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Does Harmonix’s latest project justify its $170 price tag? In a word, yes. Rock Band is initially only available in the Special Edition bundle. For $170, you get a drum set, guitar, microphone and of course, a copy of the game. Rock Band’s singing and guitar campaigns aren’t as developed as the band and drums campaigns nor are they as developed as standalone games like SingStar or Guitar Hero. But Rock Band is worth the high price of admission if you’re going to be playing with a full band or are interested in playing the drums.
What makes this game so pricey? Well, it’s all o f the included peripherals. The game includes wired drums, wired guitar and wired microphone. The microphone is a standard USB microphone that works just fine (and replaceable with any other USB mic or the Xbox Live headset). The guitar is larger and less toy-like than Guitar Hero’s guitars but after hours of testing, we went back to GHIII’s Les Paul. The Rock Band guitar does have some interesting additions like an effects switch that lets you add effects to your playing and the addition of a new set of buttons that let you play solos without strumming. Despite these additions, the strumming feels less solid than the Les Paul and the buttons aren’t raised enough, which makes moving between them a bit more difficult. Fortunately, both the X-Plorer and Les Paul are fully supported in the game. We have no complaints on the drum set, however. Harmonix put a lot of effort into creating a solid drum set and it shows. You’ll have to set up the drums (it comes in several pieces) but the installation is painless and quick. The pads are quite large and sturdy, as is the base they’re on.
Spanning five decades, Rock Band’s soundtrack is epic. The game includes songs like Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” Aerosmith’s “Train Kept a Rollin,” Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid,” KISS’ “Detroit Rock City,” Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive,” Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So,” Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl,” Fall Out Boy’s “Dead on Arrival” and The Killer’s “When We Were Young.” The songs were picked to highlight the band component and are wonderful with four people playing. On the flip side, this does mean that you aren’t getting songs with the craziest guitar solos (Guitar Hero is the champion there), but they do make great songs for the drum solo tour, as well.
Rock Band has three Solo Tours i.e. single instrument campaigns. The game has solo tours for the drums guitar, and singing. The Solo Tours simply have you playing progressively harder songs in various sets. The game gives you five songs at a time, and once you’ve played them all, you move on to the next one. The Solo Tours lack the animations and story elements of Guitar Hero’s solo campaign, which make them slightly less interesting to play by yourself. The guitar element in the game isn’t nearly as difficult as it is in Guitar Hero II or III, which makes the Guitar Solo Tour considerably less interesting than those games, especially when coupled with the lack of story elements. If you’re strictly interested in the guitar campaign, Guitar Hero III remains the game to beat since Rock Band doesn’t give you anywhere near the same sense of accomplishment. The drum Solo Tour, though, is highly enjoyable because of the novelty of the drum set. You don’t get any story elements here, either, but playing on the drums is sufficiently fun and challenging to make that forgettable. The drums campaign has a good difficulty curve and replaying that song just one more time delivers a sense of accomplishment quite similar to the most fulfilling Guitar Hero songs.
Where Rock Band really succeeds is with the Band World Tour mode. Here, you’ll create band members using a simple but effective character creation system. Instead of simply playing five songs and moving on to the next set, you’ll have a number of different cities and venues available, and you’ll gain (and lose) fans as you play, unlocking larger venues along the way. The game mixes in its songs in a number of different ways, although you’re bound to play a few songs repeatedly since the Band World Tour mode is quite lengthy and the game has 45 licensed songs. Nonetheless, when everything is working together: when the drummer is rocking out, with the guitarist and bassist nailing those guitar lines and the singer hitting the notes perfectly, Rock Band creates an unparalleled experience. When it clicks, it just clicks. You see where your $170 investment went and you are undoubtedly satisfied.
The gameplay in Rock Band is quite similar to what you’ve seen before. For guitars, you’ll still have five buttons onscreen and you’ll need to strum on the guitar when the note reaches the button of the screen. The drums gameplay is quite similar, though you’ll only have four buttons corresponding to your four pads, but you’ll also have long orange bars that correspond to the kick pedal. Harmonix claims that people playing drums on expert will be able to transfer those skills over to playing real drums. For both guitar and drums, harder difficulties add more notes and more complicated patterns. Although, again, guitar on Expert is a little easier than GHIII on Hard. The singing component is similar to SingStar or Karaoke Revolution in that you’re singing the words as they appear onscreen to the proper pitch. As you increase in difficulty, the margin of error become smaller as the game requires you to be more precise with your singing.
Rock Band’s version of “Star Power” is called Overdrive. It works as expected for guitars: hit the white notes and you’ll build your Overdrive meter. Once it is halfway full, you can tilt the guitar to go into Overdrive. For drums, once the meter is halfway full, the game will give you a special drum solo that you can use to go into Overdrive. You can’t initiate it at any time but it works fine. Similarly, for singing, the game will let you initiate it at certain times. Just scream into the microphone at these times, and you’ll go into Overdrive. Overdrive encourages team gameplay when playing as a band since you can use Overdrive to save a failing player. Also, Overdrive adds a multiplier to the entire band so the game encourages you to unleash Overdrive at the same time. Another neat aspect of Overdrive, is that you can increase your meter if you’re already in Overdrive, which will extend the time you’re in Overdrive.
Visually, the game is a huge improvement over Guitar Hero II. The characters look a lot better, the venues are larger and packed with fans, and the lighting has been improved. The animation system is a lot better this time around, too. The characters rock out quite convincingly. The cinematic camera angles and new animations make this the best looking music game, even when compared to Guitar Hero III. Although GHIII has higher quality textures and models, Rock Band’s art style feels more in line with what you’d expect from a music game. Further, the UI is a lot cleaner this time around, allowing you to easily see how much of your overdrive meter is full and how close you are to the next multiplier.
Rock Band is certainly the most ambitious music game yet and largely succeeds. This isn’t a game you want to get if you’re just interested in the guitar and singing component. There are better games for that. But the Drums Solo Tour and Band World Tour, as well as the four-player band multiplayer mode make this one of the best multiplayer games available. It doesn’t outclass its competition in every aspect, but it’s hard to deny that getting four people playing Rock Band is one of the year’s best multiplayer experiences. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Nov 19, 2007
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