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'The Beatles: Rock Band'
"The Beatles Rock Band" (Image courtesy of PC World)It's impossible to conceive of the history of rock without The Beatles, and after “The Beatles: Rock Band,” (on sale Sept. 9) it'll be hard to envisage the history of rhythm games without their band-in-a-box debut. Part of that's because … well … they're The Beatles. It's like Orson Welles. Whether he's riffing on Shakespeare or reading the phone book, you're pretty well floored.
Likewise jamming with John, Paul, George and Ringo. Put a plastic axe, pair of sticks or microphone in your hands and strum, drum and warble along to “Yellow Submarine” or “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” with your pals -- what's not to like? All developer Harmonix had to do was duplicate its award-winning “Rock Band” shtick and sales were assured.
So what's great – grand, even -- about “The Beatles: Rock Band” is that they didn't. It's not just another play-along stroll down memory lane with a few phoned-in musical cues. What could have amounted to a stack of sonic crowd-pleasers with a dusting of nostalgic glitter turns out to be an unusually stylish, history-slinging, collaboratively artful, endearingly nostalgic tour de force. And of course it's still a toe-tapping blast, too.
PCW Score: 100%
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