Difference in Opinion

With the revolutionary idea of combining all the instruments and band members in a band and making them a part of a game, Harmonix hits the nail on the head with Rock Band. Playing Drums, Guitar, Bass and singing vocals with 3 other friends is as close as you can get to being in a real band aside from throwing a bunch of sweaty teens in front of you and crowd surfing.

In the past, all instrument oriented games were limited to one person playing and everyone else in the room watching (and sometimes laughing). Imagine combining Sing Star, Guitar Hero and Donkey Kongas, making them all work well together and adding AMAZING set lists. Gamers can practice their own skills and create rockers in the solo career with the microphone, drums or guitar. Once you get your fret work down and are able to play Enter Sandman with your teeth then you can dive into multiplayer with friends. Multiplayer is found in two forms, online and offline. Online you can quickplay through any songs with some of your friends that have the game as well. Offline, you can complete the World Tour, or essentially the multiplayer career, collecting fans, earning tour buses and jumbo jets, and rocketing your way to stardom.

My biggest complaints about Rock Band are unfortunate because they could have been fixed prior to the release of the game. Numero uno is the reliability of the instruments that come in the box. Within the first day the strummer on my guitar stopped working and my red drum pad requires a hard hit to register. I have heard stories of some people being on their 4th or 5th guitars. Granted EA has done everything in their power to fix the situation and replace all damaged instruments with the warranty. Another complaint is that you can’t play the World Tour online with friends. It would have been AMAZING to create online bands with friends and work through the cities. It is the same problem with Guitar Hero 3, why no online career?

Those problems aside, Rock Band is sure to blow away anyone who grabs the game. The songs that come packed on the disc are amazing. If those are not enough then regular content is released every Tuesday with songs ranging from around one to two dollars (hooray! reasonably prices songs FOR ONCE!). If you have a guitar already then you can grab the game disc and do guitar, bass and vocals (with your headset or a USB mic). Or if you want to Mitch Mitchell around on the drums then you could go grab the Rock Band Bundle or wait for the single instrument releases sometime soon.

Final Score:
Gameplay: 10 out of 10
Graphics: 9 out of 10