LEGO Rock Band. It's a mix of two of the greatest casual game franchises. What could have been just a cookie cutter track pack is actually an innovative addtion to the Rock Band franchise. Adorable characters, hilarious cut scenes, and a fun song list will keep people of all ages interested.  For Co-Op Casual Friday this week, we bring you our full review!

This one time, at band camp, I shoved a flute...in front of my Rock Band mic and beat "Avenged" by Sevenfold on Expert.  And so this spunky young lady has done just that, by playing her flute into the standard Rock Band microphone with the correct pitch and notes she was able to score a 98% on expert.

It's quite impressive...and quite lovely.  I wonder if this works for Guitar Hero 5?  You could get a group of four completely unique instruments together to play four vocal tracks at the same time in the game's co-op mode.  My vote?  Xylophone, Ukulele, Jew's Harp, and Bongos.

Read More...

The Rock Band iPhone app has been released, and is priced at $10.  That may seem a bit steep for a iPhone app, but since the game includes twenty songs, that's actually a decent deal for the music alone. 

Four player co-op is supported via Bluetooth.  The game is controlled by tapping the screen, which I'm sure feels more like drumming than strummng.  Oddly enough, even singing is controlled the same way.  That could be good or bad, depending on the quality of your co-op partner's voice.  Song packs are also available, coming at the price of two songs for a buck.

Read More...

We normally don't cover track pack releases for music games on here, mostly because they come too frequently and in too small of chunks.  We're going to make an exception though for The Beatles, because, well they ARE The Beatles and because it's not your ordinary track pack.

The Abbey Road track pack, named from their album of the same name, not only has the rest of the tracks missing from The Beatles Rock Band - but also includes the 16 minute B-Side medley of "You Never Give Me Your Money," "Sun King,"  "Mean Mr. Mustard," "Polythene Pam," "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window," "Golden Slumbers," "Carry That Weight" and "The End."

Read More...

Music games are great fun, so it's only natural that folks want to play them on the go.  Previous efforts haven't exactly been strong in the co-op aspect, either implementing it poorly (Guitar Hero: On Tour) or eliminating it entirely (Rock Band Unplugged).  That trend looks to change with Rock Band for iPhone and iPod Touch.

Using the bluetooth capabilities of the iPhone, up to four players can rock out together, on drums, guitar, bass, or vocals.  Twenty songs will be included with the app, which is scheduled to be released sometime this month.  More songs, naturally, will be available for download in-game.  If I had an iPhone, I'd be all over this app.  (Curse you lousy AT&T coverage in my area!)

Read More...

This Thursday, October 15th, we'll be hosting an Xbox Live Co-Op Night featuring The Beatles: Rock Band.  So whether you need a John, Ringo, Paul or George - we've got you covered to make your band a little more complete and your harmonies a little more sweet.

The most famous band of all time gets the music game treatment.  How does The Beatles Rock Band hold up compared to its predecessors?  What about the three part harmonies?  Is the song list too short?  Find out in our "Fab" review!

If there was one thing holding Rock Band 2 back from being the perfect music game, it would have to be the lack of support for wireless microphones.  A patch has just been released that fixes this problem, allowing rockers to use the Lips microphones (also recently released seperately) in a fully wireless environment.  We're pleased with the addition of this feature, but curious as to why it took so long.  After all, wireless mic support was announced last year!

The patch also includes several other fixes, incorporating some of the tweaks from The Beatles Rock Band.  The change most relevant to gameplay is improved hammer-on and pull-offs for chords.  For those who download a lot of music (raises hand), you no longer have to wait for a song to download, and can just queue as many songs up as you like while you play.  There are a few other minor features as well.  Nice to see the support still going strong for a year old game!

Read More...

Image courtesy 1UP
 

Is the music game genre oversaturated?  Some might say yes.  I'd argue otherwise; there's still plenty of good music out there that isn't available in video game form.  In any event, we have some details about Harmonix's upcoming cutesified LEGO Rock Band.  Iggy Pop will be appearing in the game, as the tutorial voice, and also in plastic action figure form, as you an see above.  Iggy's song "The Passenger" will be in the game's song list.

LEGO Iggy is cool and all, but the real good news is that the songs on the LEGO Rock Band disc will be exportable into Rock Band 2.  After this feature was (understandably) left out of The Beatles Rock Band, it's good to see we'll be able to rock out to "The Final Countdown" and "Ghostbusters" (aww yeah!) in non-LEGO form if we want!
 

Source: Link

Two releases hit the shelves this week.  The first is a little game featuring some indie band called The Beatles, coming in various packages, with premium instruments, standard instruments, and even without instruments at all.  Of course, individual guitars are available too.  The second release is the Game of the Year edition of popular co-op title LittleBigPlanet.  This edition has lots of previous DLC content included, and also a dozen custom levels made by fans.  Plenty of good co-op action out there this week!