Beatles Rock Band – Released on 9-9-9

The digital video game “The Beatles Rock band” was released on 9.9.9, September the 9th 2009. Was this date intentional? In a word yes. The release of the rock band game coincided with another release, that of the entire re-mastered

Beatles collection. This box set collection includes their studio recordings along with some dvd documentaries giving nuggets of background information about the group.

If you are not familiar with the Rock Band Game series, (what rock have you been living under), it started in 2007 with the first release entitled ‘Rock Band’. The second release in 2008 was imaginatively named ‘Rock Band 2’, and the third and most recent, was thankfully not called Rock Band 3, but ‘The Beatles: Rock band’. The entire series is the brainchild of Harmonix Music Systems in co-operation with MTV games. Remember Guitar Hero? Harmonix were the brains behind that extremely successful music video game also.

How does the game work?

It’s not unlike Karaoke in a way, though I am sure the developers would cringe at that description. The game can be played on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, Play Station 3 from Sony and the Nintendo wii.

Players use instrument-shaped controllers to play music, following colored notes that appear on the screen in front of them. The colored notes on-screen have corresponding buttons on the guitar, drum or whichever instrument you are assigned to. You need to press these buttons to produce the sound required.

Up to four players can play or jam at once.

The Beatles: Rock Band game is actually quite interesting in that it incorporates several of the real events in the history of the Beatles, from their beginnings at the

Cavern Club, to their final performance on the Apple building rooftop. So the player is also being educated on some aspects of musical history.

The creators went to great lengths to create a game worthy of the Beatles, as they did not want to alienate long time Beatles fans, with sub standard recordings. The production team worked with the surviving members of the band and their family members including two ex wives, to get their input.

The characters’ representing the Beatles in the game, change and age in appearance as the tracks move through time, which adds interest. There are 45 tracks on this first game. Additional songs are already available in a downloadable format and the first one of these to be released was ‘all you need is love’. This soon became one of the fastest selling downloads of all the Rock Band Series to date, and the producers have donated a portion of the profits to the charity ‘Doctors Without Borders’.

How has the game been received? The game has had good reviews, both as a video game and also as a fair representation of the music and history of this iconic band.