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How do you make the best rhythm based music game even better ? Add the greatest band to ever grace the planet thats how !
EA and Harmonix's team up with Apple corps who have been really protective of the Beatles songs to date.(you still cant even download them online !!) To take the next big step, taking the Beatles into the new age of music entertainment. But the over protectiveness of Apple does show when you get into the game there is no freedom to change the songs in any way. The drum rock outs to initiate star power are gone instead just a single green note is in its place. Playing any notes before the song starts results in silence rather than you adding your own style to the song. The guitar solo's don't change if you flick the reverb switch and even the wammy bar doesn't seem to do anything.This all stinks of an over baring rights owner unsure of a new technology. But who am i to be messing with perfection in the first place!.
While Guitar Hero went for the corporate sell outs Metalica, the very poor Aerosmith, the next sure to flop band based game Val Halen along with the terrible Guitar hero world tour and the shameless money grabbing greatest hits. Rock band continue on from the success of Rock band 2 by making sure they went and got the best band out there, despite the constraints they where obviously under they have made a very enjoyable game that looks amazing and is very hard not to fall in love with its overall look and feel.
Straight away you will notice that this looks quite different from previous rock band games the look to the game is complementary to the Beatles style with bright colours and weird costumes. The Story mode starts off in 1963 in the Cavern club in Liverpool. Then to the USA and the Ed Sullivan show in 1964 on to Shea stadium when Beatlemania took over and on to the studio albums. It plays right through their career. Every venue is very different the costumes the fans all change to match the styles of the day Along with the screaming girls you can see guys blocking their ears as the screams reach a ridiculous level. In between each section there is a little intro that is quite fun to watch.
The core of the game is still the same you strum/hit/sing at the correct time. The characters are much more cartoon like than before but are beautifully rendered and turn out to be very good likenesses. The coloured notes are much brighter in fact the whole game is far more psychedelic but that is to be expected.
The disk comes with 45 tracks all ready on it and further tracks are due for release as DLC full albums or single tracks will be made available. It was never going to be cheap to get the Beatles to sign up and it shows. For a premium priced game its quite short. You can get through the story mode quite quickly 3-4 hours depending on how many tracks you replay. That is quite short but it will offer endless replay value.
Failing to allow you to import the songs into Rock band 2 or vice versa is a let down, not being able to rock out during songs takes from the game a little too. As a stand alone game its quite pricey for what you get if you choose to go and shell out for the full band pack of 3 guitars, drums and even 3 mic's to get the full experience you will be a little let down to say the least i think.
No matter how good they look and they do look pretty nice alright.
All this is forgotten though as you get stuck into the game the songs are all brilliant which does justify the price a little there isn't a song you will hate playing, plenty of other songs have been held back too and should be released in the coming weeks to extent its lifespan. It will take a lot longer to get bored of these songs than on the other rock band games.
Overall despite its price tag its a really enjoyable romp and an absolute must for any fan of music based games or just music in general.
SCORE : 91%
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