The Beatles: Rock Band Shows How Licensed Games Should Be Done
The Beatles: Rock Band may be one of the most highly anticipated games of all times, as the new creation from Harmonix marks the first time that music from the seminal band appears in any video game–and as the high sales of the game are cemented in gaming history, here’s a look at how the actual game stacks up to other rhythm based music games. I’d like to note that I will refrain from making any Beatles puns in this review.
Game play: The game play in The Beatles: Rock Band is largely the same as the game play in previous games of the Rock Band franchise. It is a bit harder, somewhat surprisingly, and there are some key differences; there’s a progression-based story mode with wonderfully animated cut scenes that fills out the experience, and unlike in previous Rock Band games, there aren’t drum fills to trigger Energy (here, it’s referred to as “Beatlemania”)–instead, you need to hit a single green pad at the end of a certain phrase. This is done to preserve the Beatles’ music and prevent a fill-happy drummer from ruining something like “Something” (I’m not counting that as a pun).
Graphics: That attention to the Beatles’ music really comes through in Harmonix’s faithful recreation of the fab four experience, and there’s no shortage of great attention to detail in the game’s graphics. The Cavern Club, Ed Sullivan’s studio, Shea Stadium, and even Abbey Road are all recreated near-perfectly. When the game kicks on, you really feel like you’re witnessing some form of Beatles concert that you wouldn’t be able to see otherwise. That’s a fantastic reflection on this game.
The story mode is broken up by short animation sequences, and these can be breathtaking–the final animation sequence left all four people we had playing our copy of the game in awe. After a few seconds, the guitarist mumbled, “whoa.” Whoa indeed.
Length: My only gripe is with the length of the core game. It’s very short, and you’ll blow through its 45 tracks in a single night. With that being said, it’s very replayable and the downloadable full albums this fall will add a lot to the game. I fully expect every song in the Apple
Beatles’ catalog to become available at some point. The extra money it’ll take to download that content hurts, but considering that you’ll get new animations for many of the tunes, I think the $2 per song price tag is more than fair.
Ultimately, Harmonix has delivered beautifully to create an extremely detailed and loving version of the Beatles’ music, and unquestionably their best Rock Band game yet, not just because of the fantastic source material. Buy this game if you like rhythm based music games at all–there’s no disappointment to be had here.
- By Phil Dotree | Associated Content
- Naiomi Solomon
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