You've probably heard of Rock Band in some form - maybe you saw the commercials with the teenagers on a private jet and just wondered what is this game selling?, or maybe you've been over to a friend's house and they have it, and all you saw was a video game drum kit set up next to the couch. Or maybe you've just heard a lot of buzz about it but have no idea what it really is, and that's why you're doing your homework about it - good for you!! Whatever your reason for reading this is, you will hopefully have a much better idea of what Rock Band is at the end of all of this.

Rock Band came out for Wii much later than it did for PS3, XBOX 360, and PS2 - does that knock it down a notch because I'm a bitter Wii owner who really wanted to play, or does it help it out because the wait made the game that much better? Read on and figure it out! As an idea for you, though, Rock Band came in at #16 on my list of the Top 50 Wii Games.

Rock Band is MTV Games' release to compete with the Guitar Hero series - the main difference being that you can play as a whole band with a singer, drummer, bassist and guitarist in Rock Band, while Guitar Hero features only guitar (although you can play with two people). You can also play by yourself and work your way through songs on only one instrument (up to you which one it is). The idea is that you start a band and work your way to music stardom!

Rock Band Special Edition - Does "Special" Mean Anything?
Special Edition means that you get more than just the game - you get all of the necessary hardware to play too. Basically, Special Edition is the version that you have to get if you want to play. In the box, you get the drum kit, one guitar, microphone, and a USB hub.

Drum Kit
Initial setup of the drum kit is very straightforward, and you can take it apart for easier storage whenever you are not using it. You have to set up the floor stand and hook in the pedal, and then simply place the top part (where you actually hit for your drum noises) on top. You can adjust the height, so if you are setting it on your coffee table versus on the floor, or if you have a higher or lower chair, you can adjust it to your liking. You connect the drum kit to your Wii through a USB cord, which you do have to run along the floor so don't trip! The drum kit itself it pretty straight forward to use, you have four different "pads" that you can hit (for lack of a better description word), which are evenly spaced up top and different colors - Red, Yellow, Blue, Green - as well as the kick pedal. The notes come down your portion of the screen color and location coated (meaning when you have to hit the red pad, it is a red note - depicted as a rectangle - on the left side of your screen). The kick pedal comes along as an orange line.

Microphone
For those of you who are singers out there (I've seen you in your cars in my rearview mirror - and tried to figure out what radio station you're listening to so I can sing along with you), you will undoubtedly be the keeper of the microphone, belting our your favourite tunes for precious points! You plug the microphone into the USB port (it is a corded microphone, which is a little bit of a disappointment) and it works by picking up your pitch - it, like your car radio, has no idea if you are getting the words right. It also doesn't really matter to Rock Band if you are tone deaf, because it will just measure how much the pitch of your voice changes from one note to the next. It will matter, however, to your friends...

Guitar
You can use the guitar to either be the guitarist or bassist of the band - and if you and your friend both choose guitar, Rock Band will choose for you (you cannot have two guitarists or bassists)! Initial setup is very easy - you have to snap in the top of the guitar (which is merely for aesthetics, it doesn't actually do anything) and you will never be able to get it off, so don't put it on backwards! You also have to put the batteries in the back of the guitar (get your your phillips head screwdriver). The guitar features five notes - Green, Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange - and they are available in two places, at the end of the guitar where you normally would play notes, or in the awesome solo section which is located about three inches up the guitar. The solo ones are much smaller, so if you have very small hands they might be better for you? You can use either at any time. The guitar connects to your Wii through a USB plug-in, which is wireless, and the guitar also has an on/off switch on the back so that you do not drain the batteries when you are not playing.

You've Mentioned USB Plug-In A Lot...
Have I? I haven't noticed... I kid, I kid! Rock Band works on the Wii by connecting through an included USB hub, which plugs into one of the two USB ports on the back of your Wii (I had no idea they were there until I played Rock Band and had to find them...). So the guitars are essentially wireless becasue they connect wireless to their USB plug-ins, but the drum kit and microphone are both wired. You have plenty of length on the cords, but it is a slight downside to Rock Band for the Wii - quite frankly I'm a little disappointed that they do not utilize the WiiMote at all.

How's The Gameplay?
After you get over the fact that all of the hardware connects to your Wii through a USB port (probably not a big deal for some of you), the real question is how is the gameplay? This is, of course, why we buy video games in the first place. Rock Band is a lot of fun, both by yourself and with friends, as you work your way through track lists, ultimately trying to make Rock Band History!! There are a few different modes that you can play in - Solo (as either a tour if you are looking to play a lot by yourself, or quickplay if you just want to rock out quickly), Multiplayer (with Band Tour, Band Quickplay, Tug of War, and Score Duel).

Band Tour
Play with two to four instruments and work your way through set-lists, unlocking songs as you complete lists. As you progress, the songs become harder for you as a band, and you gain more and more stardom!

Band Quickplay
This one's pretty straightforward - just pick up and play. Choose your song, choose your difficultly, rock out.

Tug Of War
Play different sections of songs and try to win the crowd in your favour! Bottom line, you need to rock out harder than anyone else!

Score Duel
Play the same song, same instrument, same difficulty as your friend, and see who gets the higher score. In my mind, this one isn't as much fun as the other options, but if you are crazy competitive and need to crush your friends, I understand.

