Rock Band Unplugged Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 19th June 2009

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Rock Band hits the road.

Rock Band Unplugged Details:

	Music
	PSP
	Harmonix
	EA Games

12+

Out Now

With Activision’s Guitar Hero games hitting the handheld market it’s no real surprise that Harmonix has followed suit with Rock Band. However instead of featuring on the Nintendo DS, Rock Band: Unplugged has arrived on the PSP. When I first heard about I really didn’t think it would work, but work it does and incredibly well to.

The game follows the same principles as Rock Band on the big consoles, colour coded notes run along instrument tracks and you have to hit the button that corresponds to that note. Get your timing right and the note is played, get it wrong and it sounds terrible! All the features you would expect from a Rock Band game are present, you create your band, customise them, gain stars to unlock new songs, gigs and strive to achieve super stardom. However, there is one major difference! Obviously a handheld game can’t have you carrying the various peripherals that come with the home console version of the game around. So Rock Band: Unplugged is something of a one man band show, with you playing all the instruments.

How does this work? Well each song allows you to switch between the various instrument tracks, which are then further split into phrases which contain a set number of notes. Hit each note in a phrase and that instrument will play automatically, allowing you to move onto the next. Fail and you’ll have to wait until the next phrase. All the time falling behind with your other instruments and increasing the risk of failing the song. It sounds more complicated then it actually is. What surprised me about this approach is, how well it actually works and how damn addictive it makes the game. You just can’t help thinking just one more song and before you know your hands will have cramped up!

If you fancy, playing just one instrument in a song then the game does cater for this in the Warm Up Mode, there’s also a Band Survival mode that takes the challenge to a new level. In this mode no instruments are played automatically and you have to manage how much time you spend playing each instrument in order to keep the crowd happy. It’s pretty tough but does add some variety to the regular tour mode and provides a good test for advanced players.

Rock Band: Unplugged features a pretty varied array of songs, with both classic and modern hits covering a range of genres. Obviously some are tougher to master then others. But in general the game does provide a challenge and gamers new to the Rock Band games will probably have to use the easy difficulty setting in order to avoid the misery of constant failure. Rock Band: Unplugged does allow you to rescue any struggling band members using, Band Energy. This is used to rescue any instrument that you maybe failing on and is a good feature that comes in very useful. Especially if a particular song is causing you problems.

Unplugged includes forty songs on the disc, this include classic and modern hits from the likes of The Who, Nirvana, System of a Down, Jackson Five and The Killers. This library can be extended with the Music store from where new tracks and song packs can be purchased, just as in the home console version of the game. The selection on offer in the music store at the time of this review was however very limited.

Presentation in Unplugged is solid, menus are all nicely designed and easy to navigate, and just like the big console version when you’re playing a song your created band rock on stage. Although to be honest you’ll be to busy concentrating on performing your one man band act to really notice the games visuals. Sound is of course the games strongest area, but to make the most it you’ll have to use earphones as the game recommends. Apart from the music tracks, other sound effects used for the missed notes, crowd cheers and jeers are all done well, and help draw you into the roll of being a rock star.

In all honesty I didn’t expect much from this portable version of Rock Band! I simply didn’t see how it would work. But it does and so well you’ll find it hard to put down. Rock Band is definitely a game that fans of music games can’t ignore and well worth going on the road with.