Rock Band
Publisher: MTV Games
Developer: Harmonix
Genre: Music
Release: November 20, 2007
Platforms: Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii
Reviewer: Eric
Have you always wanted to be in a band but never actually
gone out and done it? Rock Band will let you live those dreams
with all the key elements in any band. With enough of different
game modes, songs and a multiplayer mode, on and off line, there
is
no need to avoid this
title. Is the steep $170 price tag a killer though or is it a
small price to pay for one of the best part games out there
today?
Rock Band feels like you are getting more than one game. You
have the guitar mode, which we are all use to from the Guitar
Hero series. The same thing goes with the bass, just like Guitar
Hero. Even though these two are pretty much the same
thing as Guitar Hero there are some key
differences.
For starters the team that created Guitar Hero made Rock Band.
With that said you get everything that you know plus some,
something we really didn’t see too much in
Guitar Hero 3. In Rock
Band you have a newly designed guitar, five buttons on the top
and five on the bottom. Some songs in Rock Band have solos in
the end where you can jam with all your friends, ranking up as
many points as you’re able to. If you can hit the last note, the
“final scare” in ways, you are treated to a lot of points. You
can feel like a real rock legend when you are doing this,
especially playing at the bottom of the neck.
The guitar is a replica of a Fender Stratocaster. This guitar
looks and feels just like it’s older brother, though it doesn’t
have the same weight proportion and the neck feels a little
loose at times. Not only does this guitar feel right, it may
take a few songs to get use to, it has a built in effects
switcher that lets you
wah-wah, echo and so fourth. If you can’t let go of your GH
guitar then you’ll be able to use it on Rock Band that is if you
own the Xbox 360 version. Sorry Sony is looks like the
Playstation 3 got screw
here, but you do get a wireless guitar instead of the Xbox 360s
wired one.
Harmonix made guitar games what they are today and they
certainly added in a nice amount of new features in Rock Band.
New comers to these sort of games will notice the difficulty on
easy. It is easy almost too easy, but this may be your first
guitar game so this is nice. Fans of the Guitar Hero series will
most likely jump into medium where they might have a few
problems here and there. Notes in here might be a
little tricky to hit,
solos mainly. Doing hammer-ons and pull-offs seem a little anal,
it may be due to the semi bulky notes instead of the typical
circle ones we’ve seen since the first Guitar Hero. Don’t throw
a fit after half a dozen songs you’ll be in the game, enjoying
every song you and your friends may want to play.
Rock Band’s second game, or in this case the other instrument is
the microphone. Fans of karaoke at home or at the bars will be
in love here.
Depending on how you
play the vocals is where you’ll see the lyrics. If you are
playing alone it’s on the bottom but if you are playing with one
or more people you’ll be on the top, which isn’t a problem at
all because the lyrics are the same size.
The key to singing is to match the lyrics and the sound pitch.
It may sound easy, but it’s not. If you thought you have a
beautiful voice you may be in for a treat with Rock Band, your
voice may not be
good enough to sing Epic
by Faith No More or Orange Crush by REM. Practice makes perfect
since the game wants you to hit those right pitches with your
voice.
If you’ve played other karaoke games you will notice a big
improvement with Rock Band. I played
Boogie and let me tell
you it was hell; songs could easily be beaten with simple taps
or different noises. Rock Band lets you tap whenever indicated;
there are not too many moments where the singer just sits/stands
there with nothing to do. If you want to be a party pooper then
you can do those random noises, but you won’t get perfect or
even passing scores. Rock Band’s singing fun, stop being shy and
try singing, anytime I do/did I got into it a little too much.
What other instrument is missing? That’s right the drums, which
is easily the best part of Rock Band. How many times have you
told yourself that you wanted to play drums? I know I’ve wanted
to play for awhile now but the
price tag always made me
say no. With Rock Band you can live your dreams. The drum kit
has four color pads and a kick pedal; drum sticks are included
as well.
Out of all the instruments in Rock Band, even in any other
instrument game, the drums on Rock Band are almost identical to
the real thing. Starting on easy is a must; I even
recommended watching
both the tutorial videos as well. You have to hit the right
colors that come up on your screen, just like the guitar. When
you see an orange line that means you have to step on the kick
pedal. There are times when you have to hit both a pad/note and
the kick pedal at the same time, this can happen in easy too!
Once you can work yourself up the difficulty chart in Rock Band
you may feel like Tommy Lee,
drumming to any song
that Rock Band has to offer.
