Yesterday I got to play AC/DC Live: Rock Band, as the $40 standalone expansion disc has come to be known. I can confirm: It plays like a version of Rock Band populated with 18 live AC/DC tracks. You probably could have guessed that to be the case. Sorry, I think my brain is still in Japan. Anyhow, here in a news-you-can-use format are all the deets I picked up.
- Why isn't this a download? In the words of Harmonix community dude John Drake, AC/DC "likes things to be packaged in a very specific way." Since they also don't sell their music on iTunes, I took that to mean "they hate the Internet."
- What's the on-disc gameplay like? There's a very basic ladder where you play through all 18 tracks of Live at Donnington. No world tour mode, character creation, or anything like that.
- Is the band in the game? Nope, just the songs. This ain't Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.
- What's up with importing the tracks? Every copy ships with a single-use code that will let you pull all the songs into your Rock Band 2, at which point they'll function just like any other DLC. So they'll show up in world tour, you can play them online, all that jazz.
- Achievements? Yep, 12 of them on the 360, amounting to what looks like 200 points. No trophies in the PS3 version, sadly, because AC/DC Live is based on the first Rock Band, not the sequel.
- Great, but how are the songs, man? You could look up the Donnington album online and listen to some samples if you want to hear for yourself, but the recording was apparently very good at that show, because they practically sounded like studio tracks to me. I played "Back in Black" and the riff sounded 100 percent spot-on. If you've been waiting for AC/DC in your music game, I think you'll be happy.
It's a tad annoying you have to deal with a retail release to get these songs. But then, if you don't live near a Wal-Mart, or you're incredibly lazy, you can also get it through their online store. And the price of the disc seems pretty much consistent with the way Rock Band DLC tracks have been going anyway. Look for AC/DC Live early in November.
How does the retail nature of this thing strike you fine readers? Does the slightly higher cost and/or the fact you have to obtain a physical package put you off, or is that a small price to pay to get one of the most sought-after groups into your Rock Band?