Xbox 360 - Rock Band Review

Rockband is a really fun game.  When I first heard about it, I figured it would be fun, but not for me.  My husband and I are both real-life musicians, so we thought the Guitar Hero games would be fun, turns out they were for him, but I just couldn't get the hang of them.  They were just too hard for me to enjoy.  I figured Rockband would end up the same way, fun for him, but I'd just get bored sitting around while he played.  Then I played the demo at the electronics store and was hooked immediately.  I just bought the whole system for myself. 

The really cool additions that Rockband has over Guitar Hero are the drums and the microphone.  The drums are AWESOME!  Super fun to play.  They feel a lot like a real drum kit.  You use real drumsticks.  There's a foot pedal on the floor like would be used as a kick drum pedal or high hat pedal.  There's four drum pads that would be like a snare, toms, and crash cymbal.  You can really get into a groove with the rhythm and have fun with it.  The game even has places where you improvise your own drum fills in the songs!

The microphone is a lot like karaoke.  You sing along into the mic while the lyrics scroll across the top or bottom of the screen, they are accompanied by lines indicating the proper pitch and length of the notes.  The mic senses if you're on time and on pitch.  If a song is normally out of your range, you can sing in another octave if you want, as long as your on the right note and right rhythm, your adaptation will score just the same.  It seems to be the simplest part to play.  If per chance you, or someone you have over, wants to play, but is having too tough a time with the drums or guitar, they can still have a blast with the singing part.

If you liked the way the guitar works on Guitar Hero, you'll like the way it works on Rockband.  Very similar.  Except the keys on the guitar that comes with Rockband are more flush with neck, so it feels a bit more realistic and is a bit easier to play, and there is a second set of keys that work like the set near the headstock futher down on the neck, so that if you want to a bit more realistic feel (or look, I suppose) while you're rocking out a solo that would be played down on that part of a real guitar, you can use those. 

The multi-player capability on Rockband is really great.  You can play by yourself and have a blast.  But you can play with up to 4 people all playing at once, one on guitar, one on bass (played on a guitar controller), one on vocals, and one on drums, or any other combination or number of people you'd like.  My hubby and I tend to play most with me on drums and him on guitar.  It offers each player the option of choosing the difficulty level they want to play at on every song.  Just because one person is skilled enough to play their part of the song on the hard level doesn't mean that everyone else has to struggle on the hard level with them or the skilled player has to be bored plodding along on a level that is beneath them.  Less seasoned players can set themselves on an easier level and the skilled player can put themselves on the challenging level.   We play a lot of the time with my hubby on hard and me on easy or medium.  Those kinds of options make the game really inclusive for everyone and would make it a fun party game.

You can play either solo or multiplayer in either quick-play mode or tour mode.  The quick play mode, you don't have to bother with customizing a character or anything, you just pick a song from the song list and jam out.  The tour mode is a "career" mode.  You customize your character's looks (and the options are really wide and interesting).  You start in a city, then move on to different venues and cities and play differnt songs and go on tour and make more money and such.  It's fun both ways.  I play a solo tour by myself.  I play in tour mode with my hubby.  If people come over to visit and want to play, we can just play in quick play mode. 

There's a wide range of songs on the game. It has songs from lots of different styles of rock from classic rock to new stuff, pop rock to punk rock to hard rock.  There's likely to be something in there for any rock fan.

The only drawbacks I've seen to the game are it's a bit pricey, it's a little big size-wise, and it's a little loud. 

 The game itself if you were to buy it alone is very much in line with other games (like 50 bucks or so), but the game alone will not give you the whole experience.  While you can play the microphone part with the headset that comes with the XBOX 360 if you wanted and you could play the guitar part with the controller for Guitar Hero, you're going to want to buy the whole set.  At least the drum kit.  I bought the "special edition" pack, the complete set with the game, the guitar, the drum and drumsticks, the microphone, and the USB hub to connect it all together.  It came out of the box with everything you need to rock out.  But it's expensive.  Like with the tax and everything was like 180 bucks.  I think it's got enough entertainment value to be worth it for us, but I can see how it could easily price itself out of range for a lot of people. 

The drum kit is a bit big sizewise.  So if you're pressed for space, it might be a bit of a hassle to leave it out all the time, or a hassle to put away after each time you play.  And there's a lot of cords going to all the components.

And it's not a quiet game to play.  If you are trying to play while others are trying to sleep or watch TV, etc, it may be a bit of a nuisance to them.  The sound being turned on the game is necessary.  The gameplay itself is loud.  You have to actually sing into the mic.  You can sing fairly quietly, but still, it's gonna be audible.  Most of all, the drums are a little loud.  Not anywhere near the loudness of a real drum kit, but you're still hitting the electronic pads with real drum sticks.  It's not loud enough to annoy the neighbors or anything, but it could be annoying to people in your household (or even an adjoining apartment possibly if your walls are thin enough).  They sell drum pad "silencers" separately, but I haven't personally tried them to see how well they work.

There is the option to download extra songs for the game from XBOX live for an extra price for each song.  I haven't beat the songs that are already on it,so I haven't tried buying any extras yet.  But I think that's a neat option.  It may be nearly 200 bucks to start with, but even when you beat all it has on it thoroughly, you can cheaply expand it and have new content to play. 

I highly recommend Rockband.