Rock Band is a music video game that allows up to four players to simulate the performance of popular rock music songs by playing with controllers modeled after musical instruments.
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This one has Creep in it, everyone else step it up 🙄
Not as good as RB2, but laid the groundwork beautifully. I played the PS2 version, so all the background videos that played during the songs were the same every time, which wasn't great, but I won't knock it too badly. Always a fun time with family & friends.
This game made me wish I had real drums since I enjoyed hitting the controllers a lot
Lo compré pensando que se podia usar la guitarra del guitar hero. Sigo decepcionado.
Definitely takes a hit after playing the latter games in the series. There’s just nothing significant to the Tour mode aside from playing through all of the songs. Speaking of which, not the greatest selection; a lot of dated throwaways, some painfully obvious classic picks (not always a bad thing), and only a few standouts that I’d choose to play for fun. Of course, this is a little better on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions but there’s no way I’m buying instruments for those consoles.
The presentation in general is lacking too. I’m not sure if this is exclusive to the Wii version, but the background FMVs were noticeably low quality regardless of the display I used. The mo-capped animations are cool though at least. The audio mixing was also very weird, specially going into overdrive. Half of the experience is enjoying the music you’re playing and I think the intrusive effects break the immersion instead of increasing it.
Anyway, the point of it all is the gameplay, which is fun even if rudimentary. For all its flaws, I can’t dislike the game when it gets the job done… just feels pretty good to get a high score or nail a difficult run of notes.
The presentation in general is lacking too. I’m not sure if this is exclusive to the Wii version, but the background FMVs were noticeably low quality regardless of the display I used. The mo-capped animations are cool though at least. The audio mixing was also very weird, specially going into overdrive. Half of the experience is enjoying the music you’re playing and I think the intrusive effects break the immersion instead of increasing it.
Anyway, the point of it all is the gameplay, which is fun even if rudimentary. For all its flaws, I can’t dislike the game when it gets the job done… just feels pretty good to get a high score or nail a difficult run of notes.
Despite being from Harmonix themselves, this first Rock Band installment can’t help but come off as a bit of a diet Guitar Hero. The whole thing feels incredibly low budget in a way that the same year’s Guitar Hero 3 just doesn’t, there’s a distinct lack of the crazy events that make GH careers so memorable, the solo tour mode is incredibly lame and underwhelming in comparison. Some of the hit detection feels pretty off too, and that’s not helped by the noticeably more low quality instruments.
Yet despite that, it’s so obvious that they were onto something special with this game. The Guitar Hero games at this point had dabbled in multiplayer, but Rock Band takes the full dive into making it a core part of the experience. Guitar was already pretty well established, nothing much to change there (though the solo markers are fun), and vocals were a decently obvious addition considering some of the semi-popular PS2 karaoke game.
Drums are the area where they really nailed it here… the intense focus on tight timing made drums a very natural addition to a rhythm game, and I think the translation to a plastic kit was handled pretty well. The sensitivity on the original kits isn’t where it should be to reliably pull off some of those fast sixteenth note run (Run to the Hills is far and away the most difficult song in the game bc of this), but calibration settings are strong enough to get reliably good timing the majority of the time.
The setlist overall is very solid, albeit with a few oddball picks, but it’s really lacking those standout challenging songs. Nothing here should give you too much trouble on any instrument, the guitar stuff feels especially tame given what GH3 asks of you at points. Although maybe that’s a blessing in disguise thanks to RB1’s noticeably strict hit engine.
It’s definitely easier going back to this than the original Guitar Hero despite the cheapness of it all, and shifting the focus to multiplayer was absolutely the right call… that’s where Rock Band shines most. Drums were a genius addition that expanded the longevity of the game so much, and utilizing multiple instruments to complete the sound of a song while synchronizing overdrive points is a multiplayer high that almost no other game can touch for me.
I still really enjoy playing the original Rock Band, although it is unfortunately a pretty tough recommendation at this point. The plastic instruments required to play this have gotten obnoxiously expensive, which has made the game pretty inaccessible. But more important than that… it’s hard to justify spending too much time on this one when its successors are much better in every way.
Yet despite that, it’s so obvious that they were onto something special with this game. The Guitar Hero games at this point had dabbled in multiplayer, but Rock Band takes the full dive into making it a core part of the experience. Guitar was already pretty well established, nothing much to change there (though the solo markers are fun), and vocals were a decently obvious addition considering some of the semi-popular PS2 karaoke game.
Drums are the area where they really nailed it here… the intense focus on tight timing made drums a very natural addition to a rhythm game, and I think the translation to a plastic kit was handled pretty well. The sensitivity on the original kits isn’t where it should be to reliably pull off some of those fast sixteenth note run (Run to the Hills is far and away the most difficult song in the game bc of this), but calibration settings are strong enough to get reliably good timing the majority of the time.
The setlist overall is very solid, albeit with a few oddball picks, but it’s really lacking those standout challenging songs. Nothing here should give you too much trouble on any instrument, the guitar stuff feels especially tame given what GH3 asks of you at points. Although maybe that’s a blessing in disguise thanks to RB1’s noticeably strict hit engine.
It’s definitely easier going back to this than the original Guitar Hero despite the cheapness of it all, and shifting the focus to multiplayer was absolutely the right call… that’s where Rock Band shines most. Drums were a genius addition that expanded the longevity of the game so much, and utilizing multiple instruments to complete the sound of a song while synchronizing overdrive points is a multiplayer high that almost no other game can touch for me.
I still really enjoy playing the original Rock Band, although it is unfortunately a pretty tough recommendation at this point. The plastic instruments required to play this have gotten obnoxiously expensive, which has made the game pretty inaccessible. But more important than that… it’s hard to justify spending too much time on this one when its successors are much better in every way.