Rock Band 3

The Short


Pros
- Adds both harmonies and keyboard to the music mix
- "Pro" mode for all instruments can teach you how to actually play a real guitar, etc.
- Full tutorials designed to teach you actual guitar, keys, and drums
- 83 songs, lots of fantastic classics in here
- Restructured unlocks with hundreds of challenges that unlock during quickplay, career, etc.
- Simplified career/road tip mode that doesn't force you to play songs you don't want to
- Further sorting options: keys/no keys, parental controls, harmony parts, etc.
- Can play any of your exported songs or old DLC, meaning this game can have 3000+ song and counting
- In addition, all old DLC supports Pro Drums
- Constant leaderboard updates for both individual scores and bands make this the most score-centric Rock Band game out of all of them
- New method for unlocking instruments and costumes is fun and clever
- Drop in/drop out gameplay that also allows easy profile switching between instruments
- No Fail can be left on and won't affect achievements
- Further UI streamlining for song selection, sorting, leaderboards, song info, and score competitions with your friends
- Note highways are the best in the series, with the "blue glow" indicating a max multiplier for all instruments
- Possible to have seven people playing at once

Cons
- Cover art on the box is hideous
- New art design for characters will turn some people off
- Some psychedelic backdrops make it hard to see when singing
- When playing "All Instruments," singers don't get scored
- Due to picking songs with keys emphasis, other parts sometimes suffer (especially lead guitar)
- While lots of the setlist songs are great, a lot of them seem completely out of the blue
- Can't unlock all challenges/achievements/costumes without buying the pro instruments
- Adding the pro instruments to your arsenal can be expensive
- Pro lessons are decent but hardly all-encompassing; the keys lessons are particularly lack-luster
- No back-charting for harmonies, pro instruments, keys, etc. (you can rebuy some of the old songs with the new features, however)
- The fact that career mode is bare-bones might annoy some people

Looks familiar? Look again. 

The Long


I'll just confess it from the start: I think Rock Band 3 is my favorite music game ever, and the pinnacle of the "plastic instrument" game genre. While I admit there are other music games that tickle my fancy (Elite Beat Agents, Parapa the Rapper), Rock Band 3 is the one that seems to fully realize the series' potential, as well as add new stuff nobody expected to the mix. It keeps enough of the core formula that made Rock Band work in the past, and added truckloads of new stuff for those who want to dig deeper.

Rock Band's biggest split from Guitar Hero is (in my opinion) the fact that they treated the game as less of a "game" and more as a platform to release music on. Yes, you get lots of songs on their discs, but the fact that you can export the songs to your hard drive as well as buy thousands of songs from the Rock Band store makes me think these games are more of a means to get songs to play rather than "the next big thing." Guitar Hero only really jumped on the DLC train late, and after seeing how successful Rock Band was, instead focusing on releasing as many disc-based iterations of their franchise as possible. While Rock Band is certainly not guiltless of this (as indicated by the fact it took three non-numbered Rock Band games to get to this one), the idea behind it is simple: you only need one disc (two if you want The Beatles: Rock Band) to play all your favorite songs. And with consistent DLC support since launch (and the addition of the Rock Band Network), it has been less about buying the latest game and more about keeping an eye on what songs are released in a given week.

Pro keys can be difficult to pick up at first (especially for those used to reading sheet music), but it isn't too difficult to learn

So, seeing as the Guitar Hero franchise puttered out because of a mix between market saturation and a lack of innovation, what is new in Rock Band 3 that makes it worth picking up over the other games in the series? Well, lots, actually. Three part harmonies are back from The Beatles: Rock Band and Green Day: Rock Band, with the added bonus that every DLC song released from Harmonix since will support harmonies. A new instrument, the Keyboard, has also been added, which in its regular mode plays like a guitar without the strumming (green, red, yellow, blue, and orange notes). Believe it or not, adding a keyboard really changes things up, if only because tons of new genres of music are now available. It does have the unfortunate side effect of making other instruments take a hit (Queen usually either has their keyboard or their guitar playing, not both, making songs like Don't Stop Me Now [DLC song; not on disc] extremely boring for the guitar part) and also leading to setlist choices that aren't necessarily fun for every instrument. Still, it's a fun toy, and the fact you can play keys with a guitar controller or guitar parts with a keys controller changes things up a bit.

It only has two octaves, but it still works well. Plus it's super sturdy. 

So we have triple-singing and a whole new instrument. That probably would have been enough for most people, but it wasn't for Harmonix. Perhaps the biggest announcement was the addition of "Pro" modes for all instruments. Basically, you would learn the actual chords on the guitar, add cymbals and a high-hat pedal for the drums, and play the actual notes on the keyboard. Crazy, right? 

