The Beatles: Rock Band
The Beatles: Rock Band | ||
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Writer(s)
| ||
Series | Rock Band | |
Platform(s) | ||
Release | September 9, 2009 | |
Genre(s) | Rhythm | |
Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
The Beatles: Rock Band is a 2009
The game was released internationally on September 9, 2009, coinciding with the release of new, remastered compact disc versions of
The game was developed with the blessing and critical input of Apple Corps, including former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, who both made public appearances promoting the game. George Harrison's son Dhani helped to bridge discussion between Harmonix and Apple Corps, while Giles Martin, son of the Beatles' music producer George Martin, ensured high-fidelity versions of the Beatles' songs would be available.
The Beatles: Rock Band was critically acclaimed, being praised as both as a genuine means of experiencing the music and history of the Beatles and as a standalone music video game. Although the game's sales were considered respectable, with more than half a million units sold during its first month of release in the United States, analysts had projected larger sales volumes and attributed the lower sales to waning interest in the rhythm game genre and the video game industry recovery from the
Gameplay
The Beatles: Rock Band allows players to perform simulated rock music by providing up to six players with the ability to play three different controllers modeled after music instruments (a guitar controller for lead guitar and bass guitar gameplay, a drum controller and up to three microphones for vocals). Players simulate the performance of rock music by using their controllers to play scrolling on-screen notes.[3][4] For lead and bass guitar, this is accomplished by holding down colored buttons mimicking guitar frets and pushing the controller's strum bar; for drums, this requires striking the matching colored drumhead, or stepping on the pedal to simulate playing bass drum notes. A "Lefty" mode allows left-handed people to play, by switching which colour the beats are given. When singing vocals, the player must sing in relative pitch to the original vocals. A pitch indicator displays the singer's accuracy relative to the original pitch. For songs with multi-part vocals, players need only to stay in tone with the lead singer to score points and keep their performance meter up, but players earn additional scoring bonuses when they successfully complete phrases in harmony.
As in previous Rock Band games, successfully hitting the proper notes in sequence earns points for each player and boosts their "performance meter". Each separate instrument is given a level, defined by their instrument icon, and the average level is also displayed. If a player fails to match the notes, their performance meter drops. If the meter empties, that player is forced to drop out of play, which in turn causes the band's overall performance to drop. Any player to drop out can be "saved" if another player activates "Beatlemania" (referred to as "Overdrive" in other Rock Band titles),[5] which is collected by successfully completing specially marked phrases. These phrases appear in white, and if the phrase is completed, the energy bar, displayed at the bottom of every track, fills by one quarter. Beatlemania can also be used to temporarily increase the number of points the band earns. Activating Beatlemania is specific to each "instrument". For guitar, the controller must be temporarily shifted to an upright position; for drums, a special "cymbal" (Green, or red for "Lefty" mode) is hit; and for vocals, a noise must be registered by the microphone when prompted.
Some alterations to the Rock Band formula were made to preserve the sound of the Beatles' music.[6] Audio cues that provide feedback on how well the band is doing, typically through the crowd cheering, singing along with the lyrics, or booing if the band is failing, are not included. The virtual band members are not booed off the stage if a player fails a song. Rather, the game simply cuts to a "song failed" menu with the option to try again. The song is restarted from the beginning. Variations on Overdrive/Beatlemania activation include the removal of player-controlled audio effects. While guitar players can use the controller's whammy bar on sustained marked note to collect more Beatlemania, this does not alter the sound of the note.[7] There are also no freestyle drum fills in the songs for activating Beatlemania; instead the player continues to perform the correct note sequence before being presented with a note to activate Beatlemania.[5]
Throughout the song, players receive points for every note hit, and this is totalled up and displayed at the end of the song, along with a percentage of how many notes they hit, and a rating: 1 to 5 stars. If the score is close to perfect, normally requiring at least 98% of the notes, the rating is five 'gold' stars, instead of the normal bronze. The score is saved and shown alongside the song in the select screen; over time, as the song is replayed, it shows only the highest score.
