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Sean Pettibone

Review

The developers at Harmonix created the famous Guitar Hero games for Activision and single-handedly revolutionized the music genre. Now, they have set their sights even higher with an incredibly ambitious title called Rock Band that allows players to have a full band experience in their living room complete with all the instruments including dedicated Guitar/Bass, Microphone and Drum controllers. These all look and operate much as their real-life counterparts would and feel quite authentic. The guitar’s shape is based on the legendary Fender Stratocaster with a similar size and shape, though it doesn’t feel quite as solid as the controllers used in Guitar Hero, it’s a nice piece of equipment. Setting this up requires only that you snap the head on and use the included USB hub on your PS3. Players should find the guitar fairly easy to use, with the fret buttons and strum bar fairly easy to understand with an included whammy bar used for flourish. Additionally, there’s a switch on the controller that allows you to use different effects as well. It’s very nicely put together. The guitar gameplay itself follows very closely to the conventions in the earlier Harmonix titles, notes come at you on the screen and you have to hit them in time. When you string together groups of notes, you’ll be able to unleash a special rock attack mode where you can gain more points. During the song, there are several opportunities to solo where you can jam and hit notes in freestyle mode for an even higher score. Your performance during each song is ranked and your score goes up as you hit notes, however, miss enough notes and you’re band will become less popular and the crowd will turn on you. If you are really bad, you’ll get booed off the stage and the song will come to a premature end. Rock Band’s guitar mode also lets you play bass notes as well, which are slightly less complicated in terms of note patterns, but adds more when you find yourself in a full band.

In addition to the standard guitar mode, Rock Band’s inclusion of a full-fledged drum set allows players to hit the skins along with their favorite acts. This isn’t too terribly complicated in terms of set-up, though the first time through you’ll probably need to take some time to get it right. You can adjust the height and level of the drumset, which is quite important if you want to hit the pads in the right time. While it should be obvious, the drum pads themselves are quite sturdy in their own right, though the included kick pedal doesn’t feel quite as solid as it should. The included drumsticks are actual real sticks, and look and feel very much as you’d expect them to be, which makes the drums feel right in your hands. Playing these requires a great deal of timing and dexterity, since you’ll need to be consistent hitting the notes throughout the song, it’s fairly easy to do this early on. However, at the harder difficulty stages, the notes you have to hit become more complicated and you’ll need to exert a great deal of effort to keep up with the rhythms of each song. As with the guitar mode, drums present a similar interface as the notes glide down the screen, allowing you to see a few notes ahead with your performance and score tracked as you play on each track, earning score multipliers for successfully chaining together notes perfectly. You won’t find too many sections where you can slack off, which makes the drums probably the most challenging instrument you can choose in Rock Band.

The only segment of Rock Band’s gameplay that doesn’t deliver is the singing area, which is a bit too simple for its own good. Instead of punching notes, you have to match the pitch scale and lyrics of the song in a Karoake-style mode. The lyrics scroll by at the bottom of the screen along with a pitch indicator. Matching the onscreen notes doesn’t take a lot of effort, and the lyrics aren’t really that accurate, so you can get by humming them if you really don’t know these words. Occasionally, you’ll have to use this controller as a tambourine and tap the microphone during lulls in the singing portions. You don’t really need to be the greatest singer out there in order to beat this section, which is probably the point, but it also means that this mode is far less challenging than the other sections of Rock Band. Its included microphone is fairly decent however, and is fairly sturdy and very simple to set up, you merely connect it to the USB port and start singing. This mode is fairly simple as well, but the challenge isn’t really a component, so it’s a good place to start if you haven’t really played these types of games before. Singing definitely works better within the band context than it does as a single-player component, but the overall execution of this part of Rock Band is its biggest disappointment and doesn’t match the high quality seen in the game’s other areas.

Rock Band’s relatively straightforward gameplay doesn’t offer the boss battles or one-on-one competitive modes of Guitar Hero which is slightly disappointing, but this has to be seen in the larger context of the full game, which is where it becomes more impressive. This isn’t an arcade game, and instead tries, and mostly succeeds at simulating and actual band situation. The added dimension of three other instruments going at the same time can’t be underestimated, and its here where Rock Band really comes to life. This connection between virtual musicians is truly what makes the game special, and play cooperatively makes the experience feel even more exciting than you’d expect.  Working with a drummer or a singer means you have to work together. When you’re playing off each other’s skills, the multiplier explodes for massive extra points awarded for syncing up with the other player, which is really cool when you’re both firing on all cylinders. You can also use your extra energy to save the other player if they find themselves in a deep hole. This is impressive because it lets you complete a song when you fall behind. Rock Band’s structure is much as you’d expect in these modes. You start the game’s career mode with access to only a few songs, but can unlock additional tracks by defeating these groups, giving you an impressive library of songs to choose from with little work. Most of the songs are fairly easy to play, especially at the lower difficulty levels, but more complex tracks require a great deal of practice and precision to beat thanks to their intricate note patterns.

Rock Band’s gameplay offers fairly solid, diverse gameplay thanks to its multitude of instruments, and this is only enhanced by its selection of well-known tracks spanning different era. Well-known bands such as the Rolling Stones, Radiohead, Metallica and David Bowie contribute tracks along with newer bands such as Weezer, Queens of the Stone Age and the Killers. In all, players will find more than 50 unique tracks in the game, which offers quite an amount of variety in terms of eras and styles. There are also plenty of downloadable extra tracks available for the game, with many more promised over the next year or so. Rock Band’s visuals and presentation are slick and polished, and do a good job in brining the excitement of a concert to consoles. Its animated characters look really cool and the game offers a slightly more realistic style than Guitar Hero, with some really cool music-video style camera angles and cuts. You can customize your band’s appearance through item purchases as well and create your own look if you want as well. The audience members begin to get into things and you can see them all pumping their fists in unison if you get really good at a song which helps to enhance the overall atmosphere. They’ll also begin to sing along to your track if you really get good at it.

Rock Band aims to produce and epic-scale music game and despite a few rough patches, the game mostly delivers on its promise. While you can play the game alone, you’ll really need to get some friends together and jam to see what really makes it so special. Playing together opens up an entirely different experience that succeeds in creating one of the more innovative and immersive music titles to date. Its selection of high-quality instruments makes the experience all the more exciting, giving you the feel of actually playing in a band. However, its not perfect – the singing portion of the game is disappointing, and the lack of imagination in its execution makes the gameplay a little bit predictable in portions. However, these are comparatively minor problems in the big picture, since Rock Band offers players a truly unique and exciting new way to enjoy music games with others. Its highly polished presentation, superb selection of songs and brilliant co-op modes makes this one of the most innovative music titles ever released. Given the developer’s track record and the amount of pre-release publicity, there are obviously some pretty high expectations for Rock Band out there, but Harmonix is definitely up to the challenge they’ve set for themselves and has delivered another incredibly innovative and solidly entertaining music title.

- Michael Palisano

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