In late 2005 a bunch of guys & gals collectively called Harmonix released Guitar Hero. A game in which you basically simulate being an awesome guitar player without being an awesome guitar player. It immediately sparked a global phenomenon by selling millions worldwide. Now under a different publisher, Harmonix are going to reinvent the rhythm genre yet again or at least take it to the next step. As the title suggests, instead of one player being a guitar god, now you and up to three other players get to rock out on either Drums, Bass, Vocals or Guitar. Collectively making a Rock Band, hence the name. Anyone who has played Guitar Hero will know how fun it is but they haven’t played Rock Band.
The premise hasn’t changed all that much, you still play the correct colour when it hits the bottom of the screen. There are a few minor changes like the guitar solo’s get separated from the rest of the song by giving you a solo percentage. The bass has also been slightly altered by giving you ‘Bass Groove’ points that allow for a better combo. The drums function in the same way as a guitar, they even come at you on a fret board, except you can do random drum fills occasionally. Finally at the end of some songs you can all go mental for the ‘big rock finishes’. An addition that makes you wish that every song had them.
As you might have guessed by now, Rock Band has a slightly more multiplayer based background. It’s this group dynamic that makes and breaks the game. While on your own it’s still great but while as a complete unit you really can’t beat it. It doesn’t help that the main mode can only be played in multiplayer, named Band World Tour. Which consists of different locations on a globe, each that have different venues to play and in turn have different set lists. Instead of unlocking new songs you get fans. The more fans, the bigger the venues. You’ll then eventually unlock ‘The Endless Setlist’ which is every song in the game, back to back.
While the singleplayer career’s are still available to each individual instrument, you can tell that its not as focused as the one instrument predecessors. These tour’s basically consist of a track list that you tackle one at a time just like in previous titles. It’s not that fact that this approach is old, it is more that the multiplayer tour is so much more fun so you notice the lack of focus and attention that the singleplayer modes actually got.
The only way you could play some multiplayer without making room for friends would be the online modes. While playing online as a band isn’t the same, it does have its added pressure although you can’t play the world tour mode this way so it’s a little thin. Meanwhile Score Attack and Tug of War modes are great fun to play. Score Attack is just you playing through the song against someone while Tug of War is akin to the boss battles seen in Guitar Hero 3, only they make sense and are for sane people. Tug of War is a mode that people could really get into, improving trueskill while unlocking achievements is great fun and as previously mentioned the bar gets raised while playing online.
Throughout these modes you’ll get to experience the 60+ tracks included with the European release. There is a good mixture of old and new, indie and metal to please everyone. If your not happy you can download some of the many songs on the Rock Band Store. It’s this feature that makes Rock Band easily the best supported game with DLC although that could be because it was basically built for DLC from the ground up.
Hardware wise, the guitar takes a while to get used as the strum bar doesn’t click and the buttons aren’t raised. From experience, most people prefer the new guitar for bass while an older Guitar Hero one is still best to play guitar on. Meanwhile the drums can take a beating and work fairly well and almost everyone is thrown off by the kick pedal at first. Oh, and in case you where wondering the microphone is fine although it should have a few buttons on so you don’t have to use it in conjunction with a controller.
There isn’t anything bad to say about Rock Band because as a rhythm based party game it has everything you would ever want. If it gets boring you can switch difficultly or instrument and if you ever get bored of the track list you can just download some more tunes. The only downside is the cost. Rock Band is priced at £180 and that’s a lot of money to drop on a single purchase and shouldn’t be taken lightly. If you have the friends band mates, then by all means pick up what is a simply fantastic co-op experience. Otherwise then maybe you should think twice about spending that much on a game your only going to half encounter.
Despite that Rock Band is the best music based experience to date and offers some of the best local multiplayer moments in gaming history. It’s just a shame that the ticket price and large amounts of equipment might put people off. Despite the ambitious concept when it comes down to it, Rock Band is a brilliant party game and the next evolution in the genre.
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