Full Review: Rock Band launches at the top of the charts.
The Bad: Band World Tour isn't online...yet, some of the songs aren't so great, some stability worries with the foot pedal.
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The music game genre has come a long way since DDR and Amplitude. Guitar Hero has swept the nation and has given wannna be rock stars a chance to rock out without knowing how to actually play guitar. Enter Rock Band, the latest music game franchise from now MTV owned Harmonix and EA, which is the first big step in the further evolution of this genre. Rock Band is all about multiplayer and getting your friends together to form a band. Sure, it's very similar to Guitar Hero, but several major improvements, including the graphics, character customization, multiplayer and general gameplay make Rock Band the single best music game ever made, and probably the best party game of all time as well.
The consept is pretty simple: you have a band that consists of a lead guitarist, a bassist, a vocalist and a drummer. The bundle for Rock Band comes with everything but a second guitar for the bassist, so you'll need to use an old Guitar Hero controller for that. Each controller is something of a marvel. The new guitar, modeled after a Fender Stratocaster, which is the coolest rock guitar ever, feels and plays so much better than even the improved Gibson Les Paul from GH3. The neck is longer, and there is a second set of fret buttons on the bottom of the neck for kids and for those tough solos that you would prefer to avoid strumming ever note on. The strum bar is now silent as opposed to the rather loud clanking of the GH guitars and there is a switch that adds effects for when you go into Overdrive, which is basically the same thing as Star Power. The microphone is a pretty standard USB mic, but it's a high quality one. The drums are by far the coolest part. They take a bit of set up time (around 10-15 minutes), but they are awesome. The have adjustable legs, a place to store your drumsticks, a footpedal and are just plain cool to look at. The 360 version comes with a hub, because none of the periphrials are wireless, but that's ok because they all are awesome!
Rock Band has several different modes of play: solo tour, Band World Tour and various online modes. The solo tour is basically where you create a character from the robust character creation features, then rock out by yourself on the drums, mic or lead guitar. Sorry Bassists, no solo tour for you... You unlock new songs by beating the entire set you're on until you finish off all of the songs. There are also bonus songs that you unlock by beating the song before it. Pretty simple. There are just over 60 songs in all, with tons of downloadable songs available and more on the way. I would advise you to beat solo tour at least once before going on to Band World Tour, but I'll get into that in a sec.
The gameplay itself has changed quite a bit from Guitar Hero. The guitar gameplay is a bit different due to the addition of clearly defined guitar solos and big rock endings. The guitar solos are now defined by having the note board change blue, and a percentage counter appear on the screen that tells you what percentage of the solo notes you've hit. The higher your percentage, the more bonus points you will earn by the end of the solo. Big Rock Endings are basically where you go crazy at the end of a song. You have all of the frets lit up and you pretty much randomly hit as many notes as you want, making sure you hit the notes following the big rock ending to get the bonus points. This is especially fun with drums, and is the way of activating Overdrive with those. Speaking of the drums, you basically have four big drums and a foot pedal to use. It takes a bit of practise to get use to especially the foot pedal, but it's awesome once you do. There is a bit of a stability issue, especially with the foot pedal, but mine has been used a ton and still is working fine. The vocalist part plays exactly like Karaoke Revolution. You sing into the mic and basically try to hit the pitch it wants you to. There are some parts where you ad lib to activate star power, and you have to talk without worring about pitch in a few songs, both of which are new for Rock Band. Your mic also doubles as an extra drum, tamberine or cowbell in certain songs.
Band World Tour is by far the best thing about the game. You basically make a band, including a name, band logo and quote about your band, and play sets to earn fans, fame and fortune. What songs you play depends a lot upon what city your band is based out of, which is an interesting dynamic. You band can earn various modes of transportation in certain sets as well as money which you can use to buy new outfits, instruments and much more for your character. Fans play a major part in BWT. You earn fans based on how well you and your band preforms. If you preform well at a big ampatheater, your band will earn a bunch of fans. If you bomb at a local club, you may loose some, but not as many as you would if you bombed at a major gig. The more fans you have, the better your band is and the higher you'll rise on the leaderboards. BWT is unending, so it can go on forever, especially with all of the promised DLC coming in the future. In BWT, your band must work together to be successful. If your drummer is struggling on a tough fast section, your guitarist can same him by activating Overdrive. Any player can save another, but the vocalist and drummer can only activate it a select times, so most of the time it's the bassist or guitarist who will be the band's savior. It's just awesome to see you and your friends acting like total fools and rocking out with these plastic instruments, but that is what Rock Band is all about, and that is what makes it the best.
As I mentioned before, unless you beat solo tour at least once, you'll be playing a lot of the same songs over and over again in BWT. I played Nirvana's "In Bloom" at least 15 times since I started BWT, which it does get old after a while, so make sure you unlock some songs first before checking out this awesome more. The only downside is that BWT isn't online, but Harmonix has already said that it will be and that they are rapidly working on it, so we can expect to see an online version sometime next year.
The online modes are basic band quick play and tug o' war, where you play against another player using the same instrument, play the same song and see who is better. It's an interesting idea that I hope to check out soon.
The graphics and presentation of Rock Band is simply outstanding. Harmonix really outdid themselves in the visuals department. The character models and lip synch is almost perfect, unlike the wide mouth spooky singers from Guitar Hero 3. The interface is extremely well done, allowing all preformers to have plenty of room to see their part in the song. The soundtrack is really solid, but a few of the songs aren't so hot. Luckily, with the promise of weekly DLC, bands will constantly have new songs to play. The Rock Band store sells individual songs, three song packs and eventually entire albums will be available. The cost is less than the crappy Guitar Hero 2 and 3 packs that have come out, which is pretty much another slap in the face of Harmonix's old series.
The fact is, Rock Band is simply one of the best, if not the best music and party game of all time. The amazing multiplayer and depth of the game helps propell it past the once though untouchable Guitar Hero franchise and it will continue to rise up the charts. So grab this game and a few friends and get rocking out!
Gameplay: Amazing multiplayer through the Band World Tour, fantastic controllers, deep character customization and visuals make Rock Band the best of it's kind.
Graphics: Blows all the visuals Guitar Hero 3 has out of the water.
Sound: Excellent track list will continue to improve with time because of DLC.
Value: It's $170 for the bundle, but it's well worth it for the many hours of fun you will have with this game.
Final Thoughts: Guitar Hero had better get their farewell tour ready...