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Rock Heroes: Revolution
Rock Heroes Revolution Promotional Art
Developer(s) RoxxWare/NCS Roxx
Publisher(s) 2K Games
NINE100 Studios (PS4/X1 release)
Designer(s) Blake Kallas
Engine Roxx Engine Rev
Released PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows
WW 9th January, 2013
Xbox One
WW 22nd November, 2013
PlayStation 4
WW 29th November, 2013
Genre(s) Rhythm game
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer (Split-screen, online)
Series Rock Heroes
Platform(s) PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows
Media Download
Input methods Gamepad

Rock Heroes: Revolution is a rhythm game designed by designed by Blake Kallas, developed by RoxxWare and published by 2K Games. It was released as digitally for the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation Vita, the Xbox 360, the Wii U and Microsoft Windows on the 9th January, 2013. It was also released for the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One on their respective launch days, this time published by NINE100 Studios. It is a spin-off game in the Rock Heroes series, and features a selection of new songs, along with ability to. Also, the songs featured in this game are available to play immediately on Rock Heroes 2.

The game plays similarly to games such as Frequency, where you change between lanes with two notes each and each lane has to be played perfectly enough to get than lane ready for the next level. It is also the first game in the series to not require any instrument peripherals, and also the only version on the PlayStation Vita and was formerly the only version available for Microsoft Windows.

Gameplay[]

Rock Heroes: Revolution is a note-matching rhythm game where the layer is presented up to a maximum of five instrument lanes consisting of guitar, bass, drums, vocals and keyboard. If a song does not contain one these instruments, the corresponding lane is removed. Each lane consists of three sub-lanes of notes, which the player must hit to gain points. The game is played using a gamepad or keyboard & mouse, making it the only game in the series to not use instrument peripherals in any way. There are also no difficulty options, in stark contrast to the mainline series.

Using their choice of control scheme, both with fully customizable layouts, the player uses the buttons to press notes as the reach the bottom of the lane as they overlay the note markers. Each note hit will score points, and hitting a streak of 15 notes will increase the multiplier for that instrument lane. Every lane begins on a 1x multiplier, with the maximum multiplier being 10x. After every two multiplier raises, the track will be auto-played for a short time so that the player can focus on other instruments. The focus is to not hit every note, but to get every lane to the highest possible multiplayer. Once a lane reaches 10x, a 30 note streak will trigger auto-play, and the multiplier will not increase. If the player continually hits notes without missing, the player will enter "Master" mode, which doubles all multipliers but greatly speeds up the lanes. The player is shown how well they are playing via the "Quality" bar, which will raise and lower depending on whether you are hitting or missing notes. If the Quality bar reaches the bottom, you fail the song and have to start again. After finishing a song, the player is given a number of stars depending on their score out of a maximum of 10.

To assist the player in getting very high scores, the player can use "Hero Charge", a mechanic from the mainline games. Upon hitting a series of marked notes, the player can use Hero Charge to double their multiplier for a period of time. This also stacks with Master mode, meaning that the maximum multiplier for a lane is 40x, which can result in extremely high scores. Top players will have to learn the songs to work out the optimum times to utilize their Hero Charge, and also have to play well enough to stay in Master mode for as long as possible.

Players are able to play on their own or with up to three other players, either on the same console, online or a combination. Each player has their own score counter, multipliers, Quality bar and Hero Charges. If one player fails, they are able to join back in but their score is not counted. The multiplayer is strictly competitive, unlike the mainline games which are mostly cooperative except for the dedicated battle modes. While cooperative play was considered, the single-difficulty nature of the game, as well as lack of an explicit learning curve, caused it to not be implemented and all the focus was put on competition.

Scores are shared between players via an online leaderboard, which can be accessed in-game or via the Rock Heroes website. Through these leaderboards, the player can check statistics such as the top scores for specific songs, including the ability to compare yourself with all players or just your friends. You can also download player ghosts that show how they play different songs, and compete alongside them.

Setlist[]

Main article: Rock Heroes: Revolution/Setlist

The game features 27 songs, all brand new to the series. Also, all of the downloadable songs available for Rock Heroes are immediately able to be played, as well as all further songs released for Rock Heroes 2. This includes the Rock Heroes export, with all 92 songs being available to play. In addition, all of the songs in the game are playable in Rock Heroes 2 and Rock Heroes 3. However, as the PlayStation Vita or Microsoft Windows has had no prior Rock Heroes games available for it, the game is limited to the 27 songs that are part of the game. Initially, purchasing the game was the only way to access the songs on the setlist in other Rock Heroes games. Eventually, all 27 songs were made available as downloadable singles for the main line Rock Heroes games, allowing users to buy the songs they were interested in.

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