Instrument peripherals
All Rock Band peripherals that were available at the time of the game's release are compatible with their respective console version of The Beatles: Rock Band. Similarly, peripherals designed for The Beatles: Rock Band are backward compatible with other Rock Band titles.[8] Some controllers designed for Guitar Hero games will also work with The Beatles: Rock Band.[9]
Four new instrument peripherals modeled after those used by the Beatles members were introduced alongside the game: a
Modes
The Beatles: Rock Band features gameplay modes similar to other Rock Band games, playable both locally and online. "Story" mode is similar to the "Career" mode of the first Rock Band game and follows a linear progression through the Beatles history. Optional challenges are available in each story "chapter", tasking players to complete every song in a specific chapter as a single performance. By earning high score ratings for songs or challenges, players will unlock photographs and video clips of the Beatles taken from the
Up to six players can play any song in the game cooperatively via "Solo/Band Quickplay" mode. Two players can also play against one another in Rock Band's two competitive modes: "Tug of War", where two players perform alternating sections of songs to outdo the other's performance, and "Score Duel", where each player simultaneously plays the entirety of a song while trying to accumulate the highest score.[16] Tug of War allows players to choose individual difficulty levels, while Score Duel requires that both players play at the same difficulty level. Both competitive modes require that players use the same type of instrument.
Several "Training" modes are available for The Beatles: Rock Band, including tutorials for both guitar/bass and drums. Practice modes are instrument-specific and allow players to practice entire songs or individual sections of songs. Guitar, bass, and drum practice modes allow players to slow the tempos of songs; vocal practice mode helps to emphasize the selected harmony portion of the vocals by adding a generated waveform sound to the selected harmony line in tune with the lyrics.[17] There are also two drum training modes called "Drum Lessons" and "Beatle Beats".[18]
Before playing, a difficulty has to be selected: easy, medium, hard or expert. Expert is a match of the original notes; hard has some note-heavy drum rolls and other difficult or fast notes removed; medium takes away the orange notes (for guitar and bass) and anything else considered tricky. Easy is designed for new players, and gives an easy rhythm for those to settle into the game. However, there are too few notes for it to feel like they're playing the actual tune from the song. A "No Fail" mode has been carried over from Rock Band 2 and is accessible from the band members selection screen rather than from the game's main menu. This mode lets players continue playing even if their performance meter hits rock bottom. In addition, No Fail mode is automatically enabled for any player who chooses the "Easy" difficulty.[12]
Development
Conception
Prior to The Beatles: Rock Band, no song by the Beatles, nor a cover of a Beatles song, had been featured in any Guitar Hero or Rock Band title, whether as disc-based or downloadable content. The idea of The Beatles: Rock Band came about during a chance encounter between
The Apple Corps shareholders considered The Beatles: Rock Band a new way to introduce the band's music to the public.[23] They approved of the songs and venues that would appear in the game, and provided feedback on the artwork, character representations, and storyboards for animation sequences.[23][24] McCartney and Starr fact-checked certain anecdotes relating to the Beatles while Ono and Harrison provided insight on their late husbands' performances and lyrics.[23][25] At the developer's request, Ono visited the Harmonix offices late in development to provide critical feedback on several visual elements,[6][20][26] an event MTV's senior vice president Paul DeGooyer and Harmonix head Alex Rigopulos called "a high point of the two-year development process".[26]
Though The Beatles: Rock Band aims to present a visual and musical history of the Beatles, the game does not attempt to replicate periods of turmoil between the band members. Rather, it presents a "fantasy version" of the Beatles to better serve the entertainment purposes of the video game.[6] For example, Starr was estranged from the rest of the band during periods of recording for The Beatles (commonly referred to as the White Album). Thus, he did not perform on certain songs, such as "Back in the U.S.S.R." or "Dear Prudence" [27] In the game, however, the Ringo Starr character plays drums during the animated performance of the song.
