Rock Band Hands-On

By Brian Ekberg, GameSpotPosted Apr 15, 2008 3:00 am PT

We check out the Wii version of the ultimate party game at Nintendo's spring press event.

It's telling that, even with a full slate of games like Mario Kart, Boom Blox, and Wii Fit just a room away, the preview version of Rock Band for the Nintendo Wii on hand at last week's Nintendo Media Summit in San Francisco was one of the most popular attractions. Of course, that probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise; there's a reason that Rock Band's reputation as a great party game continues to grow. Nonetheless, this was our first look at the game on Nintendo's console, and it appears to be a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game.

Free your inner Neil Peart with the Wii version of Rock Band.

Before we start talking about its similarities to the older game, let's start with what's different in Rock Band for the Wii. The game will ship with five songs that didn't ship with the 360 and PS3 versions of the game: "Roxanne" by The Police, "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis, "Roam" by The B-52's, "Dirty Little Secret" by The All-American Rejects, and "Rockaway Beach" by the Ramones. Rock Band fans will recognize these tunes as downloadable content in the other versions of the game. Given that DLC is still up in the air for the Wii version, these five tracks, along with the original songs that come with the other versions, seem to be the entire lineup of tunes.

The other aspect that's (slightly) different is the instruments: The guitars are wireless and the drums are white. Other than the drum pads feeling slightly softer than the Xbox 360 and PS3 pads that we're used to, all of the instruments in Rock Band feel very familiar. That same level of familiarity is also found in the game's look. The Wii does a pretty good job of maintaining the look and feel of the other versions of the game.

There doesn't seem to be anything in the way of Mii support in the Wii version of Rock Band; it seems that this will be a pretty straightforward port of the game. As for the all-important downloadable content, Harmonix reps on hands said that the company is exploring options for just such functionality, but no solid details on when (or if) this will ever happen. The Wii's lack of a hard drive will be the major obstacle in the road toward this ever coming to fruition, but we're keeping our fingers crossed that Harmonix and Nintendo can figure out a solution so that Wii Rock Band owners will be able to enjoy the same DLC as everyone else. Rock Band for the Wii is set to make its stage debut on June 22.

77 Comments

  • bahman423

    Posted Jul 6, 2008 1:15 pm PT

    the 5 extra songs are already on dlc for the 360 and ps3

  • jimmygriff

    Posted Jun 29, 2008 2:46 pm PT

    Problem is, I'm sure it will be a great game, but I've already got Guitar Hero III and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, and to be honest, I really dont want ANOTHER guitar periphaeral lying around my room. So unless Rock Band supports the Guitar Hero controllers (which seems highly unlikely) I'll just wait for Guitar Hero: World Tour, and Guitar Hero: Metallica, which I wont need to buy the controllers for.

  • xMADxDOGx

    Posted Jun 27, 2008 10:21 am PT

    this game is badass

  • Gamer_152

    Posted Jun 21, 2008 4:21 pm PT

    Those 5 extra songs sound like a great feature, but I'd much rather have my online play and DLC.

  • rgc19

    Posted Jun 15, 2008 1:09 pm PT

    No mii support! This could've been an awesome feature!

  • cheese4927

    Posted Jun 14, 2008 10:00 am PT

    And it won't have Online capabilities either...

  • cheese4927

    Posted Jun 14, 2008 9:59 am PT

    I'm probably just gonna wait for Guitar Hero: World Tour. Rock Band Wii won't even support customizable characters, or Band World Tour mode... (IGN)

  • bostonfreak712

    Posted Jun 13, 2008 8:06 pm PT

    they should have made this game a whole lot sooner for people who have the wii but already bought it for the PS2! The wii version is enhanced (graphics, songs, drum set...) it just makes me a little mad.

  • Yoshilila

    Posted Jun 10, 2008 10:55 am PT

    Hmmmm actually if it's possible than they could just make the downloadable contents go onto the sd card cause that way you could download songs for the game and than copy em from the sd card onto your mp3 player or even better... let you play songs from your sd card that way you would be able to play tons of songs and you wouldnt even need a download section for the wii version XD

  • easykill_astari

    Posted Jun 5, 2008 4:22 am PT

    God damnit , I was hoping for DLC but harmonix is saying the samething guitarhero said

    AND we didin't get any DLC for guiterhero

  • pokip

    Posted May 29, 2008 6:36 pm PT

    SWEET more songs ^.^

  • LuiS-07

    Posted May 20, 2008 2:53 am PT

    Dose anyone kn ow the release in Australia??.. please pm me

  • Juninho2v

    Posted May 17, 2008 10:32 pm PT

    What I hope is that this is a port of the Xbox 360 and ps3 versions..And i mean CUSTOMIZATION! and a complete band world tour experience..

  • CptnMapleSyrup

    Posted May 17, 2008 7:06 am PT

    I do hope that the wii version is as similar to the other rockbands as they say. I also hope that nintendo gets it's act together and get that downloadable content up and running a.s.a.p.

    Besides that I say that i'm looking forward to it.

  • djeckenrode

    Posted May 11, 2008 10:04 am PT

    ok so im psyched about the dlc coming out, but is there still no online, character customastion or world tour, cause if there's not there's no way im paying some 150 bucks for it

  • Shadow_Blade1

    Posted May 10, 2008 10:04 pm PT

    Awww man! This is gonna be sweeeeet!!!

  • piemanngamer

    Posted May 8, 2008 5:44 pm PT

    So do you have to plug remotes into the instruments or what?

  • brianack96

    Posted May 7, 2008 3:40 pm PT

    i dont no if i want this game but it does sound allright. I hope they have dlc otherwise i am not buying this game

  • zaveline

    Posted May 6, 2008 4:03 pm PT

    Nope instead You Have To Buy The DLC Packs From Your Local Game Shop Like EBGames Best buy and Future shop For $29.99 it will come in a disc format so that you will put it in your wii and the songs will be downloaded on to your Wii Memory I think ITS GOING TO BE AWESOME!

  • pokerguy94

    Posted May 4, 2008 3:08 pm PT

    I already have this preordered. I hope they put DLC in it. I have like 10 gamesaves on my Wii with the biggest one being Brawl. They have been putting so many awesome songs on DLC. They should make Rock Band a section in the upcoming WiiWare Channel. I want to play "Saints of Los Angeles" by Motley Crue.

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