This had the unfortunate side effect of (like the keyboard) meaning you'll have to buy more stuff to get the best Rock Band 3 experience. Extra mics for harmonies are cheap (you can get wireless Xbox 360 Lips mics for like $5 a pop if you are a savvy consumer), but the drum cymbals started at $40, and only worked with the wireless drum sets (so Rock Band 1 drums were out). The keyboard retailed at a whopping $90 at first (it has since dropped to anywhere between $15-$30), but the biggest ball-buster in terms of price was the pro-guitar. For the one that was part toy part guitar, that sucker was $150, but the real killer was the actual Gibson guitar, which rolled at like $300 plus you had to buy a $40 adapter. So saddle up: you are in for the long haul.

It uses buttons on the neck instead of actual strings...nice. Luckily these are like $75 now, which is a bit more manageable

Since I'm cheap but not too cheap I got every Pro instrument except the guitar. The cymbals I could justify, and we got the keyboard with a bundle, but that guitar is just too expensive. Because of that, I can't really tell you what I think of Pro-guitar mode. I've heard it's pretty decent (though the newly released Rocksmith is a better bet for learning to play, and you can plug your own guitar in if you actually own one, which I do), but it's gonna be expensive if you make the jump.

The added cymbals actually makes a huge difference in the drums. Guitar Hero has had cymbals forever so it beat Rock Band to the punch on that, but to show they actually were planning this all along every single song, even all the old songs, has cymbal support for drums. Once you start playing with cymbals (even if you are a beginner) I see no reason to go back. If you enjoy drumming, they amp up both the difficulty and the fun. It sounds stupid, but it actually works.

Pro-Keys are the last one, which is fun but hard. Keep in mind: I am pretty damn good at playing the piano, and while I tend to do better at memorization than sight-reading, I took over a decade of lessons. Reading the weird "scrolling" keyboard instead of sheet music is obnoxious at first, but given some time you learn to sight read it. I can't help but think I could learn the songs substantially faster with actual notes, but if you put that aside and think of it more as a really complex game than a learning experience, it ends up alright. I personally prefer getting super-hard keys songs and playing them on normal-expert keys rather than moderately difficult songs and playing on pro-expert keys, but that's just taste. I did learn a handful of pro keys (all the Linkin Park DLC), but I swear I'll never learn how to play those Queen songs. 

For those who already play piano, the keys can be wonky to pick up

So here's what you are probably wondering: is it worth spending $10-$100 on extra Rock Band crap in addition to the drums, mic, and two guitars I already have? Are the extra features worth it? Well...yeah, I think so, but an added "extra yes" to extra mics and cymbals. Keys are fun but I honestly don't play them as much as I do the other instruments, which is partially Rock Band's fault for not releasing more European metal. Seriously, where is the Nightwish and Within Temptation and Sonata Arctica? Sonata Arctica uses an actual keytar in their band and does tons of harmonies. While Rock Band Network usually sates my keys needs, it's usually through chiptunes music (which is awesome, by the way). More symphonic metal, please.

Now that we are done talking about all the random crap you can buy with this game, what about the game itself? What's different? What isn't? If you don't buy all the stuff, is it still worth upgrading from the ever-popular Rock Band 2?

This is looking a little more traditional. 

Well, let's look at what has improved. At the most basic gameplay standpoint, note highways have seen a minor overhaul. They are a bit wider, the multiplier and star-power is easier to read, and the contrast between the notes and the highway itself is at its best. It had some issues (read: people whined) on release with the transparency of the back end of the highway being a little too much, but that has since been fixed in a patch. A nifty addition is that in the old Rock Band games, as a bass player if you reached a 5x or 6x multiplier your highway would have a blue glow, letting you know you were doing awesome. They added this  blue glow to the rest of the instruments when they hit max-multiplier as well. It's a little thing, but it makes you feel like a kick-ass band when everybody's "in the blue," so to speak.

Overdrive is less intrusive, even when stacked on top of the "blue halo" of a max multiplier, avoiding the issue of The Beatles: Rock Band where you got sensory overload. They changed the way the bass pedal shows/registers which actually threw me off for a while on drums, but after time I liked it better. They also did general clean-up and sharpening (similar to Rock Band 2 to Rock Band) making the game more vibrant and visually appealing. Overall, the "brightening up" works, and is especially noticeable when you put Rock Band 3 screenshots next to those of the original Rock Band.

Challenges have also seen a massive overhaul

Other changes are to the career mode and the quickplay. Rock Band 3 finally realizes that people are not really buying these games to fulfill their rock fantasies anymore, they are buying them to play at parties and with friends. All songs are unlocked from the start (finally becoming an industry standard), and the career mode has been toned down immensely. Instead, your main focus is on "Challenges," mini-objectives specific to instruments, full-band, or just song related (for example, playing a certain number of DLC songs, or playing every Green Day song). When you accomplish these you gain fans, and after a bar fills up (seen in the upper right hand corner of the above screenshot) your band gets bigger. It's purely cosmetic; getting a bus or whatever just changes some loading screens and backgrounds, but it's nice to see that everything you do, either in quickplay or the "career" mode, contributing to an overall pool of fans.

