The Beatles: Rock Band Hands-On Preview by The Game Reviews

For many (myself included), The Beatles: Rock Band is a foregone conclusion. We had two sequential thoughts when first strapping on a plastic guitar back in 2005. The first was, "Hey, this game is pretty awesome." The second, "Man I wonder if they have The Beatles in this game." For this group, all they’ll want to know is how awesome the game is. Well, it’s The Beatles in Rock Band - it’s awesome. There is, however, another group of gamers to whom this preview is dedicated. These folks want to know about is the mechanical differences in combos, changes in timing windows, and exactly how these new fangled vocal harmonies work. Read on, ye curious, and I hope you appreciate the fact that I managed the entire introductory paragraph without referencing any Beatles lyrics.

The Beatles: Rock Band’s largest addition to the Rock Band formula is three-part vocal harmonies. I never quite understood how they worked, even after reading several previews. Despite personally experiencing the failure of text in this regard, I will attempt it again. Up to three people can sing at the same time, each getting their own arrow on the scrolling vocal bar at the top of the screen. For the majority of songs - during verses usually - there’s only one blue vocal track. When harmony enters in, the vocal lines split into blue, yellow, and orange. Any of the three singers can sing anything they want at any given time - it’s not necessary to pick a particular vocal track and stick with it. The vocal meter fills as long as you are singing one of the correct vocal lines. In practice this means that all three singers will sing the verses together, and branch off for harmony during the chorus - sort of like how The Beatles did it. Weird how that turned out, isn’t it?

The three vocal arrows are distinctly shaped, so following your particular marker shouldn’t be too hard. The most difficult thing will be picking out the appropriate harmonic note, but that’s the point. No one said singing was supposed to be easy. Prospective players can look forward to that particular brand of hell that comes from listening to downright awful harmony until involved singers reach a palatable level of vocalization.

The second biggest mechanical change concerns drum solos. Now, instead of giving players a free-form fill, the game highlights a measure containing defined notes ending in a green. Hit them all perfectly, and the measure-ending green activates overdrive. I guess Harmonix didn’t want Ringo Starr posthumously freaking out as hard has he could for two measures of I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Other changes are marginal. Players can turn No-Fail Mode on and off from the difficulty selection screen and all songs come unlocked through Quickplay on day one. As our presenter eloquently (and aptly) explained, this means your Beatles Rock Band party on launch day doesn’t need to be an unlock party.