The game is missing features from some previous iterations, still runs into some annoying perfrmance issues to this day, and it seems unlikely we'll get another game update in the near future. The game's main setlist is also mostly obscure bands or deeper cuts/newer songs from known bands, but I don't think it's a weak setlist. It just had a very strong legacy to live up to.

However, the game is still getting DLC every week 8 years out, and I still play it constantly. Not the best Rock Band, but the longest lasting and i think that counts for something. Glad the game is still going, even if it's at a much slower pace than the series' heyday.

I play this almost every weekend and I have my gripes with it (the weak setlist, the crummier customisation, the uninvolved career mode) but honestly I just think it’s cool that this game is still going. RB4’s DLC run has lasted longer than RB1-RB3 by two whole years and I don’t know how or why this is the case but it’s admirable nonetheless.

I can’t really recommend it in current year due to instrument prices being insane - get yourself a guitar or drum set and jump into Clone Hero or YARG instead - but for those who still have their instruments lying around, and don’t have the ultimately superior Rock Band 3, I think it’s still worth a go every now and then.

The Rock Band series is one of my favorite video game series of all time. I have poured countless hours into all 4 games, purchased my fair share of dlc tracks, and even greatly attribute the original Rock Band for getting me into the real drums that I still play to this day.

With that said, I'd say Rock Band 4 is probably one of the weaker entries in the series. A downgrade from Rock Band 3 in a number of ways most notably the removal of keys as an instrument and the much smaller set list. While subjective, the 4th game's set list could be quantified as weaker based on the larger number of lesser known acts and b side tracks.

I have personally found the set list has grown on me, especially as someone who primarily plays the drums.

Other than that, the same formula of previous games is here and done well. You have your quick play mode, tour mode, and online play. One unique addition is Rivals. A dlc mode where join what are essentially teams or guilds and complete weekly challenges to try and have the top score.

I prefer the setlists in 2 and 3 but I still immensely enjoyed my time with Rock Band 4 and the fact they still put out weekly dlc to this day is really impressive. There are thousands of dlc songs to choose from if the base game setlist isn't quite to your liking.

It’s definitely a Rock Band game. It’s a solid entry to the series and worth a playthrough, even in 2022, as it’s still somewhat supported by Harmonix releasing weekly DLCs and making sure the servers are working. The most difficult thing about this game is finding the instruments. It has all the fundamentals of a Rock Band game including tour mode, training, and being able to adjust the breakneck speed. The visuals and presentation are passable, doesn’t compare to Rock Band 2 or 3 with its venues and character customization but it’s still fine. The setlist is alright, it has some hits from well-known artists and then some alright picks from lesser known ones. Definitely the weakest setlist from the main series, however I didn’t really hate any specific track (even Dream Genie, it’s hard to play but fun to listen to). Birth in Reverse, Brown Eyed Girl, Friday I’m in Love, Short Skirt/Long Jacket, Still Into You, Somebody Told Me, and plenty of more fun on-disc tracks. So yeah, its a great little modernized Rock Band game that even though doesn’t have the same charm as its predecessors, it’s still pretty solid, especially considering how far these type of games have fallen since the 2010s.