Music production
Preparing the Beatles' songs for Rock Band was a significant technical challenge for Harmonix. The band's earlier songs, recorded on
The development team was able to bring
During the game's development, Harmonix only used low-fidelity versions of the remasters, which were sufficient for programming and note charting; Apple Corps feared that the leak of any high-fidelity remastered track from Abbey Road studios would lead to the unauthorized use of samples of the Beatles' music in remixes. High-fidelity versions of the songs were not implemented until the final publishing of the game.[6] Harmonix performed very little additional remixing upon receipt of these remasters; in some cases, three different guitar parts—lead, solo, and rhythm—were brought into a single cohesive guitar part, slightly raising the volume of the specific guitar track that was used in note tracking to make it easier for the player to follow in the game.[6] The ability for up to three players to sing vocal harmonies, a feature not present in previous Rock Band games, was designed and implemented as an optional feature so as not to be overwhelming to players.[21]
While live recordings of songs, such as "Paperback Writer" at the Budokan, were available, Martin believed some of these renditions were sloppy and would not be enjoyable to play. Instead, he took the studio versions and added audio effects from the live performances to create a "live concert" ambiance.[6] In several instances, the team also opted to slightly restructure the endings to certain songs, particularly those that fade out.[29] Differences in editing between the album versions and in-game versions of songs continued with the release of downloadable content, notably the inclusion of a once-missing final chord at the end of the Abbey Road closer "Her Majesty".[30]
Dhani Harrison has stated the game will include "stuff that has never been heard, never been released".[31] Some of the new material includes band chatter and instrument tunes taken from recorded performances.[31] This audio plays during the loading screens or bookends certain songs.[16] Within the Abbey Road studio, Martin recreated some of the incidental sound, played through speakers but capturing the acoustics of the studio room.[6] In one instance, for example, this process involved recording four people miming the act of drinking tea.[6] The entirety of the game's credits are also made up of this band chatter and studio takes.
In coordination with the art team, sound programmers attempted to realistically map the game's note tracks relative to the real performances by the Beatles.[6] For guitar parts, colored notes were selected not necessarily to match tonally with the music, but to replicate the movement and finger positioning used by the original performers. These were then matched against ten different strumming animations to be used for the virtual depictions of the guitarists.[6] The "Expert" difficulty drum tracks attempt to match every single drum beat that is performed in a song, including some peculiar rhythms brought about by Starr's ambidextrous drumming habits.[6] Vocals were slowed down and broken into phonetic segments, allowing the art team to determine the appropriate facial movement for the virtual characters to go along with the lyrics.[6]
Art production
Art assets were created with help of Apple Corps, with Harmonix developers gaining access to their unique archive as well as personal photos from the shareholders.
Although McCartney had hoped technology would allow the virtual band members to appear in hyper-realistic detail, Harmonix opted to start with more exaggerated, cartoon-like designs, gradually scaling them back to appear more realistic.[32] Animation for the Beatles characters was aided by motion capture provided by Beatles tribute band The Fab Four.[32] Dhani Harrison also assisted with modeling for character animation in the game.[31]
The team designed venues that represented parts of the Beatles' history in order to create an atmosphere of authenticity.[21] For example, the set of The Ed Sullivan Show was recreated from photographs and videos, including a rare color photograph in Apple's collection that showed the yellow tint used to enhance the video as shown on black-and-white television sets.[7] The Cavern Club, Shea Stadium, Budokan, Abbey Road Studios and the rooftop of the Apple Corps Headquarters also appear as venues in the game.[33] Fashions of the 1960s were researched to properly apply them to the various virtual crowds at these locations.[32]
Twenty of the game's on-disc songs are associated with "dreamscape" sequences in conjunction with the Abbey Road venue, representing the
The game includes heavily stylized opening and ending cinematics produced in part by Pete Candeland of Passion Pictures, with help from animator Robert Valley and background visuals from Alberto Mielgo.[37][38][39] Candeland, who is known for his work animating Gorillaz videos, also produced the opening cinematics for both the original Rock Band and Rock Band 2. Within two and a half minutes, the opening cinematic provides a brief representative history of the band interspersed with numerous references to songs by the Beatles, followed by more metaphorical scenes reflecting their studio albums.[40][41] Prior to each of the chapters in the game's Story mode, the game presents short introductory animations; these animations were prepared by graphic design studio MK12, who had previously worked on the opening cinematics for movies such as Stranger than Fiction and Quantum of Solace.[42]
Promotion
The Beatles: Rock Band was first revealed on October 30, 2008, when Harmonix,
The game was released internationally on September 9, 2009.
