nad_masters's Full Review: Rock Band Bundle for Xbox 360
Rock Band
Rock Band is a natural evolution from the Guitar Hero series. What's more fun than pretending to be a guitar hero? Why pretending to be a kick a$$ rock band, of course!
If you never played Guitar Hero, you're missing out. This is especially true if you are into any genre of rock, be it old school, alternative, metal, or punk. Being able to rock out to your favorite songs is an awesome feeling. You are no longer just passively listening. Instead you are interacting with the music! Rock Band takes another step forward and allows 4 players to play different band members. You have the guitarist, bass player, drummer, and front man (or woman). So instead of just a plastic guitar, you also have the addition of a microphone and drum pads.
There are actually 3 solo careers, which can keep you busy if you are alone. This practically make it 3 games in one. You can solo as a guitarist, a drummer, or a vocalist. Unfortunately, you cannot solo as a bass player. This is unfortunate as there are songs that are bass heavy and have very interesting melodies. However, playing with 2 or more players is where the game comes alive. You start a band by having more than one player and play for fans and money. More fans unlock more venues and songs for you to play, while money allows you to buy outfits, accessories, and instruments.
The game forces you to play higher difficulty levels to earn more fans, however, so you may find yourself locked out of songs and venues if your skills are peaked before being able to play at the Expert level. This is one of faults of the game. Also, you will have to have the band leader profile signed in to play as that band. You must also use the band leader. If you sign in with your band leader profile but create a new player, it becomes a new game, and you cannot sign into the band. It gets complicated!
Thankfully, there is a cheat that allows you to unlock all songs. You will have to give up the ability to save your progress, though. This makes sense, since why would you want to save something you didn't accomplish yourself? This is great for those who hit a wall and cannot unlock more songs to practice. More on that later!
In the Box
The box is huge! After opening it up, we pulled everything out, and was shocked that the box wasn't any bigger with everything it included. It was a chore to unpack everything as they were tied down with twistie ties in akward positions to untie. There were a lot of ripped cardboard after we were done. In fact, if you ever had to pack everything back in to return it, you'd go crazy.
In fact, EA seems to feel your pain, as the first thing you see is a pink sheet of paper that says DO NOT RETURN TO STORE. Instead, they would like their customers to go to their website to RMA defective controllers.
We actually have an issue with the guitar, and didn't feel like packing everything up. Instead, we RMA'd it to EA as they wished. They offered advance replacement, which would require your credit card, or standard replacement, which they will send an empty box to you with a pre-paid UPS label.
Also included is the game itself, a 4-port powered USB hub, and a headset adapter that allows for you to use the XBOX 360 headset as a microphone instead of the included mic (if you bought the game by itself, this would save you some money from buying a USB mic).
Assembly
The guitar was the easiest to assemble, which surpised us. We thought that it would have come in one piece. It was just the top of the fret that needs to be installed (where strings tie down if it was a real guitar). I guess they found that it would not have fit in the box if the did not do it this way. The piece just snaps into place with a good amount of force.
The drum kit is the bulk of the package. As you can imagine, it is also where most of the assembly takes place. The instruction leaflet is helpful in putting the drum kit together. After it is done, it feels like a significant piece of equipment.
Most of the parts are metalic tubing which fit together to form the frame and support for the drum pads. They stay in place with friction rather than screws, nuts, and bolts. If you don't have any tools, this is great news for you. However, I feel this is pretty flimsy. I found myself able to push the drum kit down with a small force and have the tube slip down easily. They use clips to clamp down, and its not perfect. It will be good enough as a toy though.
Guitarist
IMO, playing the guitar is the most fun out of the 4 instruments. It is the most dynamic. You pretty much press the colored button on the fret that coorispond to the notes coming down the screen. Once it comes down, you strun the plastic strum bar to activate the note.
