Well after a long postal delay (thanks a bunch royal mail!) I am now the proud owner of my very own copy of the Beatles Rockband. Some of you may remember my previous taster review about the game, and I am pleased to say that so far it has lived up to my high expectations. Overall it is an extremely uplifting and very well put together game. The game tells the history of the Beatles through a mixture of chronologically ordered music choices, photography, and animations which resemble a kind of living scrap book. The game characters also age throughout the games progression making you feel like you are really taking a journey through time with the band. I found the gameplay enjoyable, much the same as Rockband 2, however unlike Rockband 2 you do not have as much control over the drum solo’s and the whammy bar seems to have little or no effect on the note you are playing. I feel this is a shame as this freedom to experiment was a nice touch in the previous games, and without these features I find myself distanced from the gameplay. There are however a few nice features to the game which go some way to making up for this. One of these is the opportunity to unlock bonus photographs and create an album of the beetles history for exceptional performances during the career mode. Though these are probably only of interest to true beetles enthusiasts, it does give you a reason to challenge yourself which I feel gives the game a greater replay value.
One thing about the game however, is really bothering me. Unlike previous Rockband games, in this game to play the singing career you need a proper microphone, the normal x-box live headsets don’t work. Now usually this would not be a problem (seeing as most people with the band kits have a mic) but with the addition of 2 and 3 player harmonies this becomes very frustrating. I can’t even try out this new feature without buying a second mic (which I probably won’t use outside this game anyway) and seeing as i usually play alone or with a full band and not 2 singers I cannot justify buying a second mic. This has made me wonder why Harmonix has decided to stop the use of the live headsets. Is it because they are not as effective, or simply a scheme to make people shed out for the extra microphones? With this thought, my mind begins to ask the higher question, are official Rockband Mic’s really necessary to complete the game? Or is it possible to equal or beat your score using an X-box live headset instead. Also, and perhaps more importantly, are singers without the proper microphones truly at a disadvantage, or are they just using this as an excuse for their poor singing? I decided to conduct a short experiment to find out once and for all.
The experiment went as thus. Using Rockband 2 on expert mode I sang a 3 song setlist with the official Rockband Mic and noted down the scores. I then sang exactly the same songs with the X-box live headset and compared these scores with the original set. The results were quite conclusive-
Blondie-One way or another
Rockband Mic- 128,332 (I put this down to having no warm up!) 5*
X-box live headset- 130,863 5*
Kansas- Carry on my wayward son
Rockband Mic- 106,613 4*
X-box live headset- 91,056 4*
Tenacious D- Master exploder
Rockband Mic- 38,230 4*
X-box live headset- 34,486 4*
It looks to me that though the scores are consistently higher with the Rockband mic, it is possible to get the same *rating with a score almost as high with a live headset. Overall this experiment has taught me three things.
That it is more fun to sing with the Rockband mic
The Rockband Mic gives slightly better results than the Live mic
The same star level can be achieved with the Rockband mic and the Live headset.
To conclude, though the Rockband mic gives slightly better scores, in my opinion the scores are not different enough to warrant scrapping the Live headset altogether. This tells me that Harmonix have scrapped the live headsets in the Beatles game either to try to improve the gaming experience, or simply to sell more microphones and make more prophet. I am sad to say that I believe it is the latter, sorry Harmonix, your busted!
- GuitarGirl24
