Rock Band Special Edition

Get ready to rock!!!

Strengths: Combines guitar, singing, and drumming! Great song selection. Tons of replay.

Weakness: Guitar not compatible with GH, expensive bundle, have to pay for extra songs.

Ladies and gentlemen, here is the Guitar Hero-killer. I love playing GH, but find the expert difficulty to be impossible. Luckily, Rock Band allows me to be challenged at an expert difficulty, and still enjoy playing. The singing is very responsive, and the drums are a blast to play. You can do a single-player campaign, but I would recommend rocking out with a friend.

By tenjack - Dec 14, 2007

Great party Game

Strengths: The song selection is excellent, much better than gh3. It is awesome to play 4 player with a full band. Tons of fun.

Weakness: Rock Band guitar is wired and not compatible with gh3. In general, a little easier than gh3 which others may see as a good thing. No Coop Band Play online.

Overall I'm very pleased with this game. It is great fun to have friends over and all play together. You can set the difficulty separately per player per instrument so that each player can play at their own level. The songs are great and it is an all around good game. The inclusion of drums and a microphone for singing are great addons which allow for a wider audience. Some people who don't like...
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Overall I'm very pleased with this game. It is great fun to have friends over and all play together. You can set the difficulty separately per player per instrument so that each player can play at their own level. The songs are great and it is an all around good game.

The inclusion of drums and a microphone for singing are great addons which allow for a wider audience. Some people who don't like guitar will immediately jump to singing or drums.

By lordpolo - Nov 28, 2007

Game of the holiday season!

Strengths: Excellent track list Well designed user-interface and instrument emulation Quick learning curve

Weakness: Decent chance of getting defective instruments and needing them replaced. Instruments come with only a 60-day warranty. Guitar and vocals aren't fully like playing guitar or singing

This is an excellent game and great for parties, group get-to-gethers etc... The songs are all very good and nothing particularly offensive, which is good for the family/younger kids. The learning curve is pretty easy to pick up and play, which is good. A lot of the guitars shipping out are defective and have to be replaced. It's not a big deal because support.ea.com/rockband will cross-ship you...
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This is an excellent game and great for parties, group get-to-gethers etc... The songs are all very good and nothing particularly offensive, which is good for the family/younger kids. The learning curve is pretty easy to pick up and play, which is good.

A lot of the guitars shipping out are defective and have to be replaced. It's not a big deal because support.ea.com/rockband will cross-ship you a replacement free, but only during the warranty period. Warranty on the instruments is only 60 days, which is a bit short for something that's been having a spotty reliability record.

In terms of the gameplay, there're several different settings, which are good for people at various skill levels. Songs get progressively harder as you move along, so it transitions well between skill levels. The guitar is fun, but nothing like playing a real guitar. Vocals are somewhat fudged - you don't see any notes, just a curve that indicates where you are in relation to where you're supposed to be. Vocalists may find that somewhat frustrating (especially on hard). Drums are the most realistic of the instruments and they say that playing the drums on the hardest setting is the real deal.

Overall an excellent game, but it would be nice to see more incorporation of the actual notes and whatnot into the game (or at least the option to switch it on). You could very easily use this game to help people learn music in a fun way, had they enabled more than just the fudged vocals and guitar notations.

This isn't a huge detractor, but it's just a bit of a letdown for me that they went all the way on the drums but crippled the other elements. Still a great game. Very enjoyable for pretty much everyone.

By iseestars - Dec 22, 2007

Get the band back together

Strengths: Fun multiplayer game, drums are fun but hard

Weakness: Guitar is very easy and often boring, if you want it only for a guitar game, go buy Guitar Hero 3 instead.

In all honesty, I was at first dissappointed with this game. I played guitar first, and this game seems to try to be more realistic with its note charts, and tries to be more casual gamer friendly. This is great at parties, but if you want a challenge, go get Guitar Hero III. I'll take the challenge of Through the Fire and the Flames over these songs any day of the week. As a party game though,...
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In all honesty, I was at first dissappointed with this game. I played guitar first, and this game seems to try to be more realistic with its note charts, and tries to be more casual gamer friendly. This is great at parties, but if you want a challenge, go get Guitar Hero III. I'll take the challenge of Through the Fire and the Flames over these songs any day of the week.

As a party game though, this game completely transforms. Get 3 other friends together (pitty the singer though, as it is often easier to get a good singing score by simply hitting the right pitch and sounding aweful and singing for fun or sounding good) The band dynamic and team work make this game an experience not to be missed.

Finally, the drums are completely different feeling that guitar. The need to coordinate your arms and one foot together and the overall physical feel of hitting the drums is just great. It is very difficult, however, and most people I know will probably never dream of playing on Hard, let alone the punishing expert.

If more time and energy had gone in to the guitar segments, this would score higher. However, it seems they did drums first, and threw guitar in as an afterthought (poor bass players, there are some songs where the only note you need to hit is the green one...)

By zmonkay - Dec 27, 2007

Rock Band Rocks!

Strengths: great songs, anyone can play and be challenged regardless of musical skill

Weakness: haven't really found one

I had a brief encounter with Guitar Hero and loved it. My wife got Rock Band thinking it would a good family game. It is an outstanding family game!!! We have a 9 year old son and an 8 year daughter. I play some guitar but the rest of us have had no lessons and it doesn't matter. This game can also be challenging for my neighbors that do play drums/guitar and a blast for a bunch of people to get...
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I had a brief encounter with Guitar Hero and loved it. My wife got Rock Band thinking it would a good family game. It is an outstanding family game!!! We have a 9 year old son and an 8 year daughter. I play some guitar but the rest of us have had no lessons and it doesn't matter. This game can also be challenging for my neighbors that do play drums/guitar and a blast for a bunch of people to get together! Gutar Hero is fun, but Rock Band blows it away!

By saphenousman - Jan 2, 2008