Review: The Beatles: Rock Band

Platform: PS3/Xbox 360/Nintendo Wii

Developer: Harmonix Music Systems

Publisher: Electronic Arts

# of Players 1-6 (Online: 2-6)

Rating: T (Teen)

Official Site

Score: A

You don't need to be a die-hard Beatles fan, hardcore Rock Band groupie or even a blazing fast Guitar Hero to appreciate The Beatles: Rock Band. Harmonix has come up with a supremely accessible Magical Mystery Tour through some of the best of the Fab Four's catalog and thanks to the stellar presentation, this is one Ticket to Ride that will leave you Feeling Fine up to Eight Days a Week. If you're a Rock Band fan looking for the game to be a big step forward, you may find Something lacking. The experience isn't quite the Revolution you're probably expecting, but after A Hard Day's Night of rocking, you'll find the game has its ways of making you Twist and Shout 'til the cows come home.

While you can use your Rock Band instruments here (as well as Guitar Hero and other third-party peripherals) if you're a true Beatlemaniac not worried about the Taxman, shell out for the Limited Edition Premium bundle which comes with the game, a replica of Paul's Hofner bass and a drum kit that resembles Ringo's. Don't forget the optional Rickenbacker 325 and Gretsch Duo Jet guitar replicas for your faux George and John, of course. Once you decide how you want to play, the game immediately pulls you into the Beatles "universe" that burned brightly and went out too soon, yet produced some of the most memorable rock music ever created. Expert players won't need much Help! to get by, but With A Little Help From My Friends, I was able to get a few folks who had never before tried a music game to really get into the game and come away impressed with everything they saw and played.

Story Mode is where you'll spend a great deal of time, particularly if you're a Beatles fan well-versed in the group's history or someone new to the Fab Four who wants to see what all the fuss and bother is about. While the game does a truly remarkable job at creating a solid 60's tone and recreating many of the Beatles' classic gigs, this is after all is said and done, a work of entertainment. In other words, don't expect a super deep, microscopic A&E Biography look into the private lives of these four talented young men who went from club pups to trippy musical pioneers to angry young men with their own separate musical goals in the space of less than a decade.

Still, the game dopes reward your skills and patience. As you earn Star ratings, you'll unlock a bunch of fantastic photo, video and sound clips that add some really interesting insight and "educational" elements about the group, but it may not be enough for those expecting knockout revaltions and higher drama. If anything, what's here will make you want to seek out a few good books or documentaries on the group so you can really see more of the soul behind Rubber Soul. Or, you can Let it Be and just rock out, letting the game take you wherever it flows. I'd gather Easy mode is where novice players, oldsters like me who grew uplistening to the group or vey young players whose parents snapped the game up for in order to get in touch with their kids while introducing them to the Beatles will start out.

For this crowd, a "No Fail" element kicks in, insuring success as well as preserving the quality of the song structure. While playing the game with a few friends new to this type of game, I got a good lauch after a few songs when one guy commented "This is supposed to be hard?" while another shot back "Well, I wouldn't call what you were doing "playing" the game. The funny thing was, snappy patter aside, they were both scoring around the same amount of points and after about eight or nine tracks both thought they were "experts" at the game. Kicking up the challenge showed them the game wasn't as easy as they thought, but since everyone present was a Beatles fan, it was still quite an enjoyable chunk of fun had by all, finger cramps and all after playing too many songs for too long.

On harder difficulties, the game gets a bit tougher, but this seems more due to the chronological manner in which the songs are presented. You'll get easy songs mixed in with a few tricky ones, but overall, nothing impossible to beat after a few tries. You might be smiling during "Do You Want to Know a Secret" and "I Want to Hold your Hand" but by the time you hit some of the psychedelic and more introspective stuff, you may want to sit down for a few of the more unusual tracks. Even so, the game is never frustrating (no insane finger- bleeding tap-out solos as found in some of the modern RB and GH games)... unless you have two friends who can't sing that suddenly decide they want to try three part harmonies. This is a new feature added to the game and there's a stellar tutorial that shows it's tougher than it looks and sounds. Even if you dislike the Beatles despite the game's brilliant presentation, you can't knock the fact that these guys could sing some really perfect harmonies.

Drumming is also a kicker here - I'd never realized Ringo was such a super drummer until I tried sitting down and tapping my way through a bunch of the songs. Yeah, "he's no Neil Peart", as one friend said as I was kicking him out the door so I could finally get to writing this review, but you gotta love the man's beat-keeping ways. Par for the course in a RB game, there are tutorials galore for everything, so even the most beatless defeatist will be Getting Better after a bit of practice. While the song selection isn't as huge as one would expect, the game absolutely has more than enough replay value, particularly if you're a Beatles fan who knows these songs are timeless. Playing through "A Day in the Life" for the first time reminded me on hearing it on the radio at age five or six and being totally entranced by the swirling mass of hypnotic sound, the cryptic lyrics and at the end, that endless chord that still sends a chill up the spine.

As for the presentation... wow. If you're a Rock band fan from day one, other than Story Mode filling in for World Tour, the game has the usual offline and online modes you'd expect. Everything is wrapped up in amazingly rich, stylized visuals that grab the eye right from the stunning opening cinematic to the amazing Dreamscapes. Character models are stylized, yet look and are animated as close to real life as possible. Of course, the music is as perfect as can be, which is actually a tiny issue if you blast through the Story mode in a few hours because you just can't stop playing.

Brevity aside, Harmonix has crafted a total Beatles sensory experience in nearly every respect and pretty much raises the bar (and the roof) for future music games. I'm betting some of The Rolling Stones and a few other holdouts not quite ready to commit to a complete game based on their catalogs were throwing out hips hobbling to the phones after getting wind of how good this game shows off the Beatles as talents to a new generation of fans. Of course, I can think of a few other key bands who deserve a similarly rich treatment, but I kind of seriously doubt we'll see a Ramones: Rock Band, New York Dolls: Rock Band, Talking Heads: Rock Band or a Velvet Underground: Rock Band 9among many others) game anytime soon.

Of course, there are a few snobbish types that think these sorts of "music" games take away from the actual learning and playing of REAL instruments. However, I look at it this way: If a kid (or adult) puts down the plastic guitar and replaces it with a real one based on the time spent with a game such as this, it's always a good thing. Hey, some of us need a little push from time to time and rockin' at home beats busking with a busted banjo at the bus terminal, at least in my book. Whatever floats your boat or sinks your Yellow Submarine, I guess...

In the end, whether or not you grew up with the Beatles or are caught up in all the hype surrounding the game, The Beatles Rock Band is a more than superb multimedia experience that sets a new standard for the music genre. What's here is a near-perfect melding of great music from the past and today's game technology that produces a truly uplifting and highly accessible slice of entertainment for anyone with a passing interest in music or music history. Get it, play it, Come Together with a few friends and love it. Hmmm... Well, that's about it, folks. I've Got a Feeling that this is The End of this review.