Rock Band is more than successful in it's transition to the portable gaming world.
To be honest it took a while for me to warm to this one. I wanted fun and accessible rhythm gaming on the go, something I'd only real found so far with the fantastic Elite Beat Agents on the DS. Unplugged didn't provide that for me immediately, for a few reasons.
Firstly, the difficulty level seems to have been lowered here, presumably to make it accessable to first timers. This made for a pretty ordinary gaming experience for me when playing Unplugged on the medium difficulty setting, but once I upped it to hard, I found the experience far more engaging. So for those who play rhythm games regularly, and fancy more of a challenge but without taking it the oh-my-god-so-many-colours-flying-past-at-once-I-think-I-need-to-sit-down level, play this one on hard, as it seems to be the equivalent of medium on other titles.
Having said that, you may, like me, find this one a whole lot easier to master if you've played other finger-arthritis inducing rhythm titles such as Frequency and Amplitude on the PS2. In fact, Unplugged at it's best brought back fond memories of these classic titles, though it's not quite on par with amplitude.
Once again, for me it's all about the song list really. I don't care what crappy visuals you throw at me (though designing your own freaky band, dressing them up and watching them bounce around like basehead epileptics does add to the fun) and what options are on offer, if the music is ordinary, so is the experience. Thank god then that the first portable Rock Band packs a punch in that department. To list some of the great tunes to rock out to in public places:
3's & 7's - Queens of the Stone Age
ABC - Jackson 5 (evokes memories of Clerks 2)
Alive - Pearl Jam
Carry on Wayward Son - Kansas
Chop Suey - System of a Down
Come Out and Play - The Offspring
De-Luxe - Lush
Drain You - Nirvana
Everlong - Foo Fighters
Float On - Modest Mouse
Kryptonite - 3 Doors Down
Message in a Bottle - The Police
Miss Murder - AFI
More than a Feeling - Boston
Our Truth - Lacuna Coil
Pinball Wizard - The Who
Today - Smashing Pumpkins
What's My Age Again? - Blink 182
... and many more of course. These are just my personal faves. I mean come on people, who can argue with a song list like this? You can see her the first way this game won me over, the second being the addictive gameplay.
Yes, it's the old pressing buttons to match the rhythm of the song formula all over again, but who cares when it's done this well. The song list is unbelievable, the PSP has the sound quality to make make your ears ring with these tracks, and the simple and addictive formula of pressing the button corresponding to the appropriate colour and column in short sequences in order to recreate full music tracks has rightfully been left unaltered.
I suppose the one thing I wanted was for this game to keep on going. Maybe 10 or 15 more tracks would have been nice (I am a greedy one), and I wish I'd have played it on Hard difficulty from the outset.
VISUALS: 7
AUDIO: 10
GAMEPLAY: 9
LASTABILITY: 8
Put all the bells and whistles on it you like. A rhythm game needs two things: great tunes and addictive gameplay. Rock Band: Unplugged provides on both fronts.