A few of my more effervescent, more gregarious, more alive colleagues in game journalism are on stage "rocking out" to The Killers. We are on the rooftop of a pricey hotel in Santa Monica, at a press event organized by Rock Band 4's developer and publisher Harmonix.
I'm standing at a safe distance, drinking fizzy water, eating puff pastry canapes and chatting to another colleague about politics in the Philippines. I'm having an OK time.
I'm supposed to be focusing my attention on Rock Band 4, but there's more chance of Ferdinand Marcos leaping onto that stage than there is of me mounting the boards, swinging a guitar strap around my neck and yelling "whooooooo."
I don't care about rock music. I dislike crowds and I dislike loud noises. I don't do public performances, excepting "Toastmasters" which I enjoy from time-to-time, along with half a dozen accountants, schoolteachers and self-improvement nutters.
rock band 4
Look, sometimes in this job you gotta cover games you don't really give a stuff about. I played some Guitar Hero ten years ago and I thought it was kinda stupid. This is not because rock star sims are stupid. It's a perfectly valid fantasy. It's just not my fantasy.
But I can tell from the people on stage, the fact that they are having fun and coming back for more, that Rock Band 4 has something to offer people who get together and enjoy each other and music and the whole rock-'n'-roll ethos. I'm jealous of their ability to enjoy this product.
If my grandmother, who does enjoy a good party, were here on this windswept hotel roof — instead of sitting in an old people's home in Manchester, watching Britain's Got Talent — she'd be up on stage, singing and yelling into the mic, mocking me for being a "boring old fart."
Some of the journos on stage are as old as I am and, frankly, no more rock-star-ish than a bag of spuds. This is a game for everyone. Except me.
All video games are stupid, of course. That whole thing of, 'you're not really shooting terrorists or winning the World Cup, you're just pressing buttons' is patronizing and simplistic but every now and again you come across a game that has so little emotional connection to who you are that you end up standing there, gazing at the screen and saying "I'm just pressing buttons and my life has no meaning," to a slightly bemused PR person.
Music games are often about pressing buttons according to visual cues, which is probably why the whole genre collapsed a few years ago. That and the ferocious greed of Activision, which insisted on publishing way too many of these games.
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Rock Band 4 is Coming
But Rock Band 4 is also not about just pressing buttons. Various instruments, including vocals, have been given carte blanche to express themselves in ways that are individual to the player, and be rewarded for their personal skill. It's not just about sticking to the colors and the lines. It's about adding your own flavor to the song, through drum-riffs and vocal meanderings.
I'm not entirely dislocated from the appeal of this feature. There was a time when half a bottle of gin and a copy of Lips on Xbox 360 basically turned me into Boy George. I can do a gorgeous "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me," assuming there's no-one else in the house.
But I found, with that game, that I could sing it worse and score higher, by doing what the software wanted me to do, rather than what my Tanqueray-fueled inner-Culture Club needed to release.
Rock Band 4, as Harmonix keeps telling us, is not so much about creating a game in which there are scores and channels and targets and RPGish upgrade paths (though they are all certainly present) but in creating a really fun experience in which people get to sing, guitar and drum their fave tunes their way and generally have a good laugh and not be booed off stage by AI douchebags. So far as I can tell, the company is making a good fist of this endeavor.
rock band 4
At the end of each song, the game offers up suggestions for the next track, which band-members can vote on. The AI crowd shouts out requests. This keeps the fantasy alive, avoids the tedium of back-tracking through menus, helps iron out the social difficulty of choosing the next song. This seems to me to be part of a convincingly earnest attempt by the people at Harmonix to do the thing they are best at, which is making music games that actually make people feel good, that allow people to have a good time.
There are new guitars and drums being made by Mad Catz (no keyboard) but you can use your old Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 wireless contraptions on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions, which are due out later this year. Exported songs from those old games can also be uploaded.
A new group of journos are on stage banging out some Fleetwood Mac. My friend, the one I was talking about the Philippines to, has wandered away. I go in search of a developer to interview. Perhaps there's a nice quiet room where we can sit and chat.

When I started my 25 games challenge, I had this set list of games that I intended to play, with the big denoter being all of them were on PC. However, through insane generosity and dumb luck, I've gotten my hands on an Xbox One. This opens up the gates to a ton of stuff, but the main reason was to check out a game I've had eyes on for the better part of a decade: Rock band. And... i'm both disappointed and pleasantly surprised.

Playing this 9 year old game for the first time definitely felt odd, and the fact that it's a relic of a long bygone era really shows. Half the features, like the rivals mode and online multiplayer, are completely inaccessible seeing that u need connection to a server that seems to not be running anymore. All the songs are rock-n-roll guitar squealers that completely fly over my head as I did not recognize anything that isn't popular from guitar hero 3 or centuries by fall out boy. The gameplay itself is pretty fun, though, being your standard 5-fret stuff. The controller feels pretty alright, though the only issue that isn't brought on by it's age is the strum bar having these mushy rubber pads that make it hard to tell when you've actually hit the note. Plus the timing window is infamously way tighter than on guitar hero, and while i lack much of a reference frame, i definitely agree that it could chill just a little bit. difficulties are pretty good, catering to a pretty big audience, but I wish the difficulties besides expert didn't feel like just a dramatically watered down version of the original song. Maybe once I get good enough for expert I can double check this.

