Kinect Adventures

The Short


Pros
- Pack-in with the Kinect, so essentially it's free
- Five minigames and a few bonus ones
- Uses your in-game avatar
- River Rafting and Reflex Ridge are pretty fun and control decently
- Graphics looks surprisingly good for a freebie

Cons
- Space Pop, Rally Ball, and 20,000 Leeks aren't particularly enthralling
- The tech, overall, doesn't recognize you particularly well
- All five games get dull pretty quick with limited courses and options
- "Story mode" is so stupid its embarrassing
- Bad load times
- Requires you to be an extremely specific spot at all times or else it'll boot you out. Two players only exacerbate this.
- As a game meant to show off the Kinect, it's both fickle and underwhelming

Reflex Ridge is actually quite a workout

The Long


Welcome to Kinect, the new motion gaming toy that requires you to rearrange your living room and flail about like an idiot even more-so than the Wii. Microsoft certainly pushed the crap out of their new EyeToy, and it apparently paid off, seeing as they sold tons of these things. We managed to snag one on the cheap (almost entirely for Dance Central) and I still remember setting it up and then realizing we couldn't play two player because it requires like nine feet of free space between you and it. One living room re-arrangement later and we were back, booting up the pack-in game Kinect Adventures and getting ready to Become the Controller.

Kinect Adventures, like Wii Sports, was included free with the Kinect, undoubtably to both show off the hardware and provide a jumping-off point into the magic of motion controls. It's weird they didn't put the infinitely better Kinect Sports in instead; both were made by Microsoft (or Microsoft owned companies, aka Rare), but Kinect Sports was more a comparison to Wii Sports. Wii Sports was actually pretty decent, giving you a lot of games with a lot of variety, so much so that many people just played that and didn't buy any other games.

I'm going to tell you right now, if you only play Kinect Adventures, you'll probably die of boredom. Because it isn't that great.

Rafting is pretty fun, even two player

There's five games in this compilation, so I'm going to blitz review them for you. Ready? GO.

Reflex Ridge is the best one in the whole thing, and also the most exhausting. It's basically those weird japanese game shows where you dodge things (or ABC's Wipeout) except set on literal rails (mine-cart rails). You have to jump, duck, stand to the side, and point your arms in different directions to get tokens. Jumping also makes you go faster (for a bonus boots to tokens based on time), meaning you jump a lot, and this thing very quickly is secretly making you exercise. Overall, this one controls almost perfectly, is fun and has a decent level of courses, and is actually pretty entertaining.

River Rafting is the other good one. You control a raft and direct it by standing to the right or to the left, with jumping...well, jumping the raft. Not really possible...whatever. Your goal is to get tokens, and some of the later levels get pretty devious. You can play it two player, but then you both have to coordinate on directions which makes it more of just goofing off rather than going for high scores. It looks gorgeous (which is probably why it's in 90% of this game's screenshots) and you do get a sort of sense of excitement jumping off waterfalls and what not. It controls good about 80% of the time, so it passes.

It's only going downhill from here

Ralley Ball is one they pushed hard at E3 a few years ago, and it's essentially Breakout with your body. You hit balls towards a bunch of blocks as you try to get to the tokens hidden behind. You can get bonus balls, direct the hits, etc. Well, you are supposed to be able to direct the hits. The Kinect is not very good at picking up your movements in this regard, especially with body/hand position. There's a distinct disconnect between what you are doing, what you want to be doing, and what your person on screen does. It turns into insane flailing (meaning children are better at this game than me; I burn out), which is entertaining for a while but ultimately unsatisfying.

Space Pop is a stupid game that I find unoffensive, but have to admit that it actually isn't great. Basically it's a game where you are trying to pop all the bubbles in a three dimensional space...sort of. Your Z axis (forward and backwards towards/away from your TV) is only two-tiered, undoubtably to make it easier. You are in "space" so you have zero gravity, which means you flap your arms to go up high and float and put your arms at your side to drop. Bubbles pop out all over and you have to pop them. It's...sort of fun? But once you break it down you realize it probably took one guy three seconds to make it. Flash games have more depth than this.

