The Beatles: Rock Band

The Short


Pros
- Game featuring (and only featuring) what is widely considered to be the greatest band ever
- 45 songs, with full albums available for download
- Three-part harmonies for the singing is fantastic
- Beautiful design and style; extremely faithful to The Beatles legacy
- Clearly made with care and reverence to the original band
- Lots of bonus content (videos, images, etc.) for fans
- No Fail is unlocked from the start, easily accessed when assembling your band
- Difficulty of parts is shown on both the menu and when assigning difficulties. A little touch, but an appreciated one
- Every song has its own unique backdrop and set, from actual locations to "dreamscapes" inspired by the songs
- Intro movie is amazing
- All the songs are unlocked in quickplay from the start
- The game that finally, after two decades, sold my parents on video games

Cons
- Only 45 songs on disc
- Color scheme for the note highway is pretty but there isn't enough contrast between the notes and the background; can make it hard to read
- Songs can't be exported into any other Rock Band game like the rest of the series
- Despite the songs being classics, they don't necessarily translate into great songs to play on plastic instruments
- Drum fills and wammy bars don't actually change the sound of the song. I understand this was because they didn't want people "messing up" The Beatles' songs, but the lack of audio feedback is weird
- No Let It Be or Yesterday in DLC. Seriously, my two favorite Beatles songs aren't on here? What the crap, Harmonix?

Get ready for a crazy trip, in more ways than one. 

The Long


Back to "stories about Nathan's life" again: my parents freaking hate video games. Oh they'll deny it, and tell you that they don't "hate" them but rather think they just a massive waste of time, but don't be fooled. There's a reason I owned a grand total of zero game consoles until I went to college, my parents wouldn't even allow one in the house. I remember when a friend gave me his Playstation 1 (he had gotten a new one for Christmas or something). I took it home and my mom made me take it back (which was also about a 20 minute walk from my house) because she didn't want it in the house.

I've tried to entice them with games throughout my life. Despite protesting them, my mom still plays games like Bejeweled online when listening to podcasts, and my dad certainly enjoyed watching me play games like God of War (which still amazed me), but I had never seen him ever play a video game. I brought Guitar Hero home for Christmas once, trying to lure him in with Kansas' Carry On My Wayward Son, but he didn't bite. It wasn't until we got Styx's Blue Collar Man for Rock Band 2 that we finally got my father to play a game, albeit singing. It was a fight to put my mom on guitar, but she caved (reluctantly) as well.

Luckily, the Gamestop had a secret weapon

As luck would have it, the Christmas I finally got them to at least play Rock Band 2 was was shortly followed by me accidentally breaking one of our guitars. Wanting a full band for when my uncles showed up, we hit up the local Gamestop back home in California with the intent of buying some guitars (they had a buy 2 get 1 free on all used crap, so it was a deal). And there my dad saw The Beatles: Rock Band.

It wasn't competitively priced (it was $50, when I'm pretty sure we could have gotten it for less off Amazon). It's box was a bit beat up, and it was on a high shelf. I remember my dad showing it to me and asking, "Is this all just The Beatles songs?" I assured him that it was, and that we hadn't bought it because 1. It was too expensive and 2. As much as I liked The Beatles, my wife hadn't heard much of them and I hadn't listened to their stuff in probably a decade. He then asked me if we could have four people play it together, like in Rock Band 2. I told him we could, once we bought the guitars.

And my freaking dad bought The Beatles: Rock Band. I nearly blew a gasket of disbelief (if those types of gaskets exist). He didn't even own an Xbox, and we were going home in just a few days. Woah. 

Who could say no to this? 

We played the game all the way through in under 12 hours (netting us an achievement), tag-teaming singing and the various instruments. Everybody played, even my resistant uncles and mom. I'm pretty sure my dad played every single song in the game with only take one break to sleep. They were up the first thing in the morning doing it again until we'd played every song.

I then blew another gasket when my parents asked me to help them buy a Wii last year, complete with all the Rock Band stuff so they could play at home. I think hell has frozen over.

