Game: The Beatles: RockBand
Publisher: EA/Harmonix
Platform: PS3, XBox 360, Wii
Price: $249 Special Edition, $59.99 Game only
Pro: Remastered music, loving attention to detail, music and Beatles geek approved, 3-part harmonies
Con: A bit spendy, no keyboards, not enough tracks to satisfy me fully
If you’ve read any of my reviews in the past year or so, you know this isn’t going to be the standard affair. I’m a proponent of writing to help players experience the game through my own eyes and hands, to help them decide whether or not this game will be one they wish to purchase, while hopefully discussing a given game with respect to the cultural phenomenon that console and PC gaming has become. In that spirit, let me cut to the chase right here and now: this is hands down the best music game I have ever played. As a music game fan, I must also say that this is the best video game I have ever played. I highly recommend you go out, right now, and purchase at least the game disc, if not the special edition itself. A game for all ages, musical tastes, and ability levels, The Beatles: Rockband is destined to sell consoles and peripherals like no other game before it. It is perfectly suited to the band metaphor of the RockBand franchise, and the addition of a 3 microphone harmony capabilities takes this concept to a whole new level. This is the must-buy game of the year.
There is no better way to play through this game than with a room full of singers and non-singers, gamers and non-gamers, to truly see the power of both the music-game genre and of The Beatles themselves. So, that’s exactly what I did this weekend, inviting over many friends and friends of friends to try out this new release from EA, Harmonix, and, in a move surprising to some, Apple Corps, publishers of The Beatles music and legacy for going on 45 years.
Notice the first part of the title of this game: The Beatles. This is very much a Beatles game first and foremost. From the graphic design to the menus to the small touches added throughout the game, it is clear that the developers have a pure love for the greatest rock band in the world. The love shown to John, Paul, George and Ringo is evident in every moment of this well crafted and gloriously reverent Rockband game, and shines forth with every subtle detail, from studio commentary to unlockable content to the re-mastered music itself.
Retailing for $249, the Special Edition comes with a signature replica Hohner Bass made famous by Paul McCartney as well as the signature Ludwig-branded pearlescent finish drums inspired by the ones used by Ringo Starr. It also includes a microphone and stand, and “additional special content.” Players can also purchase a replica Gretch or Rickenbacker guitar controller separately for $99.00 US. After playing through the game with a hodgepodge of Rockband 1 and 2 guitars and drums along with 3 different USB microphones, I would probably lay out the cash for the replicas, as a true Beatles fan. These things look sweet.
I had the opportunity to play the PS3 version of the game, which should be the same in content as the 360 and Wii versions. I played it in 720P high definition resolution and amazing sound through a 42″ LCD TV. It looks and sounds brilliant, and made my inner audiophile and music geek thrill to the remastered tracks, 45 in all with more able to be downloaded in the future, and the incredible cleanliness of the performances. These are the original Abbey Road recording tapes, remastered and remixed to provide the most stunning true-to-life sounding songs I’ve heard from the Beatles ever. Every nuance of the vocal and musical performance is there for a discerning ear to hear. It’s like re-experiencing the music you’ve grown to love all over again.
The 45 songs that comprise the music tracks for The Beatles: Rockband span the entire career of this one of a kind band, and are presented in a Story mode split into individual Chapters. Chapter one is The Cavern, a seminal venue for early Beatles performances, follows them through the Ed Sullivan Show, their final concerts at Shea Stadium and Budokan, and then follows them into the Abbey Road recording studio right up to the rooftop concert for Let It Be. Each chapter gets its own animated cutscene, lovingly animated with period graphics and images from The Beatles’ decade long career. Take a moment, won’t you, to peruse the videos and look at the backgrounds. Note the clever Beatles humor, the attention to detail, the words on signs and marquees everywhere. You’ll be stunned with the detail, care and thoroughness that’s brought to every frame.
Popping in the disk in front of a roomful of people, the intro movie brought tears to some folks’ eyes, and oohs and ahhs from others. We had a room full of people who were not alove when the Beatles were performing or active as a band, and still the nostalgia was thick. THese are the songs that fueled many of our childhoods and young adulthoods. These songs helped me appreciate music as I was learning to play the guitar and sing in bands of my own. The Beatles defined a generation, yes, but also left long-lasting ripple effects that crosses generations. The Story mode allows players to experience what it might have been like to experience this amazing quartet, perhaps even to BE them across live venues and in the studio.
All the songs begin and end with an animated sequence showing the band preparing to play the song, whether it be in the confined spaces of the Cavern from 1963 or the Abbey Road recording studio in the later parts of the decade. In the Abbey Road chapters, The Beatles begin sitting around the studio, playing their respective instruments, and then, as the music begins, the scene shifts to what the game developers call Dreamscapes. These are cleverly animated scenes that fit the psychadelic music of the period, with Seargent Pepper band outfits and I-Am-The-Walrus suits galore. Fascinatingly, many of what I took to be imaginative animations seem to be in fact inspired by actual photos and movies from The Beatles more out-there periods.The never-before heard studio chatter gave me many a shivery, goose-bumped moment as I heard these legends, these icons, mess around in the studio much like any other musician has down through the years. It’s quite an accomplishment, in my book.
