The Beatles: Rockband (PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii)

MTV’s Rockband series has been a great success and on the 9^th September 2009 (09/09/09), also known as Beatles Day (by me :-D) was the day the game was released alongside a first ever remastered box set of all of The Beatles music available in two flavours, mono and stereo. And like the two different versions of the box set, The Beatles: Rockband comes in a proper set with replica guitars from John and George (two guitars) and Paul (bass) with a not so much of a replica drum set and of course the game it self. You could also purchase the entire standard Rockband kit with the game. Both of which come with a mic, although only the replica set comes with a mic stand.

The kits are priced all over the place: PS3 is £175 and 360/Wii £120 for the Premium Bundle and £80, £90 and £95 respectively for PS3, 360 and Wii Special Value Edition. Although elsewhere in Europe they can be as much as €350 (£309) for the PS3 and even €515 (£454) for the 360 version! It is by far a cheap game to own.

The game it self has decent, if not slightly cartoony graphics which takes you through the stages of The Beatles career and the venues they have played at, starting in The Cavern, Liverpool and finishing in Abbey Road studios. The standard music collection the disc is broad enough to cover all of the albums they had released and with the DLC (downloadable content) now available you can get more albums such as Rubber Soul, the entire Abbey Road album and Sgt. Pepper’s.

The added features in the new instruments allow you to sync your TV and sound system exactly, as the instruments now have built in light sensors and mics to detect the funny sounds and quite literally blinding light for the light sensor, honestly I couldn’t play for a couple of minutes due to my retinas being burnt. The layout on screen with the three sets of notes whizzing down the screen and vocals on top has not changed from the original Rockband game, although for over drive on drums you only need to hit the green note and not build up to it.

The online multiplayer is pretty good and testing this out using the PSN (PlayStation Network) at different times of the day (and night…) I had always found other people online playing it, and never experienced any sort of lag or cut offs during game time. Offline multiplayer though is much better. You can now have up to 6 or 7 players (3 on instruments and 3 or 4 on mics) playing which is an sure way of earning trophies if you are a trophy collector.

Closing comments

All in all the game is very good, although the drums can get pretty annoying because of the noise it makes when you hit the plastic/rubber pads which limits you to really only playing it in the day and the DLC is released often enough to keep you going on the game. Although personally I prefer the music in the game much more than the game it self, which is why I tend to play this more than Rockband 2 as some of the music in that is, well put simply, rubbish and not nice to listen to - but thats another matter.

Video - http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com/videos/cinematic

By Carlos