Disney Announces Ultimate Band
By Syd Bolton - February 27th, 2008
Disney knows how to rock.
Well it had to happen. Send in the Rock Band clones! Only this time, Disney Interactive hopes to appeal to the whole family with their Ultimate Rock Band, which is slated to make a bang this holiday season on the Wii and DS.
The game won’t require any special peripherals and will allow for online play. While not having to resort to custom controllers will help keep console clutter down, can the Wii Remote + Nunchuk pull off simulating guitar, bass, and drums? Will this game make use of Nintendo’s upcoming Wii Pay & Play service? It’s too soon to tell.
It’s being developed by Utah-based Fall Line Studios (which was formed by Disney in 2006). Disney is also working with London-based music consultants, Radial Music to come up with Ultimate Band’s song roster, which promises to combine classics with some of what they’re calling today’s “hottest” music.
“Ultimate Band invites kids, tweens and teens to join in the jam session,” says Craig Relyea, senior vice president of global marketing at Disney Interactive Studios. “And whether they choose guitar, drums, bass, or front man, members don’t need to buy costly, single-function peripherals to play their way through Ultimate Band’s deep song list, dynamic venues, and customizable characters. The Wii Remote and DS stylus are the only tools they’ll need to reach rock stardom in Ultimate Band.”
The DS version of the title will also be a rhythm-based game but will also include a built-in recording studio, of sorts. And yes, it promises to have a full complement of instruments: guitar, bass, and drums.
A number of questions still remain, however. Although special peripherals are not required, will existing ones (like the Guitar Hero guitar) be supported? And how in-depth will the multiplayer implementation be? We knew this issue was going to come up, didn’t we?
Competition is always a good thing, especially in this relatively new genre. Having Harmonix’s Rock Band compete against the very product it created (the Guitar Hero series) isn’t exactly a fair fight, so it’ll be interesting to see how Ultimate Band shakes up the market.
We’ll definitely be keeping a close watch on this as more news comes in. We only hope that there aren’t any Hannah Montana or High School Musical songs in this game. But we’re not going to get our hopes too high about that.
