Ever since Guitar Hero III, it’s felt like one of the key objectives Neversoft decided upon when they took over the custodial franchise duties was to sell out. I want to point out that I’m not just saying this because sometime way back when I had a weird (maybe hostile) interview with someone in the Neversoft brass; when they brought out the Axe dancing girls and started dropping what had to be significant investment dollars into securing the rights for relevant artists to appear in their caricature likenesses, it was pretty obvious that it was now less about rock and more about being bombarded with creepy brands. So upon having this review thrown at me, I was pretty much ready to hate on a franchise that was already dead to me…
Fanboyism serves no-one though, so it gave it a proper go and came away suitably impressed. At this point, if you’re completely unfamiliar with Guitar Hero or Rock Band, and yet this is the game that has you suddenly interested in the genre, then I have to say you’re probably in the wrong place for that kind of critical assessment; and that’s kind of a polite way of saying that you’re crazy and asking you to go elsewhere.
Music games can live and die by the strength of the songs in them, so here’s the list courtesy of Wikipedia:
"A Million Ways" OK Go
"ABC" The Jackson 5
"American Pie" Don McLean
"Angels of the Silences" Counting Crows
"Bad Reputation" Joan Jett
"Back Again" Parachute
"Beautiful Soul" Jesse McCartney
"Believe" The Bravery
"Black Cat" Janet Jackson
"Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" KT Tunstall
"Bring Me to Life" Evanescence
"Dirty Little Secret" The All-American Rejects
"Do You Really Want To Hurt Me" Culture Club
"Don’t Speak" No Doubt
"Every Rose Has Its Thorn" Poison
"Fascination" Alphabeat
"Gasoline" The Airborne Toxic Event
"Hands Down" Dashboard Confessional
"Hang Me Up to Dry" Cold War Kids
"Happy Together" The Turtles
"Honky Tonk Women" The Rolling Stones
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" Marvin Gaye
"I Want You to Want Me" (Live) Cheap Trick
"If You Could Only See" Tonic
"In a Big Country" Big Country
"Just a Girl" No Doubt
"Kids" Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue
"Kung Fu Fighting" Carl Douglas
"L.E.S. Artistes" Santigold
"Let’s Dance" David Bowie
"Lifeline" Papa Roach
"Like Whoa" Aly & AJ
"Lips of an Angel" Hinder
"Love is a Battlefield" Pat Benatar
"Love Story" Taylor Swift
"Mr. Roboto" Styx
"Naïve" The Kooks
"Ocean Avenue" Yellowcard
"Oh, Pretty Woman" Roy Orbison
"Our Lips Are Sealed" The Go-Go’s
"Paralyzer" Finger Eleven
"Picture to Burn" Taylor Swift
"Pictures of You" The Last Goodnight
"Put Your Records On" Corinne Bailey Rae
"Rio" Duran Duran
"Rock Star" N.E.R.D.
"Santa Monica (Watch the World Die)" Everclear
"She Will Be Loved" Maroon 5
"So Yesterday" Hilary Duff
"Steal My Kisses" Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals
"Sugar, We’re Goin Down" Fall Out Boy
"Take a Picture" Filter
"Take Back the City" Snow Patrol
"Take What You Take" Lily Allen
"The Adventure" Angels & Airwaves
"The Impression That I Get" The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
"Turn Off the Light" Nelly Furtado
"Walking on Sunshine" Katrina and the Waves
"Wannabe" Spice Girls
"Warwick Avenue" Duffy
"When I’m Gone" 3 Doors Down
"Whip It" Devo
"Y.M.C.A." Village People
"You Belong With Me" Taylor Swift
"You Had Me" Joss Stone
At sheer volume, 65 songs is nothing to be sneezed at. If my musical opinion means anything (and I have no reason to believe that it does), there’s some definite hits in there that my Rock Band library is quite envious of, particularly YMCA, Rock Star, Mr. Roboto, but having said that, they suffer at times from imbalanced instrument requirements. If the full band Guitar Hero games have a reputation of guitar focused set lists, I would have to say this is rather more vocals oriented. Not that this is a bad thing, just something to be aware of. All but five of these songs can be exported, however there is one huge black mark to note against this game. In efforts at getting that G rating, the songs have been combed down for anything even possibly objectionable, so the vocal tracks are missing words like “whiskey” and “bedpost” and “gun”. That’s right. The good old boys in American Pie are drinking _______ and rye. Absurd.
What I really loved, however, was the party mode, wherein the music is picked randomly, and players can jump in and out, and go with whatever instrument they want (with obvious hardware requirements). It’s already a feature available in Guitar Hero 5, but its amazingness is hard to overstate – it’s analogous to a real band just grabbing whatever’s handy and having a quick jam session. After years of having to fiddle with who’s in and who’s out before even selecting a song, it’s the best thing to happen since downloadable content, and hard to work out why no-one thought of it earlier.
There’s also the playable avatar feature (which was far better than I’d imagined) and the individual song challenges, but these are somewhat gimmicky attempt at keeping something fresh that’s either hooked you by now or well and truly stale.
Closing Comments:
It’s telling when the career mode starts you out in a venue which is a mall. Neversoft has got the selling-out formula it its apex for this title. However, there are certainly some guilty pleasures (Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?) to be found in the song list, and if you’re comparing the titles purely objectively without taking into account which brand your song library sits with, this is a better title for the family-friendly target than Lego Rock Band.
