Get the Band Back Together: Rock Band

Got $170 bucks of leftover holiday loot burning a hole in your pocket? Like music games like Guitar Hero? Then run over to your local gaming emporium and pick up a copy of Rock Band—you can thank me later.

Rock Band, the latest rhythm game offering from Harmonix (the guys who brought us Guitar Hero), is the next evolution in music games. Rather than just shredding away on the guitar (or trying to stay awake while playing bass…) Rock Band brings the whole “I wanna be a rock star” dream to life—allowing not only for guitarists to show their stuff, but for wannabe drummers to pound mercilessly on the skins while aspirant vocalists do their best American Idol tryout impressions. It’s the closest many of us will ever come to being “in the band”, and it’s arguably the best party game of 2007. Getting a group of friends together and playing through the game’s variety of rock and roll tunes is easily one of the most fun ways to kill an evening without having the cops show up on your doorstep.

The Special Edition of the game comes packaged in a huge box. Opening it up reveals the Fender Stratocaster guitar, the game disc, the microphone, and the drum kit. Of all the components, the drum kit is the largest and requires the most set-up. Assembling it is generally simple—there’s a base, some adjustable legs, a footpad (for your bass drum), and a four pad top piece where the actual pounding takes place. The guitar is plug and play (and if the Fender isn’t your cup of tea—and it wasn’t mine—you can use your Guitar Hero axes instead), as is the microphone (but you’ll need to have a controller to make selections with the microphone in game—something that I somehow missed in the instructions). All of the accessories are wired (which is a bummer), but EA has been kind enough to include a USB hub so all the various instruments can be hooked up at once. Once everything’s been plugged in (which took me about 15 minutes or so from the time I opened the box until I’d fired up the game), grab some friends and prepare to rock.

The first thing that will happen once you get the game set up is that everyone will invariably fight over who does what. Everyone will want to try the drums, and no one will want to sing. I’m sure there are exceptions to this, but every time the game is mentioned around here, that’s how it plays out. Once the arguing finally dies down, the game proper begins. It’s not at all unlike Guitar Hero in terms of presentation. Players can choose “quick play” mode (wherein you simply play songs for the fun of it) or form up your own band and set out on the road to fame, fortune, and groupies. Making a band is as simple as choosing a leader (that player must always be playing for the band to be active), picking a name for your group, and then selecting your avatars.

The character creation mode is one of the areas where the game really improves over Guitar Hero. Rather than being forced to choose a pre-created character, Rock Band offers a wide variety of starter characters who can then be customized through the use of various sliders. Hair can be changed, faces can be morphed, and everything that’s bought or unlocked in terms of clothes and accessories can be tweaked in countless ways. Because of this, it’s easy to make your own unique rocker instead of just having a character that looks like everyone else.

Once everyone’s made their character, you’re ready to go. Like Guitar Hero, the game has tiers of songs. Beating the songs in one tier opens the next. In career mode with a band, the tiers are comprised of various venues that your band can play gigs at. Within each venue are numerous songs and challenges. Songs are simple enough—you just play the tune, get a good score, and accrue money and fans. The challenges are a little different—some let you choose your setlist, some are mystery setlists, and some offer you double or quadruple money if you achieve a certain star rating for the entire set. If you lose, you get nothing. At other points, you’ll be able to rock out for a chance to get a van, a bus, or an airplane so you and your crew can go to bigger cities to find even more fans.

Once the band has chosen a song or challenge to play, the concert begins. The game offers a nice shot of the venue before zooming in on the group onstage. When the music begins, the game looks exactly like Guitar Hero. Colored notes come down the board (one board for each instrument) and players must hit the appropriate keys to play the note in question. The only aesthetic difference here is that the Guitar Hero notes were round, while Rock Band’s are more rectangular. Singing is handled in much the same way that other karaoke games have done it—words scroll across the screen with a pitch line. Try to stay within that line and things are good. Get off-key and you’ll eventually fail.

