Rock Band

"It was a good idea, but..."

I recently got an Xbox360 and shortly afterward, Rock Band showed up in my home. I looked forward to it for quite some time, and it seemed like it would be a great party game. As with all bands, you need multiple members to do each part of the band: Guitar, Bass, Drums, and Vocals. After time, though, it started to lose its flare, and here's why.

Menu Set-Up: 6/10
The Menu seems easy to navigate, but if you decide to make a band, you need several gamer profiles, which can be confusing to sign-in to all of them using the different controllers. Even getting them to start up again with the same saved characters is rather difficult. It took me 20 minutes to find all three band members which, if you're looking for a quick jam, you won't get it.

Equipment: 7/10
1 Set of Drums
1 Pair of Drum Sticks
1 Fender Stratocaster Controller
1 Microphone
1 USB Hub
1 Copy of Rock Band

The equipment is very cool looking. The drums are quite sleek and they come with real drum sticks. There's no screwing involved with assembly, just parts that lock into place. They are sturdy and seem to be holding up nicely after slamming abuse. It comes with a pedal for the bass drum of a normal drum set. The microphone is very straight forward. Just plug it in and go. The guitar is a Fender Stratocaster. It looks shiny and cool. It has two sets of buttons for your shredding pleasure. It's easy to hold and the strap can extend much further than previous guitar games. All of these controllers are connected by USB. Now, your Xbox360 should only have one port, but this bundle comes with a USB Hub which plugs into the back of the console and opens up 4 other USB ports for the controllers(1 set of Drums, 1 Microphone, and 2 Guitars). This is only for this game, but it could be handy in the future for others.

Now, I wouldn't have given the equipment a 7 if I didn't have a few problems with it. The drum set is interesting, but it seems unresponsive at times and the pedal isn't secured properly and can easily be kicked off during gameplay. The Guitar Controller is also unresponsive and your fingers will be lost quite easily. The buttons are no more raised than the rest of the fret board on the entire neck of the guitar, so you could be pressing, but not on a button. Also, the second set of buttons are too small and close together and your fingers will either press two at a time or the completely wrong one all together. The Strum Bar seems very loose. There is no click noise to assure you that you even strummed at all, it just lightly presses. Now the USB Hub is nice and all, but it needs to be unplugged and then plugged in AGAIN when you want to start it up again. If you just turn on the game and grab a controller, it won't register it as connected at all. The saving graces for this are the Drum Sticks and the Microphone. The Drum Sticks are very strong and seem to be holding up well and the Microphone is sensitive enough to actually make singing challenging.

Gameplay: 6/10
There are many aspects of this game that are interesting and that are carried over from Guitar Hero. Star Power is just Energy and Overdrive. Hit the white notes to gain energy for Overdrive. Overdrive is used either to bring yourself out of the dumps or to revive a fallen comrade. If one of your band mates fails out of the song, go into Overdrive to bring them back. If they fail three times, they can't be saved. This can be done by all band members.

Since this game is so close to Guitar Hero, I thought I would be a natural at it. It turns out that I need to practice at this game JUST as much as I do in Guitar Hero. As the guitarist or bassist, the controller is very unresponsive. The game uses small color bars to indicate which color note to hold down when you strum. The buttons work well, but the strum bar is like trying to strum with a dead fish. It makes no noise at all to let you know if you hit the note, you could only hope. Also, with the thinness of the color notes on the screen, it's hard to tell what's what. The hammer-ons and pull-offs are very hard to notice and they don't seem to register well. You could do them with your fingers, but the game will fail to realize that you're doing it at all, which can be very frustrating when you're trying to nail a solo or even try to save a band member from failing out. The smaller "Solo Buttons" are used during solos if you choose to use them at all. The problems with them are that they are very small and difficult to navigate with your fingers so close together. Also, they are so far down the neck that if you manage to reach them when a solo starts, you are quite a speed demon. However, in this unending sea of negativity, there are a few good things about the guitar/bass. When using the solo buttons during a solo, no strumming is required, you can tap those notes to your little heart's content, but be precise with those taps because they have a hard time registering. As for some flare in your playing, the whammy bar makes a return and you also have the ability to change the sound of your playing. Add a little echo or twang to your playing to WOW the crowd.