Surprisingly, though, my favaroute part is actually the story mode; rockudrama. It's a mode where you and your bandmates get a biopic written about them. The gameplay itself consists of you playing certain "sets" that are just songs you either vote for from a list or just pick yourself which feels a bit lazy. There is the fame points system that lets you wager how many stars you get for more points, and a few challenges and extra bits thrown in, but on the whole it feels very much like a side mode. What saves it for me however is the cutscenes in between, showing the actual rockudrama itself. and like... the writing is surprisingly really good? The dry humor is spot on, parodying these types of documentaries and taking ur imaginary bands ridiculous endeavors completely seriously. From playing your first show at an abandoned fun house with a singular attendee, to doing a show for a charity that ends up being about donating endangered whale meat to prisoners. The writing is charming in a way I would've never expected. I think my favaroute part is the interviews, where they brought on a combination of classic rock trope characters (Jealous would've-been member, obsessed fan, ect) and the members of actual real life rock bands, talking about my group of 3 blue-haired xbox avatars and a mushroom creature as seriously as possible. For what's ultimately a mode most people won't see, they clearly put a lot of love into making it. I just think they could've gone a bit more the route of gutair hero campaigns, actual set songs and a more fleshed out story and whatnot.

I think the one thing that i genuinely really dislike, and what's likely gonna stop me from playing it too long, is the lack of support and the microtransactions. This game technically has about 3000 songs, sure. But most of them are locked in the store and can be bought for just under $3 each. I don't like in-game purchases like this at the best of times, but those best of times are in a free game that only charges cosmetic items, or even a big DLC bundle of some kind. This is a full-price game that you already have to by a guitar, drums, and a microphone for, and each song is sold seperately. and without it, the selection you do have is frankly piss-poor for what you're paying. Plenty of games have DLC, but this is way too much and a complete pain in the ass.

Ah well, this game is clearly a relic of its time, and i'll enjoy what I have anyway. When i get bored, there's always YARG and clone hero so i can play more songs without spending my life savings.

Got the Rock Band bug this year and picked up a cheapo xbox and a not so cheapo xbox guitar to finally try the "new" Rock Band 4. And it's fine... the gameplay is still as good as usual but everything else feels like a massive step back from RB3 and even RB2. Song list is bizarre, customization took a huge hit, and no more keyboard is a huge bummer that kind of ruins a ton of Rock Band 3 dlc songs. Happy to see that DLC has been pretty active since though even though the vast majority of releases this year seem like tiktok pop punk songs. Not a bad game if you want to play rock band on a current platform but RB3 with the mods and custom songs is a way better choice.

After Rockband 3 (an entry I skipped) and the mainstream death of the plastic instrument rhythm games, I was kinda done with these games. But my parents got me Rockband 4 for a birthday and I’ve gotten some insane mileage out of it. While it admittedly has the most garbage OST of any mainline Rock Band or Guitar Hero, its seemingly infinite DLC makes up for it. The game is fun to look at and I’ve honestly spent more money in DLC over the years than the actual game’s cost, so I shilled out for a decent library. It’s great for parties and I play it with my family a lot whenever im home. It brings me back to the first Rock Band and how much fun for everyone that was.

Review #7 - 2018

I've been a Rock Band fan since it first launched back in 2007. As far as Rock Band games go, this one isn't the best, but it plays well, and has a massive library of music not only because it's still being updated to this day, but it also remains backwards compatible with your "Rock Band 3" song collection if you have one.

The gameplay is smooth and works as it should, but the graphics are subpar compared to previous entries, even with today's graphical improvements. Character model glitches are common, and although funny, can be disappointing to see. Outside of that, the game is still fun as always if you're still into the plastic instrument games, and one I still go to not just on my own time, but with family and friends as well. It's still being supported, and is still bringing people together, and really, that's what it's all about. If only instruments were still being made, otherwise, I'd easily recommend this game to everyone.

As Rock Band Rivals is coming out very soon, figured I should finish off the Campaign mode of Rock Band 4. The end is rather unsatisfying as you get closer to it, it starts to push Nightmare difficulty songs on you all of which seem to also be very long songs. And it just ends up being a bit of a chore. And your reward is just a "hey well done for that" screen and then some credits.

There's still more to do in the campaign mode (like get more fans and money) but I almost feel like it's just more interesting to jump into quickplay.

Still when Rock Band Rivals comes out, I'll dip back in to see how the Behind the Music segments play out. Plus my daughter will probably end up signing "Happy", so that'll be nice too!