JANUS2's The Beatles: Rock Band review

Great review, highly deserving of review of the week. You do a really good job of pointing out the cultural interest the game will garner without forgetting that this is a game. You give a great overview of how it compares to the other titles in the series and YES! I definitely agree that Rock Band should have less AMAZING musicians and more AMAZING stars. After all, Rock and Roll started as an uncomplicated, accessible, form of music and that's the kind of music I want to attempt at such a game.

Hey thanks Zipp! I enjoyed writing this one so I'm glad you enjoyed reading it!

Great review. It made the game sound like much more than just another rehashed music game that the market is oversaturated with.

Fantastic review. Informative, lively and peppered with references. You answered all the questions I had about the game, as well making me feel I knew exactly what I'd be getting.

This is an excellent review, Janus, and I'd love it if you said "Hey, I'd be willing to upgrade it to a staff review so that it can be exclusive to this site and never deleted." That would make me happy, since it's unlikely that anyone will ever do a better job covering the game. Drop me a line if you're interested.

As far as nitpicks go, I had only one:

It use the interactive form of video gaming as a means of bringing fans, young and old, together in celebration of the music and history of the band.

You're missing an 's' on "uses" right at the start of that sentence.

Aside from that one nit, this review was reviewing perfection. Well, in my humble opinion, anyway. If this were an audition, you certainly would have passed it!

Thanks for the nice comments, guys.

Jason, I'm happy for you to upgrade it. I fixed the error you spotted. Do I need to do anything else? Oh and do I get a big clicky picture?!

The review is updated and featured. Wasn't that fast? If you have a short little summary for your review to go in the box next to the score (under 250 characters in length, including any HTML), post it here and someone on staff can update the review. Otherwise, you're done. Thanks!

Guess it's out of the running for RotW now? >_>

Yes, jerec - you have a chance to win again. =P

Anyway, after reading this topic, I had to see what all the fuss was about, so I read the review, and I have to agree that yeah; this is pretty good stuff. I honestly can't imagine how hard it is to make a music-based game sound interesting, and that's probably why I've never written for one, but you seemed to capture everything pretty well.

Granted, I'm probably not going to go out and buy this game, even if I already had the Rockband equipment and everything. I'm just not a fan of the Beatles at all (*insert gasps and sshouts of "blasphemy" here*). But it's good to know that a single artist-based game can be pulled off to good effect.

On another note, Harmonix also made the first three Guitar Hero installments (I, II and the 80s encore thing), so I don't know how fair it is to compare Guitar Hero to Rockband just on the fact that Harmonix developed these games and not the later Guitar Hero ones. But you don't really cite this as the only reason, anyway. I just felt like pointing that out.

I compared it to "those branded Guitar Hero games" (GH: Aerosmith and Metallica), which were made by Neversoft (I think) after Harmonix lost control of the brand. Those titles and DJ Hero and the yearly GH updates are examples of how Activision are saturating the market with pointless titles to cash in on the Guitar Hero craze. Harmonix seem to care more about maintaining their reputation for quality, probably because music games are their thing (going right back to the excellent Frequency).

I was going to include a line telling non-Beatles fans that they wouldn't like The Beatles: Rock Band, but then I realised that would be a stupid thing to do. If you don't like The Beatles you don't like The Beatles. I can't change your mind about that.

Looking good. I don't do music games for single player, but if I did, this would likely be the one to win me over. My main objection to participating in GH or RB on parties is usually that I barely know any of the music - not going to be a problem with these blokes.

(And to whoever stuck "does it pass the audition" to it on the front page - LOL).

I actually linked this review to a bloke I know who is forever moaning about how Rock Band is superior to Guitar Hero and he believes reviewers don't do the former justice. The fact he loved this review so much is a testament to its quality and its deserved status as a staff feature.