The "Career" mode is really just a set of stripped-down setlists, but unlike previous games this one gives you full-flexibility of using your entire DLC library. For each challenge you have two or three options (ex: "Play four punk songs") and then you get to pick the songs from your library yourself. It's loads better than the old system, which forced you to play on-disc songs, but fans of long-winded, world-spanning career modes will be disappointed. It's very clear that at this point Rock Band is more about the quickplay than the career mode, so I honestly don't count it as too big a loss that it's been stripped down. Besides, the hundreds of challenges more than make up for it.

The new characters look more "plastic," but they fit the brighter theme and animate well

The character creator is much improved, with lots more options and a (slightly) better method of sorting your clothes. Attire/costumes are no longer bought through money, instead you unlock certain pieces by completing challenges. It's a cool system, which gives a bonus for beating certain challenges aside from just the fans. An annoying part, however, is that in order to unlock everything you'll have to own all the instruments, as a lot of the challenges are based on the Pro instruments. Meaning if you don't shell out the cash or just suck at real guitar, you'll never unlock some stuff. Ever.

They slightly changed the quickplay song select UI as well, which is...sort of for the better? The information on the main screen has been decreased (it still has artist, album, and both regular and pro instrument difficulties) but you can hit "x" (or "square") on any song to get more information about it. The sorting options for your library is vastly improved, with tons of options that let you filter just Family Friendly songs, songs with keys, harmonies, by decade, etc. Useful!

Plus I can see how much country music my wife has bought

Leaderboard integration is also much improved. After each song it gives a score breakdown for each instrument, as well as an individual star rating in addition to the band's star rating. It also gives you what number your band is on the leaderboard, as well as what each individual instrument is rated on the leaderboards. This can get pretty addicting, especially with harmonies, as the fight to get to the top of the leaderboards gets strenuous (we were #1 on a few songs for a while...then some jerks overtook us).

Normally it would say leaderboard rank under individual scores

Lastly, the game is much more drop in/drop out friendly, with instruments able to jump in on the fly or even mid-song (which Guitar Hero has been doing for a while). Another awesome feature is the fact that you can change which instrument your signed in profile is in really easily; the game just switches it over so you can keep earning leaderboard rank and achievements on a different instrument. No Fail can be turned on from the start and it doesn't disable achievements anymore, making this more of a party game than ever. It's extremely accessible, finally really easy to bounce around between instruments, and basically just streamlines the system to make it more enjoyable.

You can even play with all four instruments and three singers at once, though it does come with a price. During the "All-Instrument" play, singers are no longer scored and are set on "easy," meaning they don't really contribute to the band. This is especially annoying for score hunters: singing on expert very often scores much higher than any other instrument. It's too bad they couldn't find out a way to get five people signed in at once, but this is more a limit of the Xbox 360 hardware than anything.

Oh, how far we've come. 

So we've come to the (current) end of our Rock Band review adventure. I'll finish by sharing one last story: when we got the game in January of 2011, my wife was deathly ill with a killer stomach bug. I still had to go to work, leaving her home alone with the new game. Over the next two days she learned The Sounds' Livin' in America on expert pro keys to nearly 100%. And that isn't too easy a song, especially considering the game had just come out! Which means that my wife beat me to a new game (for once) and is still better than me at most songs on singing and pro keys. So the circle has come...full circle. Or something. I don't know.

The point is Rock Band 3 is awesome, and is the best music game I've ever played. It also is probably the single most played game on my Xbox 360 (assuming it overtook Rock Band 2) and again, I own like 600+ songs for the stupid thing. When it boils down to it, your enjoyment of these games still depends on how much you either like singing or playing plastic instruments. While Rock Band 3 blurs the line a little between toys and reality, that isn't why you buy it. You buy it to have a fun time with friends and family, and on that end the game is completely successful.

The game is $20, and the instruments have been priced (roughly) above. I'll probably be playing this game even after the next generation of systems comes out (unless they find a way to port all my songs to the next Xbox). It really is quite the phenomenon.

Five out of five stars. 

Green Day: Rock Band

The Short

Pros

- 47 songs, including the albums Dookie and American Idiot in their entirety

- Excellent, fun charting throughout make songs a blast to play

- Drum and bass parts are especially enjoyable to play

- Three part harmonies are back, and usually simpler than in The Beatles: Rock Band

- Exportable to Rock Band 3, complete with harmony support

- All songs are unlocked in quickplay from the start

- Menus have a slick style that fits the band

Cons

- While The Beatles: Rock Band was an entire UI overhaul, Green Day is less detailed

- Misses some tracks from 21st Century Breakdown, but they are purchasable from the store with harmonies support

- Only three venues for the entire game

- Guitar parts can get a little chord-heavy

- The heavy censorship required for some songs gets pretty ridiculous

- If you don't like Green Day, there is literally no reason for you to buy this game

If you've been reading all my reviews in a row, screens like this are probably looking really familiar

The Long

Let me confess something before I start: before I got Green Day: Rock Band I was only a passing Green Day fan. Sure, I listened to Dookie like everybody who grew up in the 90s, and I listened to American Idiot enough that I could recognize most of the tunes, and everybody has heard Time of Your Life before. But when I heard that Rock Band's next single-band centered game was going to be Green Day I was a bit disappointed. I mean...really? Guitar Hero did Metallica and Aerosmith (though the latter game sucked pretty bad), and we got...Green Day? Off the top of my head I can think of six or seven bands that would be better deserving (Queen or The Rolling Stones come to mind). So why freaking Green Day?

