Tech Olive

With the PC game release lists looking bare, I came across this little gem. For those that know me, you know that Portal is the greatest game ever conceived and that Guitar Hero and Rock Band (collectively) are the worst attempt at games I’ve ever seen. So, I guess you could say this is going to be such a horribly biased review that you really shouldn’t take much that I say very seriously. However, I will try my hardest to give it an honest and fair score breakdown. If you can’t deal with that, you should look away now.

*You’ll have to forgive the small images, these were taken at the resolution of the PSP’s screen.*

The way that the developer made Rock Band work for the PSP was completely remove the game’s whole point by taking away the specialty controllers and instead giving you four main buttons to press. Left-arrow, Right-arrow, Triangle and Circle for the four different notes. An interesting, but ultimately useless feature is that they found a way to keep all four instrument tracks without the need for a friend or AI players. You use the shoulder-buttons on the PSP to switch to the next or previous instrument. In each instrument track, you complete ‘Phrases’ which is really just a combination of notes that, when completed successfully, will let the instrument auto-play itself for a period of time, thus allowing you to play another instrument. I will admit, this was a good idea and it works very well without breaking your concentration.

When you get down to the core of the game, you’re essentially left with Dance Dance Revolution, but with your thumbs. And, of course, this removes ALL the novelty from the original Rock Band games. The whole point was “playing” the guitar, the drums and singing. Granted, I didn’t expect them to develop a mini-guitar for the PSP version of the game, but still, how was this dubbed a good idea? I just have to say, anyone that buys this game with the expectations of an experience comparable to the home console versions of the game is going to be severely disappointed. Kids, prepare to have your mother buy this game for you because she thought you’d like it.

Surprisingly, Rock Band Unplugged does have some gameplay elements that keep it interesting. Although, I am ashamed to admit it, I almost enjoyed playing the darn game. If it had included a good soundtrack, I might have found myself actually enjoying it. There are a small hand full of good or at least entertaining songs on the playlist, but it seems that more often than not, they have good artists playing their second-rate songs. It just seems that a game whose entire premise is based around music should have a much better soundtrack.

I might just be nit-picking here, but the sound quality quite often bothered me. I understand, you have to get the game to fit a small storage medium, but most of the songs sound more like lower-quality, live recordings than actual studio recordings.

Of course, you also get to “create” your band (fans of The Sims, pay attention). You can customize your band members to your heart’s content. And you, of course, get to name the members and your band. My band was The 007′s, with a girl lead singer that seems to have no trouble covering Nirvana’s songs, while sounding exactly like Cobain, strange. In all honesty, the game wasn’t quite as bad as I expected. Granted, it has a rather disappointing soundtrack and it has turned the series into a button-mashing rhythm game, but I don’t care if it ruins an already bad series.

Scores

- Graphics: 7
For a PSP game, the graphics are about average. They could have been better, but considering the amount of action that happens on-screen at once, they seem enough to satisfy a PC gamer like myself.

- Storyline: 3
You start a band, you play songs. It’s not much, but it works. Don’t hope for anything more, you’ll only be let down.

- Gameplay: 4
I’m sorry, this is just something I could never get. It’s not even justified by wanting to feel like you’re playing the instrument. There is none here. It’s better to just play a good game and play music in the background. The best part about that? You can skip the crappy songs.

- Controls: 7
While the controls may be fine, they get a low(ish) score because it shouldn’t be a case of button-mashing, but rather a rockstar experience for those too lazy to learn to play a real guitar.

- Lasting Appeal: 3
I fail to see this game retaining much replay value. For fans of the genre, it will be a fun play through, but they will soon realize that there is no point without the guitar controller.

Overall: 5 Olives