The Beatles : Rock Band

[Hendo]

See title, see subtitle. Use or depending on musical preferences.

[Sambob]

Ive got to say im still fairly surprised by this move. Its kind of cool that they have allowed it, but its also the kind of the thing that you just know you should object to.

I wont buy it, but thats because im kind of bored of this type of game at the moment, but it looks fairly cool.

Is it any different or better than other games of its type?

[Hendo]

No, it's Rock Band. *shrugs*

In all seriousness, it's exactly what I wanted which is a minefield of Beatles trivia, pictures, references, etc.

You should know whether you'll like this or not, it's Rock Band with The Beatles.

One thing I should point out - I've gone straight for Hard mode on the guitar and the only challenge is getting a perfect on first try. It's not because the game has been dumbed down, but they work the songs out the same as they do for all Rock Band / Guitar Hero tracks, which is to translate the notes perfectly as they're played for Expert mode and then work their way down through the levels taking notes out. The Beatles rarely had any mega hard guitar parts so people who play these games a lot like spatular and DifferentClass should go straight into Expert mode. I think the more interesting parts will come from McCartney's bass lines, to be honest.

The only difference I can think of is that this one has (where appropriate) 3 part vocal harmonies. These will be an absolute bitch to pull off. Their harmonies were actually pretty complex.

[HandsomeDead]

I'm more interested in this as a Rock Band game rather than a tribute to The Beatles, from the songs I know from them I'm not expecting any Everlong or YYZ type note charts but alot of my favourite songs on RB2 are just the ones that are fun to play to rather than the most difficult (obviously the satisfaction thing comes with beating those).

I only have one mic so I can't try the harmonies, maybe by the time I pick it up I will of acquired another mic.

[RivaOni]

Only got the first Rock Band and the guitar from GH3, is it possible to play through the career mode as a guitarist or bass player as thats not an option on the first rock band and made the game pretty limiting (I know you can use the headset to do vocals, but I literally cannot sing, so that ones out).

[spatular]

I'm more interested in this as a Rock Band game rather than a tribute to The Beatles,

same here. i have the lips mics (finally they might come in useful!) so trying out the harmonies should be interesting, i'm not even sure i know what a harmony is

edit - Riva - i recon yes as rock band 2 lets you play the world tour using any instrument you want, i guess this will be the same. (edit2 - but best get confirmation from someone who's got it!)

[HandsomeDead]

Do the Lips mics work now?

[spatular]

yeah apparently so, haven't tried it yet mind.

they were supposed to be patching rb2 to support them ages ago but still haven't. that's the main reason i bought lips, was going to get rid of my band in a box.

[David]

Completed it on Expert Guitar in one sitting.

I would advise doing it in one session really, the game is like a great journey, almost epic in a way, moreso because I've never heard all of the different era's songs all together like that, which makes the growth in quality just so much more awesome. Band starts off looking young, singing simple songs about girls and as time goes on they look so much older and the songs are just so much more advanced you can't help but be amazed. I can think of barely any bands that has happened to. The moment that guitar solo starts in My Guitar Gently Weeps is like HOLY FUCKING SHIT. The way it builds up to

literally The End

is amazing.

Whilst the game may be easier than the others, there are some surprisingly hard sections. some from the fast and chordy early days. If you like Rock Band and you like The Beatles, this is such a no brainer. Also, great part is that it displays your friend's scores for each song in Quickplay, which is a nice touch.

Now, need to buy All You Need Is Love.

I can't believe they kept in Ringo's 'problem' at the end Helter Skelter! It caught me off guard and I missed the last note. Great stuff

[Hendo]

I'm playing the story mode (career) on just my guitar, so yep. You can choose guitar or bass for each song, so you're not limited to whichever one you initially chose.

I think the Lips mics are meant to work, yeah.

spatular, a harmony is defined: "In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and harmonic progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic line, or the "horizontal" aspect. Counterpoint which refers to the interweaving of melodic lines and polyphony which refers to the relationship of separate independent voices are thus sometimes distinguished from harmony.

