E3 2009: The Beatles: Rock Band impressions

by: John - posted: 6/7/2009 8:57:00 PM

The Beatles: Rock Band  is the highly anticipated musical game from Harmonix that’s all about one of the greatest bands in the world. MTV Games had a recreation of the Abbey Road studio setup to demonstrate three songs as well as talk about some of the new features of the Rock Band series.

First off, harmonies are a big new feature for the game. Up to four mics can be used and the lyric track now has four horizontal rows to show you when each person is suppose to sing their parts. Harmonies are constructive and not destructive meaning that if you do miss these portions of the song it won’t hurt you. From the demonstration, it looks like it’s going to take a lot of practice to get it right as it adds a new layer of complexity to the game. What was interesting was there were six people on stage and three of them only sang while the three others played the traditional Rock Band instruments when the song was playing. So, if you have a large group where some can sing and some can’t, you can have more than four people play and designate some as singers only. Of course you can try to mimic the Beatles by playing and singing as well.

When playing Rock Band 2 with friends, I almost always turned on No Fail mode so that we can all just jam and have a good time without worry about failing. Well, now you don’t have to dig deep into the menu system to activate this as you can do so right in the matchmaking screen. This will make getting into the game quicker and also be easier to set up so you don’t have to back out to the other menu area in case you forget.

Harmonix has done some work to make Rock Band: The Beatles a more accessible game besides the easy access of No Fail mode. Those that play on easy difficulty are in No Fail mode automatically. So if you have a complete new person to the game, you can put them in that difficulty mode but allow others in the harder difficulty setting to fail out. All 45 songs will also be unlocked right from the beginning for quick play mode. You’ll still progress through songs in an order In story mode but those that just want to jump into the game and play any song available will be able to do so right from the start in quick play mode.

Five historical venues from the Beatles’ past are recreated for the game. From the small bars to large arenas, there was a lot of work put into recreating the famous places the Beatles’ played. In some of the larger ones you can see female fans just screaming as the Beatles are playing. Some songs didn’t lend to a venue so there are some dreamscapes that were made for the Beatles to play in. For example, in the song Octupus’s Garden, there was an underwater venue that was spliced into the footage of the Beatles playing at Abbey Road. When the Beatles were underwater, you could see the band’s hair sway with the water. While not real venues, these dreamscapes capture the look and feel of the song being played.

It’s a little sad the DLC won’t be compatible with Rock Band or Rock Band 2 but I can understand the decision. I mean if you were able to play the Beatles DLC on those games, there would be less incentive to buy the game. And I’m sure the guys at Harmonix want to not only make money but to recoup the cost needed to get the Beatles to agree to the game.
 
The Beatles: Rock Band will also be available with replicas of the band’s instruments. The instruments will be compatible with all Rock Band games and most other musical instrument games. You can, of course, use your older controllers with The Beatles: Rock Band as well.

The interface does have a design that’s inspired by the Beatles and you can see that a lot of effort has been put into the look and feel of the game to really make it a Beatles branded game. Harmonix hasn’t stumbled yet so I’m looking forward to following the Beatles through their history and playing some of their famous songs along with a few friends. Look for the game to be released this year on September 9th.