Rock Band

"Rock Band has the best multiplayer... Ever."

he Guitar Hero games from the start in 2005 have always been the most dominant music games on the market with everyone trying to get their hands one the game and guitar combo in order to rock out like a guitar god. Harmonix decided to split away from the Guitar Hero games after Guitar Hero II and instead of making Guitar Hero III, they went for a more deep approach, and decided to make a game with all of the instruments, instead of just the guitar. You can now plays as the drummer, the singer, the bassist, and the guitarist all at once. The end result not only demolishes Guitar Hero III, it's also the best party, and local multiplayer game ever created. The main appeal of the game is obviously the drums, but even playing the bass, or the guitar by themselves are even more fun than Guitar Hero, and mix it in with drums and singing, wow, you got a deep game.

If you've never played a Guitar Hero game before, you probably have no idea how it's played. Rock Band comes in packed with a Guitar, a Microphone, and a Drum Kit. The guitar has 5 frets on it, all different coloured. When you're playing a song, a note will come down the screen, and you will have to hold down the button it says, and waggle the strum bar (strings on a real guitar). This will played the note, and you will have to try and play every note it shoots at you. Sometimes one not will have a line behind it, which means you'll have to hold it down, and while holding it down you can use the whammy bar to earn more points. You earn more points by playing the notes correctly, and using the whammy bar. You also earn more points when you go into overdrive by tilting the controller into the air. You earn the ability to use overdrive when you hit glowing notes in succession. The bass is exactly the same as the guitar, only different notes will be played, and it's much easier.

The drums are primarily the same as the guitar, only you will have to hit the drum instead of strumming. The drums also have a foot petal, which is the orange line that comes down the screen, instead of a orange note like the guitar. The drums seem like you're actually playing the drums, and on expert difficulty, each note is the exact same note you would use in real life, it's as hard as playing drums in real life. Going into overdrive on the drums is quite different from the other instruments though, you have to wait until a drum filler comes in when you can play whatever notes you want. You will have to hit the green symbol note at the end to go into overdrive and this can sometimes annoy when you have to save a person that has recently failed.

While playing with more than one person, you can fail without the song being over. If one of you happens to fail, you can go into overdrive to save them. If one of you happens to fail, just go right into overdrive, and bam, they're back. If you happen to fail three times though, you're done, and the song is over. Once a person has failed, the bar to the left will slowly go down and down, and if it reaches the bottom before someone uses overdrive, you're done. You earn the left bar by playing the right notes, and when you don't, the bar goes down. While playing with more than one player, the bar will average between all of you, so it wont go down as much if someone sucks, but another player is doing just fine. This bar also tells you when you're about to fail, because an icon of which instrument you're playing is there, and when it goes down, you're missing notes. When it gets to the bottom, bam, you've failed.

The microphone is a lot different than the other instruments though. First of all, instead of coming from the top of the screen to the bottom, it starts at the top right, and goes left. The notes are lines of pitch, and when a word comes along, it will say the word at the bottom, and the line will be the pitch in which you have to sing. Sometimes words wont have a pitch, so you will just have to say the word instead of singing it. You go into overdrive with the mic by singing loudly when an overdrive marker comes up. This is probably the easiest instrument to go into overdrive with. There are also some parts when bubbles come up, and you have to hit the microphone like a cowbell. This is like a solo on guitar, or like a bass grove on the bass. In Rock Band, you can also sing and play another instrument at the same time, but since Harmonix sucks and didn't include a mic stand, you'll either have to buy one, or figure a way to prop it up. Playing the guitar and singing at the same time is a blast, but if you don't know the words to a song, you might not have a very good time. Who's completed Go With The Flow by Queens of the Stone Age with the mic and the guitar on Expert, both with 5 stars? This guy. *points to self*

Every instrument in Rock Band is a blast to play, and never gets boring. The songs arrange from The Who, to The Red Hot Chili Peppers, to Garbage. If you don't like any song on Rock Band, you simply do not like Rock and Roll. There are 45 normal tracks, with 13 extra tracks that you have probably never heard of. Most of them aren't as hard as Guitar Hero songs, and Rock Band is a great game to start on, instead of Guitar Hero. Rock Band actually has some sings that Guitar Hero III: Legend of Rock does, but far more easy which is a relief. Most people will find Rock Band's songs to be much easier than Guitar Hero's because GH is for more advanced players. This is the great aspect of Rock Band is that a novice player can have just as much fun as an advanced player. And playing all of the instruments at once is very exhilarating.

There are 2 main modes in Rock Band: Solo Career, and Band World Tour. A solo career is exactly the same as it sounds. You start off with 5 easy songs, and when you complete them you move onto harder 5 songs until you get to the end, exactly like Guitar Hero. On the way will unlock different types of clothes for your character to where. This is another great thing about Rock Band, the ability to create your own rocker. Guitar Hero made you pick a certain character, but in Rock Band, you can create whoever you want. You can buy different types of shirts, pants, shoes from the 4 main types of rockers: Rock, Punk, Goth, and Metal. You can buy clothes by earning money in both the solo career, and in band world tour. It's not like it's very deep though, there aren't very many faces and types of hair to choose from, and some of the clothes are far to ridiculous to even consider, but it's still a great addition none-the-less.

