Saturday, June 6, 2009

The Beatles Beat All Music Games

E3 2009 is over and Harmonix brought their "A" game to the convention with The Beatles: Rock Band. From what I've heard, the best word to describe it is "wow."

I'm not a huge Beatles fan but slowly over time I've grown to enjoy certain songs and have recently found myself listening to "The White Album" and appreciating it (I've even taken a chance to learn "Rocky Raccoon"). So the fact that I'm excited about this game is still unusual but I can honestly say that I am.

First off, the most exciting thing for me is the inclusion of vocal harmony. Since a lot of their songs included them, it only makes sense to work them into the game. The best part will be finding friends who will be up for singing them with you especially since, and I'm guessing here, the vocals will probably be the hardest instrument overall. Of course, this will depend on the song but I'm pretty certain it'll be harder to harmonize vocals on "Day Tripper" than playing the instruments. Also, you'll get bonuses for stringing combos on vocals. This feature alone is worth the purchase.

The game follows every musical step of the band from the clubs to performing for crazed, screaming teenage girls to headlining stadiums to performing on a rooftop. Also, you'll get to perform the songs as they're being recorded at Abbey Road. It's like Guitar Hero: Metallica but going to 11. Not only will the music progress, the look of the band, obviously, will change as well. You will grow a beard and wear tinted glasses. Your hair will become longer. I'm not sure if Eric Clapton stealing your woman, your bandmates having a problem with Yoko Ono and Michael Jackson buying all of your songs are included in the game but given that it has everything else, I wouldn't be surprised if these things happen.

So far my only problem with the game has not been necessarily confirmed or denied. Whereas I know you can't import other Rock Band songs into the game (which makes sense), there hasn't been anything saying that you can't import The Beatles into Rock Band. Since Rock Band DLC can't be used for the game, Harmonix will be releasing album and single DLC of Beatles' recordings. That's cool, however, I have an itch to combine Beatles with Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Nine Inch Nails or, god forbid, Fall Out Boy. That would be really cool. Given the vocal harmony addition, I doubt my dreams of singing "Glass Onion" or "Birthday" with "Pump It Up" and "Jeremy" will be realized. Although, I'm now crying because of this, I'd cry even more if I can't sing "Glass Onion."

Thanks to IGN, here's the trailer for the game.

2 comments:

  1. I'm actually considering ditching work that day and spending all day playing this awesome game.

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  2. The Beatles are a great addition to music games. Not sure how much bigger you can get than that.

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