Game: Rock Band

Well, that was a fun little Christmas and New Years break now, wasn't it? Now its time to get back to work, so I decided that I'd review one of the hottest Christmas gifts from this past holiday season, the caffeine based son of "Guitar Hero" and the arcade addiction of a Japanese arcade that is "Rock Band".


If you hate "Guitar Hero" for any reason whatsoever, stop reading this review now. "Rock Band" isn't going to change how you feel about this game genre. In fact, chances are you'll hate it even more after this game after you find out that your voice pitch is way off and you can't keep a beat on fake drums if your life depended on it. Lucky for me, I happen to thoroughly enjoy the "Guitar Hero" experience and so I welcomed "Rock Band" with open arms ready for a good time. And a good time I did indeed have.

First off, let me just say that the game looks GREAT...that is, the few chances that you have to actually see the virtual band playing when you're not concentrating on the gameplay itself. Character customization enters the genre for the first time, and its actually quite fun to design your own little band to be a quirky "KISS" ripoff or soldiers of the Emo movement. Everything is animated very well, so when you watch your friend try to beat the game on Expert, you won't have much of a problem watching it in action.

"Rock Band" sports a pretty remarkable song list for one to enjoy over the course of the game with classics from "Livin on a Prayer" to modern hits like "Here It Goes Again". There is a little bit of something for everyone in this game, especially because you aren't limited to just one style of playing. While the typical guitar playing of the genre stays, you now are also given the choice of playing bass, which is somewhat simpler but at the same time offers a whole new level of depth to the songs that the "Hero" franchise only offers in multiplayer, and it's just done to a much better level in "Rock Band".

If you're willing to fork over $170 for the box set version of "Rock Band", you are also treated to a microphone to belt out your favorite songs into, which actually works pretty well as a game mechanic. It's really, REALLY hard to fail a song while singing, even on the hard difficulty level, if you have any form of pitch control at all. The real selling point of the game, though, is the new drum mechanic, complete with a new "drum set" that comes with the $170 package. This is a real test of the game genre and it's fans, as it is hands down the hardest of the four modes of play in the game, but for some reason feels the most rewarding when one becomes good at it. I have just a little bit of experience with drums, mostly because a few of my family members are superb drummers, so I was able to watch and learn from them from a young age, so the drumming comes easily to me. But again, I must emphasize the point that the drumming is HARD, especially if someone has no prior experience since it is the closest simulation to playing the real instrument that one can get for a low price like this.

The game is fun alone, but it's one hell of a party when all four avaliable instruments are played together. This game is meant to be multiplayer, and if you have any friends that like this genre, you are ready to have a blast playing this game together. My one complaint actually comes in the guitar portion of the game. Anyone who has played the "Hero" trillogy knows what I mean when I say hammer-ons-and-offs are a huge portion of the gameplay, but the visual cue for when to do them is MUCH harder to catch in "Rock Band" than in the "Hero" franchise. Also, the new guitar for the game may be a bit bigger and have more buttons, but one crucial factor is missing. The strum bar (the thing you flick to hit every note in conjunction with holding down the fret buttons) no longer has the satisfying "click" that it's "Hero" counterpart does. However, this also means that anyone who plays the game like one plays a bass will have an easier time dealing with the controller, which is understandable. It takes a bit of getting used to, but don't worry, the controllers all work fine.

Score: 9.0 out of 10. This is such a fun game when you're playing with people who enjoy it. I know plenty of people who bash this game genre, thinking that it's detracting from people playing real instruments and will destroy the music genre in the future, but I personally dont see it that way at all. Did karaoke ruin singers? No, and this wont ruin music. After all, it's a game, and if you get into it, its a REALLY FUN game.