Warren Review: Rock Band (PS3)

August 8th, 2008 by

Hours Played: over 50
Progress: Completed “Endless Setlist” (gained Legendary status!)

Rock Band is the first music simulation game to encompass a full band. It allows players to play drums, guitar, bass, and sing. This is the first time drumming has come to a console (at least a full drum set unlike Taiko Drum Master or Donkey Konga). Singing is much like Sing Star and the guitar/bass is much like Guitar Hero.

The game allows you to create a band and tour around by playing songs and sets. Single player mode lets you go through sets on guitar, drums, or vocals.

I’ll start off by saying that the full game experience exists in the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game. The PS2 and Wii versions are somewhat limited, but the basics of the game are still there.  The difference lies in the multiplayer “Band World Tour” mode. In PS3/Xbox 360, your band travels from city to city, playing different sets at different venues in those cities. PS2/Wii only allow you to do preset sets (like the single-player mode on all systems).  The PS2/Wii versions also do not let you make custom characters.

The other major difference is downloadable content. This allows you to expand the game on the Xbox 360 and PS3 by getting new songs. I personally have already added 45 songs to my library and allows me for an almost endless challenge to complete all the songs.

Presentation:
Awesome. Simply awesome. Every song has it’s own stage show which integrates the rockers you get to create. Even the hammer-ons/pull-offs for guitar are easy to spot.

Graphics:
Great. The graphics engine on the PS3 is very useful and allows for the character rendering for all the scenes in every song.  As is expected with the PS3, the graphics are even better in HD.

Sound:
To assert the same point as Bananabread in his last review – It’s a music game. The sound has to be good.

Downloadable content is one of the best selling features of this game. Already, they have added over 200 new songs that were not included in the original 58 on the disc. There’s even some freebies! Be warned, the downloaded songs will show up from time-to-time in the random sets in World Tour mode (read: those random sets could get very, very hard *cough*Metallica*cough*)

Gameplay:
Gameplay is done masterfully through the various controllers. The guitar is similar to the Guitar Hero controllers, but this one is a little more streamlined where the buttons don’t stand out as being buttons. The guitars are wireless, which lets you rock out without being tied down.  I find that the buttons are easier to slide across for quicker play than the Guitar Hero guitars.

The drums are wired, but that doesn’t matter too much. They consist of 4 drum pads and a kick pedal. People have often had problems with the kick pedal breaking, but I have spent MANY hours on it and it’s just fine (*knock on wood*). They take quite a beating and are very responsive. One recommendation I have is to buy sound dampeners as the stock drums sound plastic-y without them.

The microphone included in the Special Edition set (the only set that comes with instruments) works well.  I personally suck at singing, but others have used the same mic and have done very well.

Overall:

8.5/10

Rock Band is a very addicting game with almost endless potential with downloaded songs. There are some areas that could use improvement, but that’s what Rock Band 2 is for.  As a side note, Rock Band 2, which comes out on Oct. 19th, will be fully backwards compatible with the downloaded songs from the original Rock Band, plus you’ll be able to pull some songs off of the original Rock Band disc to add even more gameplay value.

Now to try Green Hills and High Tides again :S