Beatles Rock Band

Rock Band, Guitar Hero and variations on the same theme really are dominating the games market at the moment. With shops trying to convince us to start our Christmas shopping early, retailers and television advertisements alike are crammed to the brim with new titles, covering every (mainstream and extremely popular) genre from hip hop to pop. Slightly less popular genres are, of course, thoroughly ignored, or else tacked onto the end of a genre-spanning game like Guitar Hero 5, whose range of music is so diverse it’s likely not to satisfy anyone. So while Guitar Hero is spreading a thin net over the entire rock and metal scene, Rock Band is cherry picking from one of rock’s most fruitful trees. It’s an idea that Guitar Hero had already toyed with their Metallica and Aerosmith titles, but Rock Band have clearly trumped them, becoming one of the fasting selling games of all time, not necessarily because it’s a better game but because, quite simply, people like the Beatles.

That’s all there is to it, to be honest. The gameplay is almost identical to previous Guitar Hero and Rock Band games, save for perhaps a few more unlockable items (in the form of photos, videos and tracks concerning the band’s career). Guitar Hero’s “Star Power” is replaced by “Beatle Mania” but it works in the same way and the system for the star ratings is easier to see but exposes itself as being as flawed as the points system (the cumulative multipliers still ensure that you’re more likely to score highly if you cock up in earlier in a song than later). The graphics are a little improved, with enough detailing on the band’s faces to see who’s who in an endearingly stylised way with some nice changes over time as they age, and there are some fabulous cut scenes and psychedelic backgrounds to ensure the visuals maintain the same charm as the music. In fact sometimes the visuals are too much: one can’t very easily play and watch the pretty pictures at the same time, but presumably these are added more for the game’s capacity as a party game than for solo enjoyment, giving others in the room something to watch. The resulting experience is a little bit like playing through both the “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Yellow Submarine” films but without the humour, sometimes leaving me pining for the films themselves.