Rock Band (Xbox 360)

Introduction

Rock Band is a computer game for the XBox 360 but also available on the PS2, PS3 and the Wii. Recently released in the United Kingdom (27/5/2008), Rock Band is a game that allows you to play along to a wide variety of rock tracks using the four 'instruments' compatible with the game. Rock Band continues the evolution of games and consoles from niche entertainment to mainstream party activities.

Premise
...are the star of the Rock Band Package so let's take a look at each in turn.

Drums

Without doubt the main difference between Rock Band and its main competition (the Guitar Hero) series of games is the Drum Kit that comes with the game. This consists of a stand with four pads and a foot pedal. How big? (Wives, girlfriends and mothers cry). Fairly sizable is the answer, 29" wide, 15" Deep and 32" tall though ... more

Introduction

Rock Band is a computer game for the XBox 360 but also available on the PS2, PS3 and the Wii. Recently released in the United Kingdom (27/5/2008), Rock Band is a game that allows you to play along to a wide variety of rock tracks using the four 'instruments' compatible with the game. Rock Band continues the evolution of games and consoles from niche entertainment to mainstream party activities.

Premise

Up to four players can play the game at once, on drums, guitar, bass and vocals. For Guitar and Drums the song begins and different coloured 'notes' move down the screen. The players then hit the drum pad or button on their guitar that corresponds to the colour of the note. If they are successful then the music continues playing, if they fail then the room is filled with plinks and plonks and the crowd in the game get angry and may kick the band off the stage. The singing is slightly different as they need to hit the correct pitch and length of word to be successful as the words scroll across the screen.

Playing well gives a multiplier to your score (up to 4x) if you play well during special energy sections then instruments can trigger an overdrive which gives a x2 to the whole band. If multiple players do this then it becomes x4, x8 or even x16. Your band is then scored out of five stars at the end of the song

People watching often ask how closely the coloured notes correspond to the actual music that is being played. The answer depends hugely on the difficulty level that you have set yourself on (Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert. The later difficulty levels being pretty close to actually playing the songs. Really the instruments are the star of the Rock Band Package so let's take a look at each in turn.

Drums

Without doubt the main difference between Rock Band and its main competition (the Guitar Hero) series of games is the Drum Kit that comes with the game. This consists of a stand with four pads and a foot pedal. How big? (Wives, girlfriends and mothers cry). Fairly sizable is the answer, 29" wide, 15" Deep and 32" tall though the height is adjustable. They come with drum sticks. The drums like all Rock Band instruments are not wireless which is a pain but does save on the batteries.

These are not real drums I am told by some of my musician friends as the high hat is in the wrong position. I have included a picture. The red pad acts as a snare drum, the yellow as the high hat and the blue and green swap between toms and cymbals depending on context. The foot pedal of course operates a bass drum. Playing the game sees you often having to hit two drums and the pedal with different rhythms. It also provides you with filler sections to trigger overdrive and big finishes which allow you to bang away to your hearts content for big points. Fun!

The pads can (and do) take a real pounding and are pretty responsive though when you are banging away it is always a nagging suspicion in your mind that you did hit that right but it has not picked it up. One issue is that these are very noisy when playing (as you are hitting plastic with wood) and hence you often need to turn the volume up so as to hear the music over an enthusiastic drummer. It also may limit the hours in which you can bang away as headphones or not it's likely to offend the neighbours.

Playing the drums is an experience unlike any other I have tried and, if you do not play drums it is hard. My friend who is a percussionist commented to me that the real difference in playing them from real drums is that in the game you have to be even more accurate as the console is completely unforgiving with a very slight loss of rhythm unlike a live audience.

Guitar/Bass

Guitar and Bass get one section as they are basically the same. Anyone familiar with the Guitar hero series will be instantly at home here. Players as mentioned above press the coloured button on the guitar neck that corresponds to the note that is on the screen. With it held down the player then strums with the plastic strum bar on the main body of the guitar. At more advanced stages the player may need to put down two or three buttons for each strums. If a player tips the guitar upwards he can enter his overdrive mode.

The guitar also includes a whammy bar which can be used on sustained notes for extra points. The Rock Band guitar has two additional features not seen on previous guitar models. It has the ability for the whammy bar to make different effects such as echo and it has a second series of buttons which can be used to play solos without having to strum.

This is the special ability of the guitar in the game, their section of the screen runs blue and you are rated on a solo section of the song which can give a big bonus. When playing the bass then the ability is that you can go into a bass grove if you have a long series of notes correct giving you six times your score.

I find the guitar quite a fragile beast and very temperamental in triggering the overdrive I also find I am not using the special buttons even during solos. It is worth noting that Guitar Hero guitars work with the game and as the game only comes with one guitar you will need to either have one or purchase another to do a four person band.

Vocals

Vocals are very much like the game Singstar though stylistically different. Words scroll across the screen with a line showing the pitch that they should be sung at. When a note is sung an arrow shows where you are singing so you are able to adjust up or down to get to the right pitch. On harder difficulty levels you have less margin for error. Singing is the easiest discipline though the two or three songs in French or German can be a challenge.

The three other elements to singing are that in order to trigger the singing overdrive the singer must sing any improvisation such as wooo!! Fun but if done poorly this can be immersion breaking. Secondly there are spoken sections where the pitch does not matter at all just the length of the notes. Finally during long guitar solos etc the singer can tap the mike in time like a tambourine for bonus points. The microphone included is high quality, responsive and sturdier than Singstar mikes. For a real challenge you can play an instrument and sing at the same time.

