Ninja Blade

The Short


Pros
- Lots of completely absurd, insane action
- Three weapon types (slow and heavy, medium, fast and quick)
- You ride a motorcycle up the side of a building only to throw it down into a falling diesel truck into the mouth of a giant mutant worm for a massive explosion. While 500 feet in the air.
- Controls a decent hybrid of God of War and Ninja Gaiden II

Cons
- 90% of this game is quick time events. Not even exaggerating.
- Enemies quickly get bland and repetitive
- Platforming leads to tons of cheap deaths
- Can't save in-mission; while it'll checkpoint if you quit you have to start all the way over
- Ninjas on turrets? Why are there turret sequences in a NINJA game?
- Again, cheap deaths. All over the place.
- Load times are pretty bad
- Monotonous bosses that take way longer than they should
- Game looks boring and ugly (see box cover)
- Story and voice acting are a joke

Meet Ryu. Because every ninja has to be named Ryu. 

The Long


Ninja Blade is a game that I both want to love and completely cannot recommend to anyone. Developed by From Software (who also made the great Demon Souls and 3D Dot Game Heroes), it is clear that the developers were sitting around one day playing Ninja Gaiden II, and thought "You know what is awesome? NINJAS. NINJAS CAN DO ANYTHING!" Then then made a game where you play as a ninja who, literally, does everything. Yes. You'd think that would make a longer game, but we are getting off track here.

Ninja Blade follows the exact same plot of 90% of any modern action game ever: a virus is turning people into monsters, meaning you have lots of people-turned-monsters to slice up. But instead of every other game where they bring in the special ops, these guys bring in the NINJA. Yeah, like Ryu is actually part of a special forces squad. They even have a helicopter (that gets blow up. Didn't see that coming.) and everything, which means it's official. Anyway, the virus also somehow makes massive monsters (that makes sense) which you have to kill. Most of them are regular animals mutated into freaks (Parasite Eve style, only without any sense of art direction), which means the game usually goes like this:

Fight hordes of fodder --> Fight miniboss for a long, repetitive battle --> Fight hordes of fodder --> Fight miniboss for a long, repetitive battle --> Fight hordes of fodder --> Do some awful platforming (this is where you'll finally die) --> Fight miniboss for long, repetitive battle --> Fight real boss for long and repetitive battle --> Watch cutscene.

Whoops, I just described 90% of games. Again. 

The difference between Ninja Blade and other, similar, games is the fact that Ninja Blade has so many quick time events it is insane. For those wonder, quick time events are when a cutscene is playing, a random button press will appear on the screen. You then press the button for the privilege of continuing to see the cutscene. It was introduced in Resident Evil 4 (which is the start of a lot of things) in order to make its cutscenes more "interactive." We seem to still think they are awesome so we put them in from time to time, but Ninja Blade just goes completely nuts on it. Every boss has usually 5-15 of these stupid things per section of the boss fight, meaning it's just quick time hell.

So anyway...let's talk about the good things first, shall we?

Motion blur makes things more EXTREME.

My opinion of the game can actually be summed up pretty easily: it's inoffensive. That's about all there is. It doesn't do anything exceptionally awful (though it does plenty things moderately awful) and it doesn't do anything exceptionally good (though it does have a few decent points, the goofy-ass cutscenes being numero uno). It just...is, and doesn't stand out in any regard. The graphics aren't beautiful but aren't horrible either; they are completely passable. The special effects don't have too much flash or pizzazz but they don't look stupid either. The combat is easy and has a wide assortment of weapons to choose from but doesn't really leave an impression. Ninja Blade is one of the most bland games ever. Which is weird, considering the fact that the cutscenes are total bananas. 

I was going to describe just how the cutscenes were "total bananas" but I don't really feel like it. So I'll just show you a movie instead. 

This is actually pretty tame compared to some stuff

Riding missiles, running up walls, stopping impossible amounts of arrows...it's wild. The cutscenes are extremely entertaining because they are just so dumb, which would be great except they usually are plastered with quick time events that make it so you can't really watch them, because you are waiting for a prompt. Lame.

While the combat is bland, the bosses are just tedious. They show up constantly (see my little chain above for how Ninja Blade's levels work), take a ton of hits, and last forever. They aren't particularly difficult, their life bars are just way longer than they should be (or they have too many "go invincible and force the player to just stand around" moves). They're visually huge and finishing them off is usually a rewarding, absurd cutscene, but as a whole it just drags.

See what I mean? It doesn't look bad, it just looks...boring. 

Some stupid design choices also plague the overall game. The game checkpoints mid-chapter for deaths, but if you quit out (like...if you have to go somewhere) it doesn't actually save; you have to start the whole thing over again. There is no New Game + option, where you could run through with your upgraded stuff, which is a big bummer. And the quick time events...urgh. Seriously, you probably are wondering why I'm harping on this, but their frequency is just unbelievable. Really. The game is also super glitchy and technical problems (like getting stuck in geometry) abound.

