certainly be buying this one when I lose it to a format (soon) unless it’s free standing. I think this game is worth 9 out of 10 (I’ve only scored 9 out of 10 two or three times previously, so am very impressed with this game. Thank you
Information:
*
The demo is not time limited. Instead, some of the characters and most of the instruments are disabled.
You can download the images, which could be used as a tutorial, or memory jogger. The download is about 15Mb in size. There are 101 images to see via my personal photobucket account, quite a few of which are images of the green hint boxes together with images of the hints in-situ:
http://files.filefront.com/Rock+Legend+imageszip/;11519550;/fileinfo.html
