Posted on October 1, 2012
My Top 100: #77 – The Beatles: Rock Band
2009 – Harmonix (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii)
This game was bought for me as a bribe!!
One fall day a few years ago, my wife Anita *really* wanted to get her eyebrow pierced. Me, not being much of a fan in getting new holes bored into a person’s body, thought her face was lovely just as it was, and didn’t need any new holes in it for the sake of new jewellery. Well, it’s her face, and one day I came home from work to a shiny new piercing over her right eye. Call me old fashioned, but I was a bit bummed out. I tried to not be too upset… It’s not my face! Why should I be upset?
Anyway, she could tell I was still grumpy about it as the night wore on, so we ended up making a trip to the mall. We came home with the special, “full band” edition of The Beatles: Rock Band. I forgot all about the piercing after a few hours!
I hope she doesn’t get anything else pierced. It might get a bit too expensive.
About why the game is on my countdown, I barely feel like I need to explain anything.
1. Based on the most revolutionary band in rock history.
2. When I think of The Beatles, I think of the art of The Beatles. This game recounts their visual history, from their early days at venues to the Dreamscapes representing their more… experimental years.
3. Downloadable content – three full albums, all of them legendary – all with brand new Dreamscapes of their own.
4. The Special Edition includes either Paul’s legendary Rickenbacker bass, George’s Gretsch Duo guitar or John’s Rickenbacker guitar, along with Ringo’s trademark drumkit.
5. Same old Rock Band fun, with the addition of harmonies for whoever wants to join in with a second mic.
6. Career Mode chronicles their album portfolio as you progress with fun little cutscenes between each chapter.
7. Tons of bonus images and videos to unlock.
This was my first experience with a music game outside of the realm of Guitar Hero titles, and it blew me away. It is the pinnacle of the fake plastic guitar genre, which seems to have lost a bit of steam in the last year or so. There’s still a market out there for DLC, but I don’t see any new peripherals making their way onto shelves, what with the death of the GH franchise and all.
I do have one complaint about the game, and it’s a fairly minor one… but why, oh WHY couldn’t we have had some kind of DLC to make the game playable on the Rock Band keyboard?? This game was only a year old when RB3 came out, so why not a patch for The Beatles: Rock Band? So many of their songs feature the piano in some way, and it wouldn’t have been a stretch to have released even more DLC on top of it. “Hey Jude”, “Let it Be”, “Lady Madonna”… such great songs that never got any keyboard love.
Anyway, I love the heck out of this game. I might be partial, just because I love The Beatles, but it’s just friggin’ great.
“Wh-one – two – three – FAAHHWWR!”
Justin told me it costs a company aproximately 20 grand to produce a patch for a game..
Yeah, definitely understandable. I also read that even releasing DLC for this game was expensive, just because they needed to have access to the master tracks (which I’m guessing is the case across the board for Rock Band games).
Still, I’m sure that would have been an expense that would have paid dividends… oh well!
Greg, I actually thought it was 40 grand? At least that’s what I heard. Then again, Justin’s kind of, you know.. DIRECTLY involved with that stuff.
Neat trivia: Part of the terms Harmonix had to sign off on to make this include absolutely no ‘booing’ when you fail, as well as the fact that there had to be a delay of a few second from when you see ‘The Beatles’, and then the words ‘Rock Band’. Weird!
Yeah maybe it was 40k.. I couldn’t remember exactly.