Get your band members together, there's a gig to play!

Author's Rating:

Pros: 

Feels like you're really performing. 4 players.

Cons: 

Price of instruments. Sometimes I have to play songs that I don't like.

The Bottom Line: 

This is a huge stress reliever.  Awesome fun with 4 players.  I love this game! 

Author's Review
This game is similar to Guitar Hereo except it's much better because more than one person can perform at the same time.

If you have never seen this game before, it can be best described as karaoke for the microphone, guitar and drums. The game can be purchased in pieces or as a set. This game is a cool multi player game because the more people in your band (up to 4), the more fun it is. It's hilarious that we, old people in our mid 30's, get so into this.

Microphone
Obviously Sony recommends their microphone but any will work...except the Singstar microphones. The Sony microphone is very light and has a flat top so it doesn't hurt your hand when your hitting the microphone for the occasional symbol notes that scroll across the screen. One drawback is the microphone has a cord to you're stuck fussing with the cord a lot or keeping drunk people from tripping over it. If you purchase the game a la carte a microphone can be purchased for as little as $8 at the store or $20 for a wireless microphone.

A singer is required for tour.

Guitar
One guitar comes in the bundle and a second guitar can be purchased separately for around $50. One person can play lead guitar while the second player can play bass. You will appreciate the fact that the guitar is wireless so you can flop around like a rock star and play it behind your head when you're showing off.

One of the bummers is that the Rock Band guitar is not compatible with the Guitar Hero games so you'll have to have a selection of cheap-looking plastic guitars in your family room. In my opinion the Rock Band guitar is better than the Guitar Hero guitar because the buttons don't click as much. The clicking noise gets on my nerves more than words can say.

Drums
A set of drums come with the bundle or can be purchased separately for $80. The drum looks very similar to the drum machines that you see in the music sections in a store (next to keyboards). It's plastic so you don't get the same sound as you would out of a drum. I can't help but thing about a horse and carriage when I hear the drums playing.

If the game only required the four drums on top I'd have it made, but the foot petal severely slows me down. Symbols can not be added to this version, but Rock Band 2 does have that add on.

Display / Sound
The PS3 has awesome graphics and they're really played up with all the colors and action on the screen. I love how the entire screen lights up with background lights. It looks like a music video. Each player has a place on the screen where they read their notes. The guitar and drum notes come down, the vocals scroll across.

The sound is also great. We turn it up really loud on our surround sound and you can actually feel the music. You also can also hear your band mates playing around you so when you hear them off tempo it might mess you up too!

Rock star life
One of the more fabulous aspects of this game is that you are working towards something. You collect fans when you play well and loose fans when you bomb. Once you've gained a lot of fans on the level, you will not earn any more fans until you go to a higher level. A higher level means singing closer to key for the singer, and more notes for the instruments.

The cash that you earn on tour can be used to buy new outfits, hair cuts, tattoos and other fun things to distinguish yourself as a rock star.

One of the benefits of this game is getting off of the couch! It's really hard to sit in the reclined position and sing or play guitar. We actually work up a sweat while we're on tour.

Where did all of the time go? We often spend a full 8 hours in the evening playing this game. I don't think it's realistic to play one or two songs and put it away.

Songs
My biggest complaint is the selection of songs. I didn't know many of the songs to start out with. The good part of that is I couldn't just open the song and sing it proficiently and I had to try a little harder than on songs that I already knew. I'm not a very good singer but the more I practiced the more I was able to progress from easy to expert. None of us thought we'd ever get off of “medium”, but with time “hard” became the new easy. Expert is obtainable but it's difficult to find songs that all of our band members can do on expert...every time.

List of Songs taken from the description:

Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter"
Aerosmith "Train Kept a Rollin'"
The Who "Won't Get Fooled Again"
Boston "Foreplay/Long Time"
Mountain "Mississippi Queen"
The Police "Next to You"
David Bowie "Suffragette City"
Black Sabbath "Paranoid"
Blue Oyster Cult "Don't Fear the Reaper"
The Ramones "Blitzkrieg Bop
Deep Purple "Highway Star"
KISS "Detroit Rock City"
Molly Hatchet "Flirtin' With Disaster"
The Outlaws "Green Grass & High Tide"
Sweet "Ballroom Blitz"
Rush "Tom Sawyer"
Bon Jovi "Wanted Dead or Alive"
The Clash "Should I Stay or Should I Go"
Faith No More "Epic"
R.E.M. "Orange Crush"
Iron Maiden "Run to the Hills"
Foo Fighters "Learn to Fly"
Metallica "Enter Sandman"
Nirvana "In Bloom"
Stone Temple Pilots "Vasoline"
Weezer "Say It Ain't So"
Smashing Pumpkins "Cherub Rock"
Radiohead "Creep"
Beastie Boys "Sabotage"
Hole "Celebrity Skin"
Garbage "I Think I'm Paranoid"
Soundgarden "Black Hole Sun"
The Hives "Main Offender"
Queens of the Stone Age "Go With the Flow"
The Strokes "Reptilia"
Jet "Are You Gonna Be My Girl"
OK Go "Here It Goes Again"
Nine Inch Nails "The Hand That Feeds"
Pixies "Wave of Mutilation"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Maps"
Red Hot Chili Peppers "Dani California"
Coheed & Cambria "Welcome Home"
Fallout Boy "Dead on Arrival"
The Killers "When You Were Young"
New Pornographers "Electric Version"

You can buy other songs over the Playstation 3 for $1.99 a song. However, if you're playing gigs at your buddies house your band won't have access to those songs. In fact, you won't even be able to access your band at your buddies house which stinks.

Playing Modes
There are several differnt playing modes. You can play a solo tour where you play your instrument and gain fans and earn points all by yourself.

There's also practice mode where you can try a song by yourself with no points and no pressure. If you can't get through the whole song you'll have the option to practice further. During practice mode you can sing the whole song without getting booed off of stage. At the end of the song, it will tell you how many bars you got right, and how many were acceptable and how many were bad.

There's an option to send your friend and invitation to play. You can play together online while you're at your house and they are at theirs.

There's a tug of war option as well which we have not explored.

Buying
This has been out for awhile. The price will surely drop significantly next month for the whole set when the new Rock Band 2 for the PS3 comes out (October 19, 2008). Rock Band 1 is compatible with Rock Band 2 so you would only have to buy the set once and add the "game only" option to broaden the song options since the versions are compatible.

Also, even though 4 people can play at one time, the box set only comes with 3 items. A second guitar ($50) may need to be purchased for the 4th person or you could find another band mate that can bring their own.