Difficulty Settings
No matter what mode you are playing in, you always have the option of four levels of difficulty - Easy, Medium, Hard, or Expert - and if you are playing with friends you can always mix-and-match levels of difficulty. For example, your car-singing friend can be on Expert, while you, the novice drummer, can be on Easy. The harder your difficulty setting, the more notes you have to play and the more accurate you have to be. However, this can also lead to much higher scores, since you always get points per note, as well as streak bonuses.

What In The World Is A Streak Bonus?
At the bottom of your portion of the screen there is a Streak Meter, and it grows with the more notes you play in a row (without missing any). The longer your streak, the bigger your bonus is - very straightforward and easy to understand. As you hit notes sequentially, you also have an energy meter that grows, and you have the option to use that energy to give yourself an extra bonus, or to save a band member who has fallen prey to the overly demanding crowd who expect nothing but perfection.

How Do You Activate Your "Energy"?
As a guitarist or bassist, you have the option to use your energy at any time, just point the front of the guitar up in the air. As the drummer or singer, however, you cannot use your energy whenever you want - you have to wait until Rock Band let's you. What I mean by this is that you do not have the option to change your instrument in such a way that you can activate special (they didn't think that if you pick up your drum kit in the middle of a song that would be a good way to activate your energy), so you have to wait until a part of the song let's you. For the vocalist, this is denoted by a giant yellow section, and you have to make some noise and it will be activated. For the drummer, there is a section where it glows a little bit, and you have the hit random notes and then nail the green one at the end. If you are playing in a multiplayer mode, you can get bigger bonuses if you activate more than one energy release at a time (provided, of course, you are not using your energy to save a fellow band member).

What Songs Are Available?
The Acro-Brats - Day Late, Dollar Short | Aerosmith - Train Kept A-Rollin' | All American Rejects - Dirty Little Secret | Anarchy Club - Blood Doll | B-52's - Roam | Bang Camaro - Pleasure (Pleasure) | Beastie Boys - Sabotage | Black Sabbath - Paranoid | Blue Öyster Cult - (Don't Fear) The Reaper | Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead or Alive | Boston - Foreplay/Long Time | The Clash - Should I Stay or Should I Go | Coheed and Cambria - Welcome Home | Crooked X - Nightmare | David Bowie - Suffragette City | Death of the Cool - Can't Let Go | Deep Purple - Highway Star | Faith No More - Epic | Fall Out Boy - Dead on Arrival | Flyleaf - I'm So Sick | Foo Fighters - Learn to Fly | Freezepop - Brainpower | Garbage - I Think I'm Paranoid | HivesThe Hives - Main Offender | Hole - Celebrity Skin | Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives - I Get By | Iron Maiden - Run to the Hills | Jet - Are You Gonna Be My Girl | The Killers - When You Were Young | Kiss - Detroit Rock City | The Konks - 29 Fingers | Metallica - Enter Sandman | Molly Hatchet - Flirtin' with Disaster | The Mother Hips - Time We Had | Mountain - Mississippi Queen | New Pornographers - Electric Version | Nine Inch Nails - The Hand That Feeds | Nirvana - In Bloom | Oasis - Don't Look Back In Anger | OK Go - Here It Goes Again | The Outlaws - Green Grass and High Tides | Pixies - Wave of Mutilation | The Police - Next to You | The Police - Roxanne | Queens of the Stone Age - Go with the Flow | R.E.M. - Orange Crush | Radiohead - Creep | Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop | Ramones - Rockaway Beach | Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dani California | The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter | Rush - Tom Sawyer | Smashing Pumpkins - Cherub Rock | Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun | Stone Temple Pilots - Vasoline | StrokesThe Strokes - Reptilia | Sweet - Ballroom Blitz | Tier 7 - Factory-to-Dealer Incentives | Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld - Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld | Tribe - Outside | Vagiant - Seven | Weezer - Say It Ain't So | The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again | Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps

How About Downloading Additional Songs?
Unfortunately, you cannot download any new songs on the Wii version of Rock Band, which is one of the things that makes Rock Band great for the PS3 and XBOX 360. You can, however, purchase Rock Band Track Pack: Vol. 1 for additional songs, which is basically Rock Band with 20 different songs.

Can't Download Songs? Can You Do Anything Else Online?
Another thing that knocks Rock Band for Wii back a notch in my book is that it does not have any online capability, so you cannot play online with your friends or strangers, which you can do in the PS3 and XBOX 360 versions. This is something that could probably have been done pretty easily and makes the other versions a lot of fun.

Create Your Own Character?
Once again, this is available for PS3 and XBOX 360, but not an option on the Wii version. While it's something that doesn't really matter because you can create your own name and play, it is a lot of fun to make your own character and play with them too. This is something that probably goes hand-in-hand with the online capability, though.

Overall
Rock Band is a lot fun to play, but it takes a few hits because it doesn't use the Wii's wireless technology (the WiiMote operates with Bluetooth technology, so you would think that they could do something there...), you cannot download new songs, you cannot play online, and you cannot create your own character. It has fantastic gameplay, however, which is why it does come in at #16 on my list of the Top 50 Wii Games. Hopefully MTV Games and Harmonix can fix these few errors for Rock Band 2, which will be coming out soon!

I compare Rock Band for the Wii to the PS3 and XBOX 360 a bunch in this review - if you would like to see more comparisons of the consoles, please ready my review Wii or XBOX 360 or PS3 - Which Is The Best?


Recommended: Yes