Score
Gameplay:	9
Graphics:	9
Sound:	10
FunFactor:	9
PlasmaFactor:	9
Overall:	9.2

Rock Band Review
December 31, 1969

The highly anticipated rock-your-brains-out, show stopping game has finally arrived and is sure to please. All those years of dreaming to rock out and play in a band have finally come to life, even though the crowd you play for is virtual. Nonetheless, Harmonix has really done it with the release of Rock Band. With a detailed, vibrant soundtrack, appealing stages, and in-depth customization of your rockers that you create, Rock Band has it all. Now, let's get down to business.

Ready to Rock! The Beat of the Game

The basic idea of the game is very similar to Guitar Hero. You have to hit the notes as they appear, use your star power for insane scores, please the fans, and board your way to super stardom. Hit consecutive notes for a score multiplier, and hit white notes to gain star power, that, when deployed, will increase your total score by up to 8x the points.

Choose your instrument from bass, guitar, vocals, or drums, create a rocker, and get on that stage! The Career mode, also called World Tour mode, of the game is bound to keep you hooked for hours. If you're playing solo, the World Tour mode is slightly different than if you're playing a multiplayer World Tour (known as the Band World Tour). In solo Would Tour, your success is based solely on how many points you gain by hitting consecutive notes in the song. In Band World Tour, your fame or “score” is based on how many fans you have. It's simple: the higher the score, the more fans you gain. You also get chances to do charitable events or special events where you can double your fans for no money, or gain extra money for less fans.

So, what's the money for? It's for the creative, appealing customization aspect of the game. After choosing your instrument, you are prompted to create a rocker. Start by choosing male or female, work on a name for your rocker, and get to the customization! Options range from head to toe, including hair and glasses, all the way down to your shoes. You can adjust the weight of your rocker, as well as the height, when you first create the rocker. If you're not happy with any of the hairstyles, facial hair, etc. that you chose for your rocker at creation, you can rack up some cash and edit it later in the Rock Shop. The Rock Shop let's you buy new clothing, or put on what you've unlocked from playing through World Tour.

The tattoo system is rather elaborate. There's a huge variety of designs and letters to choose from. You can adjust where on the body you want the tattoo, what color you want it, and what size you want it to be. You can have more than one design on a body part, so there's not much to worry about when it comes to limits. In conclusion, it's a great addition.

You can also add art to your rocker's face. There's a huge selection of paint and designs to decorate your rocker with. It adds on to the earrings, rings, glasses, tops, pants, shoes, facial hair, eye shadow, lipstick, and hair customization you can do. Now that you've made a rocker, you're ready to rock. Choose your own path and get to making those gold records.

The Guitar:

Perhaps the most popular of the instruments in Rock Band is the guitar. The guitar that comes with the game is much larger than the Guitar Hero guitars. Its strum is somewhat “softer” when used, but is still just as effective. Many people have had issues with the strum misfiring, however sending the guitar over to the manufacturers will get that fixed in just a short time.

In order to play the guitar, you hold down the fret color of the notes that are coming up, and strum when the notes hit the appropriate point. The Easy and Medium difficulties don't require you to use the 5^th orange fret, so it's pretty simple to catch onto those. However, Hard and Expert mode get tougher when they require you to hit the orange fret. The basic difference as you progress up the difficulties is that the rate at which you have to hit notes gets faster, since there are more notes to hit. It makes more sense acoustically so that by the time you hit Expert, you're hitting notes pretty much every time the guitarist in the song is hitting notes. Hit several notes in a row, and you start a score multiplier that will get your score all the way up to 4x the points for each note. Hit white notes to gain star power, and deploy it by tilting the guitar to get an even greater score multiplier.

It does not take much time to learn how to play the guitar in rock band. If you can get the hang of moving your finger to the 5^th orange fret, you're good to go. Other than that, strumming while holding down the notes is very simple and you'll probably grasp onto it within an hour of game play, if not less.

The Bass Guitar:

The bass guitar is essentially the same thing as the guitar. You use the same instrument for it and play it the same way. You can strum upward or downward, just like you can for the guitar. The main noticeable difference between the guitar and the bass guitar is that the bass guitar is significantly easier. There are a few songs where it's pretty tough, though, such as the Beastie Boys' Sabotage. It's a great way to progress your way slowly up the ladder so that you can learn to play the guitar better. It's better to begin learning to play the 5^th fret on the bass guitar, as it's much easier to play than the regular guitar, and will get you used to hitting the 5^th fret when needed.

