Rock Band

THE BAD:
-Come on, where's the band world tour online?
-Or did you forget to make a band vs. band mode?
-A spectator mode would also have been nice too.
-You know, it's nice getting a defective drumkit right out of the box on launch, although it seems this problem is being fixed now

SUMMARY:
Gameplay: 10/10

Wow... What can you say except the most breathtaking experience ever? I'll focus on the multiplayer aspect of this first. If you're going to buy Rock Band, you should try out Band World Tour, trust me; it is the most fun you'll ever have (unless you're trying to go competitive, otherwise you'll be yelling at your drummer for failing Dead on Arrival ) and it is the ultimate party game. The single player aspect is just the same as "Guitar Hero" albeit a bit... easier? I'll cover more details on the instruments later. However, let me focus on the online modes. You have Tug of War (you may be more familiar with it if I called it face-off, which is what it is called in the Guitar Hero series) which is playing part of a song, then the 2nd player plays the other part of the song, then the 1st player plays another part, etc. It keeps on repeating. Pretty fun... However, it's not very skillful and people always end up complaining, "YOU ONLY WON BECAUSE YOU HAD THE EASIER SECTIONS TO PLAY!!!". How do we put an end to that madness? By introducing Score Duel (or, as you may know it as Pro Face-Off). This time, instead of playing sections of the song, you'll be playing the entire song, without stopping. Talk about skill!

Graphics: 10/10

I love how they added in the create your own character feature, that adds in a whole new level of customization. As you're playing, the game shows as if you are playing in a concert, but Harmonix likes to throw in little surprises to us and they've added in quite a few things. Sometimes the screen will change to a black and white type of show (minus the fretboard, of course) as if though you were filming a music video, then it might revert back to concert mode. During guitar solos it does focus on the guitarist's fingers, but the game really does not focus on any one instrument and either goes through all the instruments individually or shows them all at once. Another cool thing they added is (while this isn't really related to graphics so much as game mechanics, this still, I believe, fits here somehow in my mind) is the crowd sing along feature. Instead of the crowd booing you or cheering you on, in certain parts of songs, if you are doing good, they'll be singing along with the song. Very interesting feature, and it's cool they made the crowd do something instead of just... standing there.

Music/Soundtrack: 10/10

This game just has an amazing soundtrack. I didn't recognize many of these tracks when I popped in my disk, so at first I was disappointed. Now I've finally played through them all and I can say each and every single track they chose (minus a very select few) were absolutely amazing and are a lot of fun to play. Now, the game brings 58 songs in the disk. A bit disappointing, compared to Guitar Hero III's 71 tracklist, right? Wrong. Rock Band is getting downloadable content (DLC for short) weekly, and the DLC is amazing. There are, I think 128 songs total adding in all possible DLC, which makes for a grand total of 70 songs possible to download, and they are adding in more weekly. They are very fun to play, all of them; but I hope you have a big wallet. You'll need about 100 bucks (about 50 pounds) if you want to get all the DLC. However, each song is very replayable and very fun, and I can say you'll be playing this game over and over again just for the songs quite a bit.

