Review: Rock Band Beatles Edition

I was expecting to get another Rock Band game, a third iteration of the same formula, when I bought the Beatles Edition of Rock Band this week, but as it turns out, this game is more of a tribute than a music video game and I couldn't be happier.

Gone are the fans. Gone are the money. Gone are the costumes and the guitars and the accessories. Gone are the characters. Gone are the annoying, repetitive intros to each song. In The Beatles Rock Band game, all the glitter and noise are replaced well thought out nostalgia, real audio clips, and a ton of digital decoupage to honor the band. I don't feel like I'm playing a music video game as much as I feel like I'm taking part in an interactive museum.

Each venue the band plays in is special. They each get their own intro videos with music and graphics suiting The Beatles, a 30-second walk down memory lane. I was most impressed with the 7th venue, Abbey Road, cinematic which ended in an animation that created the Abbey Road album cover. It was beautiful and choreographed perfectly.

Each song is prefaced and followed with a few seconds of actual studio audio when that song was actually recorded. Bits of drumming or guitar practice. A little joke. Some laughing. It gets you in the mood to play. It feels familiar.

But as with all Rock Band games, the magic really happens when you have a full four-person band and, with the new feature added, up to four singers singing all the four original parts to the songs. This, personally, is what makes me want to keep playing. I never grew up with Beatles songs in our house, so I don't really know any of them except from popular culture references and Apple commercials. But now I want to learn all the lyrics so I can play drums or guitar and sing at the same time; something I'm figuring out I have the ability to do pretty well.

This is definitely an under-rated purchase for me. I didn't think I would enjoy it after I bought it and now I'm really looking forward to playing it everyday. Especially now that I realized my son likes to watch me play the drums and look at the tv, trying to figure out what the heck is actually going on with all the noise and movement.