Rock Band merch you’ll love, Part 1
Sometimes an item comes along that you pass by in a store, perhaps, or see advertised on television which makes you think: this is the biggest piece of garbage I’ve ever seen and is a total waste of my money. Dear readers, the swag available from the Rock Band Merch Store is the exact opposite. Now, everyone’s played Rock Band. If you haven’t, I’ll quickly write you another article about it:
ROCK BAND
Rock Band is this game where you simulate the performance of rock music by customizable avatars whose careers and futures and wacky hairdos are in your hands, which are gripping one of three different rock-related control devices (guitar/bass, drums, microphone). It rocks, and you need to get it because of this. Go play it right now before you continue reading the article that this one is interrupting. The article will still be here when you get back.
So. Now everyone’s played Rock Band. It immerses you in the feeling of actually being a real rock star. When you make that avatar that looks just like you, dress it in $375 sneakers and $450 faded jeans, and play at Das Krapfentheatre in Germany for tens of thousands of screaming Germans, with three of your buddies backing you up (despite the fact that you’ve got to save their asses once per song) you really get into it.
So why not REALLY get into it?
Here’s what the Merch Store has to offer you:
T-shirts – Shirts which are custom-made, with your band logo, band name, photos, whatever you want printed on it. Nothing says “we’re such a big deal” like wearing shirts promoting your own band while you’re playing a show!
Posters – Select the locale, the band members to include, and their poses, and get a poster printed out and sent to your door. Put it on your wall. Put it on other people’s walls. Buy fifteen and plaster them all over town if you have the cash to burn. Give them as gifts to the people in your band. These are definitely pretty awesome.
Bandmates – Now this is the real draw for me. A custom-made 6″ figurine of your character, all your custom clothes, colours, your instrument, EVERYTHING printed out using a special machine which spits out a layer at a time, colours them, and fuses them together to build up this 6″ monument to how effing cool you are.
Now, a little bit about me: I love me. I love me a lot.
The day I saw this product was available, I purchased one. Now, I play the bass guitar in a couple of actual bands, and so the first thought that crossed my mind was not to simply get a statue made of my Rock Band avatar, with his somewhat over-done attire, but to go into the game and buy myself some clothes which match almost exactly my favourite outfit (my brown hoodie and leather jacket), as well as the closest representation to my actual bass guitar I could find. With the hair styled to approximate my own, and the pose I’d selected, not only is this a statue of my Rock Band avatar, it’s a statue of me in real life.
It’s such a geeky thing to have that I thought I’d share it with you – most video games have very little of interest on their websites, and I know that I personally only rarely visit the sites of games I enjoy, but the Rock Band site’s Merch Store is DEFINITELY worth paying a visit. Enjoy!
Related articles by Zemanta
- Rolling Stone names the 50 best rock & roll games
- The Beatles set to please please Rock Band before iTunes?
- Fender: Survey Shows Music Games Drive Students To Play Real Instruments
Tagged with: Arts and Entertainment • Bass guitar • Germany • guitarhero • Music and Art • Rock and roll • Rock Band • Video game
Filed under: COOL
on 
on 
4 out of 5 dentists agree…
But unfortunately I am the 5th dentist. I am a gamer that loathes rock bank and guitar hero. I have no use for the games and cruelly mock those that play them on in-store displays. While WoW is one of the most popular franchises of all time, I must dissent on that one too. Maybe I’m just wrong.
I have been known to play playstation games for over 24 hours straight. I do PC games until it’s time to wake up agian. I like many of the classics, Myst, Gran Turismo, Hitman, Sim City, Rise of Nations, The Sims and I have a dorky obsession with the Lego series (Star Wars, Indy, Batman) of games but I just can’t find any justifyable reason for the existance of the Guitar Hero franchise.
Sorry.
Hitman gives you the thrill of pretending you’re some kind of super-assassin. You would get in deep with the law for actually being some kind of super-assassin.
Sim City gives you the chance to develop a city and tend to the well-being of its citizens. Doing this in reality is, very probably, boring as all hell.
Lego Batman gives you the thrill of running around chasing The Joker and Mr. Freeze, and bringing them to justice. Nothing in this world breaks into cool little Lego bits when you destroy it unless it’s actually made of Legos, and too few things are.
Rock Band lets you pretend you’re a rock star, playing some cool songs for thousands of people. Some people just can’t play an actual instrument that well, and even if they could, the chances they’d play at Das Krapfentheater in Germany are pretty slim.
Certainly it’s not appealing to everyone, but no game appeals to EVERYONE except for Mega Man. Because Mega Man’s just awesome. Point is, though, it’s got just as much of a reason to be around as any of the games you’d mentioned. Just my two cents.