I'm not a rabid Beatles fan. I'm just above casual but far below dedicated when it comes to loving the group, but I've been around long enough to know the impact the band had on music.
So I got my hands on The Beatles: Rock Band as soon as I could and set about educating myself on exactly how extensive the Beatles library is. The question is, should you? Read more.
The short answer is simple. There is little reason to buy this game if you're not a more than a casual Beatles fan. It doesn't offer much more than previous Rock Bands/Guitar Heroes.
It's centered entirely on the group, so you can't play songs from other groups or even music from previous Rock Band games.
All Beatles. All the time. I'm guessing you already own the game if you are a hardcore fan of either the Beatles or the Rock Band franchise. So stop reading.
Otherwise, read on. Here are the highlights and lowlights, from my viewpoints. As always, I have video proof.
The Good: The Beatles have a highly enjoyable collection of songs. It is as varied as it is vast. You'll play through the band's progression from the bar scene in Liverpool to the rooftop of their record company and you'll smile all the way through. Aside from the music, the game steps up efforts to improve the presentation. Instead of the same crappy fan animations, this one give us what feels like a stadium filled with frenzied fans.
The studio chapter features the "dreamscapes" shown in game trailers and teases. Here is a video of that. I'm playing the guitar and singing. That's why I have the guitar on medium.
Better than all that, though, is the one thing this game innovates. Harmonizing. The Beatles are famous for having three people singing at the same time. This game allows us do to the same. I managed to find one other person to help me with this. So here is a video of that. For some reason, you can actually hear us singing.
The Bad: Plastic guitar Gods hoping for a challenge should just keep on walking. PikminGuts92, a Guitar Hero/Rock Band beast, tweeted that he almost fell asleep while playing. You unlock "challenges" while playing the story mode, but they're just set lists of the songs you already played.
The only challenge is having to five-star all of them to unlock photos. Yeah, not much there. I already mentioned that no other Rock Band songs are playable on the game. That is really bad news. Worse yet is that you don't have the option of customizing your own character. How cool would it be to unlock a Beatles wig or instruments for your Avatar on the Xbox 360, for example. Can't do it.
The Ugly: It took me three hours to play through the entire story mode. That included the long-winded credits. Only 45 songs made it on the disc. Album DLC is coming, but 45 is nowhere near enough when you're talking about one of the greatest bands of all time that has countless studio albums and compilations.
Overall: The Beatles: Rock Band is built for Beatles fans. That's true much more of this game that any other band-specific music game. You'll find band photos, videos and trivia as unlocks. You'll play as the group in all the major venues, and you'll harmonize through some of the best pop songs ever performed. But you won't have much time to experience it the first time around and you will get tired of playing the same select songs over and over again.
Buy it if love the Beatles and/or really love the Rock Band games. It's a great experience both ways. Rent it if you just want to have a quick shot of Beatlemania before you head back to more robust music games.
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written by Louie Villalobos, September 15, 2009
So get a webcam or let us call you on the phone.
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I'm not a big Beatles fan at all but I did enjoy most of the songs, by that I mean listening to them, not playing them.
The cinematics and dreamscapes in the game look great! It's a shame I missed most of them because I was busy looking at notes.
I retract my statement about RB vs. GH. There are so many variables when judging two series. Rock Band and Guitar Hero really have little similarities. I don't like Rock Band for it's awful looking HO/PO notes, they're so hard to read. Then again, I don't like the fact that Guitar Hero has a small library of DLC.