The Beatles Rock Band is a 45 track version of Rock Band, with planned expansions. It includes a load of new features to the Rock Band franchise, some of which I have been begging for a long time. Features like, Story Mode, Start Up Countdown, Trophy/Achievement Tracking tools, and a bunch of others that I will bring up as we get into all the areas of the game.

Controls:

The controls for the game are probably the only thing of the Rock Band franchise that were not touched for this game. Why fix what isn't broke, right? It not only works for Rock Band, but every other rhythm style game out there. You strum the guitar. You pound on the drums. You belt out in the microphone. It's tried, true, and unchanged for this game.

Graphics:

Now, just like the controls, there is really no need to greatly improve this at all. The main meat of the game is the audio and the rhythm. Do you really have time to look at what is going on while you are playing the songs? Not unless you are a master and can play with none of the notes on the screen. But that is not to say that the visuals of the game are not worth a look.

As expected, the GUI and HUD have been given a Beatles overlay and feel. Mostly from the psychedelic era of their career, but it really wouldn't be a new game or a Beatles game without that. Having the standard Rock Band flare would just seem totally out of place all over the game here. So it was a good choice, and a no brainer choice, to go with this type of graphical display for the Menus and Options.

I do want to touch on one thing I joked about at the beginning of the graphics though. That is the actual game play graphics. Well more of the background graphics of the game. You know, the visuals where you get to see the band perform in every other Rock Band game. Even though players of the game don't have much time to look at it and enjoy it, there are some really cool things going on. Like for instance, each song starts out in the studio or location they played it in. Which is cool, but what goes even further is that the ones that start in the studios slowly shift into a psychedelic trip of location. For example, playing Octopus' Garden, you start out and everything is normal. Then it shifts into a whole underwater-themed music video in the background for the greater part of the song before going back at the end. Trippy and awesome.

I have one slight gripe with this cool addition to the game, and it is the same I have had since The Grateful Dead hit Rock Band. That is that when things get very trippy on the screen, it is hard to focus on the notes. It only happens on a few songs here, but it can be very very distracting at times.

Audio:

It's the freaking Beatles! Need we say more? The Audio is AMAZING!!!

Outside of the music being amazing, check out the track list here and here. The basic sounds and background noise has been given a Beatles-ish sound and feel to it. Just like the GUI and HUD. But the basics of it is the Music, and it is AMAZING.

Gameplay:

Gameplay is definitely one of the areas Harmonix took a huge look at and updated a few things. Stuff they have stated they took from comments on the Rock Band forums, so you can see they are listening. Let me give you a break down.

One of the major updated features of the game is the singing, and what better game to add that for. You can now have up to six people playing simultaneously due to the fact that they added harmonizing for The Beatles. That is you can have up to three singers for a song. You know what, it works very well. Extremely well. We only had a few issues at the start due to the microphones causing feedback. Once we fixed that, all three were spot on and the game was beautifully tracking the subpar singing of our band. It even swapped out the bad singers for the better one to determine who should be the lead. This happened not once, but a few times through out the song. This is a spectacular addition to the franchise.

The addition of Story Mode, might sound a little weird, but it is a great addition for a game based all on one band. You might be thinking, "How do you tell a narrative in a rhythm based game?" Well that is simple really. It is kind of like career mode in the standard game, only you are playing the songs in order of how they performed them and at the locations they performed them. All awhile collection stars and real world photos of the band along their path to glory and fame. It is a great twist on the career mode that has been a fixture in the game, as well as gives a great history of The Beatles. It aslo opens up a few cool little extras, like the Christmas Album song after beating the challenges opened up after each chapter.

One thing I am a little irked on though for the challenges is the fact that they really are not challenges. They should be retitled as chapter sets really. While yes it is nice to have to work for little hidden features in the game, I was duped at the beginning to play the first chapter's songs twice. I thought it was going to be something like play song 'X' on 'Y' difficulty. But now, it is just the set list for the chapter all in a row. No real challenge, since you have obviously beaten them all before.

The last thing I want to touch on that totally blew my mind, and I hope more games try it, is the achievement/trophy tracking. There are many ways you can load up the achievement/trophy list of the game. Nice, but the shining factor is that it shows your progression toward attaining each one. It also shows if you go above and beyond what is needed after you get the achievement/trophy. For instance, there is one where you need to go into Beatlemania (Overdrive) for 60 seconds straight. If you go for 23 seconds, the tracking shows your best time. If you go for 63 seconds, you get the achievement/trophy and the tracking shows your exceeded time. This really comes in handy when the achievement/trophy says beat all of these random 20 songs. It lists which you have done and still need to do. Great for us achievement/trophy whores out there, right?

Fun Factor:

This should be needless to say, but this game is actually a little more fun to play than Rock Band and Rock Band 2. If for nothing more than the features and awesome graphical extras. We spent hours upon hours giving it a good play just on our side and soon it will be featured at Rock Band party nights. Yes it is just one artist in the entire game, but who doesn't like The Beatles, besides Monkees fans? This is a great game to add into the Rock Band mix whenever you have a party or even just playing with yourself. Like I said, hours and hours of fun. NAY! Months and Months of fun.

Overview/Final Words:

In the end, this game is something any Beatles fan should own. While the special controllers may make it all a little pricey, a true Beatles fan won't mind at all. But not only that, if you are a fan of Rock Band or Guitar Hero, this game is also for you. It adds some new things to the genre that it make the game completely worth buying and playing with your old Rock Band/Guitar Hero equipment. Even though you will need to pick up two more microphones to get the full experience. It is a must buy for any of those reasons.