November 23rd, 2007 by Chris Scott
Also available on:
PS3, PS2, WII Touring the World
As much fun as the single player component is, the real meat of Rock Band comes in the form of Band World Tour. To start a band you will need at least two people. One person will be designated the band leader and that profile will be needed to play as the band. The game will assign you to a city and there you will start your band career. You will play small gigs at dive bars to start but as you pass songs and progress forward you will unlock other cities to play in.
Band World Tour is a completely different beast from anything that players have experienced before. Each location will have certain challenges that need to be completed. Early on, these will include two song mystery sets or a battle of the bands. But, later on, you will have 18 song marathons where you will legitimately play a full concert. The venues are all spectacular looking and there is a large range of variety. There is no endgame for Band World Tour - it could just continue on forever. But for those that like something to aim for, attempting to get their band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame should suffice.
Tug of War
While Band World Tour is not available online, you can get with your friends and play some songs together in online band quickplay. The rest of the online modes will be familiar to anyone who has played Guitar Hero III online, Tug of War (Face Off) and Score Duel (Pro-Face Off). It’s all fun stuff but the true fun in this game lies in the full band experience.
All these great features mean nothing without a good song list, though, and in this front Rock Band delivers - kind of. The song choices in Rock Band will be debated heavily by Guitar Hero and Rock Band fans, I personally feel Guitar Hero III has the better song list but Rock Band’s songs are a lot of fun to play. It is all just a matter of personal tastes. One thing that can not be argued about is that the songs sound great. Much like the visuals, the sound in Rock Band is top notch.
Burnin' A Hole
Where Rock Band hopes to satisfy everyone is with its downloadable content. Upon release there were already a slew on new songs available. As long as Harmonix sticks to its promises, it will come down to how much do you like the songs and how open will you allow your wallet to be.
And the question of how open you will allow your wallet to be will probably come into play for most people when considering the game. $169 for a game is a lot of money. I can not tell you if Rock Band is worth $169 to you, but I can tell you that Rock Band is in almost every aspect a better game than Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and it is the evolutionary next step in the music game genre.
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