One advantage of playing the bass guitar is that, instead of getting up to a 4x score multiplier, you can go up to 6x. When you enter a 5x multiplier, you'll enter what's called a “Bass Groove”.

There are two other main differences aside from the ease of the bass guitar from the guitar. The sound effects of the bass guitar are different when you reach bass groove or deploy your star power, ranging from the Wah-wah to the Chorus and beyond. Also, if you play the bass guitar on Expert and get a 100% score on a song strumming only upward, you get an achievement for it. The learning curve for the bass guitar is great and is easy to flow with, great for practice, and lots of fun.

The Drums:

My personal favorite instrument, the drums, is a great addition to the Rock Band package. It's a 4-piece drum set with a handy foot pedal. The drums are rather comfortable, with an adjustable array and plenty of adjustable height additions to it. The drums are played with actual drumsticks, and are easy to get started with. Easy mode starts with hardly any foot pedals and only a few notes here and there to get you to learn what colors match those on the screen. As you progress your way up to Expert mode, you have to become familiar with hitting the foot pedal at a different beat than your hands are moving. If you're a real drummer, that's no big issue. If you're not, it can take quite a while to get your movements acclimated. The star power in this case is deployed differently, since you obviously can't tilt your entire drum set. When you gain enough star power, a long streak of colorful lanes will come down, where you can play any notes you want (a “fill” if you know drumming terms), and if you hit the green note at the end, you'll trigger your star power.

Another big deal about playing Expert mode is that you actually play the same notes that the drummer did when they played the song, only on a 4 piece set. So, as you can imagine, it's pretty tough. Songs like Rush's Tom Sawyer and Iron Maiden's Run to the Hills definitely prove this.

The learning curve for the drums is a bit more difficult than the guitar. The foot pedal takes a while to get down, but once you get used to it, it's smooth sailing. Hitting consecutive notes, such as fast-paced hi-hats, for example, can be extremely tough to time, so that's another tough addition to the learning curve.

The Vocals:

The vocals are a blast; simply just loads of fun. Loudness doesn't really matter when you're singing, as long as the microphone can properly register your voice. It's all about pitch. Hitting the right pitch gets you the points you need. Hit them consecutively and you gain a score multiplier up to 4x, just like the guitar and drums. In addition to singing, there are also what the game calls “talky” parts. During these parts, your pitch or loudness don't matter, as long as you just say the words you're supposed to say that are provided for you throughout the whole song. There are also these parts during guitar solos where you hit the microphone like a tambourine. This tambourine part isn't necessary, but you can hit them for additional points. In songs like the Blue Öyster Cult's (Don't Fear) The Reaper, you can cure your fever by hitting the microphone like the Cowbell. Finally, the star power for the vocalist is initiated by yelling during a part where the background is yellow in your vocal area.

Absolutely anyone can do vocals on Easy mode. They're simple and fun. As they progress up to Expert, however, you have to be precise on pitch, which requires experience in singing. So the learning curve is pretty simple up until Medium, but gets much tougher from Medium to Hard and Expert.

Graphics

The graphics in Rock Band are sufficient for a game like this. You can see your band on stage with the crowd in the background as you rock out to the game’s wide variety of songs. You can also see the customizations you have done to your character such as their tattoos, hair style and clothes. In addition to this, the board glows and emits various colors as you gain multipliers or score a note dead on. The graphics are just about as good as you can get with what a person can only call a “band simulation game.”

Sound

Loud hard-rock lyrics, beautiful guitar solos, tantalizing drum solos, creative bass effects, and amazing, action-packed soundtracks all contribute to fantastic sound. Each note in the song can be heard crystal clear. The legendary rock tracks date back all the way to the 1960s and bring it to the 21^st century, featuring bands such as Sweet and Metallica, Flyleaf and OK Go!.

PlasmaFactor

The Marketplace on Xbox Live allows for the downloading of new songs to add to your Rock Band collection. Any song from the Halo theme to Freezepop to Smashing Pumpkins, it’s all there. This greatly increases the life of the game and adds a level of replay ability that is only limited by your bank account.

A Smashing Gig

Rock Band has come to be a great game. It's a must-have for people who love to have friends over and play party games. It contributes for hours and hours of nonstop fun and play. Though the World Tour modes can get somewhat repetitive, it's always fun to just hit the quick play and go through the song list, mastering your instruments, your talents, and scribing your very own Rock Band into music history!

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By: Mo Kazmi

Gameplay: 9 Graphics: 9 Sound: 10 Plasmafactor: 9 Value: 9  Overall: 9.4