In real terms:

One vocal line will be one specific melody, and the other will be a few notes lower or higher but in the same scale and fit the same chords. If you've played any Iron Maiden guitar parts on Rock Band, then they should have the same thing.

If it's counterpoint/polyphony then it's like the end of this song:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPpKwFxXF7c&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPpKwFxXF7c&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPpKwFxXF7c&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Getting used to singing harmony is pretty tricky.

[Hendo]

I've gotten near the end of the story on guitar on Hard, only missing a couple of 5 star ratings, I'll be going back through on bass on Expert probably.

I took it round a mate's place and we got about halfway through with him on guitar and me on bass and even more than I was before, I'm in awe of McCartney's bass lines, especially on those he sings lead on. It's utterly mind boggling how someone would play those parts while singing - you could easily strip them down to straight 1/4 notes that sit more or less on the root notes, but he goes all over the shop. "Drive My Car" is a great example of this.

The dream sequences when they retreated into the studio are fantastic - they start out with them in the Abbey Road studio and then as the song kicks in it all goes fantastical depending on the song and then when the song ends they return back to the brown, dull-looking studio, which given the band and the time-frame, is probably not far from how they felt.

There's a couple of differences from normal RB, in that the star power, star power activation and when you earn star ratings, have much subtler sounds that indicate when you've done something.

As a Beatles fan, it sits alongside the Anthology albums, Anthology documentary and Love album in doing justice to the band. In fact, if anyone is remotely interested in music in general, I would recommend watching the whole of the Anthology series as it's a great insight into the whole period and is fascinating to watch as the people involved seem to be talking to you. By the end of it you feel like you've been through the whole thing with them.

As David says, it's astonishing that in 7 years they made so many albums and continually changed their style. To go from I Want To Hold Your Hand to Within You Without You in a handful of years is gob smacking.

Finally, I'd like to state that if you want to hear the sound of the apocalypse, listen to the end of I Want You (She's So Heavy).

[spatular]

thanks for the harmonies info hendo i pretty much understood it too don't understand how the iron maiden guitar parts are like singing though? or is it just the fact there's the same part being played an octave lower/higher or something like that?

The dream sequences when they retreated into the studio are fantastic - they start out with them in the Abbey Road studio and then as the song kicks in it all goes fantastical depending on the song and then when the song ends they return back to the brown, dull-looking studio, which given the band and the time-frame, is probably not far from how they felt.

yeah these are amazing, i keep missing notes because i'm trying to watch them.

been playing this most of the night on drums and the fun-ness of the charting is quite a mixed bag, usually i prefer to play the harder stuff as it's more interesting but the harder stuff in this often lacks any veriety where the simpler songs can actually be quite good where what is there is at least interesting to play. overall i've been enjoying it though, just 3/4 songs left

[Hendo]

thanks for the harmonies info hendo i pretty much understood it too don't understand how the iron maiden guitar parts are like singing though? or is it just the fact there's the same part being played an octave lower/higher or something like that?

Listen to this at 2:33

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You hear one guitar part do a melody and then at 2:52 a second harmony guitar part comes in. Both parts are more or less the same but with a few notes difference. I can't remember whether you play guitar or not but if you do, this should be easier, top part is one guitar, second is the harmony part. So yeah, the same thing happens with harmony singing.

Riff C Harmony

Em

Q. S S Q. S S E S S E S S E S S S S E

||--------------------|-------------------------|

||o-------------------|-------------------------|

||-----------4--------|-------4-----------4-----|

||-------4-5------5-4-|---4-5---5-4---4-5---5-4-|

||o-7-----------------|-7-----------7-----------|

||--------------------|-------------------------|

|

| Q. S S Q. S S E S S E S S E S S S S E

||--------------------|-------------------------|

||o-------------------|-------------------------|

||-----------7--------|-------7-----------7-----|

||--5----7-9------9-7-|-5-7-9---9-7-5-7-9---9-7-|

||o-------------------|-------------------------|

||--------------------|-------------------------|

I envy you going through on drums, the beat on Tomorrow Never Knows is fucking ace.

[stoobie]

I'm not a Beatles maniac like Hendo but this game is so good. The presentation is superb. I love the transitions between each venue and I wish I could somehow play and watch the videos at the same time.