Now on to the Drums. They are, of course, the first things you notice about the game. What game uses a set of drums?... Other than Donkey Kong... Right, none. This is like an entire drum set, four drum plates and one foot pedal for a bass drum. I will say this now and now only. They are annoying and very unforgiving. If you don't hit notes dead on, they don't count. Also, there will be times when you are presented with a pedal note and a drum note at the same time. You must hit both at the same time, or it won't count. It's all or nothing with these things. Plus, it also seems that the drummer has the hardest time keeping up with the bad. The beat can be difficult to keep and with the unforgiving playing of the drums makes a bad combination for any average person to pick up. I find myself needing to be saved as the drummer or saving other people who are drummers. This is annoying and frustrating and can wear thin on anyone's patience. Also, be careful with those sticks, they can hurt when they go accidentally flying out of an eccentric drummer's hand.

Now for the singing. The microphone is actually very good. You can adjust the sensitivity and volume of the microphone so as to not drown out the other people's playing or even just hearing them sing. On higher difficulties, the singing can be very tough, but unless the singer is COMPLETELY tone deaf, they pretty much can't fail. Understanding what the symbols for the singing are can be hard. The words can go by very quickly and just grunting and making sounds doesn't seem to work instead of lyrics. This is also a very interesting way to find out whether the people you know are good singers or not. But you don't necessarily need to be good at singing to play, you just need the right pitch.

I have a few bones to pick with the Band World Tour as well as the Solo Tour. The Band World Tour is a tour of the world with your newly assembled band... duh. Now you can have your band ready to go and with most games, you have to unlock more songs by playing the beginning ones. Here in lies the problem. You could be given thirty new songs and when playing several sets of two songs or more, you will have to play the same two or three songs over and OVER again. We found ourselves singing Maps by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Should I Stay or Should I Go back to back repeatedly about six times. The game seems to lick consistency and unless you pick your own set lists, you won't see much variety, especially when you reach the venues where you have to play 10-12 song sets(yes, that's 12 STRAIGHT songs). Also, you won't be able to play by yourself. Since it is called BAND World Tour, you can only tour with your entire band. This can be frustrating because you may want to continue but your other band members aren't around or don't feel like it at the moment. This brings us to...

The Solo Tour. This is a single person band when you have no friends... yeah, very depressing. But, to the best of my knowledge, I can only seem to find a way to make it a singer's role. I for one don't want to do the singing part, so this disappointed me when I just wanted to play through to get the soundtrack. Not everyone is made for singing. Looks like you'll need to wait for your band members or make some new friends very quickly.

Soundtrack: 9/10
This is a definite highlight of the game. So many songs are portrayed from classics by the Rolling Stones, Smashing Pumpkins, Black Sabbath, Bon Jovi, Foo Fighters, The Killers, and Aerosmith. Anyone can enjoy from this soundtrack and that is unique. Although some of the songs are made more difficult to play by the game than they really are in real life, they are still very good. For the great soundtrack, a nine out of ten.

Multiplayer: 10/10
This is why you got this game in the first place, right? Me too. Get your band together and party. Set it up for a fun time at a get-together for some embarrassing yet exciting and hilarious activities. You can even, with XboxLIVE, take your band ONLINE and battle bands from across the world. Show someone in Reykjavik your skills on the guitar, drums and microphone. This is, of course, you sprung the dough for the subscription for XboxLIVE Gold.

Overall: 7/10
This game had potential, but just a lot of minor technicalities made it somewhat frustrating to play. It still provides a load of fun to a party and can be brought worldwide. I still recommend playing because there aren't that many multiplayer games with this much variety. You can even switch to something you haven't done yet, maybe find a new calling, even pick out those true singers who are too shy to come forth and show their skill on the mic. Happy Jamming!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/08

Game Release: Rock Band (Bundle) (US, 11/20/07)