Rock Band

"A wicked awesome party game!"

Harmonix made Guitar Hero I and II, as well as the 80s game. Guitar Hero was a pretty solid series, and was able to appeal to rock fans of all types and abilities. It's been taken over by a new company, but Harmonix has continued it's broad focus and taken the genre to another level with Rock Band. Drums and vocals are now integrated into the game, as well as custom characters and a heavy focus on downloadable content.

Instruments
The guitar charts feel a bit easy compared to Guitar Hero games, which is great for people that want to make the jump to the fifth/orange key without too much of a struggle, but song for song can be a bit of a letdown for the expert level guitarists that want a challenge. But the game's focus isn't limited to the guitar...

...because now we have drums and a microphone. The drums are much, much closer to their real life counterpart than the guitar is. It can be a big challenge for people at first, as well as at the expert level. Music game fans looking for a challenge can switch off the guitars and work on their drumming. Once they get used to the aspects of drumming, even beginners can hack through easy and medium difficulty levels. And because the drums use all the pads and the pedal on all difficulties, it's a lot less boring than medium/easy guitars. And everyone loves to sit down behind the drums and pound out the beat to some good rock songs.

The microphone included seems to do the job. You only need to match the notes and pitch for the songs, so you can sing out of key if you don't have the range of singers like Mike Patton!

Multiplayer
Here is where the game truly excels. Guitar Hero had a limited multiplayer experience, though it was worth playing and a good time. Rock Band gives you the Band World Tour mode, which allows everyone to make custom characters, name the band, and take on the world, trying to earn fans and money. More fans mean bigger venues means more fans, and all of it leads to more money. Having friends over (or playing with family/roommates) makes the game one of the best multiplayer experiences in video game history.

You can play with more serious fans of the genre, or just get it started at a party and let drunk people try and belt out some Bon Jovi while everyone watches and wants their turn on drums. You can also just play with two people in a more casual environment - Rock Band excels in all situations, as long as people enjoy rock.

Songs
The disc comes with a somewhat small number of songs, 45 regular songs and a bunch more bonus songs that you probably wouldn't have heard before. The song selection is good, though it would have been nice to have more... and there is more via download. Tons more. Typically at least 3 every week. You need to pay for them, but it allows you to pick up the songs you like and customize your Rock Band experience. The download releases range from popular bands to bands you've never heard of, to possibly the bands you love but no one else has really heard of.

Nitpicking
Band World Tour is not available online and won't be patched in. Rock Band 2 will fix the problem, as I suspect they needed to give people a reason to pick up the sequel with the new Guitar Hero game coming out this year. You can quickplay songs as a band online, however.

Also, some issues have surfaced with the quality of the instruments. However, rush delivery of replacements have made me overlook this - a guitar or drum breaks one day, and I have a new replacement the next? That's definitely going the extra mile, but I understand other people have had worse experiences than me.

The amount of cool, unrealistic looking guitars is pretty limited.

Random sets are a mixed bag. On one hand, having Metallica DLC songs come up is a fun challenge, but not everyone wants to play a long metal song. And aside from the small custom set lists, band world tour mode is rigid in terms of what you can play. So if you want to put on a 5 song set of DLC, tough. Another thing being put into RB2 instead of a patch for this game. It's easy enough to work around, though.

Overall
The bundle is $170, which isn't a bad deal - you get the drums, a guitar and a mic as well as the game. Downloadable songs are 80-160 Microsoft points on Xbox Live. It's well worth the price if you're a fan of Guitar Hero games and have friends that you could have come over and play. An awesome party game and DLC helps keep things fresh week after week.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/20/08

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