Rock Band Blitz

GrahamOfTheDead Sat Sep 01, 2012 2:47 pm

Developer: Harmonix
Publisher: Harmonix
Price: 1200MSP

Music games. For a while there they were pretty much everywhere. The Guitar Hero franchise was absolutely massive and Rock Band wasn't far behind. And then....nothing. No entry in either series for a couple of years after poor sales for the last instalments, which was a shame as both had developed their own identities and delivered probably their best games yet.

So, that brings us to 2012. Rock Band 3 is still supported by a regular stream of DLC, but not a peep from Guitar Hero since 2010. Is the time right for a music game renaissance? Probably not, but Harmonix have gone and made a new Rock Band game anyway.

However, Rock Band Blitz does things differently. While it may bear a familiar name, it actually owes a lot to Harmonix's earlier efforts such as Frequency and Amplitude and the handheld Rock Band Unplugged. Don't own any instrument controllers? Never got on with the singing side of previous Rock Bands? Just plain sucked at the drums? That's fine. Rock Band Blitz is the most accessible Rock Band game yet. All you need is the game and your bog standard controller.

Rhythm/Music games have always been tricky prospects when using a standard controller. A lot of the time, the controls don't match up with where you instictively want to press. Harmonix have overcome this in a deceptively simple way.

As with previous Rock Band games, each song is split into up to five tracks (Guitar, Bass, Drums, Vocals and Keys), however unlike previous Rock Band games all tracks are on-screen at the same time with the trigger buttons switching between them whenever you like. In terms of notes, you only have two buttons to worry about. The left note is played by moving the left stick or d-pad, the right by moving the right stick or pressing A.

Reducing the amount of buttons to worry about may seem like it's dumbing the game down at first, but the cliche 'easy to pick up, difficult to master' has never been more apt. Rock Band Blitz is all about the high scores. You may be able to get through a whole song's guitar track without failing, but it means nothing if you neglect the other sections. Paying attention to other tracks means higher multipliers and higher scores. It means playing cleverly. Do you concentrate one one section at a time or keep switching and keep the sections on a similar level.

To assist you though, you have access to up to three powerups at any one time. These are unlocked as you progress through the setlist. Every song you play gives you coins and 'cred', the more cred you have the more powerups you unlock which you then spend your coins on. Powerups fall into three different categories and you're allowed one in each category per song. Overdrive powerups are earned by playing glowing sections and receiving energy. These will do things like give you a multiplier boost or temporarily give you a bandmate to play one section for you while you concentrate elsewhere. Note powerups are single notes which trigger certain events, such as explosive notes which will clear any other notes in the immediate vicinity. The final category of powerups are the track bonuses, which for the most part simply give a points boost to one particular instrument. Combining the right powerups on the right song can lead to some massive points hauls and gives the game that 'one more go' factor as you try different things to try and earn a higher score.

Rock Band Blitz is let down slightly by the lack of any real online play. In fact there isn't any local multiplayer either. The only real competitive element is the Score War feature in which you can challenge another player to get the highest score in your chosen track within a certain timeframe. It's a nice addition but it would have been good to maybe see some one on one battles that could take place there and then.

Presentation-wise, there can be absolutely no complaints. Audio in a game like this needs to be perfect and it is. Whichever track you have selected is slightly raised in volume, but it is never enough to drown out the whole track. The graphics also do their job very well. Gone is the static scrolling highway we're used to, in is the sprawling twisting and turning highway guiding you through a vibrant night-time cityscape. It's not essential, but it looks fantastic.

You get 25 songs included with Rock Band Blitz with artists as varied as Pink, Foo Fighters, Tears for Fears and Living Color. There truly is something for everyone in there. The included tracks are also automatically available in Rock Band 3 as well. The best thing is though is that it works the other way. Any songs you've downloaded for previous games are available here, as are any songs exported from previous Rock Band titles. This gives the game potential longevity that other games can only dream of with a library of thousands of tracks.

As for achievements, the game comes with 500 gamerscore available from day one. 400 of this is for the base game and most of it should be fairly straightforward for most players. On the flip side scoring high enough to earn gold stars will prove to be a challenge for even seasoned Rock Band players. The remaining 100 gamerscore is DLC based and requires at least an additional 275 songs on top of what's included. Easy if you're a RB veteran, but could be quite expensive if you're a newcomer to the franchise.

So there we have it. Harmonix have taken the classic Rock Band formula and twisted it in to something familiar and yet totally different at the same time. Removing the need for any extra peripherals means that those put off in the past have one less reason to stay away now and the expansive library of songs to choose from means that you could be dipping in to this for months and even years to come. The game would have been perfect if there were some real multiplayer modes.

9/10

Guest Sat Sep 01, 2012 6:58 pm

I am playing the hell out of this. Every time I load it up there are tons of score war challenges as I have a lot of rb playing friends and its like a red rag to a bull having a score to beat. Excellent review mate. My only problem is that when I play rb3 some of the blitz song's are not there. The kids wanted to sing to "fun:we are young" but it was missing, I would like to hear if anyone else has it missing. If not then I may try downloading it again

GrahamOfTheDead Sat Sep 01, 2012 7:21 pm

Hmmm....I'll check that out. I haven't loaded up RB3 since I started on Blitz.

**KENT HAMMER** Sat Sep 01, 2012 9:29 pm

A great review of a great game mate! Very Happy

Colne Crusader Sat Sep 01, 2012 9:36 pm

Well written and Structured mate. Good stuff!

Guest Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:48 pm

GrahamOfTheDead wrote:Hmmm....I'll check that out. I haven't loaded up RB3 since I started on Blitz.

I would appreciate that, cheers

GrahamOfTheDead Sat Sep 01, 2012 11:10 pm

Just checked and all the songs are there. They weren't all listed when I sorted the tracks by date added, but when I then changed it to sort by artist I went through all 25 artists and the tracks were all there, even We Are Young.

Guest Sun Sep 02, 2012 9:55 am

Thanks for looking. I will download it again and see if that helps

Slayer1189 Sun Sep 02, 2012 10:27 am

Nice review. I tried the trial for this game but i've decided to pass for now. I don't play the retail rock band games so my library would limited to the songs included with the game.

If I had spent a lot of money on the retail games I would probably have picked this up

**minkey_monkey** Wed Sep 05, 2012 11:54 am

Great review chap. It peeked my interest to download the trial... which after half an hour then made me buy the game because I really enjoyed it. Just need to buy a couple of the main games now (been meaning to for a while) so I have more songs to play Very Happy

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