Leaders of the New School: Hip-Hop Bum-Rushes the Videogame Stage
New playable music titles look to channel the energy of hip-hop like never before.
6/26/2009 7:49 AM | 10 Comments | Page 1 of 2
Once, way back in college, in the anonymity of a buddy's dorm room, I tried freestyling. (For those who may not know, freestyling means rhyming extemporaneously over a beat.) I had vocab, knew how to nod my head to a beat, and so figured it would be a breeze.
It wasn't.
That pitiful attempt made me appreciate how, in hip-hop, a rapper's voice is the lead instrument. The beat ain't there to save you; it's only backup. I'd argue that an MC's left more out on a limb than their counterpart in a rock band. There's no guitarist running to the rescue with a pyrotechnic solo, or a live drummer to change up the rhythm. If your wordplay or delivery falls flat, party's over.
The complete track list is being closely guarded, but don't be surprised if you get to rap along with Kanye, T.I. and the Notorious B.I.G.
Since my collegiate freestyle attempt, hip-hop's gone from being a fringe curiosity to arguably the most dominant genre in pop music today. About five years ago, a rash of urban-inspired videogames came to market as rap consolidated its hold on music-industry sales charts. Those games --
187 Ride or Die,
Def Jam Vendetta,
Marc Ecko's Getting Up, even
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas -- seemed more concerned with capturing the flavor of hip-hop culture than replicating the musical experience. Music may have been a big part of those games, but it wasn't center stage. The one game that did try to channel the experience of rapping -- Eidos' 2004 release
Get On Da Mic -- hasn't exactly gone down as a classic.
The striking reality remains that hip-hop's still scrambling for a foothold in the lucrative music-game market. In fact,
a 2007 article by Stephen Totilo quotes Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos as he wonders whether hip-hop could generate the same kind of engaging game mechanics enjoyed by Guitar Hero or Rock Band players around the world. However, there's a new wave of games coming into view that look to tackle that challenge.
I got a chance to
wield my questionable mic skills again at E3 2009, during a demo with
Def Jam Rapstar. Developed by 4mm Games and Terminal Reality and aiming for a winter release, it puts a microphone in gamers' hands and shines a spotlight on their performances of classic tracks by artists new and old. 4mm's co-founder Jamie King notes that the game won't be giving players avatars, as in Guitar Hero or Rock Band. Instead, it uses the PlayStation Eye or Xbox Live Vision camera to place your image into a green-screen backdrop of your choosing. As your playing gets scored, you're also being recorded. You'll then be able to edit those videos and upload them to the
Rapstar site. The game will also let you record your own rhymes over included original instrumentals. For licensed tracks, you'll be limited to 30 seconds per video clip, but your own compositions won't have the same restrictions.
It may not be the DMC Championships, but record-spinners can team up to heat up the party or compete to see who rocks the room best.
Though it plays similarly to other similar karaoke games, King stresses that one of their goals for
Rapstar was to give back a sense of connectedness to the fans who've made hip-hop the top-selling genre. Where Rapstar looks to differentiate from other music games is by creating a social network that integrates smartphones and the Web into the console experience. Once a friend uploads a video to the official
Rapstar site, you'll get a text with a link to that video. You'll also be able to issue challenges to other rappers, and plans for localized DLC packs and scheduled events are afoot as well.
