Rock Band

A real face-melter

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Harmonix's absurdly ambitious new music game has been rocking North America for six months, and its recent European debut was almost apologetically late and, more worryingly, quite a lot more expensive than the US release. Bitterness aside, we take a look at this potentially ground-breaking music game.

Converting dollars to pounds is perhaps a rather unfair undertaking, but with a copy of Rock Band and a full instrument set weighing in at about 140 GBP (best case), this is still a very expensive game. For the same money you could of course buy three our four triple-A Xbox 360 games, or for another 20 or 30 pounds, a Wii console with Wii Sports.

That's not to say that Rock Band is in any way bad whatsoever, in fact, its superb. Its just that when the game is this expensive, and our cousins across the pond got it much earlier, on multiple formats, for less, we can't help but think that Europe is once again getting the rotten end of the deal.

Still, if you've satiated your appetite for Guitar Hero III, and you're looking for the same gameplay mechanic taken to the next level, then you won't be disappointed. In many ways Rock Band is actually more than one game. You can play it like SingStar, purely for the singing if you like. You can play it like Guitar Hero, just with a guitar. Add in the wonderful new drum set, a few 'like-minded' friends - and you have probably the best off-line multiplayer experience ever conceived.

Harmonix are of course the creators of Guitar Hero, and the 'hitting-buttons in time to on-screen prompts' gameplay hasn't really got any more sophisticated in the truest sense of the word. Rather, the developers have just multiplied the layers of experience on offer, and refined a few areas.

For starters, the collaboration with studio owners MTV has paid dividends for the track-listing, this European Xbox 360 release includes 67 tracks, including French and German offerings for our continental counterparts. For UK gamers, Oasis and Blur numbers make the cut, as does Hysteria by Muse, and coupled with the US roster we think the listing just about pips GHIII's. We can also access over 100 new tunes from the Rock Band music store, which delivers new tracks for a very reasonable 160 Microsoft Points.

What else is different from Guitar Hero? Well, Rock Band's Fender Stratocaster guitar offers up five smaller fret buttons in addition to the standard five, for using without strumming during manic solos. There's also an effects pedal switch, too. The whammy bar is still present for bending notes, and star power is now known as Overdrive.

Playing Rock Band solo is much like Guitar Hero, then. You play gigs, and as you improve and receive high scores you unlock new tracks. Each instrument has its own unique progression based on your chosen discipline, so a drummer will initially have access to songs a singer or guitarist might not, etc. etc. Speaking of drumming, this new addition works a treat, and while we've seen guitar action and vocal done just as well elsewhere before, this area of the game stands out as superbly implemented (even if the addition of the drum kit is perhaps the biggest single factor bumping-up that still grating price point).

Not that you'll want to concern yourself with solo play for too long, as its in the multiplayer-tastic Band World Tour that Rock Band really ups the ante. In this mode, you and up to three friends (two guitarists, a drummer and a lead singer), can craft unique rock avatars, forming a band to take on the road. Together, you'll rock-out with inevitably comic (or genuinely impressive) effect, playing tracks you've unlocked in solo play; or downloaded from the music store. Once you get into the mock-rock experience (or consume the appropriate quantity of your chosen alcoholic beverage), it all works swimmingly, and serves as a far-more inclusive foil to the heroic-loner efforts of Activision's rival.

The mini fret bar on the new guitar controller will take some getting used to for GH aficionados, and it would have been nice to give English-speaking Europeans the chance to skip the German and French numbers which can pop up in the mystery set lists, but these are minors details all in all.

Slightly more disappointing is the inability to take the World Tour fun online, players having to satisfy themselves with a quick play option, or solo face-offs using specific instruments.

Aesthetically, Rock Band is every bit as rock and roll as Guitar Hero, and isn't vastly different in graphical quality, if we're honest.

Looking at the package overall, there a few minor issues I'm sure will be resolved with future iterations (idle gossip points to a US release for Rock Band 2 this winter), leaving the pricing as the only real bone of contention. Harmonix have pointed out that you could buy a copy of the game and play with the compatible GHII/III axe, adding in the Xbox Live headset for vocals and forgoing the drumset entirely. Indeed, while the guitar solution works a treat, the quality of the sound from the headset isn't really hi-fi, and the omission of drums would see players missing out on one if Rock Band's key innovations. If only the instrument set cost less than a new kidney, then, we'd be higher than Ozzy Osborne. As it is, we're still wowed by Rock Band's ambition, while the Band World Tour mode is truly groundbreaking, hence:

90%

By Luke Guttridge