I have mixed feelings about The Beatles: Rock Band after playing it for a few hours now. It’s hard to describe. There are so many things where you can see the designers had good intentions, but just doesn’t have the je ne sais quoi that prevents it from being truly great:

• The story mode takes you through the Beatles’ career, but there’s no dialogue or flow to make it seem like you’re living the story
• There are 45 43 songs, including many of the classics, but there are just so, so many great songs that were left off. Making money off DLC is not a good reason.
• There are only 43 songs, and even if there are many great ones, you can only play so much before it becomes a radio station
• There are all these weird songs that I have never heard of, and if on first listen you were to tell me they were by the Beatles, I would not believe you!
• The online experience is no fun at all unless you are playing with people you know. I blame this on limited song selection and lame story mode
• I think they put a lot of work into the dreamscapes, but I can’t really tell because with all the hype, you still can’t watch them while you are playing. Plus they make the notes hard to read sometimes.

I can’t decide if this is a game or an experience. There game aspect feels so limited, yet there are a lot of goodies for diehard Beatles fans, like the dreamscapes, photos and short videos. I kind of imagine people buying this game for a few reasons:

1. They are fans of The Beatles
2. They support this new direction of games/experience
3. They were suckered in by the hype

I think for me, it was a little of each. Although I regret buying it so early now since there is a lot of style and polish, but not enough substance.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: games, music, rockband