As you play, you earn stars. The more stars per song you earn, the more photos are unlocked. Unlocking Photos gives you two benefits: you get to see and read about seminal moments in The Beatles’ musical history as well as collect photos for special “prizes.” These are such things as an audio recording of one of the Christmas records The Beatles recorded, played over a slow scan of the letter sent to official fan club members in the 1960s. There’s a rehearsal of I Want to Hold Your HAnd from the Ed Sullivan show, where I was stunned and laughingly amazed to watch The Beatles not-quite hit all the notes perfectly, John and Paul sweat profusely, and George suddenly remember to smile as he concentrates so hard on playing the right guitar part. It’s a wonderful surprise, and more than enough incentive for me to keep going back to songs and ensuring I earn 5 stars on each. Other prizes include outtakes from The Fab Four’s first US visit documentary as well as some Shea Stadium footage. What seems standard, even quaint, now as the age of arena rock has come and gone looms large as you realize that these guys did it first.
Earning those stars and prizes is both a challenge and a thrill. Talented Rockband and Guitar Hero players who ace all the modern hits in the current crop of musical rhythm games are going to have to learn some new styles and sounds in order to beat this game on expert. These are consummate musicians, at the top of their game throughout. Songs you thought you knew well will surprise and delight with the subtle reality of their performance. I played through the entire story mode on drums, having become a recent RockBand 1&2 drummer aficionado. Ringo has always been my least favorite Beatle, but his drumming style is so crisp, clean and subtle, that I’ve become a huge fan of him as a musician just from playing through the 45 songs on board. To be able to learn his early drum beats, and see how he carried them through his entire career, improving and using them in new and innovative ways will be a joy for any amateur musician or Beatles fan. Working out the guitar parts is less specific, as the performance tracks mix both John and George’s guitar parts into th mix, but it’s always clear who is playing what in the animations behind. Singing works the same way, as well, and I found out that George sings “Do You Want To Know A Secret?” and it’s Ringo, not John as I had assumed throughout my whole adult life, that screams out, “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!” at the end of Revolution. These kinds of things are what make this game shine: specific, beautiful, brilliant moments of Beatles scholarship and musical bliss.
Let’s talk vocals a little bit more. New to the play mechanics is a 3-part harmony system, allowing up to three USB microphones to be connected and encouraging players to hit all the famous Beatles harmonies together. There’s nothing better than singing with other people and creating chords with sung voices. The three microphones are all controlled with the one hand held controller, so there’s no extra confusion for new players. Simply select solo or harmony vocals, and the game seamlessly allows all thre microphones to chime in at the same time, with different looking cursors to help visually maintain pitch. The in-game menus also visually cue folks as to whether there are 1, 2 or 3 vocal parts to sing in each song. The power of this music is in the solid vocal performances, and this ability to learn and reproduce brilliant and close harmony in The Beatles’ signature style is a delight. We sang through Here Comes The Sun, Paperback Writer, I Want to Hold Your Hand, and countless others that we all heard since we were children. It was a moving, empowering, gorgeous experience that really brought home the immense power of this genre of video games. Learning the harmonies, singing them with other real living human beings in the same room is unique to all musical performance that I can think of. The human voice is a many timbred thing and the mixing of it in joyful noise is, dare I say it, a spiritual experience. Kudos to Harmonix and EA for enabling that kind of interaction in this game.
I’ve done nothing but effuse about this game, and I suppose to fully critique it, I do need to mention the couple of not-quite-perfect moments. What stood out to me most was the lack of keyboards as a peripheral. Many Beatles hits include piano or organ and it felt like a fairly obvious omission to not have the focus on these musical parts. I realize that this is a failing of the current genre itself (how do you limit a piano keyboard to just five buttons), but it felt especially jarring here, especially during the rooftop Let It Be chapter, where Billy Preston, noted even in the photo prize for the particular chapter as the only non-Beatle to get a musician credit on a Beatles album, isn’t anywhere to be found onstage during the famous rooftop session. Only a lonely, player-less organ sits onscreen where he did in reality. I understand wanting to put the focus of the music on the Fab Four, but this just felt wrong in a game so dedicated otherwise to accuracy and historical fact.
The only other sad thing, for me, was a 45 song limit. Yes, we’ll get the full Abbey Road album for download on release day (TODAY!), and yes, there’ll be DLC galore in the future, but where’s Michelle? Yesterday? Julia? So many songs were not included that seemed ot be as great and as popular as the ones that are on disk. It would even be ok to make them exclusive free content to Special Edition purchasers, or pre-order buyers, or the like, then as paid-downloads at launch.
Really, these are minor quibbles for a game that shows such sheer awesomeness and beauty in it’s development and presentation. I know for a fact that we sold three consoles to folks that came to our house this past weekend. One such sale will be going to my friends’ mother and father, along with a copy of the game. The Beatles: RockBand will sell consoles and games to people who have never ever conisdered owning or playing a video game. To sing along with John, Paul, George, and yes, even Ringo will be such a powerful draw to folks of my parent’s generation, who lived the history onscreen, that they will go and buy PS3s, XBoxes, and (most often, in all reality) Wii’s just to be able to have this experience.
Please go and get this game. You owe it to yourself and your parents and your children to share this music and this game genre with them. I can think of no finer band to become the first and maybe only video game in households across the world than The Beatles, and no better franchise to carry it forward than RockBand.
The group of individuals who came to my house this past Labor Day all had different abilities, talent, and comfort with video gaming. All of them left praising the game, the activity, and The Beatles music itself, feeling happy and invigorated and musical. What more can you ask for from ANY kind of experience in life, let alone a video game?
Popularity: unranked [?]
2 comments