Its been sometime since we had music games on game consoles, Rock Band and Guitar Hero ruled the world and battled it out for supremacy, now on the next generation Rock Band 4 was the first to step forward, bringing with it everything that we lived and rocked out with on the Xbox 360 to wage war on Guitar Hero for the next generation of music games.
With Rock Band 4, not only have we gotten the next generation of gaming on the Xbox One, but the instruments as well have been brought forward into the modern age. Mad Catz and Harmonix have combined to bring together one of the most complete Rock Band experiences to date in its fourth edition, but at such a steep cost of £220.00 is it really worth it?
This review is all about the full package, Drums, Guitar, Mic and Game. You can just get the Guitar and the game for a much cheaper price, but I wanted the full experience from the Xbox 360 and went for the house. It was everything I expected and more! In this review I’ll break down the main components of Rock Band 4 and tell you whether or not this is a true next generation version or an expensive imitation.
The Drums:
So what’s new with the Drums? Well no symbols which is surprising, I thought Harmonix may well have been tempted to add it in there but they haven’t buckled and the 4 drums are back and smoother than ever. Gone are the issues of background noise which use to have terrible effects on the Microphone. The drums are also far more resilient than their previous instalments; they can take a beating without showing any sign of wear and tear. Mad Catz has done a good job of promoting and ensuring the durability of the instruments as a whole and the Drums are symbolic of that. The experience is as refined and enjoyable as ever without any nasty poor quality surprises. Grade: A
The Guitar:
Obviously when comparing Rock Band 4 to Guitar Hero the contrasting Guitar hardware will be scrutinised to the very fine details. But the Guitar also has been given an upgrade of sorts. Once again quality and player experience are at the forefront of Mad Catz and Harmonix design and execution. The buttons are now much more sensitive and Mad Catz has assured players that the strum can last for over 100,000 notes, which is some going. The design is the old classic blend of Black and White, simple but effective. A solid upgrade but nothing really wowed me about the Guitar there wasn’t much new, but what else could you add? Grade: B
The Microphone:
The Microphone isn’t something that players will jump for when playing with friends, or at least I certainly wouldn’t but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. The Microphone is a lot more realistic, the old Mics in Rock Band 3 especially felt as if you were holding an Ice Cream rather than a musical instrument. But in Rock Band 4 this thing has some weight behind it, it also picks up sound extremely well and produces a fine gameplay experience which also factors in some decent ability mapping. A definite upgrade on previous Microphones. Grade: A.
The Game:
The reason I have but the game as a section down here is because Rock Band 4 offers a few modes that need to be discussed for good points and bad points. The Tour returns are you can create a band from scratch including creating all 4 members and naming the band, bog standard stuff. What is a shame is the lack of story within the Tour, and what the Tour leaves on the drawing board. At countless opportunities I felt Harmonix could have implemented some sort of animations and the way the tour structures itself it lets down Rock Band with poor preset playlists which seem to be repeated far too often, but with only 60 songs to play with Harmonix really tied themselves down.
The game does come with full backwards compatiable DLC though, this includes you being able to redownload those previous DLC purchases to play on Rock Band 4, which isn’t half bad. One major new feature to the Rock Band 4 gameplay is Freestyle. Freestyle has given some structure to the Guitars random segments of just whacking out any note you like. Now the game forces you to play any note you like but within a sequence, this could be 2 notes per second, 4 or just one long note for around 5 seconds. Whichever note I was hitting seemed to produce a different version of the freestyle but it didn’t sound like a complete mess, infact it enhanced the song at some points and really allowed me to make it my own.
Aside from the Tour, you can play a show which is creating a set list and quickplay. Sadly there is no sign of Multiplayer or any other game modes which is a little depressing but to be perfectly honest what you have is pretty good but is restricted by a limited song list. All in all the game will cost you £220.00 up front but if you haven’t purchased any DLC in the past the game will probably add another 20 or 30 quid on to get a fully fledged playlist for you to keep coming back for more. The experience is still as great if not better with some improved instruments but the cost will and rightly so put people off. My suggestion is snap this up if the price falls.