One of the really cool things about the game (that promotes the whole “we’re a band and we’re in this together” attitude) is the star power system. In Rock Band earning star power (which is called “overdrive”) can be used to not only turn around a bad performance on your part, but to save anyone in the band who might have failed. If your guitarist just got wasted by that insane solo, the drummer can activate his overdrive power and bring the guitarist back in. This mechanic adds a lot of teamwork to the game—you could blow the overdrive just to be flashy, but you’re probably better off hoarding it in case anyone gets into trouble.

After successfully completing a gig, the band earns new fans, money, and eventually roadies. Earning money lets you buy new clothes, guitars, drums, and stuff of that sort. Earning fans makes it so you can move to new cities, and roadies allow you to play large scale venues where you can really earn big bucks. In short, career mode with a band is the ideal way to experience this game. It’s a lot of fun—even if you will eventually find yourself turning into a real megalomaniacal lead guitarist who berates your drummer for missing the last note of that drum fill finale.

If you don’t have a group of friends handy, you still have options. You can play solo mode on any of the instruments, you can form a band by yourself (wherein you’ll have to play guitar and sing…which is very hard), or you can play online.

The online mode is cool, except you can’t form a band for the Band World Tour mode with friends from other parts of the country. Instead, you’re forced into quickplay mode—just beating songs for stars and score. It’s still fun, but I’ve got friends around the country and would love to make a band with them—but it’s simply not possible at this point. Apparently, the infrastructure is in the game, but it wasn’t something that could be implemented before the launch date. Maybe we’ll see it at some other point.

However, before you get the whole “love-in at Woodstock” vibe, there are a few other problems that keep the title from being perfect.

The Fender guitar is something that seems to be a love it or hate it proposition. Personally, I hate it. The strum bar is mushy and doesn’t have much spring to it. The lack of a clicking noise when using it is equally problematic—the clicking of the strum bar on the Guitar Hero guitars is useful for those really fast stretches when you need to keep on the beat. On the plus side, a second set of colored fret buttons on the lower neck (for insanely fast solos with no strumming) is a nice touch—but not nice enough to get me to ditch my Xplorer.

Another problem—one that probably couldn’t be solved—is that with four people playing at once, the screen tends to get pretty crowded. The note charts are small and can be difficult to see. Of course, people with a monstrous 50 inch or larger screen probably have less issue with this.

Finally, after playing the insanely challenging Guitar Hero III, the guitar sections of Rock Band are slightly underwhelming. If you’re playing expert on GHIII, you will blow through Rock Band’s 45+ tracks without major difficulty. Again, whether this is a plus or a minus is a matter of perspective. I often felt that Guitar Hero III was simply hard for the sake of being hard. Rock Band has a much gentler learning curve (but can still bring the pain—solos on songs like Green Grass & High Tides are definitely tough) and feels almost easy on hard and the early stages of expert. Most of this attributable to the note schemes—much of Rock Band is comprised of simple chords with a lot of repetition. This is probably because Harmonix went for songs that were full band experiences instead of simply tracks featuring great guitar riffs.

If the guitars are too easy, the same can’t be said of the drums—which is where the real challenge in the game lies. Coordinating four drum pads and a foot pedal certainly requires coordination, and I’ve heard people say that if you can play the drums on expert, you could go out and buy a real kit and start playing. If nothing else, an hour on the drums will give you a new appreciation for anyone who makes a living blasting the beat.

Perhaps the nicest thing of all about the Rock Band experience is that Harmonix has already been really good about releasing new downloadable song packs. Rather than saving up tracks for an expansion or a sequel game, the company has committed to releasing a truckload of downloadable content so gamers can pick and choose what new music they want. With the promise of full album downloads in the not too distant future, it looks like the initial $170 price tag was money well spent.

Honestly, I could spend all day talking about Rock Band. It’s one of those rare games that’s surprisingly simple in mechanics, but undeniably deep once you get in to it. With a variety of play modes, a multiplayer experience that’s more fun than an evening spent with a case of booze and a room full of groupies, and a seemingly endless supply of new songs to play via download, this is a game that belongs in the library of anyone who wants to rock. There are a few minor flaws in the overall package, but the game does so much right that it doesn’t matter. It may not win Game of the Year, but it’s definitely in the top 5 offerings of 2007.