As it turns out, Green Day works really well, for two main reasons. First, it's a band that contributed heavily to the way current modern punk/alternative sounds (Dookie, along with The Offspring's Smash set up a sound that still carries over today) as well as writing one hell of a rock opera (American Idiot) that also pioneered modern music. Because of this, it serves as a good foil to The Beatles: Rock Band; it's essentially it's hipper, more modern cousin. Secondly, Green Day: Rock Band is full of music that isn't just catchy, it translates really well into video game notes. Bassist Mike Dirnt is extremely talented, making what us usually the "boring" part of Rock Band a total blast to play. Welcome to Paradise, for instance, is way more fun on bass than guitar. 

Though I still think it's a weird pick

So the point is this: is Green Day: Rock Band worth it? Well, as someone who was just a passing Green Day fan...I'd say yes, it is. If you straight up hate Green Day you obviously should avoid it, but if you have even the slightest interest (and come on...you know you listened to Dookie) you'll find one of the richest Rock Band experiences to date, coupled with some of the funnest songs on the platform. Yes. Really. With Green Day. 

First off, they did right by the fans by including full albums of Dookie and American Idiot, as well as the rest of 21st Century Breakdown (which I had heard literally none of before this game; I totally forgot that album even existed). The six missing tracks from the latter album came out earlier on their DLC store, and you can either buy them separate (they'll show up in-game if you do) or if you buy the Green Day: Rock Band Plus version you get a free export as well as those six songs for free. Not too bad. 

The motion capture stuff is also pretty dang good

Secondly, they charted the songs really well, and included full harmonies on all their songs. When I say "charted" I mean "how they wrote the notes for plastic guitars/drums." Believe it or not there is a sort of science to making a song fun to play, and either you hit it or you don't. The Beatles: Rock Band suffered a little because the source material could be so out there, making some awesome songs to listen to but not play with a toy guitar. Green Day, as a band, tends to stick to a certain punk-rock formula, which works really well in a game setting. It does have the unfortunate side effect of the songs all starting to sound "samey," but that could be said of 90% of the bands out there. The singing, especially, is standout. Billy Jo must have the exact same vocal range as me, because I found I could sing every song comfortably without having to strain too far in either direction. The harmonies are also easier than The Beatles: Rock Band, which makes them funner to sight-sing. Add on the fact that these songs are catchy as hell, and you have one of the best setlists in a Rock Band game. Yes. Really. On the Green Day game. I know, I was surprised too.

It's not all fun and sunshine, though. As you've seen from comparing gameplay screenshots with those of The Beatles: Rock Band, they didn't really mix stuff up much with regard to the visual style for this iteration. The Beatles: Rock Band has a super funky style about it: everything from the menues to the way Overdrive looked to the note highway was styled to fit the theme. Green Day: Rock Band just says "screw it" and looks like Rock Band 2. Which is fine, I guess, but it makes it seem more like an inferior product that The Beatles: Rock Band. It's the little things, Harmonix.

Man, the 90s were awesome. 

This idea of "we threw this game together at the last minute" is only reinforced by the venues. There are only three. For the entire game. Which, compared to the fact every single song in The Beatles: Rock Band had its own unique background thing going on, is a bit disappointing. You get a sort of warehouse/garage that shows them playing during the Dookie era, you have them playing in that London theater where they recored the live Bullet in a Bible album for the American Idiot songs, and you have...some other place for the 21st Century Breakdown. Hey, I don't fact-check these things; I go off memory, and I really don't know much about the history behind that album. I like the album now, if that's helpful, but yeah...sort of dropped off the Green Day train after American Idiot.

A benefit of having a band where all its members are still, you know, alive is the fact that they motion captured the trio for most of the songs. Which means the stage performances (even if it's only on three stages) looks pretty authentic. It makes for a fun show to watch (even if Green Day's costumes got really stupid after American Idiot) and adds a lot of needed flavor to the game.

The fact I liked this game was a huge surprise. The fact I liked it a lot was just plain weird. The fact my wife likes it is just plain unbelievable.  

Like most of my other Rock Band related reviews, you can export the songs from Green Day: Rock Band for a paltry sum of $10. Since you can get the game for around $15, you are looking at $25 for some of the funnest songs on the platform. As someone who was generally indifferent about Green Day, I can say that this game turned both myself and my wife (who hadn't even heard of them before this game) into fans. The songs are catchy, the singing is just the right amount of challenge, and the songs are fun to play. And that, ultimately, is what determines a good Rock Band experience. 

