Outstanding!
The team behind the first two Guitar Hero games as well as the Karaoke Revolution series has brought all of its technical knowledge to bear to create a game that's a bona-fide crowd-pleaser. Rock Band supports up to four players on different instruments. Vocals, guitar, bass and drums are the components of any well-oiled machine, and even more so here. There's enough here for anyone to jump in and play for fun, but enough depth to keep even the most hardcore gamers going for as long as they can. And Harmonix has made Rock Band's PlayStation instruments both backwards and "forwards" compatible, ensuring that if you move on to Sony's newer console, you won't have to re-buy your instruments.
Rock Band is the combination of both of Harmonix's successful titles brought to the peak of the PlayStation 2's performance; some have griped about the lack of downloadable content compared to the other versions, but even without it, the core content here is quite strong.
If you've ever played Karoake Revolution, Harmonix's scrolling text and pitch-based scoring should feel familiar. Our central gripe with the engine, however, is that songs don't account for gender in vocals; some women can't hit Kurt Cobain's gravelly lows just as sure as some men can't quite hit proper falsettos. It's not the best karaoke engine on the market, but it's sufficient alongside the rest of Rock Band's offerings. Guitar Hero vets will undoubtedly adapt to Rock Band's scrolling notes like a goldfish to new water.
The real challenge is learning the drums, which consist of four drum pads and a kick pedal. A set of Ludwig wooden drum sticks are also included. You'll need the tutorial; for non-musicians, it's similar to playing guitar, but is just alien enough to require a little practice before you channel your inner Bonham. The PS2 version of Rock Band sells as a $160 bundle consisting of a USB microphone, drum kit, and one wireless guitar; you won't be able to use the new Guitar Hero III Kramer, but you'll be able to use previous guitar controllers. Also, after testing them out, we've discovered that the SingStar microphones work with Rock Band, although it's unlikely you'll want to have two people singing at the same time. As a result, if you're not interested in drums and have other instruments, you'll be fine with the standalone disc.
The guitar, which is modeled after a Fender Stratocaster, touts some new features that we haven't seen in guitar controllers before, such as a knob to tweak your guitar's sound effects and smaller fret buttons for children or gamers with smaller hands. It lacks the heft of Guitar Hero III's Kramer, but after using both instruments on each respective game, we've got to give the fidelity edge to the Fender. We've found that after hours of play on both games, the Fender feels more reliable for hitting long strings of notes than Red Octane's Kramer controller, though the neck is a little flimsier.
