Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

The Beatles: Rock Band

1. Official Site
2. Platform: 360
3. Publisher: Electronic Arts
4. Developer: Harmonix
5. Release Date: 09/09/09
6. Genre: Sim

by Ron Burke

When The Beatles: Rock Band was announced, I thought to myself, “I really don’t know a lot of Beatles tracks.”  There is no doubt that The Beatles are a massive part of the musical landscape, inspiring an incredible amount of artists the world over, but it was never really my musical preference.  After hearing my wife complain time and time again about the harmony problems in almost every music title on shelves, I wondered if it was possible for this title to even work technically.  I've probably played several hundred hours of music over the last few years, but I wasn’t looking forward to The Beatles: Rock Band. 

As I began to do a bit of research about The Beatles for this review, I realized what a perfect storm this game really and truly is.  The music and photos are owned by Apple Corp., the images and likenesses have to be approved by the living members as well as the families of those who have left us, music labels are involved, and there are enough lawyers present to fill a stadium - I’m sure nobody thought that this game would ever happen, but it has.  With my copy finally arriving on my desk, it was time to take a trip through history.

Kicking things off, there is an awesome animated sequence that gives a bit of an overview of the all-too-brief career of The Beatles, complete with psychedelic Blue Meanies and Yellow Submarines.  The animation was farmed to three outside companies outside of Harmonix named The Ebeling Group, MK12, and Passion Pictures (at least that’s what I can gather from  the end credits), and it is amazing.  Using line art rather than super-detailed CGI, those teams have fully captured the look and feel of the band perfectly.  This intro will make its way to the web in short order I imagine, so seek it out yourself even if you don’t plan to buy the game - it’s worth watching.

“And Your Bird Can Sing”

The game begins at the Cavern Club where the Fab Four play “I Saw Her Standing There,” “Twist and Shout,” “Do You Want to Know a Secret,” and “Boys.”  From there it’s off to the Ed Sullivan Theater for “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “A Hard Day’s Night,” and “I Wanna Be Your Man.”  Next on their tour of the world it’s a quick jaunt to Japan’s legendary Budokan for “Drive My Car,” “Day Tripper,” “Paperback Writer,” “Taxman,” “And Your Bird Can Sing.”  From there it just gets damned strange as the boys head to Abbey Road for their legendary recording sessions.  The team at Harmonix took some liberties to re-imagine these sessions with crazy dreamscape visions of the song content in “Yellow Submarine,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band / With a Little Help From My Friends,” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “Good Morning,” “I Am The Walrus,” “Hello, Goodbye,” “Hey Bulldog,” “Back In the USSR,” “Dear Prudence,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Helter Skelter,” “Revolution,” “Birthday,” “Octopus’s Garden,” “Something,” “Come Together,” and “Here Comes the Sun.”  At the end of this legendary session, the boys come back to Earth for their final performance - this time on the roof of Apple Corp.  They perform “Dig a Pony,” “Get Back,” “Don’t Let Me Down,” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” and “I Me Mine.”  It’s not done yet though…the final (and up until now, unrevealed) encore is “The End,” naturally.   If those 45 legendary tracks aren’t enough to sate your Beatles fix, starting on October 20th of this year, you’ll also be able to download the entirety of the 1969 album Abbey Road.  While some tracks repeat, you’ll pick up “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” “Oh! Darling,” “Because,” “You Never Give Me Your Money,” “Sun King,” “Mean Mr. Mustard,” “Polythene Pam,” “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window,” “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight,” and the B-Side 16 minute medley from that album as a single continuous track.  Shortly after that you can pick up the Rubber Soul album in December.  This means “Drive My Car,” “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown),”  “You Won’t See Me,” “Nowhere Man,” “Think For Yourself,” “The Word,” “Michelle,” “What Goes On,” “Girl,” “I’m Looking Through You,” “In My Life,” “Wait,” “If I Needed Someone,” and “Run For Your Life.”  That’s an absolute ton of Beatles tracks, but this next one is very important - on September 9th you’ll be able to download “All You Need Is Love” for $1.99, with ALL proceeds benefiting the Doctors Without Borders charity. 

Unlike any other single-band music titles, this game doesn’t feature any tracks from any other bands.  It is pure fan service for Beatlemaniacs using all completely remastered tracks from their original recordings, but there is a lot more to it than that.

One of the most daunting tasks facing Harmonix was bringing the Fab Four to life in a way that not only passed the review of the families and members, but was realistic enough to please fans that have watched their legendary performances time and time again without approaching the Uncanny Valley level of spookiness.  Continuing with a more cartoony look first presented in original Rock Band title, Harmonix used motion capture (obviously with stand-ins) and a great deal of photographic and video footage of the group to create a very stylized but completely believable representation of the band.  Seeking out some of the reference material, or watching the performances as they unlock as bonus materials was simply amazing - the art team has completely captured not only the band and their distinct look and movements, but also the locations in their entirety.  The Ed Sullivan theater looks exactly as it did when the group sang “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” so many years ago.  John Lennon and George Harrison would have been proud of this game - Ringo Starr, Sir Paul McCartney, Dhani Harrison, Giles Martin (son of The Beatles’ producer George Martin), and even legendarily difficult Yoko Ono made sure of that. 