This game is all about making a band so try to get four people
ready for some long multiplayer sessions. Each person can pick
which ever difficulty they want to use. If you are playing the
games career mode you may have to take it off of easy after
awhile if you want to gain more fans for your band. If you do
fail at a song don’t worry, you have
three strikes. You may
find yourself sticking with the same person on certain
instruments; I tend to play the drums a lot with a group of
people since the drums clicked with me after awhile.
Ok Guitar Hero 3 does have more songs, but that doesn’t make
Rock band a huge disaster. More doesn’t always mean better, Rock
Band seems to have a lot more songs that are more memorable.
There are some songs that did appear on GH3, but remember you
get to sing and drum in Rock Band too. The game includes fifty
eight songs, thirteen of which might make you searching on the
Internet to find out who they are. Weezer,
Metallica,
The Killers, Radiohead,
Beastie Boys and
Smashing Pumpkins are
just a few of the bands on here.
Guitar Hero always promised downloadable content right away,
Rock Band delivered their promise. There are three packs to
download as of now from Queens of the Stone Age, Metallica and
The Police. Single songs are also available as well; you can buy
certain tracks from the packs or grab some other songs. It seems
there may be
downloadable content
every week, Harmonix did deliver the “first day” promise, and
they even went as far as making all the songs cheaper than
Guitar Hero’s. It may seem a little unfair that some of these
songs didn’t come with the game, since Rock Band does have fewer
songs, but I can live with it, Harmonix is saying single songs
may cost as little as ninety nine cents after awhile. Oh and
being able to download full albums will be great too.
You have to play through the game to unlock all the songs in
Rock Band. All the money you earn is spent on one thing,
creating your rock star. Making your own character is surprising
fun; there are enough of choices here to make
Smackdown 2008 look weak
with their choices. You get to pick your shirt from a bunch of
different categories, pants, shoes, tattoos and a bunch more!
Anyone that is playing Rock Band can make their own rock star;
make them a legend by buying them the best equipment out there.
The choices almost seem endless. If you save enough money you
can also buy some pretty crazy guitars. Who do you know plays a
chainsaw guitar?
The
story mode in Rock Band
lets you make your own band, live I’ve said before. You get to
start from the bottom and you have to work all the way up to the
top. You have to do certain tasks to earn fans and money.
Sometimes you may have to sacrifice some money and play a
charity gig; this lets you gain more fans easier. This is an
awesome experience, you may not have the short and corny cut
scenes GH3 had, but who cares. It is a lot better when you can
win the battle of the bands and earn a better vehicle than a
crappy old van.
Game play is fantastic in Rock Band but the visuals will take
you by surprise. The animations from the musicians on stage
destroy those in any of the GH games. When you may be playing
Learn to Fly by the
Foo Fighters your
vocalist will jump into the crowd and fly, just like Dave Grohl
does. There is never any slow time either with the animations;
even the notes come down without any sort of slow down. It
really feels like you are playing in front of the crowd in the
game, the stage shows are out of this world and there are some
music video effects every so often. The crowd may feel a little
dual which seems to be a problem in both Guitar Hero 3 and Rock
Band.
To give more of a feel of a true band experience Harmonix added
in some unique
loading screens. Do you
notice the guitarist in some of those loading screens? How about
those other band members, do they look familiar? Harmonix added
in your characters to these screens the loading doesn’t seem to
be affected due to this. There are also some neat “did
you know” facts in between songs as well.
Remember if you have a fever use more cow bell.
Online play has everything except the story mode. This is a real
bummer if your friends can’t come over for band practice, but
with Xbox Live you’ll be able
to make and join games with your friends. You may not be helping
your stats or gaining more achievements, but hey Rock Band is a
party game, buy some
cheap snacks and spends
some extra money on some
energy drinks. You will
need it, time goes by fast when you are playing Rock band with
the full band.
Final Verdict
If you have the money and time then spend the money on Rock
Band. It may set you back a little, but the amount of fun you
will get will defiantly be worth it. You get the full rock
experience with Rock Band, the drums are perfect, the microphone
will make you put away your old karaoke games and the guitar,
well the guitar may make you trade in your
Guitar Hero games just
to purchase Rock Band. Harmonix latest creation is definitely a
step forward for music games, they made this genre get notice
and they are not finally taking it to the next level. Rock Band
is here and it should keep you occupied until Harmonix released
their next game.
Rating
9.75 out of 10
Rock Band Trailer