Bands, Solo, Multiplayer

One of the best parts of the game is the chance to have your own band. Band creation involves nominating a leader (who has to be there whenever the band plays) and then other characters. There is a comprehensive character creation system where height, weight, dance style, hair, face etc. can all be customised. As you go through the tour you earn cash that can be spent on new outfits, instruments and tattoos though this is all cosmetic. It is an irritating fact that you have to create a new character for each instrument and hence stick with it throughout the band unless you are happy to play with a different persons character.

Going on tour sees you play in small stadiums at first, gaining fans after each song or set you play. Some of the later sets can be huge, up to 11 songs in a row so it is better to plan ahead. Unlocking more fans gives access to bigger stadiums and new songs. Later stadiums require that the band is on a medium or hard difficulty. Failing a song loses you fans and it can be a real decision to abandon a four or five song gig and lose all that progress or try the song again and possibly lose more fans.

It is very very irritating that you cannot play songs unless they have been unlocked in Band or Solo career mode as when you get it out of the box with a bunch of people at a party you don't want to go through a 20 hour campaign to unlock a song printed on the box.

Solo career works almost the same but without the fans element, here you just keep going through all the songs until you have completed them which is fine. Multiplayer allows you to take your band online and play other bands around the world through either a tug of war system or just a highest score. This seems ok but seems less fun to me than just getting some friends round and playing.

The graphics of the game are nothing special, you can see your band playing in the background but you are likely to be so focused on the playing you will not even notice. They are adequate for the game.

Tracks

Of course the music is everything in a game like this. There are enough songs that there is something for everyone but in addition you may hate some of the stuff on here. There is a definite attempt to please both hard and soft rock fans which really bears out in the forum discussions. Here are the tracks included in the game:

• Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter"
• Aerosmith "Train Kept a Rollin'"*
• The Who "Won't Get Fooled Again"
• Boston "Foreplay/Long Time"
• Mountain "Mississippi Queen"*
• The Police "Next to You"
• David Bowie "Suffragette City"
• Black Sabbath "Paranoid"*
• Blue Oyster Cult "Don't Fear the Reaper"
• The Ramones "Blitzkrieg Bop"
• Deep Purple "Highway Star"
• KISS "Detroit Rock City"
• Molly Hatchet "Flirtin' With Disaster"
• The Outlaws "Green Grass & High Tides"*
• Sweet "Ballroom Blitz"*
• Rush "Tom Sawyer"*
• Bon Jovi "Wanted Dead or Alive"
• The Clash "Should I Stay or Should I Go"
• Faith No More "Epic"
• Pixies "Wave of Mutilation"
• R.E.M. "Orange Crush"
• Iron Maiden "Run to the Hills"*
• Foo Fighters "Learn to Fly"
• Metallica "Enter Sandman"
• Nirvana "In Bloom"
• Stone Temple Pilots "Vasoline"
• Weezer "Say It Ain't So"
• Smashing Pumpkins "Cherub Rock"
• Radiohead "Creep"
• Beastie Boys "Sabotage"
• Hole "Celebrity Skin"
• Garbage "I Think I'm Paranoid"
• Soundgarden "Black Hole Sun"
• The Hives "Main Offender"
• Queens of the Stone Age "Go With the Flow"
• The Strokes "Reptilia"
• Jet "Are You Gonna Be My Girl"
• OK Go "Here It Goes Again"
• Nine Inch Nails "The Hand That Feeds"
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Maps"
• Red Hot Chili Peppers "Dani California"
• Coheed & Cambria "Welcome Home"
• Fallout Boy "Dead on Arrival"
• The Killers "When You Were Young"
• New Pornographers "Electric Version"
• Anarchy Club "Blood Doll"
• Bang Camaro "Pleasure (Pleasure)"
• Crooked X "Nightmare"
• Death of the Cool "Can't Let Go"
• Flyleaf "I'm So Sick"
• Freezepop "Brainpower"
• Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives "I Get By"
• The Acro-Bats "Day Late, Dollar Short"
• The Konks "29 Fingers"
• The Mother Hips "Time We Had"
• Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld "Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld"
• Tribe "Outside"
• Vagiant "Seven"

The European version also includes the following tracks free:

• Blur - "Beetlebum"
• Die Toten Hosen - "Hier Kommt Alex"
• H-BlockX - "Countdown To Insanity"
• Juli - "Perfekte Welle"
• Pleymo - "New Wave"
• Tokio Hotel - "Monsoon"
• Muse - "Hysteria"
• Oasis - "Rock N Roll Star"
• Les Wampas - "Manu Chao
A big selling point is that Rock Band has 3 tracks a week (sometimes 7) which can be downloaded for 160 microsoft points (£1.37) per track and there is some really good stuff on here, I downloaded some Oasis, Police, Weezer and the them song from the game portal. There are 180 downloadable tracks with 200 more to come in the next year. This keeps the game fresh but is certainly expensive.

Price

It would be remiss of me not to mention the price which is to be honest outrageous and stops this game getting 5 stars. £100 for the instruments and £40 for the game which is not included in the main pack. This is what I managed to get it for at Amazon but you might pay as much as £180 at full rrp on the high street. Considering that it is $169 in America we are basically being charged double for no reason and Harmonix and EA should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for the reprehensible pricing. Their name is mud and limited budgets for gamers may see them be avoided as much as possible in the future.

Conclusion

This is a very good party game which is a lot of fun with a group of friends but not the kind of thing that I would play much on my own. The drums give the game an original element which is certainly praiseworthy. When it comes down to it it is an immersive experience that can be enjoyed by a wide variety of people and that is high praise. 

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