Rock Band comes with a plastic replica of the Fender Stratocaster. They try to make it look much less toy-like, and so the buttons are now flush with the fret. The color coding is on the side of the buttons, so it won't intrude on the realistic looking design. There are also solo fret buttons located lower on fret that allow players to quickly hammer out quick notes for fast solos without having to strum for every note. While the guitar looks nicer, the buttons feel sticky and clicky where as the previous GH guitars are easier to hit. Because the buttons are flush, I find it easy to loose my place while playing. Also, I find myself accidently hitting a fret button because it is over sized compared to the GH series of guitars.
There is a sound effect switch that allows for different customized sounds when playing solos including flanger, wah wah, echo and chorus. I personally feel that it sounds too weird and distracting, so I normally leave it off.
The new guitar strum bar does not have a physical clicking feel or sound. While some like it as it feel more realistic, I feel that gives less feedback that you hit the notes.
All in all, the included guitar looks great, but in practice, does not feel right. I have tried to give it a chance, but after a month of straight play, I am not able to get used to it.
There are also reports of the fret buttons feeling cheap. Worse yet are the reports of the down strum not working or working sporatically after a few weeks of use. I noticed the down strum for my guitar was less senstive compared to when I first bought it. However, on the first day, I was having issues where the guitar sends out a XBOX button press even though I never hit it. This would interupt game play, and is very annoying. Strangely, it hasn't done it lately. My brother and I are playing it safe and RMA'd it back to EA. Hopefully the new one will have no issues.
As for the gameplay, the solo guitarist is fun, but not as fun as Guitar Hereo. It seems to be easier than the Guitar Hereo series. Comparing some of the songs that Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band shares, Guitar Hero seem to have more complex notes. The Stroke's "Reptilia" in GH3 seem to have more guitar notes while Rock Band seem to share a bit of the bass notes in the guitar track instead of having just guitar notes. Since the bass notes are easier than the guitar notes, Rock Band felt cheapened. I cannot play at the Expert level in any of the Guitar Hero games, but in Rock Band, I can play most of the songs without much problems. RB's Expert level feels more like Hard in GH3.
As always, you get a power up when you fill a bar and activiate it by tilting the guitar up. This multiplies the score even further.
Bass Player
While the bass player does not have a solo career in the game, it is ranked number 2 on the fun list (at least in my opinion). Some songs such as Sabatoge and Dani California have some interesting notes to keep the bass player from being bored. Some songs would have the bass player strum the same notes or pattern througout most of the song, but I am glad that Rock Band did not make the bass player feel second-rate.
You can use the same included guitar as the bass. If you wish to have both a guitarist and bass, you will need a 2nd guitar. It is confirmed that the GH2 and GH3 guitar for the XBOX 360 works with Rock Band. Though keep in mind that the Rock Band guitar does not work with any of the GH games.
If you have two players who wanted to play the guitar, you will find that it won't be as fun, since notes alternate in the majority of the songs, keeping one person bored while the other has all the fun of pounding out notes. I find that playing bass while someone else who feels more strongly about playing guitar is not a bad thing at all.
Like the guitar, you can power up by tilting the controller. However, unlike the guitarist, if have a streak going, you get a bass groove that also gets you more points.
Drummer
The drums are a signficant part of the Rock Band package. While a lot of people feel the drums are the most fun, I find it tedious. I have a hard time keeping a fast repetitive beat. Also trying to dissassociate my right foot from my hands seem futile. I'm sure there will be a lot of people who would love this challenge. Playing the drums at Expert is pretty much like playing real drums, as all of the notes and hits are represented in the game. I can barely play on Hard, while Medium seem more suited for me.
Unfortunately, because I am not that good on drums (and my other friends already have the 2 guitars), I am holding them back from getting more fans as a drummer.
The kit comes with real drum sticks, and they feel very real as well. The drums are most like a simulation or trainer than any part of the game. This will appeal to a lot of players.
I found that the yellow drum pad is less sensitive than the others. Light taps would not register, and during quick repetitive notes (such as constant hihats), it can miss a few notes. I have heard others complain about colored pads having the same issue. Seem like consistancy of the equipment is not very closely monitored and checked before leaving the factory.
