http://blog.icewarm.org/?p=443
The Beatles Rock Band Review:
I?ve been playing quite a bit of The Beatles Rock Band lately and here are my thoughts on the game.
First things first, if you're not a fan of The Beatles you will not like this game. If you are a fan you should enjoy it very much. The game has a variety of modes like the other Rock Band games however the story mode in this game does not get progressively harder. Instead you follow the career of The Beatles from the Cavern Club all the way to their rooftop performance of the Apple Corps building. The songs also follow this chronological order so the difficulty tends to fluctuate quite a bit with some difficult songs at the beginning and some harder songs in the end and so on
The graphics are beautifully done and the cutscenes are amazing, especially the opening and closing cutscenes. The environments in each area are nice as well with the earlier levels featuring crazed Beatles fan girls screaming when they see The Beatles. The later stages take place it the Abbey Road studios and you get treated to beautiful dreamscapes for each song in these levels. These dreamscapes start a little after the song and usually follow the theme to the song. For example in Yellow Submarine you start the song and you see the Yellow Submarine floating around and you see The Beatles dressed in their clothing from the cartoon movie. In Sgt. Pepper?s Lonely Hearts Club band you see the band playing in their iconic band uniforms. These dreamscapes really add a lot to the game and capture the essence of the music in the later half of their career.
The rest of the gameplay is basically the same as any other Rock Band game. The only real new feature is the three part harmony sections. If you have the microphones available up to three people can sing in this game. One lead singer and then there are two harmony sections and then they come together in a three part harmony. This is definitely a nice feature. I hope to see it in future Rock Band games.
There are some nice unlockables as well including photographs, and videos.
The music in the game is great. I won?t go into detail on the songs since they are all Beatles songs.
Even though there are many high points in the game there are still some downsides. The main downside being there is only 45 songs included in the game. 45 songs is still a decent amount but considering a lot of them are fairly short you can complete the story mode in about four hours. DLC will fix this and give us more songs but the only DLC available as of now is the song All You Need Is Love. The remaining Abbey Road tracks are scheduled to be released in mid-October.
Another downside is that the three part harmony sections can?t be played over Xbox Live. It would have been a nide touch to be able to have three people come together in the vocal harmony sections over Xbox Live. These sections need to be played on the same system.
Overall Beatles fans will really enjoy this game and it is a very good game. Non-Beatles fans should stay away.
Pros:
* Excellent music
* Dreamscapes and cut-scenes look amazing
* Three part vocal harmony sections
Cons:
* Fairly small track list(Bigger list after three DLC albums, but still not enough especially if they don't release the rest of the White Album.)
* Not for everyone
* No three part harmony sections over Xbox Live
Overall Score: * * * *
The Beatles Rock Band Review:
I?ve been playing quite a bit of The Beatles Rock Band lately and here are my thoughts on the game.
First things first, if you're not a fan of The Beatles you will not like this game. If you are a fan you should enjoy it very much. The game has a variety of modes like the other Rock Band games however the story mode in this game does not get progressively harder. Instead you follow the career of The Beatles from the Cavern Club all the way to their rooftop performance of the Apple Corps building. The songs also follow this chronological order so the difficulty tends to fluctuate quite a bit with some difficult songs at the beginning and some harder songs in the end and so on
The graphics are beautifully done and the cutscenes are amazing, especially the opening and closing cutscenes. The environments in each area are nice as well with the earlier levels featuring crazed Beatles fan girls screaming when they see The Beatles. The later stages take place it the Abbey Road studios and you get treated to beautiful dreamscapes for each song in these levels. These dreamscapes start a little after the song and usually follow the theme to the song. For example in Yellow Submarine you start the song and you see the Yellow Submarine floating around and you see The Beatles dressed in their clothing from the cartoon movie. In Sgt. Pepper?s Lonely Hearts Club band you see the band playing in their iconic band uniforms. These dreamscapes really add a lot to the game and capture the essence of the music in the later half of their career.
The rest of the gameplay is basically the same as any other Rock Band game. The only real new feature is the three part harmony sections. If you have the microphones available up to three people can sing in this game. One lead singer and then there are two harmony sections and then they come together in a three part harmony. This is definitely a nice feature. I hope to see it in future Rock Band games.
There are some nice unlockables as well including photographs, and videos.
The music in the game is great. I won?t go into detail on the songs since they are all Beatles songs.
Even though there are many high points in the game there are still some downsides. The main downside being there is only 45 songs included in the game. 45 songs is still a decent amount but considering a lot of them are fairly short you can complete the story mode in about four hours. DLC will fix this and give us more songs but the only DLC available as of now is the song All You Need Is Love. The remaining Abbey Road tracks are scheduled to be released in mid-October.
Another downside is that the three part harmony sections can?t be played over Xbox Live. It would have been a nide touch to be able to have three people come together in the vocal harmony sections over Xbox Live. These sections need to be played on the same system.
Overall Beatles fans will really enjoy this game and it is a very good game. Non-Beatles fans should stay away.
Pros:
* Excellent music
* Dreamscapes and cut-scenes look amazing
* Three part vocal harmony sections
Cons:
* Fairly small track list(Bigger list after three DLC albums, but still not enough especially if they don't release the rest of the White Album.)
* Not for everyone
* No three part harmony sections over Xbox Live
Overall Score: * * * *