Coo Coo Career Mode

The gameplay is split up in a very similar fashion to that of Rock Band and Rock Band 2.  There is a quickplay mode that allows you to play any of the tracks on the disc at will either as a band or in competitive modes like Tug of War and Score Duel.  Training modes give you access to Beatle Beats - a mode that lets you practice the styling of Ringo Starr’s drum beats.  There is also a Vocal Practice Mode in the game that lets you practice the completely new three part harmony - a first in the music genre.  The real gem, however, is the Story Mode.  

In Story Mode you’ll play through the Beatle experience as it happened from 1963 to 1969.  This includes the aforementioned Cavern Club, Ed Sullivan Theater, the Abbey Road recording sessions, and a performance on the Apple Corporate office.  Picking up three stars on the song unlocks a picture from that era, courtesy of the extensive Apple shareholder archives, whereas hitting five stars (unleashing “Beatlemania”, referred to as “Overdrive Mode” in Rock Band and Rock Band 2 helps with this task) unlocks an additional photo.  Completing a section unlocks a challenge in the Chapter Challenge mode.  These Chapter Challenges usually ask you to complete a sequence of songs right in a row.  There are eight more photos available in this mode - a pretty small reward for essentially playing through the entire game all over again.

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

There are a few gameplay changes in addition the new three part harmony modes present in The Beatles: Rock Band.  First and foremost, and likely done to try to pull in as many new fans as possible, the game is far easier than any music title to date.  You can still chose Easy, Medium, Hard, or Expert, but on our first run through the game we five starred all but three songs on our first attempt with the hard difficulty selected.  The second big change is likely due to the wide influence of the many folks involved in this project - drum fills have been removed from the game (you just get a larger green note to set off Beatlemania), and the whammy bar doesn’t affect the sound of sustained notes.  I’m sure this was done to preserve the signature sound of the songs in the game, but it makes an already easy drum run a little less compelling.  As it stands, it doesn’t seem like Ringo really picked up more than a snare, high-hat, crash, and a single tom until “Back in the USSR.”  After that song, the drum beats get interesting - Helter Skelter (I’ve got blisters on my fingers!) being the best of them.  Again, no doubt to attract new players, when you select the easy mode, no-fail mode is automatically activated.  

A few feature location shuffles add to the overall usability of the game.  You’ll select your difficulty level before each song, but you can also flip lefty / righty mode by simply hitting the back button before you kick off the track.  This is a welcome change as I can’t count the amount of times that we’ve had to interrupt a track to change lefty for the left handed folks at our parties. 

The Beatles sang that they get by with a little help from their friends - The Beatles: Rock Band expands on the traditional four player model to allow up to six players.  You get the drums, bass, guitar, and then all three singers take up a single slot to allow for the new three part harmony.  Obviously it’s somewhat difficult to get one singer in the group, so it’s just that much more difficult to get three.  The harmony system works exactly as advertised, but the question will be how familiar and proficient you and your friends are in handling those harmonies.  Again, the penalty doesn’t seem to punish players too much for  missing those harmonies so you can feel free to murder these classic tracks - I’ll recommend the harmony tutorial for new players as they may know the song, but they probably aren’t hitting the harmonies when they sing it in the shower.  This technology was likely very difficult to perfect, so I suspect we might see it in the eventual release of Rock Band 3.  Well done Harmonix!

The End

Clearly, with two albums already announced for DLC, this review is NOT the end for The Beatles: Rock Band.  On the disc are the aforementioned 45 tracks, with Abbey Road and Rubber Soul already headed our way this year.  If you are a hardcore Beatles fan, then I’m sure you’ve already got the Collector’s Edition pre-ordered (it comes with a mic stand, a mic, Sir Paul McCartney’s Rickenbacker 325 Guitar, George Harrison’s Gretsch Duo Jet guitar, a Höfner Violin Bass, and a Ludwig Pearl Finish drum set for the Ringo in your group, but sadly I didn‘t get them to test).  If you are more a fan of music titles than the Fab Four, then you might be disappointed in the shorter songs and roughly half the songs you’d normally expect for the price.  Any way you slice it though, this is good music that folks from almost any generation can relate to - I can’t think of a single band that has ever pulled that off, or ever will again. 

The Online modes in Rock Band and Rock Band 2 work well, so I suspect we’ll see the same results from The Beatles: Rock Band.  Unfortunately there is a day 1 patch for the game or some other technical reason preventing us from testing this until the launch date of 9/9/09.

At the end of my review I find myself surprised at how many Beatles tracks I really do know.   While I don’t own a single Beatles album personally, I have to say that I might just have to pick up a few individual tracks now.  I wouldn’t say that this title has made me a Beatles fan per se, but it does exactly what Apple and the folks at Harmonix hoped to accomplish - it’s introduced me to the world of The Beatles - we’ll see if it grows on me.   I just know I can’t get The Walrus out of my head…Coo Coo Ca Choo!

Gaming Trend Score

89

1. Graphics: 95
2. Audio: 95
3. Controls: 90
4. Gameplay: 85
5. Value/Replay: 85
6. OVERALL:89