In an industry full of huge licenses, Harmonix may have scored the biggest. When they decided to one-up Activision's Guitar Hero (a series Harmonix helped create), they decided to shoot for the stars. If you're going to lock bands down to an exclusive contract, you might as well go for the biggest, most influential bands of the last fifty years. It will no doubt cost the developers big money, but there's little doubt in my mind that The Beatles: Rock Band was worth, no matter the price.
The Beatles: Rock Band is not Rock Band 3. If you go into this game expecting all of the same modes and extras, you will be disappointed. It is also not simply a track pack. The Beatles: Rock Band is its own experience, a game with its own voice and narrative. To compare this Beatles game with Rock Band 2 is like comparing a big-budget Hollywood biopic about a band to a concert movie. This is a game that will teach you just about everything you will need to know about the Beatle's decade-long reign. It's a game that will make you excited about not only the Beatles music, but also how you can tell a story using the music genre as the voice. This is a game that is intended to be seen from beginning to end, not something you can say about every music game on the market.
The Beatles: Rock Band tells the story of a young rock group from Liverpool that, with the help of good songs and a little luck, managed to take the world by storm and become one of the most influential bands of all time. Early on you see this story play out via cut scenes between the game's nine levels. Although there is no talking in these cinema scenes, you do get a taste of their rise to power thanks to well-placed photographs, newspapers, screaming fans and any other archival footage they can get. These scenes pack so much information that you will no doubt need to watch them several times to pick all of the details out, and thanks to the amazing art direction, you'll definitely have no problem with repeat viewings.
Once the music starts things feel more like a traditional Rock Band game. There are four instruments you can choose from, including the guitar, bass, drums and the microphone. Each instrument has its own note highway (or pitch meter, in the case of singing) and multiple difficulty settings. Your object, like every other modern day music game, is to hit as many notes as you can, all while dealing with multipliers and working together as a band. In other words, it plays exactly the same as Rock Band 2. Not that this is a bad thing, the gameplay in Rock Band 2 is near flawless, giving music lovers a fun and interactive way to play a wide assortment of songs.
It should be noted that there is one major difference between this and the older Rock Band games. You see, this game fully supports three different microphones at once. That means that you and your friends can take part in three-part harmonies, which adds some much-needed depth to the singing portions of the game. You can still play these songs by yourself, but it's a lot of fun to team up with your friends and take the role of a Beatle. Best of all, this Beatles game supports the brand new Microsoft Wireless Microphone (which is more than I can say for Rock Band 2 at the moment). Guitarists and drummers won't see much of a difference in gameplay, but it's nice to see Harmonix tweak the different instruments between Rock Band releases.
Even with the three-part harmonies I can see in your eyes that you're still skeptical. After all, this is hardly the first band-specific guitar game. I was not a huge fan of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, it came off feeling lazy and like nothing more than a track pack with a lot of filler. Guitar Hero: Metallica was an improvement, but even that didn't seem very interested in telling a story about Metallica. That is not the case with The Beatles, which features a fully realized story that takes you on an incredible journey through famous musical landmarks and LSD-inspired dreamscapes. You will come away from this game feeling like you learned something, because at its core is an important history lesson.
There's one big reason why this Beatles game works better than Aerosmith or Metallica, and that's the strong library of songs. Few bands were as diverse at the Beatles, going from the early days of bubblegum pop to the experimental sounds of psychedelia. By the end of the 1960s the sitar sounds gave way to full-on rock 'n roll. It's hard to believe that the same band delivered "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)". There is a staggering amount of diversity, yet the lad's ability to string together complex harmonies and interesting compositions is the one thing that seems to tie everything together.
You start in The Cavern Club, the famous Liverpool haunt that gave the group their big break and got the ball rolling. From there it's off to the Ed Sullivan Show, then Shea Stadium, Japan and so on so forth. But the Beatles only toured for so long, which means that much of the game takes place in the band's famous Abbey Road studio. Here the artists at Harmonix were able to create fantastical dreamscapes that match the tone and feel of each song. You'll find that the Beatles are performing at the bottom of the ocean in "Octopus's Garden" and in a hot air balloon during "With a Little Help From My Friends." These are not generic concert performances (so common in Rock Band 2), but rather perfectly animated vignettes.