For me, this game is a solid four out of five. If you just love the crap out of Green Day, feel free to add a star to the final score. If you hate their guts, take four stars away. If you are totally indifferent, I'd suggest going and listening to a few of their songs before making a final decision. Green Day: Rock Band certainly isn't for everybody, but for a fan of Rock Band (and now Green Day) it's a must-buy. 

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.

Lego Rock Band

The Short


Pros
- Songs include Queen, Bon Jovi, David Bowie, and Elton John
- All family friendly songs: can play it with your kids without fear of "bad" lyrics
- Tons of stuff to unlock
- Your score = money, which is a brilliant idea and should have been done before
- Lego "Rock Events" where you play Ghostbusters to fight off ghosts, etc. are clever and fun
- Lego aesthetic makes up for a lot; even the notes are little Lego bricks
- Despite being a kids game, has some reasonably difficult songs when playing on expert
- "Kid-friendly" changes include a built-in no fail, auto-bass pedal drumming, and a "beginner" mode
- Unlocks carry across an entire gamertag rather than a single in-game character
- Entire soundtrack is exportable to other Rock Band games for $10

Cons
- Load times are unbelievably horrible, even with the game installed
- Song choices are all over the place, from "golden oldies" to modern pop tracks
- Only 45 songs on disc. Will load "kid-friendly" songs from your existing library, but that doesn't help much
- No particularly standout tracks, with even the two Queen songs (We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions) being poorly charted
- Came out after The Beatles: Rock Band but has no harmonies support
- Same old Rock Band experience with a new coat of paint; we've had two other games at this point that did the same thing
- Makes you replay the same songs multiple times for the career mode
- Songs are not unlocked from the start; you have to unlock them in career mode
- Turning setlists into "albums" that you can name and make covers for is cool, but having to play your album multiple times is dull and tedious

Lego David Bowie is pretty sweet. As is the fact instruments are color coded on the life bar

The Long


Lego Rock Band is a game that, unfortunately, came out at the wrong time without bringing enough to the table. Arriving after The Beatles: Rock Band there was literally no way it could compete with that game, especially considering it didn't upgrade with the harmonies introduced in that game. Next, it came out at the same time as Band Hero (Activision/Guitar Hero's similar answer to making their games more "kid friendly"), which was fronted by none other than flash-in-the-pan pop singer Taylor Swift. While the Lego brand certainly carried a good deal of weight (the Lego games based on movie titles are still, inexplicably, being made at a rapid rate), lack of innovation paired with a more-weird-than-wonderful setlist pretty much secured Lego Rock Band as the black sheep of the Rock Band family.

First off, the good. Lego Rock Band sticks to its Lego guns pretty closely, which is to say the aesthetic is charming and appealing. The "we have way more unlockable things than should be possible" that permeated the other Lego branded games is here in full force, and perhaps even more so. Hundreds of heads, bodies, hats, legs, and instruments are up for grabs, including stuff you can unlock for your "pad," a Lego house that serves as a sort of band main menu. You can install hot-tubs, buy pirate flags, and do all sorts of other junk. For kids, this will probably be a highlight. For a grown man, despite getting an secret amount of pleasure in setting a walrus loose in my house, it came off as lacking.

The game is pretty much Rock Band 2, but the notes are LEGO BRICKS. That's actually kind of awesome.

Luckily the unlocks come fast and furious. Cash in the game is given equal to your final score (with a few multipliers), meaning you will have quite a bit of money to spend once you beat the game. The fact you can create a princess zombie pirate with a beard and a double-necked guitar is pretty hilarious, and since unlocks are now tied to gamertag instead of each individual in-game character (thank goodness), you can make as many characters as you want with the crap you unlock. Guests can also use your characters, making this game much more accessible for party-play than its predecessors.

The "kiddying up" of the gameplay is evident here, though the actual note charting is still the same difficulty levels as other Rock Band games. Lego Rock Band has No-Fail mode (a bonus in Rock Band 2) on all the time, and if you die you simply take a point hit (which you can recover most of if you play the upcoming segments skillfully). This means you can keep going even if you suck, making the difficulty curve jump from Medium to Hard (which is still probably the biggest jump in the game) less arduous.

Also added is "Beginner" mode, which is a difficulty easier than "Easy." I use the word "difficulty" here lightly, seeing as for guitar parts you just have to strum any note with the on-screen ones, and hit any note for the drums. You can even have the bass pedal be "automatic," which I think some of my adult friends need in their Rock Band sometime. All in all, the game has options for kids, but still lets you play on Expert on difficult song if you are reaching for a challenge.

You can make some really weird dudes

The final standout is the "Power Battles," basically where a band takes turns to play specific parts of a song to complete an objective. As I said above, you play the Ghostbusters theme to rid a mansion of ghosts (seriously, this game has the Ghostbusters song in it), though it is probably the best fitting with regard to song-->objective. I don't get why Pink's So What is the song to thwart an orc siege on a medieval castle, but whatever...it's weird, but since it lets you switch off you get both a time to play and a time to watch the crazy shenanigans happening during the "battle," so it works. It also fits the lighthearted theme the Lego games strive for, which is awesome.

