I have a confession to get out of the way before I start my review so you can understand my Beatles-leaning bias. To start at the beginning, I remember playing Guitar Hero II for the first time and playing Woman by Wolfmother on easy and getting my ass handed to me. It didn’t matter at the time, I just knew that my rock star fantasy had been met and I was hungry for more. I remember playing the first Rock Band fondly for the first time with friends, stumbling over the drums and praying the neighbors couldn’t hear the awful singing. It was just like that first time playing Guitar Hero so long ago… When I learned The Beatles Rock Band was being made – I think I blacked out for a few hours from pure joy. This was the reason I was alive, this would define me as a person.
So when I say I love this game, I hope you understand I do so taking into account my pure and utter love of what I consider the finest rock band of all time. Now let’s get down to it, shall we?
When you break the game down, you do have a Rock Band game at its core so if you’ve played one, you’ve played this one. You have four instruments to choose from: guitar, bass, microphone and drums. The ‘Fab Four’ fit right in don’t they? Each instrument has its own training of which I dabbled in. I was most interested in learning the drums more than I’ve been able to in the past I and was pleased to find the tools for learning them are much advanced from any of the other games. Not only do you have a basics trainer that will teach you 45 different beats, but you also have Beatles Beats where all of Ringo’s famous beats are broken down so you can learn them at your own pace. You can move automatically between beats per minute by pressing up or down so when you think you’ve mastered any particular set, push it up to fail miserably all over again. I can see myself spending a lot of time annoying everyone within close proximity trying to learn the way Ringo would play a set of Rock Band drums.
The game itself consists of several modes of play, each with an online component. Quickplay gives you all of the songs right off the bat without having to unlock any thankfully. It’s a sort of instant Beatles party where anyone can pick their favorite song and join in or leave any time in between sets. They made it painless to see how difficult each instrument is by incorporating the sliders from the previous Rock Band. Before any song you can individually turn on or off the no fail mode if you happen to be playing with beginners or you’re trying to show off in expert mode before you’re ready.
Story mode is an awesome trip down The Beatles’ career. The animated videos that break up each set are a lot of fun and pure Beatles porn for the aficionado. There are a lot of nice details that go into this. While the song is loading, I presume a studio recording of the band right before the song is actually recorded (complete with the date) is played like ambient noise. For me, it gave me that connection like I was actually in the recording booth or in the studio itself. Seeing bits and pieces of their famous recordings from the Ed Sullivan show recreated, or the girl running across the grass at Shea stadium or the famous final performance all meld together in an experience unlike any I’ve had while listening to The Beatles. A lot of times what happens behind the flying notes is looked over because it’s lame. The awesome intro that was released online is basically how the entire game looks. A lot of the songs are just the boys on stage, but as they move into their psychedelic phase, so do the graphics. Yellow submarines fly around, the guys fly around in some floating gazebo or stand in front of an animated Soviet propaganda poster and it’s all so beautiful the first few times you go through a song it might actually distract you from the notes much to the chagrin of your band mates. When I had a chance to let others play and watch it closely, the only thing I could possibly say in negative were the facial expressions being very robotic. I can forgive them that, even Pixar struggles with this.
The difficulties all received a good tweak in this version. Easy remains the entry point for all wannabe rockers using only the first three buttons of the controller. On the drums it really breaks down the basics of the beat to the bare minimum. You can sing off-key fairly well, even I was able to keep on my feet singing on easy. When you first start out it seems like the notes are flying at you like a sub-orbital SR-71, but it doesn’t take long before you feel like the slow kid everyone used to make fun of. Medium brings an extra button into the mix as well as an additional layer of complexity to the notes. On drums you will be asked to use your foot more often while blasting away at quicker beats. Singing for me becomes impossible thankfully. Hard really kicks things into gear, but it’s not nearly as jarring as previous versions. Yes you’re using all the buttons on the guitar, but the complexity is much more forgiving. I’ve never been able to come close to finishing drums or singing on hard personally, but I’ve seen it on TV. Expert is the realm of those with too much time on their hands, every note is accounted for. Those are the kids people always shake their heads at wondering why they don’t spend that much time learning a real instrument.
I don’t know if it was my pure memorization of all the songs before ever booting up the game, but I felt that this game was easier as a rule. I can hang on expert, but I’m not pulling off perfect scores. In previous games I couldn’t even finish the last few songs without failing halfway through. Here I can finish all the songs on expert guitar with 80% and up, most 95% and up. I have a feeling most that are on my level and up will not find this game a challenge necessarily. That said, I personally haven’t had as much fun since playing Free Bird the first time. If you’re looking for any face-melters or something to dethrone Dragonforce (ed. note: Dragonforce, hell yeah!), you might be disappointed.
One thing that is really cool about this game is the bass track. Even back in the Guitar Hero days if you wanted to play with a friend playing bass is something that had to be traded back and forth because, well… it was boring or frustrating. The guitar had all the solos, got all the girls and glory. The bass was just keeping time, filling things in. Not here, my friends, oh no. Paul kicked ass apparently. I didn’t mind playing bass for about 10 songs while my friends played along and I would have kept on going, but someone requested to take it over! I think it might have been the first time in the history of mankind. We can all thank Paul for this. I would love to talk about the three part harmony available in certain songs, but I couldn’t find enough singers to sing by themselves let alone attempt to sing with two others. I must admit when no one else was home I had my way with a few songs, I just couldn’t help it. After a few attempts I felt dirty sullying their beautiful voices in such a way. I may never be able to forgive myself.
Do you like The Beatles? Do you like playing on plastic instruments? You will absolutely adore this game. I know I’ll be playing it for a long time to come. Maybe I can do a follow-up report on how well the drum trainer goes. I’m looking forward to the upcoming Abbey Road album and any others Harmonix has up their sleeve. All that said, if you don’t really care about The Beatles, or if you’re only looking for the most insane riffs to show off with, this really isn’t the game for you… and I can’t be your friend any more.