This game has a really awesome style throughout

Anyway, on to the actual review. The Beatles: Rock Band is the best single-band oriented music game ever made. Yes, it's better than Guitar Hero: Metallica (which they botched by adding crappy other bands to the list for some reason). There are no "bonus acts." There is no filler or crap. All the songs are unlocked in quick play from the very beginning of the game (yay! FINALLY.).

This game also added harmonies, which is my wife and my favorite part about this whole series. We like the guitars and keys and drums and all, but there is something satisfying with grabbing a mic and belting out some crazy-difficult two or three part harmonies. You feel like a badass singer, and deservedly so (especially on Expert). An improvement to the pitch recognition in The Beatles: Rock Band only solidified an already great experience.

So I'll just cut to the chase and say that if you even remotely like any songs by The Beatles, if you have any affinity with these types of games you should buy The Beatles: Rock Band. It's completely fantastic in every single way, the backgrounds (which are unique for each song, even DLC) are beautiful and original, and this game is a total blast.

Now that that's over, I'm going to talk about the (very few) bad things about The Beatles: Rock Band.

Are you having difficulty reading those yellow notes? Yes? Well, you aren't alone. 

First off, while the softer colors for the note highways certainly fit the visual theme of the game better, they also make it really hard to read notes sometimes. This is exacerbated when you have "Beetlemania" (aka Overdrive) activated, which puts that yellow flower-power thing over the highway. Yes, it looks totally awesome (and each player's Overdrive looks different, which is a sweet touch), but the color scheme doesn't utilize complimentary colors very well, meaning the notes don't "pop out" like they do when you have bright colors on a black background. It's a minor issue, but one that caused a lot of missed notes for me. At least the bass pedal is a visible orange, and the singing bar has probably the best color design in the series.

Another issue is the songs themselves. There's only 45. Which, if you remember Lego Rock Band, I complained about because that really isn't that many. In this case I'm willing to forgive a lot more; while Lego Rock Band was a jumbled mess of songs, this is all The Beatles, which helps a lot. They have three full albums available as DLC (we have Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper) which helps stack up the content, but the on-disc offerings are still pretty slim.

Also, the lack of Let it Be and Yesterday is really annoying. Those were my favorite Beatles songs!

The harmony lines were different colors, and filled different bars next to the multiplier

Another issue is that while I like (most) every song on the disc, some of them just don't translate very well into plastic instrument gameplay. The drums and singing never really have a problem, but a lot of Beatles' songs were heavy on piano and other experimental instruments (and sounds), meaning the notes you play on guitar don't necessarily match, and aren't necessarily very fun to play. The game isn't very gamey, in that you won't be grinding for high scores or hitting impossible solos. There's plenty of difficulty to be found in certain songs, but ultimately the songs just don't fit as well with the pre-existing Rock Band formula as one would hope. This doesn't seem to matter when it comes to beginners, though, so my parents will remain forever entertained.

The last big bummer is the lack of an export feature, and all the DLC is locked into The Beatles: Rock Band and no other game. I can understand the licencing for these tracks had to be a massive bitch, and this game cost MTV games a pretty penny to put out (which is probably why we aren't seeing more DLC; this game didn't sell as well as anticipated). I can also understand that, given the almost religious amount of reverence given to the source material, playing this game with Metal Nathan Headbanger in Rock Band 3 might not remain true to the original spirit of the band. Still, it does have a code on the back of the manual for some reason, which now only serves to give me false hope. Oh well; it could be worse, and I guess I'm fine having a second Rock Band disc in the house.

Along with the art style, the game's graphics and animations are fantastic

In terms of series progression, The Beatles: Rock Band offered a bit more than just harmonies. Subtle UI changes to both song selection and how they indicate difficulty were a welcome addition, and the ability to turn on No Fail during the screen where you assemble your band is also great for when you are introducing your mom's friend to the game. This was easily the most refined Rock Band experience at that point, and to be honest very little has changed with regard to general UI between it and Rock Band 3. It's the best of the best in many instances (including the featured band), and is certainly worth picking up.

It's about $20 from major retailers, so if you like The Beatles or have some parents that you need convincing, its a solid investment for some really amazing stuff. I thought The Beatles were ok before this; now I love them to death like I did when I was younger. Highly recommended.

Easy five out of five star rating.