The game's official website was revealed early in 2009, showing only images of the Abbey Road studios and the game's release date. Over time, images of the Beatles' favored instruments appeared in the studio as their game peripheral replicas were announced.[53] On May 5, 2009, the website was updated to include general information and promotional media. Customers who pre-ordered the game from selected vendors received an access code to view exclusive images and media on the site before it was eventually made public.[54]
In August 2009, VH1 Classic aired music videos from the TV special Around the Beatles (1964), the film Help! (1965), and a music video of the "Birthday" gameplay footage, promoting the launch of The Beatles Rock Band online store.[55] This store was also launched by several segments held on the home shopping channel, QVC, for the game, the Beatles' remastered albums, and other related products; several Harmonix employees were present to demonstrate the game.[56]
A video advertisement for the game featuring the song "
Soundtrack
The game includes 45 songs from 12 of
Downloadable content
Additional songs are available for the game as
Full albums were also made available as downloadable content; the remaining songs from
The respective downloadable content for The Beatles: Rock Band and other currently available Rock Band titles are not cross-compatible. Furthermore, the songs contained on The Beatles are not
On May 5, 2016, Harmonix ceased downloadable content distribution for The Beatles: Rock Band due to the license expiration, though those that had already purchased the tracks would be able to redownload them in the future.[78]
Reception
Aggregator | Score |
---|---|
1Up.com | B[75] |
Eurogamer | 9/10[84] |
G4 | [85] |
Game Informer | 8.75/10[86] |
GameSpot | 9/10[87] |
GameSpy | [88] |
IGN | 9.0/10[16] |
PALGN | 8/10[89] |
The Beatles: Rock Band received widespread critical acclaim from several media outlets upon release. Regarding the game's cross-generational appeal, Chad Sapieha of The Globe and Mail suggested that the game would spark a new wave of Beatlemania,[90] while Seth Schiesel of The New York Times called it "nothing less than a cultural watershed".[91] Some critics hailed the title as landmark of the music game genre;[89][92] Randy Lewis of the Los Angeles Times described the game as a "quantum leap forward for the music video game",[93] while Johnny Minkley of Eurogamer called it "the new standard by which all band-specific game experiences will be judged".[84]
Described as an "interactive Beatles experience",
Critics primarily found fault with the game's length, as the bulk of the game's content can be completed in only a few hours.
The Beatles: Rock Band was used as a finale for each performance of the 125th anniversary season of the
E3 reception
The Beatles: Rock Band was well received at the 2009 E3 Convention, and was named the Best Music/Rhythm Game by
Sales
According to Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, one quarter of The Beatles: Rock Band inventory was sold during its first week of release, exceeding their expectations.[117][118] Dauman attributed some success of the game's sales to the price reduction of the PlayStation 3, which occurred a few weeks before the release of The Beatles: Rock Band.[119]
The Beatles: Rock Band was the fourth high-selling game across all platforms in its first week of release in the United Kingdom.
Notes
- ^ Wii version developed by Pi Studios.
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