I prefer this over the Guitar Heros that I have mainly as I know all the songs on it whereas I generally know five or six on the others. Im only playing on easy at the moment - my little finger doesnt know how to press the blue or orange button - but I am up to Dear Prudence which I guess must be quite far through as they have long hair and taches! I kept meaning to turn it off and play some Vesperia but I got just-one-more-go-itis.

On easy some of the songs are quite boring mind - especially Yellow Submarine - just continous yellow notes. I am going to have to make the step up to Medium!

[Hendo]

Yeah, Yellow Submarine is pretty dull to play not matter what difficulty.

Did you hear that people at the launch in the Cavern Club got the game for £9.99?

Anyone who pre-ordered the title from a GAME or Gamestation store in Liverpool received tickets for the bash and the chance to live the Beatles dream, but the retailer kept the one-off discount up its sleeve until the night itself.

"Everyone here tonight who's pre-ordered will get it tomorrow for £9.99," Neil Ashurst, GAME's UK PR head honcho, told Eurogamer, explaining that the figure was designed to reflect its 9th September 2009 release date.

"The customers are so excited, Liverpool's really behind the game, so the Cavern Club is the only place we thought we had to do this and fortunately we were able to take the place for the night."

[David]

Bastards.

I just played drums a while back and noticed they don't allow you to fiddle with the music at all. No improv drum fills, no drumming before the song starts/after it ends, and no guitar sound effects. I guess they wouldn't have stood for it. Not a big deal, but I really liked the fills.

[spatular]

thanks for the harmonies info Hendo, i play guitar but really badly, haven't played for ages, i'll take a look at the video when i'm at home

and yeah yellow submarine is really boring, but the stuff going on in the background looked cool.

[DANGERMAN]

Played this for a chunk of the weekend. Completed the career on saturday with Spatular then we got some mates round and played 4 player.

I wasn't really taken with it with the career, it was ok, but I'm not a big fan of Rock Band or the Beatles and this seemed to just be a fairly below par music game. I'm not saying that to be controversial, I mean it. I dropped bass and went to guitar to make it more interesting, and still the much lauded harmonix note charts weren't really there, put simply the game was boring. There was the odd good track, one of them comes quite early on, think its a McCartney song. Anyway, the last 3 stages were much better, partly for the tracklist partly because the songs get more involved. so it does improve

what i hadnt counted on was that when you get 4 people playing it's a much better game. I think because whether they like every track or not they do know the vast majority of them, so people are more open to playing them and can join in a bit more.

A few other things though, firstly the pricing is obscene, for £180 you should get everything.

Secondly the track list. It should be double the size it is, I know its a 'spin-off' game to a point, but it's really not in terms of hype and budget. Compare the number of tracks in the new Guitar hero game to this, fuck I still havent finished career on Rock Band on guitar. As much as anything it's the tracks that aren't included, a mate of mine was asking to play a couple of songs that werent in the game, he wasnt impressed that they werent there.

Spatular reckons this is because they paid so much for the licence that they need to fleece people to get their money back, but id have though the guaranteed sales would be enough. It makes the pricing for the downloads even worse imo

I havent written this to bait anyone. On one hand I think its a far worse game than Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero WT, on the other that you know all the songs really counts for something. I do think reviews have been overly generous because it's A. Rock band and B. the Beatles, but I did enjoy it in 4 player and if you do love the Beatles you'll prefer this to a game made up of assorted bands. I wouldnt recomend it to thers though, even Spatular is getting a bit bored of it and he's got a raging hard on for this kind of game

[illdog]

Sweet, i was in danger of getting sucked into the hype and getting this but your pouty faced put down was the slap in the face reality check i needed to bring me back to Earth. Not really that into the Beatles anyway, stupid advertising.

[Hendo]

See the first post, man, if you don't like the band then it really would be a waste of money.

I (and everyone else on the planet) disagree with Ben about the bass parts, but yeah, it does need more tracks (though I suspect spatular is right that this must've cost an unbelievable amount with just the songs that are on it), and there's nothing ridiculously challenging for the GH/RB score whores, so it really comes down to how you feel about the band's music.