The Beatles: Rock Band Review

Well it was bound to happen, Rock Band had to step into the band specific release realm sooner or later and since I don’t count the ACDC track pack, The Beatles Rock Band is the what we get. The great thing is that with the fab four at your side you simply can’t go wrong.  The Beatles’ music is timeless and will live much longer than the Beatles themselves and probably you and I both.  So, for The Beatles to associate themselves with what some people would call the music game “fad” may seem weird at first.

I am here to ease your worries.  The music fits the Rock Band formula pretty well and on most songs is tons of fun.  What was promised last year when this title was announced was a completely new Beatles music experience, however I can’t really say that it delivered on that promise.  This game is very much a Rock Band game.  You hit the notes on the corresponding tracks with whatever instrument you have chosen to wield.  It’s got a Overdrive (curiously called Beatlemania), designated guitar solos and similar fake plastic instruments.  I can’t fault Harmonix for sticking to the formula.  It works, and the little tweaks here and there add enough to set it appart from the landmark Rock Band 2.

The first thing that is very apparant about The Beatles Rock Band is that none of the visuals of Rock Band 2 have been carried over.  Everything from the character models to the strike line have been rebuilt.  Where previous Rock Band games were dark, The Beatles: Rock Band has a very bright color palette and vivid visuals. Other small changes that have been made are the inability to play drum fills before activating Beatlemania and the removal of freestyle drumming before and after all songs.  I’m sure this was done at the request of Apple Corps, in an effort to preserve the integrity of the tunes themselves, but the exclusion of these features is definitely weird.

The biggest and most effective change added to The Beatles: Rock Band is three part harmonies.  As everyone knows much of The Beatles tracks have three distinct vocal tracks, usually John, Paul and George.  With three mic support, the game maps out the three vocal parts to the same scrolling vocal track running across the top of the screen.  Two of the tracks are non-destructive; which means if the backup singer is failing his or her vocal parts, the main player doesn’t fail the song.  However, when sang properly your score will skyrocket.

This mechanic really adds two major things to the end product.  Firstly, 6 Players can now play simultaneously, making Rock Band parties much more inclusionary and secondly a new level of complexity is present in the vocal mechanics that could take a threesome of singers months to perfect.

Since vocals are usually the throwaway instrument in Rock Band, providing a compelling reason to pick up the mic is always challenging, but with music as recognizable as The Beatles and a new “everyone sings” attitude, it’s hard to not set up the mic stand and try to do double duty on two different instruments simultaneously.

With that said, I think we should move on to the track list.  There are dozens of bodafide classics in The Beatles: Rock Band.  Tracks like Revolution, Get Back, Yellow Submarine, Come Together, I Saw Her Standing There, With a Little Help From My Friends, Eight Days a Week, Helter Skelter, A Hard Day’s Night, and Day Tripper round out an acceptable set list, but what’s surprising are some of the songs that were omitted.

I would have loved to see about 10-20 more songs added and maybe even a few of the flat tracks removed from the game.  Songs like Let it Be, All You Need is Love, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, Eleanor Rigby, Help!, Yesterday, Love Me Do, She Loves You, We Can Work It Out, and Across the Universe are sorely missed from the game.  Obviously some of these may not fit the format, I.E. Guitar, Bass, Vocal, and Drums, and others may end up being a DLC, but not having Let It Be, and Yesterday should be a crime.  Overall the tracks are mostly solid, but a game with 45 songs in a world where 80+ songs is the new standard, seems a quite weak, especially when you consider the inclusion of the cringe-worthy Octopus’ Garden.

Career mode is a straight forward Guitar Hero 1 setup that has you playing through significant venues in The Beatles history.  The later venues are in the Abbey Road Studios and include videos called dreamscapes, instead of stage performances.  They are intriguing at first and will catch your eye very quickly, but I found myself ignoring them after the first play through.  Unlike RB2 where the challenges were interesting and intuitive, I haven’t seen any signs of challenges that are outside of the standard set list.  What I would have liked to see is challenges based on singer, or album.  Like, all Abbey Road songs, or, all Ringo Star songs.  This feature may pop up later after heavy game play and more DLC, but with an initial list of challenges that is identical to the story mode, I was very underwhelmed by a feature that I loved in the previous RB game.

The production value is high and the attention to detail is remarkable.  Beatles fans will be blown away by the visuals and tribute-like setup of the story mode and the unlockable photos are both candid and eye-popping.  Apple Corps and Harmonix have reputations of maintaining high quality products and the level of polish on this game is extremely representative of both brands.

The new instruments are beautiful, but it’s obvious that they were created to try and recoup a lot of licensing costs.  The two stand alone guitars retail for $100 and the game bundle is $250, so to completely Beatle-out your Rock Band Setup, you’ll have drop $450.  An alternate bundle is available for $150, but it includes the vastly inferior Rock Band 1 instruments.  $100 is TOO much for a fake plastic guitar.

In the end, if you like The Beatles and you dig Rock Band this is a must buy.  However, if you aren’t familiar with The Beatles and don’t have the compulsion to buy all things Rock Band, I would stay away from this one.  As for non-gamers that want to pick up “that Beatles game they saw on QVC and VH1” you may find a fantastic game genre beneath the music that you love or you will wonder why The Beatles put their name on such a weird product.  Does it have problems, yes, is it a value, no.  Is it worth it, probably, but before you buy you should know what you are getting yourself into.

[3.5/5.0 Stars]