For the past two weeks or so, I’ve been hard at work turning megaphone rock songs into video game awesomeness. You’ve heard of the game Rock Band…right? Oh you actually do live under a rock? Weird…

Rock Band is the new craze in video games. The most basic term to describe it is “rhythm game.” It shows you colors on the screen and you have to press those colors on your plastic instrument controller at just the right time to get points. Once you’re good enough, you can start doing wicked solos behind your head on your little fake plastic guitar, which is what I like to do after a few beers.

The game that started all this was Guitar Hero which, as you would imagine, involved guitars only. Eventually someone got smart and developed the concept into a full band game with two guitars, drums, and even a microphone for someone to sing along. The result is one of the most fun party-game experiences available. My friends and I even started our own band called Dyna and the Rhinos. It’s a long story…

One of the coolest aspects of Rock Band 2 (the most recent Rock Band game besides the Beatles Rock Band) is that it has a store similar to iTunes. You can log on, preview, and buy select songs from select artists. Songs typically sell for $2 and full albums are usually about $20. While it’s a great concept, the developers of the game quickly ran into a big problem: demand was rapidly outpacing their ability to supply. They simply couldn’t program enough songs to keep up with all the bands that wanted in.

That’s when they announced the Rock Band Network. They’re supplying the same software they use to build songs into the game to anyone who wants to give it a shot. Naturally, I wanted to give it a shot. People can program their own songs or songs from other bands (provided they have permission to do so) and then upload them to the network for review. If the songs pass the review process, they’ll end up in the Rock Band store on Xbox 360 some time in November.

You may be thinking “Wow! So you’re going to program every single megaphone song ever in the next week right?!” No. Here’s why…this is a screen shot of what the drum track for “My Favorite New Disaster” looks like (click it for the full view):

Yes, every single little colored block is one note that has to be put in. You have to program 4 difficulties for 3 instruments, plus the vocal track, camera cues, lighting cues, character animations, crowd noise, etc. Granted, some of it is just copying and pasting, but this process is incredibly time-consuming. Plus we have to pay to get back into the studio to get the proper audio tracks we need so don’t expect to see EVERY megaphone song in there.

I can tell you that “Not Your Enemy” will be next, followed by “Gravitate.” The review network is still in closed beta so I’m not able to upload anything yet, but they’re supposed to open it up some time before the end of October so we’re waiting very (im)patiently. If all things go well, you’ll be able to rock out with your friends to some megaphone tunes some time in November. We’ll keep you updated!