When it comes to the hundreds of reviews written I’ve yet to give any movie, TV show, video game, website, product and/or service the highest rating of A+. Absolutely there are A+ out there, and I’m sure the day of acknowledging some of them is coming, it’s inevitable. Could Rock Band be the very first A+? Maybe.

The picture above speaks volumes. For a moment I was reminded of our teenagers in younger years. Christmas in November happened last night. A magical, mystical moment.

Rock Band is available (maybe, supplies could be limited) in stores now and after one night of playing I think RB is the must have music-related game title for the holiday season. It is from a company called Harmonix who is made up of some former Red Octane (Guitar Hero) employees.

In the following deliciously SATIRIC post there is further explanation of the company division (remember: the Metallica lawsuit stuff is not true but funny considering the whole Metallica vs. Napster saga):

Red Octane provided the distinctive controller and Harmonix provided the game. The two companies parted ways in early 2007. Red Octane, now owned by Activision, is planning to squeeze the dying Guitar Hero franchise for every penny it’s worth while Harmonix has gone on to work on Rock Band, seen by many fans as the successor to Guitar Hero in spirit, if not in name.

Rock Band is available for the Xbox 360 and PS3 and costs $169 for the Special Edition on both systems. As written yesterday after midnight we were only able to find the PS3 version, but later in the day at Best Buy we found plenty of Xbox 360 versions (we’re going to take the unopened PS3 Rock Band Special Edition version back to Wal-mart so somebody else will get a chance to buy). After buying the warranty from Best Buy for $29.99 and tax this was one of the most expensive games we’ve ever purchased at just over $210 USD. Only games more expensive? A few NEO-GEO games. For another 60 or 70 bones one could buy a Nintendo Wii. I would definitely recommend the warranty on this one, particularly because of the drums. Those skins will get pounded figuratively and literally.

The Amazon reviewers for the Xbox 360 version (note: all Amazon links in this post are affiliate links) are giving it five stars as of this writing.

The Rock Band game itself sells for $60 and you can use your Guitar Hero II controller, but the real fun is with the whole band trying to jam together including: vocals (microphone), drums, guitar and bass (which is also played on a guitar). You can name your band and then go on a world tour playing gigs. You earn fans and virtual money while completing and more and usually harder to play songs. Also, Harmonix plans to sell new songs over Xbox Live every week.

Amazon also shows the drums ($79.99), microphone ($20) and wireless guitar ($79.99) will be available January 31, 2008. So if you want to bang the drums in the meantime, it looks like your only choice is to pony up for the whole Rock Band package. If you add up those prices for individual purchase buying the Rock Band package is a better deal anyway.

Note: according to the instructions you can plug in any USB microphone, but that’s the least expensive accessory of the bunch.

Those are two of our three children who I happened to walk around the corner yesterday and see fixated on the Rock Band box, reading intently. They could — and usually would — have been playing Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 on their two Xbox 360 in the family room but where were they? Reading the side of the game box, anxiously waiting to unbox and start playing. I knew they were interested. I was interested. Even our oldest teenager who doesn’t play many video games (but loves music like me) was into seeing what Rock Band was like.

Meanwhile in the kitchen my wife was busy cooking dinner. I motioned to our oldest son to go get our video camera so we could record the unboxing. He returned and we started filming.

Inside the Rock Band box
Opening the box we discovered a number of smaller boxes and components:

- microphone with USB
- box with Fender Stratocaster. The guitar comes in two parts. You need to slide the top guitar tuning pegs on, otherwise it’s complete.

- biggest box with drum, drum pedal and master USB cord. You have to put this together, but it’s easy to do and can be done in less than five minutes. I’ll cover that step-by-step with pictures below.
- box with USB hub. This 4-way USB hub allows connecting all the instruments and microphone so your four piece band can jam.

How to assemble the Rock Band drum kit
The separate parts to the Rock Band drum kit include:

- drum pedal
- (2) black base pieces
- (2) small aluminum poles that connect the black base pieces
- (2) two adjustable riser poles
- drum pad as one connected piece

STEP 1. connect the two black base pieces with the two small aluminum poles together as shown below:

STEP 2. Connect the two adjustable riser poles to each side of the base. There is a latch in the middle which unclasps to allow raising and lowering the poles.

STEP 3. Connect the drum base to the top of the riser poles and fasten into place with the clasps at the back of the drum kit.

STEP 4. At the bottom place the drum kit petal in the groove along the base poles and connect the cord to the back of the drum kit. That’s it, your Rock Band drum kit is complete!

How to connect the instruments to the Xbox 360
The 4-port USB hub requires an additional power outlet. It’s one of those fat, square plugins that will hog two spaces on a power strip. Plug that into the power and the other end into the USB hub. Now plug in each of the instruments (drums, Fender Stratocaster, bass) and microphone into the USB ports. With all instruments and microphone plugged into the 4-port USB hub then connect the USB to the front of the Xbox 360.

Note: you only need one instrument or the microphone to play. You can go solo with any of the three instruments or vocals, but we wanted to play as a complete band. Then you are working together to beat the game.

Now insert the Rock Band game and prepare to start rocking. We warmed up our band with multiplayer free play which lets you choose from a half dozen or so songs to get used to playing. I played the drums (easy to medium), our middle teen played guitar (expert), our youngest teen played bass (hard to expert setting) and our oldest son brought the pipes (easy to medium).

Out of the gate, we struggled a bit, but kept at it. I really like how different difficulty settings can be used for each player, that made the game more accessible for everybody. A few of the songs tore our group up, particularly me on the drums and our oldest son doing the vocals on songs he didn’t know. Thankfully there is a “save them” feature which enables the better players in the group to bring back those who fail up to three times. We needed those saves.

After four or five times playing the free form songs we hit the World Tour mode. You need to name your band. We called our group Men Without A Cause. Before we knew it, dinner was getting cold, but nobody cared. We just kept playing and playing, going through different gigs, getting booed and cheered.

For a brief moment last night it was easy to forget we were playing a game. I was in a rock band in high school and it reminded me of the experience. We were really riffing off each other. What a great experience for a video game and worth repeating: the most fun I’ve ever had playing a music video game. Better than Guitar Hero? Yes!

If people can get past the price point and see this as the awesome multi-player party game it is, Harmonix will have a huge hit this holiday season. If you’re thinking this might make a great Christmas gift for the family then don’t walk, run to the store now and buy it. Amazon is showing temporarily out of stock for the Xbox 360 Special Edition but has Buy Rock Star Special Edition for the PS3.

Now everybody in your family can be in a rock band. I know what I’m going to be doing over Thanksgiving besides eating turkey. Sorry, no groupies pictures yet, we need to tune up our stage presence. Rock on!

Did this post make you go hmm?

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