"The Beatles" in all their glory
"The Beatles". Whenever people hear that name, they can recognize who they are almost instantly. What does it mean for most people? A band that influenced the face of Rock N’ Roll Music. Game creators Harmonix, creators of the game series Frequency, Amplitude, Guitar Hero, and Rock Band decided to pick up The Beatles and take them for a ride, to show the general public that they truly are the "Fab Four". The result is The Beatles: Rock Band. The purpose of this game is to get a couple friends/family together and play through The Beatles career, spanning from their first gig in The Cavern Club, Liverpool, to the epic roof-top concert on top of Abbey Road studios. Harmonix does a good job of replicating this onto a video game, and this is apparent throughout your gameplay.
Now, Rock Band is more of a party-type game, and that stands in The Beatles: Rock Band, but it is still a fabulous game to play through in single-player. Just like in Rock Band 2, you can play the main "story" mode either single, with friends, online, or local, the whole package. Playing through this game, I felt as close as I could to the character I was playing as and had fun while doing it. A little drawback to this story style is that it is a little arcade-like, tracing back to Rock Band 1. I would have preffered for them to make it a little more career based (RB2-esque) instead of the typical "play this song, get to more songs" career. A little treat after you complete each venue is a wonderfully-built cutscene explaining what happened between what you just finished and the next venue, all through picture and song. These cutscenes made me want to finish the songs to see what the next cutscene would be. Now, there were negative things about the career mode, such as the game being too short in terms of songs. I know that people will say that the dreamscapes that are involved in this game really make up for the short 44 song setlist, but that doesnt really cut it for me (with the 60$ pricetag, even on wii). The story did feel too short, but I felt that I got out of it all that I could.
Ok, the multiplayer is basically the same career story as the single-player mode, and the same progression, but it feels as if something is there that isnt in single-player. In single-player, it is just you, your Wii, and your TV. Not too much talking going on (unless you sing), and you just progress through, and when its done you turn it off. This is the best aspect of this game in my opinion, because I’m pretty sure this is what Rock Band/Guitar Hero games were all about in the first place. You sit down with a couple of friends, and work together and really feel the music. This game has done that for me, even with people that I don’t know! I have played this game with people from my school (who only speak Portuguese, and my Portuguese isnt even that good). When we did play, it felt like I could communicate with them through the music, and that was probably the most fun I’ve had playing a video game. Whenever you play multiplayer, no matter who it is with, you can really feel the music and have just as much fun as they are having. Of course, as much as I love the multiplayer aspect of the game, there are still the flaws that occur in single-player mode. The career mode that feels unsteady with the arcade progression is still there, but the fun with friends/family aspect kind of outweighs the bad parts, which is why I rated the multiplayer experience better than the single-player.
When I first played this game, I originally thought that this is how Rock Band should have originally been when it released about 2 years ago. The vocal engine is not as hard as the RB1 engine, but also not as easy as the RB2 engine, and it fits right in the middle, which is a great comfort zone. Two other changes to the vocal engine is that there are no talkies or tambourine sections (taps). I originally thought that these sections in the game were pointless, and am happy to see them taken out, as it offers more of a party-feel to scream the talkies or not even hit them and not be graded on that. Another huge improvement on the vocal front is the "Vocal Trainer". This is a new type of practice mode for vocalists where you can go by specific sections, unlike in previous carnations of RB where you could only play the whole song in practice mode. There were no real improvements to the Guitar/Bass/Drum engines, as it is the same for RB2, except for the change of Hammeron-Chords. These were made way easier in this game, and it clearly shows. I dont know if I should classify this as part of the engine or not, but now when you play on easy it automatically puts on no-fail for the person on easy. I think this was an excellent idea, because whenever I play with people who have never played before, they always go on easy and fail out, and then we have to go and turn no fail on. This does take some time (flipping through the menus) that you could be easily used to actually play the game.
I can’t really say too much about the controls for this game, other than the fact that they are the controls that were perfected in the first Guitar Hero. Just have 5 notes, and strum/hit the drum whenever they line across the line. And the vocals are just standard kareoke controls, and they all fit seamlessly in with the game. Makes you feel like you are actually playing the instrument, well, as realistic as playing a plastic instrument gets.
As you can see from this Sgt. Pepper Picture, the visuals are truly top-notch
I really love the visuals in this game. There are these amazing backgrounds for these songs, that they call "dreamscapes". The songs start out with The Beatles in the recording studio, and then slowly throughout the song they are transported to these "dreamscapes", and these amazing visuals come into play. Of course, in the beginning The Beatles werent a studio-band, so they have live shows to start off the first couple of venues. The first couple of venues are….kind of stiff. The character animations arent the best, and they are kind of like robots. I later looked up some live videos of The Beatles, and found their movements on stage to be stiff too, so that could have been the authenticity that Harmonix was trying to get when they replicated this. Also, the graphics on the Wii specifically are amazing for a Wii game. The only dreamscape that was lacking was Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band/With A Little Help From My Friends, but the Wii’s capabilities do come into play there. Some dreamscapes that are worth looking at are Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Revolution, and Yellow Submarine. Those truly show what the game has to offer graphicswise.
The soundtrack for this game was all of The Beatles, so I can’t really go into how if the music is good or not, as it is all personal preference. I will say though that being restricted with 44 songs, the choices they made weren’t that bad! The songs that they chose in the soundtrack for this game really span over the career of The Beatles, and are hits, and some lesser known stuff for people who would like to get into The Beatles.
Even though this game is amazing the first time, there are only few people that would keep on playing it after. The people who would play through this twice are either Beatles maniacs or Rock Band Addicts. I can see myself playing this game for a long time, but that is only because of the fact that I like The Beatles a lot. There are the people who are amazing at Rock Band and will play until they get 100% on everything, but The Beatles music isn’t that hard, so I can (and have) seen people doing that fairly quickly and just going back to Rock Band 2/Guitar Hero 5. But the main reason why most people will keep playing is for the Downloadable Content (DLC). DLC is usually what keeps games going far after they are played through, and this is the case here. They will be eventually releasing most of The Beatles’ discography, which sounds like a large task and will be amazing once it is done. The Wii users still have to pay individually (200 points) for each song, instead of the full album discounts that Xbox 360’ers and PS3’ers get. Maybe one day Wii users will be able to do that, GH5 does, so why not RB3, huh?
The Beatles: Rock Band is definetly a wonderful game, and a step in the right direction for Harmonix. Of course, with every good thing comes a bad thing to go along with it, and in this game, that kind of stands true.
