The Beatles: Rock Band

 When I was growing up, my mom never sang lullabies to me but Top 40 songs which included a lot of The Beatles. I was unfortunate to hear the band live or see them in their prime. I am fortunate to have picked up The Beatles: Rock Band for the Xbox 360 and having a hard time putting it down.

This game covers the songs they played and historical events they took place in. The songs are memorable and any rock fan should know some of their work. Seeing the graphical reenactment of playing in Shea Stadium to their later years just recording songs in a sound studio. The game portrays the songs and events wonderfully.

Starting off with the story mode, you get an eight stage look of The Beatles as they grew with their music. To the clean shaven, short hair cuts in The Cavern Club to the scruffy, long haired demeanor on the rooftop concert, the game shows that progression nicely. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Star have their roles in the band but are given equal amount of time to show off their talents. Ringo and Harrison sample their songs like "Boys" and "Here Comes the Sun" while Lennon and McCartney show cased the rest of the game with songs like "With a Little Help from My Friends" and "Revolution". Though the game doesn't actually feel like being at that place and time, you do get a great feeling playing songs from revolutionary artists that changed history as we know it.

While playing story mode, you can unlock pictures that give you more insight into The Beatles then average fans wouldn't know. The reward seems small at first but enlightening after you play the song that gave you a picture.

Game Challenges can be completed while in story mode to rack up points by playing each stage again but continuously. The harder your difficulty, the easier it will be to move up in the rankings and beat your friends.

Quick play is a basic feature that is seen in all rhythm games that allows you to play locally or online with others but playing only Beatles songs. All 45 songs are available out of the box. Downloadable content will be coming for this feature soon but is limited now (as of 09/17/2009).

The sheer look of this game is wonderfully done in a cartoon-sort-of-way. The graphics don't scream 'realism' but keep a fun and exciting feel while fretting away on the guitar or singing that song of childhood memories. The graphics did shine when The Beatles were in Abbey Road Studios just recording song but the developers made it more interesting. Harmonix took that studio time but added some 'trippy' music video like scenes displaying a message for the song being played. Anyone who is looking to see realism in this game will be disappointed. The game doesn't need that graphical realism and still produced a wonderful game.

As I leave you from this review, the one thing you should take from it is The Beatles are terrific band and Harmonix didn't down-grade or disappoint. Relive the events and songs of The Beatles: Rock Band.