No matter whether you're playing in a hot air balloon or rockin' Shea Stadium, there's a certain level of authenticity that permeates through this entire package. When you see George playing guitar, it really looks like he's hitting the right notes. When you have three people singing, it's always the right three people. Because each video is created around the song, this frees up the artists to capture amazing shots from impossible angles. The visuals are so detailed and spot-on that I had a difficult time going back to Rock Band 2.
The authenticity does not end with the visuals. You'll find that the game offers a lot of rare audio that helps fill in some of the gaps in the story. Before and after every song you will hear a piece of audio from the recording session. For example, before the Beatles play their first TV gig, we hear Ed Sullivan introduce them. Before "Revolution," we hear the band practicing the guitar parts. After an especially long song, we hear the band joking about being cooped up. All this may not sound that exciting, but in the moment it makes you feel like you're right there with the band. It's a creative use of archival footage and the first time I've ever seen a game try something like that.
The game offers 45 songs on the disc (with "All You Need is Love" launching as DLC alongside the product). Compared to Guitar Hero 5 and Rock Band 2, this track list looks almost tiny. However, the game does offer more songs than Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (which only had 23 Aerosmith songs) or Guitar Hero: Metallica (which only had 28 Metallica songs). What has been cut in this package is all of the filler. Instead of buying a game that has a couple dozen songs you have no interest in, The Beatles: Rock Band delivers 45 must-own songs. While I certainly like some songs more than others, there's not a bad song in the bunch. That's more than I can say for any other Rock Band or Guitar Hero game.
Still, with only 45 songs it's easy to play through the game in a matter of hours. I, for one, had no problem playing through the game in around three to four hours, though that was me rushing through as quickly as possible. If you intend to get all of the stars, pictures, videos and extras, then it will certainly take you much more than four hours. You can extend your time by playing more instruments or assembling your friends, who will no doubt want to go through these songs over and over again. While it doesn't have the replay of Rock Band 2, the story and extras more than make up for the shorter campaign.
On top of simply playing these songs for points, you are also trying to collect 104 pictures. You earn pictures by getting either three or five stars on each song. On top of that, you will also get pictures for completing some of the other game modes. These pictures include never-before-seen pictures taken over the Beatles' decade-long career. A lot of the pictures show the band members in their day to day lives, playing their first concert, buying their first dog, etc. However, there are some real gems mixed in. One of my favorite shots is a color picture from the Ed Sullivan Show that was clearly taken from behind them. Not only is this an angle I've never seen before, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've seen the Ed Sullivan theater in color. Each picture comes with a lengthy history lesson, something that I spent the better part of an hour reading through.
And that's not the end of the extra features. If you collect enough pictures, you will video footage of the band. But this isn't any old video footage, it's content that most people have never seen before. It's the surviving Beatles talking about their Abbey Road studio, it's them rehearsing at the Ed Sullivan theater and it's them goofing off on their first trip to America. One of the best extras is a Christmas LP that was sent out to 25,000 fan club subscribers. This is audio that even hardcore Beatlemaniacs haven't been able to hear, yet here it is ready to be accessed whenever you feel like turning the game on.
The Beatles: Rock Band is a video game love letter to one of the greatest bands of all time. As you can imagine, those who can't stand the band will find very little about this game that is appealing. However, I have no doubt in my mind that this game can turn somebody on the fence into a rabid fan. Days after getting my review copy I hosted a Beatlemania party that featured a number of friends who, by their admission, were not huge fans of the band. At most they knew three or four of the biggest hits, and even then they couldn't name those songs or where they were from. By the time the game rolled the "secret" final track, all of my friends were ready to run out and buy a Beatles album.
This is an effective game that tells a fascinating (and tragic) story. It doesn't delve into the solo careers or controversial bits (such as the non-stop drug use, the backlash, discontent in the band, John Lennon's death, etc.), instead choosing to celebrate the career of this foursome. Even though there's room for more content, what we get is an outstanding collection of songs and a story that is worth paying attention to (even if that means reading a bunch of picture captions). Unless you have an irrational hatred for the Beatles, I see no reason why you should deny yourself one of the best games of the year. It's hard to imagine a band-specific game that can top this, but I can't wait to see somebody try.