Lastly we have 20,000 Leaks, which isn't about a small country all going to the bathroom at the same time. You are underwater in some glass dome thing, and every fish apparently is either a dick or wants you evicted back to the land because they body slam your thing constantly. You have to move your hands, feet, and head (sometimes all at the same time) to cover leaks so your magic limbs can repair the leaks for points (and not drowning). This one would probably have scored higher on my list if it actually worked well. The Kinect controls are horrible on this one, making it totally not fun to try and figure out where the hell to put my hands and feet. I actually wanted to like 20,000 Leaks, because despite its simplicity it seemed like a sort of fun, Twister-esque game. But the bad controls kill it.

At least the sea turtle isn't a massive jerk. 

Perhaps my biggest complaint is the fact that this game, while serviceable with the Kinect controls, doesn't do a very good job of showing off the tech. The menues are extremely cumbersome, with the Kinect losing me frequently, especially when trying to play with two players. If you play two players you have to stand like six miles away from your TV, and even then it'll just straight boot someone out mid-game if they step to far to the left, right, forward, or back. 90% of two-player games consist of the Kinect complaining at me or my partner because I stood out of its tiny "sweet spot." It's more frustrating than fun, and makes me feel like I bought a magical piece of technology from the future that somehow got dropped on its head as a baby.

This is especially noticeable when compared to more recent Kinect games, or even just good release-day Kinect games (like Dance Central, which is still the best game on the system by a long shot). As I said already, Kinect Sports works pretty dang good; why not pack that in instead? Probably because if they packed garbage in, people would feel obligated to buy the full priced sports game. Like I did. Wait, that means I got suckered in! What the crap?

Damn you, Microsoft and your space bubbles!

I should point out they did try to add a sense of a "point" to the game. There's an adventure mode where you run through a set of several activities (picked from the five above), get some sort of reward (usually a weird animal it makes you voice and act out with...which is actually pretty hysterical in a horrible, horrifying way), earn an achievement, and continue on. This is voiced by awful narration by the "Adventure Crew" who likes to "Scour the world looking for adventure!" Clearly somebody needs to tell them about the high quality Kinect Xbox 360 Microsoft Full Body Experience Video Game Controller System, so they can stop booking flights on their private jet and just stay home rearranging their furniture for several hours only to be told to "Step Back" or "Step Right" when all they want to do is TURN THE RIVER RAFT TO THE RIGHT.

I'll drop you into a river, Kinect Adventures. Only without a raft. BURN. Wait, the plastic boxes float. BOO.

So I can't really assign this game a price, since you get it for free with your Kinect. You can't even trade the dumb thing in; it's only worth like $1 at Gamestop, so you might as well hold onto it in case you randomly feel the odd call of ADVENTURE urging you to raft down a river and pull your coffee table out of the way. It has about two good games out of the five included, which now that I think about it makes my scoring this game extremely easy.

Two out of five stars.

Warhammer 40k: Kill Team

The Short


Pros
- Co-op duel stick shooter
- Visceral and violent, with great graphics for an XBLA release
- Lets you shoot up Orks and Tyranids
- Follows the Warhammer 40k mythos, which means all the space marines look awesome
- Four space marines to play, each with level-ups, perks, and gear upgrades
- Has a difficult "survival" mode after you beat the game
- Fun powerups remind me of Smash TV
- Gives you an exclusive weapon in the Warhammer 40k: Space Marine retail game


Cons
- No online co-op
- Only six levels; can beat the game in about two-three hours
- Unlocks are fun, but you get them all pretty quickly and then...nothin' left
- Playing through single player can be aggravating, as the game is full of cheap deaths
- Camera angles often screw you up
- Pretty obvious this game was a marketing ploy to sell more copies of the Space Marine game

Grab a friend and blast some space orks.

