The Beatles Rock Band

[CthulhuDreams]

With the release of The Beatles Rock Band coming less then a week away. I'm curious about who's gonna pick it up, how you feel about multipul people singing, and just overall how you think it will be?

[XavierThirtyTwo]

Well, I played it for about 6 hours last night so let me give you my impressions.

First off, let me make it clear that I don't really care for The Beatles. To elaborate on that, I may actually be leaning more towards the realm of I don't really care for them, but everyone makes such a big fuss over them and then even MORE of a fuss over the fact that I don't think they're the greatest thing since sliced bread, that I almost despise them entirely. Basically, I think they're slightly overrated, and everyone gets far too defensive when I say that.

That being said, this game is amazing.

Let's start with the visuals:
The highway is now pastel colored, and cell shaded. yes, cell shaded. It looks amazing, and the hammer-ons are much easier to see. The Beatlemania (overdrive) gauge now has notches on it, and it flashes much brighter, making easier to tell how much you have it filled.

The live performance venues are amazingly detailed recreations of the actual performances. Later in the game, when you're playing recording sessions as venues, literally each song has it's own venue. The song will start with the band in the recording studio, and as you play along it will fade away to some fantastical and trippy '70s music video looking venue where you end up doing amazing things (like playing the song under water while the lyrics float around in multi colored wonder, as is the case for Octopus' Garden.) The animations and cut scenes are beautiful, and the menus are so lavish that each panel could be hung up on your wall and displayed as art.

Gameplay additions:
Firstly, and this is a small one, we finally have a countdown when you come back from pausing the game. I've been griping about this for years. I know some people don't care, but I was ecstatic when I saw this.

Now for the big one. Three way harmony on vocals. It works, and it works well. The game supports 1-6 players (that's right, SIX!) which means that you can have Guitar/Bass/Drums/three singers. OR, you can have Guitar/Bass/Drums/Singer and the guitar/bass can sing back up vocals with 2 mics on mic-stands while they play, the way it's meant to be done. This ends up being way more fun than any other music game experience I've ever had.

Playing and paying attention to the guitar highway, not forgetting to sing the high note on the phrase 'with a little help/from my friends' seeing that you combo'd both things at the same time, AND you auditorally heard 2 of your somewhat tone-deaf friends ACTUALLY sing a three part harmony with you that sounded decent - That is so emotionally rewarding it's not even funny.

TL;DR = This game is awesome, even if you don't care for The Beatles - And this is coming from a self proclaimed Beatles-hater.

[CthulhuDreams]

Its good to hear that the three part harmony does work. that was one of my fears is that it would be really bad and not worth the time to even do. Now if I get my friends to have enought courage to sing i would be set.
As for the countdown to start up again I also silently griped about it. so hearing they fixed that is big news for me too. Well i can't wait to play I am a Beatles so i might find it more enjoyable. who knows I might play against you or play with you on Live.

[Thund3rball]

How do you have six instruments connected to the console? Does the Bundle come with a 6 port USB hub? On my Wii Rock Band I can only have a maximum of 4 instruments. Can I buy another 4 port hub and plug that in with the first hub? Or is there a hub available with more ports?

[XavierThirtyTwo]

Both guitars and the drums are wireless. You only need 3 open USB ports for the mics, which the Xbox360 does have.

[CthulhuDreams]

I'm finding out though that noone is playing tug of war or score. that's one of the fun things to do on RB.