Is that Lego Rocker Jesus? Never mind, forget I asked. 

Unfortunately, the Lego aesthetic is really all this game has going for it. Underneath that pretty skin is still the exact same game we played in Rock Band 2, only with less features. You can't play online (probably since parents don't want their kids playing with strangers, but still...weird feature to take out), challenges are gone, and there are only 45 songs in the entire game. As an added bonus, this came out after The Beatles: Rock Band, which introduced one of the best things to the genre: harmonies. This game doesn't have any harmonies, which severely gimps those Queen songs.

The songs themselves are not only sparse, they seem to have no rhyme or reason as to why they were picked. Like Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, I swear they just grab-bagged as many popular songs as they could from across decades and threw them into the game, hoping it would cover everybody. Yeah, sure...I guess? Maybe that would have worked if it had more songs, but as it stands it's pretty much guaranteed that all of your friends will only find two or three songs they like (regardless of music preference), and then just go "eh" for the rest of them. Yeah, the Ghostbusters theme is hilarious, and Kung Fu Fighting is funny (though the guitar charting is a mess), but they are really just novelty songs. There is also no metal in this game, which means I hate it. Ok, not really, but the genre oversight is certainly noticeable. It does have country (finally), but it's Rascal Flats (aka the worse country band) so...yeah. And it's Life is a Highway (again, the most predictable choice) so...whatever.

Seeing the Rock Band 2 menues Lego-fied is pretty great, though

All this is also ruined by the fact that this game has the worst load times of any game I've ever played. I've heard Duke Nukem Forever is worse, but saying that game is worse than your game at something isn't much of a compliment. Installed to my Xbox 360's HDD it can take anywhere from 15-20 seconds to load a single song. Uninstalled was 30+. This is completely unacceptable; who failed to optimize this? We are already dealing with what is technically a sub-par Rock Band 2, now you gimp playability? Really bad form.

You can, however, export all the songs off the disc to be played in other Rock Band games, which I'd highly suggest doing. Since it's only $10 to export, that's less than a quarter a song, and even though the selection is weird the songs are fun to play. They did a good job with charting on (most) of the songs, making them party favorites. Besides, Ghostbusters. Come on.

Here's a Rock Band: Lego. Much better. 

Don't get me wrong: this is a good game for kids. It filters out your "profane" songs (though I still can't figure out why Green Day's Minority is an ok song while Boulevard of Broken Dreams isn't [if we are going by censored f-bomb counts, Minority easily wins]) and provides a simple shell for kids. The problem is that this all became completely obsolete when Rock Band 3 came out with the option to filter songs based on content rating, meaning you get the same filtering for your kids in a substantially better game. Yeah, they aren't Legos in Rock Band 3, but the aesthetic isn't worth all the problems Lego Rock Band has.

HOWEVER.

I still suggest getting it an exporting the songs, and if you have kids that are too young to enjoy Rock Band without the "Beginner" difficulty, this isn't a bad starting place. But if you are somebody who already knows how to play the plastic guitar games, you can pass on the experience and move on to the vastly superior...well, pretty much any Rock Band game except the first one.

So hit up the track list and decide if it's worth around $25, which is roughly the cost of the disc + an export. Again, it has a one-time use code built in like Rock Band 2, so you'll need to get it new in order to run the export. I think I got my money's worth (we got our copy free at Old Navy on some weird Black Friday promotion), but you can bet I dumped this game the minute I got Rock Band 3.

When it came out I gave it an amazon.com rating of four out of five, but again...this was before Rock Band 3 (or even Green Day: Rock Band). In its current state, I think two out of five is a fair rating.

Rock Band 2

The Short


Pros
- Refines the Rock Band UI down to a perfect shine
- Tons of new, awesome songs
- Character creator is much improved and a character can play multiple instruments
- Menu selection for songs becomes fantastic
- Charting is better for all instruments, especially bass
- Introduced the Rock Band Network, where people can create and submit their own songs to sell
- All songs (like Rock Band) exportable to be played in different versions
- Compatible with all old DLC and exported Rock Band songs
- There is no "solo" career; it's all unlocked either as a band or by yourself
- Challenges are a nice new addition, though not particularly enthralling

Cons
- Doesn't dramatically mix up the formula
- Doesn't add any new instruments or significant changes
- Songs are still locked until you play through career mode
- Load times are better than Rock Band, but are still pretty bad if you don't install to the HDD

Rock Band 2 was more about polishing rather than innovating

The Long

Continuing forward on our Rock Band saga, skip ahead a few months after we got Rock Band. Rock Band 2 was actually already out by the time we got Rock Band (I'd picked that one up instead of the 2nd one because it was super cheap) but I hadn't completely sold my wife on the idea that we needed another music game when the one we had was good enough (plus we could buy DLC, so what did we need this new disc for?). Unfortunately for her, I visited a friend who owned the game and proceeded to rock out to Rock Band 2 for several hours, and after seeing all the improvements I was totally sold. I managed to snag a copy for $30 (which was apparently cheap enough for her to approve), exported the Rock Band songs (which, again, no Enter Sandman :( ) and never looked back. 