Also, they have a ninja ride in a car and man a turret. NINJAS DON'T MAN TURRETS. WHAT THE HECK, FROM SOFTWARE?

Just a normal day in the life of a ninja. 

As a whole, I feel kind of bad bagging on Ninja Blade, because it doesn't do anything so deeply offensive as to fuel unbridled rage. But there just isn't much here that is interesting or unique. The fact that it only has a short, unimpressive single player experience doesn't help with my opinion, and as a whole I can't really enthusiastically recommend it or not recommend it. It just...exists.

If you really want an action game that's like Ninja Gaiden 2 but a lot easier, picking up Ninja Blade for $5 isn't bad. If you have someone that can watch you play you can both get some good laughs out of the stupid cutscenes, which adds a bit to the fun. But I would really only recommend getting it when you have exhausted all other options (hint: Bayonetta is a pretty dang good [and overlooked] game). 

For a star rating, I'd give it two out of five, tucking it safely away with the likes of Dead or Alive: Retribution and Viking: Battle for Asgard.

...with quick time events.

Terminator Salvation

The Short


Pros
- Has atrociously easy achievements
- Reminds you of how good Gears of War is in comparison
- Co-op? Actually, it makes the game harder. Never mind.

Cons
- Short
- Looks awful
- Plays like an drunken third-person shooter
- Only about three enemy types in the whole game
- Turret sequences are overly difficult
- Weapons aren't fun to use, don't carry over between levels
- None of the voice actors come over from the movie. Not a huge surprise, as I can't think anyone would want to be associated with it.
- Loading screens are insanely long
- Based on a mediocre movie, what do you expect?

I'll save you some time right now: don't buy this game

The Long


I'm going to keep it short, because I have better things to do than review this, like play the tedious Final Fantasy XIII or make myself a hotdog or pretty much anything else in existance. Terminator Salvation is a boring, short, stupid game. It's based on a movie that was also pretty stupid, but this game is very good at proving that it wants to be the best, even if being the best means being the worst. Aka IT SUCKS.

It takes place directly before the events of the movie, which was so unmemorable I literally do not remember anything from the movie except Christian Bale is in it and he kills a robot with a USB stick. You play as John Conner, and everybody who knows anything about Terminator knows who that is, and his band of resistance members fighting against the robots. The game is a cover based shooter where you...go into cover and then shoot things. Pretty simple. Except there is next to no gun variety, limited grenades, enemies that you can only hit from behind (but that means you have rely on your stupid AI teammates to distract them. That really works well), and these horrible flying enemies that come out of nowhere constantly. It's a mess.

It's your usual "destroyed civilization" shindig. Never seen that before. 

So basically you go through a very small number of levels jumping from cover to cover blasting robots. Which doesn't sound that bad except that 1. There's only like four enemy types, 2. The controls are kind of crap and not fun to play, and 3. The game is atrociously short. Seriously, were are talking 4-5 hours at most. As an added bonus, there is no multiplayer, which means when this game came out it was $60 for a 4-5 hour experience. A bad 4-5 hour experience. Why do we allow this?

The game offers co-op, if you want to share this short, miserable experience with a friend. Honestly, on the harder difficulties this actually makes the game more difficult in some sections, because on the turret levels the AI does a pretty good job shooting stuff down for you (and knowing exactly where enemies are, which is a big problem when you are in the turreted vehicles) while your human buddy might not be as good. Trust me, I learned all this from experience. The AI is dumb as bricks during the third-person shooting parts, though, so having a friend will help speed this experience along. So it'll be a 3 hour game instead. Lovely.

RAMMING SPEED. 

The game's cheap deaths (of which there are many) are only exacerbated by the fact that the game has awful loading times, even when installed to the HDD. I complained about Lego Rock Band, but at least on those I didn't have to reload for 15-20 seconds every time I died. You get to spin a giant terminator head while it loads, but even that moves too slow to be satisfying. Yep, even the little loading screen distraction annoyed me. 

If there is a glimmer of hope in this movie-tie-in-mess, it's that the achievements are stupid easy. Playing through the game once on hard gives you them all. Yep, every single one. No other things to achieve, it seems. The other positive point is...um...I was going to say it was sort of fun from time to time but I'd just be kidding myself. This game doesn't deserve to have a bone throne. It really doesn't.

At least they got the terminators looking like they should.

I see literally no reason to ever buy this game. I borrowed it and beat it on normal because I hate myself and like achievements more than I like my free time. I guess that even under all this crap the game is still playable, which is better than PowerGig was for me (go die, calibration), but it just seems like such a massive ripoff it almost offends me. People like the Terminator movies, and they seem ripe for making really awesome games. Some poor child, who was only allowed one present on Christmas, might have wished upon a star for this game and gotten it. And then it punched him in the face and became a $60 coaster after 4 hours.

So yeah, buy it for $0. Or just don't even bother acknowledging its existence. Still, it got me 850 easy gamerscore, so have one star out of five, Terminator Salvation. 

But know I gave it out of pity. 

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.