I remember first hearing about Rock Band on an Official Xbox Magazine podcast while riding a bus. Taking the concept of Guitar Hero, and then expanding it with vocals, bass, and drums sounded great at the time, but when the game came out, it ended up being awesome and revolutionary to videogames! Instead of simply playing guitar by yourself, you really feel like you're in a complete band! But even if you only own a guitar (like me), you'll still get a lot of enjoyment out of it. The game focuses on two main modes - Solo Career, and Band World Tour. The Solo Career (which supports guitar, vocals, and drums) is just like Guitar Hero. You start with a set list, and once you complete it, you move on to the next harder one. Solo mode isn't that hard and won't take much time to complete, but when you can't have friends over or your siblings are out of the house, this mode is still great to play. But when you can have at least one other buddy with you, this game changes much more than you would expect. (And it's for the better!) Band World Tour allows 2-4 people to form a band as you travel across the country (and eventually the world) playing songs for crowds at clubs and stadiums. World Tour mode focuses on how many fans you have. The more fans, the better and you'll unlock new venues to play at along with money to buy new instruments. In terms of how you play the game, guitar, bass, and drums are set up exactly like Guitar Hero with the only difference being that the drum's note colors are in a different order. The vocals on the other hand are set up like Singstar. I played this game using the Xbox 360 Gibson Explorer guitar controller and the Xbox headset for vocals, so I can't really say anything about the instruments. (Although I've heard that GHIV's are better.) Rock Band also features online which you can play by yourself or with a band. But band mode is limited to quick play and there's no online World Tour. (Although it IS in Rock Band 2!) All in all, Rock Band is an excellent music game that anybody can enjoy and is something you'll play for a long, long time!
As soon as I got home from EB Games, I excitedly opened the packaging to Rock Band. After a brief setup, I hopped on LIVE. I was then flooded with messages reading something like "dude, is it seriously worth $170?" So, t... Read Full Review
Understand right up front that I'm approaching this review from a somewhat different angle then the vast majority. For one thing, I have never used any of the actual Rock Band peripherals, and I have not played one singl... Read Full Review