While Rock Band started our musical addiction, it was Rock Band 2 that finalized it, getting both myself and my wife totally invested in the whole "Rock Band" thing. It also was a key selling factor in upgrading our TV to a slightly bigger one (by slightly bigger I mean 10 inches bigger), and spawned the whole "Rock Band Party" thing that our friends would know and love (or loathe). 

The interface looks significantly cleaner, especially in HD

The general gist of the game is the exact same as from Rock Band. Get a singer, guitarist, bassist, and drummer together, plug in all your plastic instruments and rock out. The only real significant change I noted was the singing: the pitch detection in this game is way better than in Rock Band, where it was sort of all over the place. This made singing more accurate, which also started us on our "Sing every song on Expert, even if we don't know it" kick that we are still on (like I said, we are good at singing). But aside from that, you still strum notes when they hit the bottom of the screen to get combos, and you still have those four instruments (not really mixed up until Beatles and Rock Band 3). 

Something that was a subtle improvement that you really won't notice until you compare the two games side by side is how much cleaner the game looks. The "film grain" on the background scenes was significantly decreased, meaning you could both see your characters better and the "highways" of notes were less foggy. Notes were shinier and more vibrant, bass-pedal notes on the drums were brighter and easier to see, and the highway hit the perfect balance between transparent (so you can still sort of see the on-stage action) and being dark enough to provide contrast for the notes. Again, very subtle things, but being a lot easier on the eyes is actually a lot more significant than you might think.

The song selection screen set the new standard

The biggest improvement was the way you selected songs in quickplay. Gone was the stupid flag that gave you no difficulty indicator (unless you sorted it by difficulty). Now we had many sorting options: artists, albums, etc. If you had a bunch of songs from a particular artist, the game would auto-sort them into sub-categories under the artist by album (for example, under my "AFI" tab it would split between "DecemberUnderground" and "Crash Love"), which was really convenient. But the best feature, by far, was the fact that if you were on a song it would give individual instrument difficulty. I cannot stress enough how important this was, especially when you were playing with friends of varying skill levels. Ranging from zero dots to five devil heads, you could finally pick the perfect song to play for you and your friends. It also had a "band" difficulty level, which I never thought was that useful (I don't care about the band, I care about what instrument I'm playing) but hey, we'll take it. 

An added bonus was the album art in the corner, as well as the album name and release date (which you could sort into musical decades, also good when playing with my parents who don't know any music after 1990). It just looked really clean, and made it so when you ended up buying truckloads of DLC (which we did), you could easily sort through all of it to find the songs you wanted.

The characters looked good and had tons of new costumes to make them look like total rocking idiots

The songs themselves were fantastic, probably one of my favorite setlists to date. It provided a good blend of old songs with new songs, though it did get a little "metal" heavy for the hardest tracks (I'm not complaining; I love metal, but I could see why some would be turned off). the game had a distinct lack of any country at all (much to my wife's dismay), but luckily this was heavily rectified in further DLC releases. 

Career mode was back, and while it wasn't a massive improvement it at least was different than all the previous music games that had come out. You got to go city to city, picking from specific songs (and random or pre-determined setlists) as you unlocked stars. Get enough and you got to play a particularly difficult gig that would unlock a van, a plane, etc. that would unlock more venues. It was pretty much just "play songs to unlock more songs" with a new skin. It was nice to have a bit more choice where I played (and seeing it on a globe was spiffy), but the system was beginning to show it's age. The fact that you had to unlock the songs through this mode for quickplay was also a major downer, since I pretty much jumped into the game wanted to play on Quickplay, and I had to beat the career mode first before I got all my songs.

Plus you get like a billion fans, which means...uh...nothing. 

There was also a new batch of "Challenges," which were basically just difficulty-tiered setlists played out of context of the main story. A cool feature of it was it would take your DLC that you just bought and make new challenges out of it (for example, have three or more Offspring songs and you'd get an "Offspring" challenge, etc.). These were also instrument specific, which added some unique stuff for you to do, and provided both fans and money if you were REALLY needing it. It was nice to have the new content, but I didn't really see the point (besides getting the $$) when quickplay existed. 

They also added "Battle of the Bands," weekly leaderboards competitions

Character design was better, though you still earned money to buy stuff which could turn getting that particular guitar you wanted into a money-earning grind. Luckily, though, you only had to buy the stuff you wanted, so if you managed your cash you'd be fine. Items were limited to each character you made, though, which was kind of a huge pain if you wanted to have a full band totally equipped. They were also locked to your gamertag (and everybody had to have a gamertag signed in to play, at least on the Xbox 360 version), meaning my friends who just came to hang out had to make a bunch of local, bogus gamertags to play and keep their characters. Not terrible, but certainly a minor annoyance that could have been ironed out.