The Band World Tour is where you going to have the most fun with though. You can play it with either 2, 3, or 4 players, and each of you have to be a certain instrument. Once you pick your band name, and where you're from, the tour starts. You have to start small, and once you play at different venues, you earn more fans. You also earn stars on every song from 3 to 5 (3 being worst, 5 being best), and when you earn enough of each, you can move onto the next venue. Some of the venues will have you pick a set-list of 2 or 3 songs, while some of them can make you do certain songs. It does disappoint that there are only 45 songs though, so you will probably play a lot of songs over and over again. I can't even count how many times I've played Creep by Radiohead. But eventually you earn a bus, and other vehicles so you can play at other cities.

Eventually you can play around the world like in Paris, London, and Stockholm (and again, Canada is forgotten). You keep playing to get more fans, but when you hit a certain limit, you will have to play on a harder difficulty setting to get more fans. If you don't think you're up for the challenge though, you can still play on the lower difficulty setting to earn stars instead of fans. You will rank up to Hall of Fame status and you will have to play the Hall of Fame set-list which is the hardest 8 songs in the game in succession. You can eventually rank up to play the endless set-list, which is all 58 songs in succession, back to back to back. Yeah, I haven't tried it yet, but I bet it's hard, even on Medium.

There's also a bunch of online modes to choose from to add even more to this monster of a game with the PS3 and Xbox 360. You can play Band Quickplay which lets you play with your friends as a band, but it's only Quickplay so you can't progress through a Tour or anything. There's also Score Duel which has you face off in the same song to see who can get the most points. The last mode is Tug of War which two players using the same instrument play different sections of the same song. Whoever performs better will eventually get more crowd behind them. You have to try and get the whole crowd on your side and let your opponent sink lower and lower until nobody cares about him/her. Online play was never my real intention with Rock Band, but everything works perfectly fine, so don't worry about anything like lag or slowdown, because it doesn't happen.

The peripherals in Rock Band have been getting a bunch of different opinions. Most media outlets have been saying that the Rock Band guitar is one of the worst guitar peripherals yet, but I think it's the best. The guitar has a bunch of unique things that make it different from Guitar Hero guitars. First of all, the strum bar is smooth instead of 'clickly', making it easier to listen to. There are also frets buttons on the bottom, and the top of the arm. The top frets are like the Guitar Hero guitars, but the bottoms frets are smaller, and closer together. The bottom frets are mostly used for solos because you can use them without strumming the strum bar, but only on solos. I personally like using the bottom frets more because they're closer together, and I don't like changing from the top frets to the bottom frets to do a solo, even though you don't have to.

Some have had trouble with the Rock Band guitar though. There are some cases, actually many cases, where the guitar's strum bar will ‘double strum', and you will fail each song very quickly because of this. I have also noticed, as have other people, that the frets are 'clickly', and can sometimes get stuck which can really screw you up. The drums are pretty well designed, but unpacking them and putting them together takes a pretty long time. Sometimes the drums don't register, no matter how hard you hit them, but it doesn't happen very often. The drums are also really loud, so if you have parents or roommates that hate loud noise, they'll hate Rock Band. The microphone is a normal USB Mic, so it's not anything special. The PS3 and PS2 versions of the game have wireless guitars, but the 360 version does not. Everything else is wired, and if you're like me, you'll get confused with the microphone because you need a controller to navigate, I never knew that for the first 2 days.

The visual design is a huge step up from other Guitar Hero games, but is still nothing amazing. Every character model does have a unique look to them, and the ability to create your own character is cool, but it's not going to make your jaw drop. The way the notes come down, and the way the game is presented is pretty cool though, and you will appreciate it enough. The way the notes come across the screen, and the way each instrument are represented is awesome without flaw, besides when you into overdrive while playing the drums because the screen goes gold, and it's sometimes hard to see the bass lines. The sound design is probably the second best part of the game with every song representing a part of rock and roll history, and all of them sounding pretty much like the real recorded version. Some of the songs are covers though, but most of cover I don't even like anyways.

Rock Band also features downloadable content which lets you buy single songs like Joker & the Thief by Wolfmother, and Buddy Holly by Weezer. You can also download some song packs like the Queens of the Stone Age pack featuring Little Sister, Sick Sick Sick, and 3's and 7's. There are also other packs like a Metallica pack, a David Bowie pack, and an Oasis pack. Mix all of these downloadable songs in with the 58 tracks in the game from the start, you have a deep game. You can also play all of the songs on 4 different difficulties, the solo tour, and the band world tour, you'll have a lot to do.

Overall, Rock Band is one of the most fun experiences I've ever had with a video game. Though the guitar parts aren't as fun as the Guitar Hero's guitar parts, and the singing parts aren't as fun as Singstar, but mixing them all together with the drums and the bass, and bam, you have a masterpiece of a game. Rock Band is made to be played with more than by yourself, but even with just yourself, it's still a blast to play. If you have an Xbox 360, PS3, or even a PS2 (the PS2 version sucks compared to the others), then you have to try and find this game, even if it's hard to find. The game is a bit pricey, it's $200 for the package that comes with all 3 instruments and the game, but even if you can look past this, you'll see that Rock Band is the best music game ever made, and is one of the best games of 2007.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/28/08

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