Howlsthunder:
#the_beatles_rock_band I am not a big Beatles fan - but a friend of mine is. Through her I've been able to play The Beatles: Rock Band on my Wii with my Rock Band 2 peripherals. Everything worked fine.
The first thing I noticed were the graphics - a lot of work went into this game, especially the end sequence once you finish the story mode, in which you play every song on the disc while following along on a bit of history on the Beatles. Playing with an HDMI setup really makes a difference on this game. There is SO much eye candy that at times the Wii felt a tad bit bogged down; this may not occur with other consoles - I don't know.
The next thing I noticed was in the gameplay itself.
To start, I'm a big Rock Band 2 player and for most songs I play on at *least* the "hard" setting. That said I found the entirety of The Beatles: Rock Band to be way too easy. Generally for me, the trickiest thing (and thus the most satisfying) is playing drums but they were very basic here. I mean, Ringo wasn't any Mickey Hart or Neil Peart so it's not like the game designers could make it any harder, its just how the music is. The guitar is a bit trickier but again nothing threw me for a loop. The bass is more interesting than average, though, which was nice but not enough to be a saving grace.
Where Beatles: Rock Band really shined for me was in the ability to have multiple vocalists performing harmonies. After my first go-round with the game (and without a second mic) I was prepared to give the game the thumbs-down. But on our second session we had two mics available and it was a blast! Each vocal part is given a different color so as to differentiate when each person should be singing. Blue is the main line, orange is the 2nd harmony, and brown is the 3rd. Bonus points are gained when each person sticks to their own part and sings it correctly. All-told, this means up to 6 individual players can be playing at a time (depending if the song has harmony parts) or, with the aid of a mic stand (included in the Bundle), players can play an instrument and sing at the same time.
Besides the hefty graphics, I think having multiple vocal parts makes each song take up more file space than standard Rock Band songs, hence the substantially shorter selection of songs included on the game disc and the varying prices of downloadable songs ($1 to $3 US).
There are a few other gameplay tweaks. One that I hope carries over to future Rock Band incarnations is the doing-away of the drum fill prior to activating star power (or in this case, "Beatlemania"). It is possible for a Rock Band player to be competent enough to keep up a suitable rhythm during fills but I find it jarring and, unless there's an actual random fill happening, it throws off the realism of the song. Instead, the lone green block will appear and you have the option of hitting it or not to activate Beatlemania. Nice.
Another tweak is that there is no more tambourine. Of course, there are a lot more vocals going on in Beatles songs, thus less room for one to HAVE a tambourine going, but, true to the band itself, everyone was too busy playing an instrument to be playing a tambourine. Not that I hate tambourine, in RB2 it just meant you can't really play an instrument AND sing at the same time without vocally making some stupid noise to activate the tambourine hits.
I don't have much of an opinion one way or the other on the unlockable content and achievements. I think the unlockables are probably fun for Beatles fans and the achievements encourage replay but on the Wii, achievements feel hollow since there's no way to connect to an online community to show them off. ;) YMMV.
I haven't played nor seen in person the Beatles-themed peripherals for this game so I don't have any comment on them.
For me, I'm content to have played this on occasion. I feel no desire to buy the game though I hope future Rock Band games incorporate some elements from this incarnation.
Dec 12, 09
