The Beatles Rock Band finds itself nestled comfortably at the crest of that trend, a trend plagued by large plastic peripheral controllers and the jarring sound of simulated drumming. It’s a curious development; place a model Fender Stratocaster in the hands of a thirteen-year-old, and suddenly he is four-finger shredding the controller’s polychromatic fretboard like Hendrix himself. Or at least that’s what its supposed to feel like. It’s this feeling that originally inspired the creation of the Rock Band experience and the most recent iteration in the franchise, which completely fulfills the game’s promise.
Let’s get something out of the way first: The Beatles Rock Band is, at its core, the very same game that you have been disturbing your neighbors with for the past two years. Match the scrolling notes with imitation plucks and strums and bangs, and you have yourself a slowly increasing high score. A higher score means a higher ranking and more enthusiastic accolades. The game, of course, is far more fun with a little help from your friends than it is alone, and by adding vocal harmonies to the latest title, Harmonix allows you to play along with five friends. Harmonix obviously did not go out of their way to tweak the winning Rock Band formula. No complaints here.
But much of the allure of The Beatles Rock Band lies in the things you don’t see, or at least the things outside the realm of gameplay. Harmonix, eyed suspiciously by the stalwart and Argus-eyed Apple Corps, managed to create a game that treats The Beatles legacy like the treasure it is. The band’s history is brilliantly detailed, tracing The Beatles from their humble Cavernous origins in 1963 all the way to their rooftop concert in 1969. Elegantly placed in between the game’s eight chapters are beautifully animated shorts, oftentimes dizzying, but remarkable. Moreover, performing well in songs earns you an abundance of photos and liner-note inspired snippets about the band and their efforts. It’s a warm gun.
The Beatles Rock Band is charmingly detailed. The painstaking efforts the developers took to maintain accuracy and plausibility in every detail of the game is shown in sharp relief during gameplay. The model designs for the band members are strikingly convincing, oftentimes uncomfortably sliding in and out of the uncanny valley. The seemingly drug-inspired dreamscape sequences make watching others play the game far more bearable and, for songs like “Octopus’s Garden” and “Lucy in The Sky with Diamonds,” extremely entertaining. These stylistic elements, coupled with the title’s attention to detail and presentation of the The Beatles, holistically come together to make this latest Rock Band title the best in the series.
But there are troubles with this title that are in some senses unavoidable. It’s painfully short, first off, likely to be completed by even the most lax Beatles fans in just five hours. Coupled with that is a somewhat paltry offering of forty-five tracks, an offering notably lacking in some of the band’s most popular and timeless tunes. The skeptic, naturally, here offers his two cents on the matter: Blame the money. It’s a fairly easy, and certainly, I’d argue, accurate assumption to say that the choice of the title’s packaged tracks was engineered in an attempt to draw more customers to the Rock Band Store. It’s a tricky, albeit completely brilliant, effort that is sure to significantly increase Harmonix’s revenue from the title.
And it’s here we should address the question of motive because it’s also the case that Harmonix and crew took a major risk with this title. I see it as an issue of demographics and intended audience. While fans of The Beatles would be hard pressed to find a more pleasing showcase for the greatest band of all time, for newcomers, The Beatles Rock Band might be a harder sell. Juxtaposed with the the ostensibly hipper Rock Band 2 tracks, as well as the offerings of Guitar Hero 5, it’s certainly likely that the kids will opt for what they know. As tragic as the notion might be, The Beatles are your parents’ favorite band, not yours.
But I’m being cynical. The fact of the matter is that this game does have the ability to reinvigorate interest in The Beatles, sparking a resurgence of Beatlemania and adding to the undoubtedly already-overflowing Apple Corps coffers. It’s an exciting notion. A new generation of Beatles fans is a generation of more informed music fans, people more in touch with the music they are listening to. As much as concerned parents and musicians wring their hands over the wasted efforts of becoming adept at playing fake instruments, video games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero have done quite a bit to reconnect people with music by forcing them to play along, to bring music from the background to the foreground of their lives and attention. You might just call it a revolution.