Yesterday, oh how I long for it again, three friends and I had an infinitely awesome time with The Beatles: Rock Band. I won't speak for them, but for me it was the absolute most fun I have ever had with a rhythm game. Matter of fact, it was the most fun I've had with any game in a long time.
I got the game the day of release, of course, and played it strait through in a few hours on a combo of vocals/bass and vocals/guitar (I generally went with whichever guitar part was rated harder, unless it was a song I didn't know very well). I had played Voxtar on regular Rock Band before in anticipation for The Beatles, so I wasn't a total train wreck, though I did fail a few songs because I was too distracted trying to figure out a few vocal lines and lyrics to play the guitar. I loved rocking out to songs like Hey Bulldog and revealing some emotion on songs like Something, and in the end I felt overall satisfied with the game. It looks fantastic, plays great, the dreamscapes are wonderful, and the little details really do help improve the exerpience as a whole. I am let down by the ending, which is rather anticlimactic, both for the cinematic and song choice, but really I'm just mad that Harmonix hyped up the song by keeping it a secret. I also thought there would be a bit more of a narrative of the Fab Four's career. I then played the game with my dad later on, just in quickplay, and when he scrolled through the list of songs, his first reaction was, "That's it?" Right then I realized that I kind of felt the same way, and I was wondering what my friends would think when they came over on Saturday.
However, once that day came, any fears I had for the replayability and overall entertainment value of the game vanished. Having us four rocking out to what is a wonderful selection of Beatles songs was an amazing experience, and anyone who doesn't have people willing to play with them is missing out on something great. The most noticeable reason for all the excitement was the three part harmonies, and even though we were all singing along regardless of who had a mic (we have three) and how many Beatles were actually singing, having everyone joining in on songs like All You Need Is Love is marvelous. I was trying as hard as I could to actually harmonize, which I did manage to do on a few songs, but damn, to us it didn't matter - we were just loving the game no matter who was singing what. I'll definitely go to practice mode and work on that for next time, that's for sure, but there's nothing wrong with four people all singing lead on Don't Let Me Down. ;)
The thing that really made my day was seeing my friends' reaction to the game, one in particular. He comes over every now and then with another friend to play regular Rock Band with me, but he doesn't have any of these kinds of games at his home, except for maybe an old Guitar Hero. All throughout the day he kept saying how "freaking awesome" the game is and that he's in love with it, and even said he wants to buy it. It was a genuine reflection of his opinion of the game, and it is a perfect example of someone who isn't exactly a regular user of rhythm games that plays The Beatles: Rock Band and is just blown away by it. It really put things in perspective for me because since I'm an avid Rock Band player, I tend to nitpick details with the genre and probably overanaylze things, but he got me to see it from his view: It's a game all about The Beatles and their music, so let's have a freaking good time!
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