With game play, you pretty much try to hit the right colored pad with the matching note on the screen. An orange bar means you must use your foot to hit the bass drum. You can activiate the power up by playing your own drum fill in designated areas. After you finish the fill, you mush hit the green cymbol crash to activate the power up.
Vocalist
If you like singing, then by all means, pick up the mic! The mic is actually a Logitech USB microphone, and works very well without any issues out of our box. It feels hefter than I expected, since I was thinking it would come witha cheap plastic mic. You can also use the XBOX 360 headset as the mic. In fact, there is a mic port in the guitar that allows you to hook the headset up to it and let more experienced players to play the guitar and sing at the same time. They included an adapter to allow the headset to be used in such a way.
The mic is USB, so it connects to the XBOX 360 or via the included 4-USB hub. You connect the mic directly into the guitar as you could with the headset (with the included adapter).
It took me a while to figure out how the USB mic works though. Like most players, I plugged it in and it just didn't work! I will save you the trouble and inform you that you will need a standard XBOX controller activated and connected for the mic to be recognized. I thought this was a waste of batteries on the controller since it won't be doing anything. However, the controller is used for changing the volume of the game vocals, your vocals, and to allow for game menu navigation. This makes sense, since the mic does not have any buttons to speak of.
Singing is very much like kareoke. The mechanics is much like Sing Star. You pretty much match the pitch to what you see on the screen. There are spoken parts that are not pitch-sensitive, but requires you to say the right words. The more difficult the level, the more spot-on your pitch has to be.
To activate the power up, you have to make noise in the designated area. You can make a WOOT noise, or just yell out "HELLO CHICAGO!". As long as it is loud, it will activate.
Sometimes when there are no spoken lyrics or words, the singer can get bored. Instead, Rock Band may have some cowbells or other percussion-like instruments that the singer has to hit to the beat. They do this by taping the mic to the bubbles that represent the beat they have to reproduce. This is fun when playing Don't Fear the Reaper, thanks to the infamous SNL skit. :)
Playing as a Band
Sure playing solo can be fun, but Rock Band was meant for multiple players. This is the ultimate party game! Since failure of a single player can bring down the whole band, you feel compelled to do your best. Also, if a band member fails, you can bring them back by activating your power up. You can bring them back to life up to 3 times. If the a band member fails 3 times, they are out!
There are parts of the song where if you all hit the note, you get a unison bonus. Also, the more of you who have the power up activated, the larger the overall score multiplier becomes!
Online Play
I haven't really got online to experience much of the band world tour, but I did get on just to play with someone. Lag doesn't seem to be a problem, and I noticed that when playing with someone else, I saw more songs unlocked than I actually had.
I found out that if the remote user is a vocalist, you don't get the fun of hearing them sing. :(
I will update this section with more info when I get more time online. However, my band is having fun trying to unlock songs and buying outfits as is. :)
Cheats
I was getting tired of the current track list that we unlocked, and found out there was a cheat that allows you to unlock all the songs. This disables saving, so it is only good for practicing songs you have not unlocked yet.
With whatever controller you have (guitar or drums), get to the ROCK BAND logo screen (the one with the "Press Start" below the logo). Then hit Red, yellow, blue, red, red, blue, blue, red, yellow, blue very quickly. You will get a message that confirms that all songs are unlocked but you are unable to save.
Conclusion
This is a huge game, and like World of Warcraft (I started writing a review, but gave up on it), I could not possibly cover every aspect of the game.
Overall, its a great party game to play with multiple players. As for solo, it's just okay. You'll have fun, but I can't help but feel that I should be playing Guitar Hero 3 instead. GH3 is much more entertaining when you are by yourself, but at least Rock Band includes 3 types of career paths you can play. I felt it was more quantity than quality.
In all, if you have at least one other person who is willing to play with you regularly, Rock Band is worth the price (all $170 of it). If you are on your own, I'd say give GH3 a try instead.
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