Instruments: 8/10

The guitar is the same as Guitar Hero, albeit easier. The timing window is the same as from Guitar Hero II, not any bigger or any smaller. Nothing much to cover there. However, that's not a disappointment, let's go check out our buddies named "Vocals" and "Drums", shall we? These two instruments are very hard to learn, and I'll break it down for you. Vocals is all about pitch, so if you don't know how to control your pitch; you'll be staying on Easy until you learn. Being a great singer does not make you good at this game, and of course being a terrible singer does not mean you will fail out on vocals. I'm a terrible singer and I can sing on Expert (rather poorly, however), and this is just an instrument you either get better at or fail out on. It's very hard to practice it, but it's also very fun. I remember when I got this game everyone was arguing over who's not going to sing, and now everyone loves singing, it's such a fun instrument to play (well... sing) and is not the disappointing embarrassing instrument you'd think it'd be. Drums... Oh boy, this is a tough instrument. It's simple, all you have to do is hit the pads, right? Cool, that's easy. You can play on Expert now, great! Now let's add in the foot pedal, shall we? Back to easy with you. The foot pedal adds in a whole new difficulty, but it's great. It really teaches you how to separate your hands from your foot (or, if you wish to make a double bass pedal, feet) and so it really is education. The foot pedal is a handicap and is really what stops everyone from being able to play on Expert at first, but once you learn the foot pedal it is nearly smooth sailing after that. However, that's not to say this instrument is easy, not at all. Drumming will take you months to improve at, and there will be a couple songs that you will be stuck at for days, possibly weeks. I was stuck on Run to the Hills for a good month. In other words, the instruments are great additions. The only problems I have with the instruments is a lot of them were defective right out of the box, and that's very disappointing, especially once you begin to play on the higher difficulties. My blue pad doesn't register any of my blue drumrolls, and my foot pedal has already snapped in half. My friend's microphone came defective straight out of the box. However, it seems this problem has been fixed (somewhat) now, so there really is no need to worry about it anymore.

Online: 7/10

Very great online, and I covered Tug of War and Score Duel already, but there are still other parts of online that I need to cover. The next feature there is is "Band Quick Play". Here, you can get up to three friends and each of you can pick an instrument and there you can rock out to all the songs you all have (meaning if all you have ALL the DLC then you can play ALL the DLC as well, or if you all have specific songs, etc. However, if only one player is missing all the DLC and the rest of the bandmates have all the DLC, then you can play none of the DLC) as a band. No lag is always great, and thankfully there is no lag. The next feature is often overlooked but is a large part of the game; the leaderboards! Where do you stand against your fellow rockers? Are you the one shredding the solos or keeping the beat the best or do you need to get some shreducation? This feature allows you to see where you rank against your fellow rockers either overall in career score or in individual songs. Now, the reason I deducted some points from online were because: it's missing two of the most expected features of the game! It's missing "Band World Tour" online and "Band vs. Band" (think of it as the clans of Rock Band, if you will). They left out these two great features and these were very highly anticipated. Another nice feature that a lot (though not as many as the people who wanted Band World Tour online and Band vs. Band wanted) of people wanted was a spectator mode. What about those epic matches of the best of the best, or just two friends battling it out, or comparing bands? A bit disappointing, and hopefully we'll see this in Rock Band 2.

Overall: 45/50

First and foremost, this game is the ultimate party game. I had so much fun rocking out with three friends at midnight on launch night, this was honestly the ultimate video game experience ever. Secondly, adding in two new instruments gives the word "Replayability" a whole new meaning. Remember that feeling of moving up to Medium, Hard, and then Expert on Guitar Hero? You'll be feeling it all over again once you start playing the drums and vocals. This game did disappoint me in the online aspect of it though, I expected much more. Come on Harmonix, why couldn't you add Band World Tour online? Or the band vs. band feature everyone begged for? Two of these major features that everyone begged and wished for to be included were just ignored. Although, Harmonix does compensate for the missing of the World Tour online by adding in Band Quick Play, so at least they're not leaving us out in the sun to die, so to speak. Lastly, how come my stock drumset doesn't register any of my blue hits when I'm trying to drumroll, or why has my foot pedal already snapped in half twice? These are some problems that may or may not be sorted out in the sequel (under the assumption there is a sequel), and usually I'm one to overlook problems but these are some major flaws that really disappointed me. This game really is worth the money you pay for it, even if the game is costly. 2 new instruments, online, and a large amount of DLC really makes this game such a great game, and the multiplayer and single player were just amazing. I highly recommend this game for anyone looking for a casual gaming, looking for the ultimate party game, or looking for some new challenges. While there are some things this game lacks, it really does include a lot of great features, especially the multiplayer. Thank you, Harmonix, for making such a great game for us and continuing to working hard on making this game the best that it can be.