The Long


I have a confession: I love the Warhammer 40k universe, but know nothing about it aside from what I've played in the Dawn of War and Space Marine games. As much as I'd like to get into the tabletop game, I know it'll just be an even bigger money-sink than video games are, and I haven't gotten around to reading the books. That being said, I really dig the universe, with its crazy names for things (like the fact all the Space Marine stuff is in Latin for some unexplained reason, and their mages are Librarians) and absolute insane number of alien races. Even though all the characters look like toys (which is because they are), the art and universe is unique, really cool, and even inspired some other game companies to make games not-so-subtly based off the universe.

And from left to right, Tyranids, Eldar, and Space Marines...wait, this isn't Warhammer 40k! Huh. How did I get that confused? 

So when I found out they were making an XBLA game based on three things I really like (duel stick shooters, leveling up, and Warhammer 40k) I was all over that. Plus, it's co-op! That means I can force my poor wife to play it with me!

Kill Team is a pretty basic, run of the mill duel stick shooter, with a couple tricks up its sleeve. Aside from the aforementioned leveling up system, the game actually has characters that are more melee based than ranged, putting a unique twist on the "stay as far away from everything as possible" that duel-stick shooters are known for. You have four characters, two ranged focused and two melee focused, and each has their own unique power they can use once every couple of seconds. As you go around the world, power ups like faster shooting, double-bullets, health, and more can be picked up and used. Again, this is pretty much par for the course for these types of games, and if you were thinking Smash TV you wouldn't be too far off.

Plus they have dudes called "Sternguard Veterans" with PLASMA CANNONS. How cool is that? 

You can tell this game was made to be played co-op, because you can each only old one power up at a time, but if you stand close enough to your buddy when he has a power up active you share it, meaning you can get quad-shot and rapid-fire going off at the same time for total craziness. As you can guess, this also makes the game a bit easier, but not by too much. Kill Team has a pretty high difficulty curve, which makes playing co-op a must, as if you die you'll get revived/resurrected rather than having to load a checkpoint.

Which is where one of Kill Team's most annoying issues comes in: cheap deaths. There are lots. The game is hard, to start, with plenty of aliens just bum rushing you as you try to not lose all your heath. The only way to get health back is find a power up, so if you die before you reach one it's back to a (not so liberal) checkpoint for you. In addition, levels that require you to navigate specific narrow paths (and then do it back, on a timer, with an awful camera) are extremely tedious and obnoxious. The camera, as I just said, also doesn't ever to be in the right spot. It seems like it's the right distance, it just...always picks the worst angles.

Shoot a space ork in the head

The game also has lots of segments where you walk across long areas, shooting. Which is fine, except your marine walks really slow (even when sprinting), and later areas can have a hefty amount of backtracking. While there is technically a decent amount of enemy variety, the strategies to take them down never really change: either beat them with a chainsword or blast them with a bolter until they go down. This would be fine if they'd veiled it by keeping your forward momentum constant and the setpieces crazy, but whenever the game stutters a little you realize you've just been doing the same thing for the past 45 minutes, and that isn't a good thing at all.

The game is also really short, with only six stages in the main part that can be beaten in about 2-3 hours on co-op. It then unlocks six additional survival maps, where the game just sends wave after wave of enemies in your direction with full intent to mess you up. These are actually pretty fun, with power up being rationed out to you, and if you play co-op it requires a great deal of coordination. Most of the single player problems (slow walking, monotonous objectives) are replaced with hardcore survival shooting, which I'm all for. They also pre-determine which characters you can use, ramping up the challenge.

Man, how can something be both so goofy looking and so awesome at the same time?

With no online co-op, you'd better have your friends nearby if you are going to run through Kill Team. In addition, the cheap deaths and just general receptiveness of the game will probably turn a lot of people off. However, if you really dig the Warhammer 40k universe (I do), like playing co-op (I do), and enjoy duel stick shooter (I do), then you really can't go that wrong. The game retails for $10, but I'd wait until it's $5 (which is what I did), if only because 1. It's short and 2. You'll probably only beat it once. Still, there are plenty of worse games on XBLA, and this one looks great and plays fine, so grab a buddy and blast the crap out of space orks and zerglings. I mean tyranids.

I give it three out of five stars if it's $5, and two out of five stars if it's $10. So we'll say three for now, because shouting "FOR THE IMPERIUM!" is awesome.

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.