The Beatles Rock Band

Must admit i was a little apprehensive about paying £150 for a game, but being a huge fan of beatlemania i caved into the pressure and splashed out on this limited edition pack. You get with it the ludwig drums, the hofner bass replica and a mic and stand for it so you can sing and play at the same time if you want the challenge!

Whilst it's a lot of money for a game, it works out as great value for this pack. Especially considering that amazon is selling the guitars for £85 pounds a piece!

The mic and stand are sturdy and functional enough but the drum and bass controllers are exceptional and I can't believe that they come in such a great value for money package with the game. The drums are based on the rock band 2 drum kit (as opposed to the inferior RB1 drums that come with the value pack of Beatles rock band). The main difference is that the kick drum pedal is made of steel rather than plastic. This is worth the price difference between the value and special edition packs alone, as the plastic pedal on the RB1 drums break very quickly and soon become costly and tiresome to keep replacing. Also add in the fact that the pads are a bit sturdier and that you get an authentic beatles kick drum insignia that clips on to the kit, and this thing is almost worth £150 on its own! Plus a pair of drum sticks are included.

The Hofner bass replica looks the part for sure, but i found the extremely long neck made it feel a bit awkward after playing the guitar parts for a while. Having said that, it is meant to be a bass and if you play the bass parts it doesn't feel like much of a problem. Though it doesn't work on the beatles version of rock band, there is an effects switch on the controller as well as a whammy bar so you can access all the features of RB 1 and 2 if you use this guitar with them.

I don't think a lot needs to be said for the game itself as there are probably some good in depth reviews for the solus version of the game. Needless to say nearly all the fab fours' classics feature and there are a lot of training modes to break you in if you find things a bit tricky. Things that jump out are the amount of unlockables being pleasing to any beatles fan. The difficulty really hits the spot no matter which mode you choose and that the story mode is great fun. I also liked that the save files don't have the band pre-set when you load them again so you can do half the career mode with guitar and drums and then swap to vocals and bass next time you play (unlike where your band was set in rock band 1 and couldn't be changed unless you started a new game). Some people have been worried about the length of the game as most Beatles tracks in the early days were less than 3 minutes each. I don't think this is an issue as i haven't finished going through all the songs yet, and i've been going at story mode solid for almost the whole day now. Then when you've finished you'll no doubt want to do it with the other instruments and the new vocal harmonies feature.

Overall i can't recommend this enough if you're a fab four fan. I always liked rock band as a concept but thought the songs were lacking. This essentially gives the best of both worlds, as its a great game with some of the best songs ever written. It's nice that with this pack you can get playing straight away out of the box as everything is included from mic stands and drum sticks, to guitar straps and batteries. (you need batteries as the controllers are wireless, which is also a nice feature). Make sure you pay the extra money for this over the value pack variant of Beatles rock band. The extras are well worth it!

Surprisingly, it's been 24 years since The Beatles figured in a computer game. Other than McCartney's `Give my Regards to Broad Street', (`Band on the Run' appeared as the last song on `Guitar Heroes World Tour') and the Gary Marsh text adventure `Beatle Quest', both on Spectrum and Commodore, anything Beatles related has been missing from the software market (no doubt due to the legal minefield that is copyright). Now, however, with the keeper of the Holy Grail of music licensing finally relenting, we can be our favourite of the Fab Four. There's no point in explaining what this game is about, as anyone reading this will know, so let's look at what you get for your money.

Forty-five songs, with an additional 31 downloadable throughout the remainder of the year make up the game (there's actually 44 listed but one is a two song amalgamation from the `Love' CD). Amongst other things, when completing certain parts, prizes of unseen photos can be `won' as can the elusive `Christmas Album'. For the ears of the completists who must have everything, there's previously unissued studio chatter and snatches of instrumental music to be heard at various junctures. (I can imagine some buying this just for that.) One of the best options available is that of singing three part harmonies. Unsurprisingly, this has not been available on other `Rock Band' titles, but as The Beatles were fortunate enough to possess two of the all-time great singers and the vocal dexterity of the group was an important factor, it had to be included. This could be great fun on a Beatles Karaoke night.

One problem I can see is that many of the songs are less than three minutes in length, which may mean that some could complete the game sooner than anticipated. In addition, whilst the visuals are excellent, you will be concentrating too much on following the notes to watch - though you could always let it play on its own. However, the music is what The Beatles were about, and although there is no crossover between other `Rock Band' packages, this will introduce the group to many who are unaware of what the fuss was about. Conversely, as you won't be able to use any of the extra songs on other software, those who may want to try out being George cannot. Another failing in this and the others in the series is the absence of a piano. I mean, the keyboard is pretty funky in `Get Back' Maybe Harmonix, EA and anyone else involved could consider bringing one out as an add on instrument for future releases.

One change from the usual formula that keeps intact the aura that still surrounds the group is that you aren't booed if you go wrong, or cheered if you do well. That could never be included in anything Beatles related, so you'll merely get a song failed message and a chance to try again. In the studio sequences you'll hear one of them make a comment as to your playing (and how many hours of tape did someone listen to just to get these?). Don't expect everything from the canon to be made available; `Revolution 9' might prove a tad difficult to play and both `Good Night' and `Eleanor Rigby' make the instruments redundant, though the backward guitar parts of `Tomorrow Never Knows' could be an interesting exercise.
Undoubtedly destined to be the biggest seller in the franchise, my only gripe, and no doubt that of everyone who buys this, is the eye watering cost; with the other two guitars, it's £340 for the whole package. Though I'll still get the complete set, I'm still allowed to register my dissatisfaction. Yes, I know there's a stand-alone version that can be used with the Xbox controller and other `Rock Band' instruments, but that somewhat defeats the object of playing along with The Beatles.

At last a game for my teenagers that has a good sound track. Hours of fun over Christmas for all the family. We are all nearly word perfect. Its addictive!
The controllers are robust, the skill levels allow for progression and the feed back is constructive.