Pixelnauts.net

The obvious way to begin a review of The Beatles: Rock Band would be to say that your enjoyment of the game is entirely dependent upon the amount of enjoyment you get from The Beatles' music, and with every other group-based music/rhythm game, such an opening statement would be pretty fair to make. But TB:RB is not every other music game, and The Beatles are certainly not just any other rock band.

The difference between TB:RB and other themed music titles becomes apparent from the moment the game is booted up. Before any title screen or menu options, we're treated to a wonderful opening cinematic, presented in a style somewhat akin to the psychedelia of The Beatles' 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine -- except now with the full 2009 digital HD treatment. The short cinematic, which is a highly stylized mash-up of The Beatles' varied musical styles, serves as the game's overture. I use the word overture here because the game itself is set up as a kind of play-through of The Beatles' short yet prolific career.

Up to six people are able to don the little plastic instruments at the same time: guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. It's a setup that should be familiar to those who have played earlier iterations of the Rock Band or Guitar Hero franchises, however new to TB:RB is the option to include up to three vocalists at the same time; a welcome, albeit challenging addition that capitalizes on The Fab Four's oftentimes complex vocal harmonies. Once everyone is in their positions, the game begins exactly where The Beatles began: the Cavern nightclub in Liverpool, 1963. In this lovingly re-created locale, you'll play a small selection of the tunes that the group was playing at that time of their career (I Saw Her Standing There, Twist and Shout etc.) After completing a short set of a few songs, another stylized animation transitions into the second phase of their careers, the Ed Sullivan Show in '64.

The story mode progresses through the ten or so years of The Beatles' career in this manner, making sure to include several of the iconic settings made famous by the group. Things really get interesting however when the group leaves the road in 1966 to put all their energies into producing their most famous albums in the now famous, Abbey Road studios. Of course, rendering four guys sitting around in a recording studio would be a pretty anticlimactic second half of the game, so Harmonix compensates by replacing the background concert-motif with psychedelic, dreamscape-like, music videos to accompany the actual gameplay. These moments are so amazingly detailed and just plain cool that more than once I found myself wanting to put the instrument down and just listen to the music and watch. The final chapter of TB:RB returns to the concert motif, this time culminating with the famous Abbey Road roof-top concert of January 1969. As with the previous chapters this windy scene has been faithfully recreated with a wonderful attention to detail.

This run-down of The Beatles' career is great fun and alone would make this game worth playing, but it's the inclusion of over 100 pictures and six videos taken from the groups archives that make TB:RB such a special title. Each picture, unlocked by playing the 45 songs in the game, includes a short paragraph of commentary that explains everything from how a specific song came about to what the band was doing at the time of the shoot. The five unlockable videos (not including the several transitional cinematics à la the aforementioned opening) as well offer glimpses into The Beatles' storied rise to superstardom. In fact, one of them is segment of a never before released record that The Beatles only sent out to members of their fan club -- a welcome inclusion that will make any Beatles fan happy.