So, here is my review on Rock band for the Xbox 360 console. I am going to judge on a few things to determine the rating. Gameplay and soundtrack are the main things, but I will go in depth about all instruments; excluding drums since I refuse to pay £60 for them.
Gameplay:
Firstly, I am going to say this. You will not have the same experience as you did on Guitar hero; this game is called "rock
band" for a reason and that is being together as a band. It is a lot of fun together.
Gameplay (local) can either be solo or with a friend (band world tour). You can play through all 58 setlist songs (I think) alone, or with a friend however it is way more fun with a friend. Band world tour however has got to be local and cannot be online which is a bummer, and has to lose a rating for that. If you do want to play band world tour online however, I suggest you get Rock band 2.
Soundtrack:
The soundtrack in my honest opinion was quite weak. There is not a lot here to make you say "oh yeah" , but the beauty of that is there is more music for this game to get you into. Bands such as Rush, Metallica, Iron Maiden, the who, Ramones, Black Sabbath are in here which a lot of people are familiar with, and if you do not have an idea who Metallica are I really am worried for you. Most of the music is focussed on more easier to play stuff so it is a lot easier than GH3.
Intruments: (Except Drums)
Microphone (vocals):
The mic that is bundled witht he game is a standard Logitech USB microphone which works very well, the 360 headset can also be used but it is not good to use. It is better to pay £20, instead of failing a song constantly just because the headset keeps changing your pitch. I am on the last tier for the "hard" difficulty using the headset and it was nothing but struggle. The vocals work simply, you sing at a pitch; octave does not matter to pass the song. On occasion you tap it to do tamparine parts, or using the headset you press "a" on the 360 controller.
Guitar:
All guitars work on this game, so the X-plorer (GH2), Les paul (GH3 and Aerosmith) work on this perfectly. The stratocaster is the one bundled with the game, now I have only had a slight play on this and I say this; If you played the les paul for a while you will hate this. The strum bar feels differant, however is takes getting use to. There are also "solo buttons" where in a solo you can just tap the buttons without actually strumming which is a neat idea. The guitar works the same as any Guitar hero game, you have 5 fret buttons and a strum bar and you have to hit notes in time. This time there are "solo" parts like I mentioned before, and you get a percentage score on how well you played the solo; and this is where the solo buttons on the strat come in.
Overall:
The game is a great party game, and goes stale on your own a bit. Its capital of entertainment with friends about but on your own it feels just like guitar hero over again. Expert guitar is nothing like Expert on GH3, If you passed that you will get through this a lot easily, except the last song is a bummer. Look at the setlist, listen to it and judge if you will like it or not, then choose if to buy or not.