The menus for the clothing stores have never been particularly easy to use

As a whole, though Rock Band 2 really brought the band together, if you forgive the cheesy choice of words. With Rock Band my wife and I were content to playing on our own. With Rock Band 2, however, we started inviting people over to play with us. As newlyweds are usually hermits, I think it weirded our friends out (too bad, suckers! We need a bass player!) and the massive amounts of DLC Harmonix kept pumping out meant we could get songs that we wanted to sing rather than be stuck with whatever arbitrary songs were released on disc (which, while they were pretty good overall, some were certainly...bad. Cool For Cats...you suck). 

The addition of Rock Band Network, a service that allowed artists to chart their own songs and sell them in the store, was just icing on the cake. Now bands themselves could put their own music up, in addition to Harmonix still releasing it's own weekly DLC. The number of songs in the game completely skyrocketed, and we've found some pretty awesome bands via this service. 

More songs for ya

We probably burned more hours on this game than any other game on our Xbox360 (except maybe Rock Band 3). It started the whole "Rock Band Party" thing, which has continued to this day. As an improvement on the original formula, Rock Band 2 blew us away, both in style and general improvements. It's still considered by many to be the best Rock Band game, though I personally stand by Rock Band 3.

For now, like the original game there isn't any real reason to own the game, but you can export the majority of the songs for $10 to be played in Rock Band 3. Be warned: for Rock Band all you needed was the disc to export, for Rock Band 2 you'll need both a disc and an unused serial code from the back of the manual (meaning if you buy used it's a crapshoot if it'll work or not), so buying new is the safest bet. 

It still holds up well, though, and earns a well-deserved five out of five. It reigned supreme as my favorite music game ever until Rock Band 3 came out, and that's a pretty impressive feat. 

Week in Review for 1/29/2012 - Rock Band / Kinect Week

Greetings blog readers, and welcome to the week in review for 1/22/2012. This week saw a boatload of reviews, 12 in fact, pushing the grand total thus far to 33 games. I reviewed a bunch of old PC games this week, particularly Sierra-On-Line games, but I'm not finished with those just yet! I have a bunch more in the pipeline, considering those were what I mostly grew up with, so prepare yourselves for more reviews of old PC games you played and then forgot existed.

I thought I'd also take a brief moment to explain how I review games, and specifically why I only give whole-star ratings. When I sit down to write a review, I have such a massively stupid amount of choices (from all the games I've played) I usually only write ones that I immediately can think of something to say about. I write them all in one sitting, with no planning in advance whatsoever, and I only go back and edit if I made specific errors or mistakes. Basically you are getting me saying what I can think of off the cuff, in one quick breath, and without me redacting anything I've said. I want these to be as completely honest as possible, and keep in mind they are just my opinion (though I do balance the score a little based on game quality, even if I didn't enjoy it, but that's for another post) so if you love a game I hate, I'm totally cool with that (or vice versa).

I give full star ratings rather than half ratings (Giant Bomb, where I am also posting these reviews, allows half-star ratings) because I feel limiting myself makes me both think more about how many stars I give a game, and gets rid of an easy out. In truth, the star rating is there as an afterthought; what I really want you to do is read the words of the review, figure out if you like what I'm saying, and make a judgement from that. There are a lot of games that I think are decent (Legend of Dragoon from this week comes to mind) but I really can't justify giving a high star rating. Hopefully I explain this well in my review (though I am considering putting the star rating just under the last part of "The Short" in reviews, for the especially lazy).

Well, that's it from me. I'm really enjoying this as both a writing exercise and a trip down memory lane, and I really hope you are enjoying reading them. My intentions are that, once we start getting more games on here, you might discover some games you haven't played yet that you'd like to try, or games you forgot about that you can dig back up again. The possibilities are endless! 


It is also worth noting most next-gen games were played on Xbox 360 unless otherwise noted. I'm not a fanboy or anything, it's just the system I bought first, so I tend to preference games on it (I like the controller better, too, and all my friends are on there).


Anyway, here is this week's reviews in blurb. And, as always, requests are welcome (and I promised a Super Mario Bros 2 for NES review this last week; sorry, I totally spaced it. I will do my best to get it out this week, though)

Earthworm Jim - 4 / 5
Halo 3: ODST - 3 / 5
Roller Coaster Tycoon - 5 / 5
Dead to Rights: Retribution - 2 / 5
Lords of the Realm 2 - 5 / 5
Torin's Passage - 4 / 5
King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride - 3 / 5
Persona 3: FES - 4 / 5
The Legend of Dragoon - 2 / 5
Persona 4 - 5/ 5
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - 3 / 5
Rock Band - 4 / 5

Oh yes, I've also started my "Rock Band Review Fiasco," which will be combination reviews of every Rock Band game as well as personal side-notes by me regarding how much I've enjoyed playing this game with friends and family. The first game is up; I intended to do more tonight but I finished a novel instead, so expect the saga to continue tomorrow with Rock Band 2, The Beatles: Rock Band, Lego Rock Band, Green Day: Rock Band, and Rock Band 3.

Have a great week!