Beatles Rock Band

A few thoughts on "Rock Band" by one of my friends. :)

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Okay, I played through the forty-five songs in the "The Beatles: Rock Band" initial offering last night. We did vocals and drums (not guitar or bass). I hadn't previously tried their controllers or engaged with that interface.

Games exist in their playing of them, of course. Looking at an interface, as distinct from working with it in real-time, are different experiences, and the former is not very informative of the latter.  (In case it is not obvious: The stuff in the back, the people and their background, are simply wallpaper or cartoons. They just do what they are going to do -- the player cannot affect them.)

These songs were familiar to me, of course. I thought it was interesting how the designers had to represent a musical code -- when to sing vocals (whether "lead" or "second voice") and drums -- without raising the impediment of actually teaching how to read a musical score.

The interface for the drums I found at least understandable. Since you don't need to think about pitch here, it is mostly a matter of hitting your mark. There are four drums up, plus a foot pedal. I stuck to the pedal and the left snare and did OK.

As to the singing, I tried leads and second voice. The interface indicates now-in-time with a vertical bar. You see what you have to do approaching as it comes in from right to left. Pitch is indicated relatively -- how high or low on that staff. (Key doesn't exist in the "Rock Band" interface, since it essentially is facilitating a form of karaoke, or, 'play along with...' .) So, timing matters, and duration -- how long or short you hold your note -- matters. What they are doing under the hood with pitch is not immediately evident. I suspect that they/the players cut a lot of slack there -- maybe things are different on the more difficult settings. I can't hardly sing Paul's parts at all, of course, and I can get by on Ringo's and some of John's. The scoring (on Easy and Medium) didn't seem to care if I was close on my notes (sometimes I dropped an octave, it accepted that, which I thought was good).

The interface for bass, drums and guitar are easy on the eyes, with the three vocal parts clearly displayed. The running song is "Here Comes the Sun."  Scoring is another matter, one I won't get in to at this time.
 

As I said, I didn't try the guitar or bass. I think that would hurt my feelings. ;)

As to the audio, it was pretty darn good. BTW, they have included some period (with the dates included) studio chatter I haven't heard before.
 

Eric Clapton and Billy Preston were conspicously absent. ;)