June 9, 2008

Rock Band Preview

Grab your guitar, call over some friends and rock on.

Last year's music extravaganza, Rock Band, made a superb impression on the gaming community and for excellent reason. Here's a game, created by Harmonix, that blends the awesomeness that is Guitar Hero with a drum kit and a microphone, allowing up for four people to jam to a number of hits, such as Metallica's Enter Sandman, Nirvana's In Bloom and Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive. We rocked out on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and even PlayStation 2, and now publisher the game will drop onto the Wii, complete with a very stylish white drum set.

By and large, this is almost the same, enjoyable Rock Band currently available for those aforementioned platforms, but with various exceptions, some of which upset us. We love that Harmonix plans to add five Wii exclusive songs to the mix, but the game lacks online play. Even worse, there's no online store, meaning you can't download new songs, at least until Nintendo comes out with a hard drive or Harmonix attempts to use another storage medium (an SD card, perhaps). The problem with that is you cannot play games or other forms of media off an SD card, making that solution tricky.

Otherwise, this is the same Rock Band we know and love. All of the instruments, including the replica Fender Stratocaster look and feel great, especially those white drums. Visually, it retains the previous version's look and feel, and everything runs smoothly.

With that said, there's little reason to purchase the game if you own another system. The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions blow this one away, thanks to the online store. However, if all you have is a Wii, this is a must have game. Get ready to rock June 22.