Review: Beatles Rock Band (game only)

Let me start this review by saying that I can obsess with the best of them.  Sure, I had known the Beatles’ works, but it just wasn’t big in my house growing up, so most of my musical association was once-removed by the plethora of artists who remade Beatles songs.  The first remake I ever fell in love with was Norwegian Wood by PM Dawn.

But I LOVE me some Rock Band, and the Beatles have long been touted as the greatest band in history.  And so the speculation began.  What songs would be on the game disc?  What would be downloadable content?

And so I made it a point to explore every song from every album they had ever made, and friends that is what I did.  For weeks, I listened, and listened.  I was finely honing my chops for what, in my mind would be the greatest compilation of Beatles music ever heard.  I, being the sappy romantic type, tended to listen more to songs like Eleanor Rigby, Fixing a Hole, Dear Prudence, Here Comes the Sun and While My Guitar Gently Weeps.  I’ve never been an acid rock fan, so some of their ..trippier stuff was too trippy for me.  But none of it was bad, and I was way excited for the release of this game.

In a mirror universe/Bizzaro/Memento twist, I’m going to write this review backwards, as it flows better to describe this game.

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Summary and Score: What Harmonix delivered was a fantastic journey through the career of the group that sampled each of their ‘phases’ as they honed their craft.  The sound is spot on, and is the first time we’ve ever had stereo digital recordings of the group’s music to not only listen to, but to play in.  The graphics and daydream landscapes are so phenomenal, it almost distracts from playing the game as you want to WATCH them!  The sheer variety and number of people this game supports is mind-boggling.  The only thing holding this lovingly-crafted piece of art back from a perfect score is the sheer fact that the songs are SO short, that there truly should have been more of them.  I will leave it for history to decide if it was the appropriate sampling of songs from their career, but the number and short length of songs truly is enough to detract a full point from this stellar title.

9 out of 10 tangerine dreams.

Gameplay: Beatles Rock Band is broken into Quick Play mode and Story Mode.  Story Mode is where most folks will spend their time, taking the Fab Four from their origins in England, through their touring days and finally to the top of Apple Studios for their rooftop performance.  Of note, you cannot create a character or change the Beatles’ respective appearance.  And that’s not really a bad thing.  This game isn’t so much about making you a fifth Beatle on the screen as much as it is having you stand in for one of the boys.  The biggest gameplay change for B:RB is that vocals can now support harmonies of up to three people.  That means six people total can play the game at once, provided you have that many microphones and USB ports.  Three-part harmony is pretty tough, but you do get extra points for successfully pulling it off.  Also, there are no drum fills to be had for you Ringo wannabes; instead it is a single hit of the green pad to activate Overdrive, your score modifier.  Other than that, this plays identically to Rock Band 2.  The difficulty is not off-the-charts, but the music sounds crisp in it’s RB form, and you will appreciate the subtleties that Harmonix have programmed into the game.  There are challenges for every stage to unlock recordings and videos of the band, as well as a slew of pictures that most folks have never seen before.

Plusses:  Fun and easy, anyone can jump in and play.  It’s quite fun, especially with all your friends.

Minuses:  The standard strum-when-the-note-gets-to-the-line is slightly different!  There’s only a bottom line, and you need to strum/hit the drum BEFORE it gets there instead of WHEN it gets there.  This threw a few of my friends and I off for a while, causing all sorts of re-sync mania.  There are too few songs due to most songs not being over 2.5 minutes each.

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Graphics: Is it photorealistic? No.  Is it *just realistic enough with a cartoony look to *FEEL* like the Beatles?* Yes.  And every single song is done with such care and love that it comes bleeding out the edges.  The colors are vibrant and really pop on the screen.  Everything has a very stylized feel and is fantastic.

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Audio: Top, top, top notch.  If you love the Beatles, this will be an audio thrill for you.  Every single part is clear, crisp and fantastically presented.  This is one of the best mixing on any music genre game to date.

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Second Summary:  If you’re not a Beatles fan, you may want to pass.  But if you have an appreciation of their music, then Beatles: Rock Band is all you need.