Are you ready to rock!?

Rock Band might just be the biggest game of 2007! Rock Band is based off of the popular video game series, Guitar Hero. Harmonix, the company that developed Guitar Hero, has spent the past year developing songs into playable pieces for it's new game. Soon players will be found in basements around the world jamming out on electronic drum pads, mashing buttons on guitar shaped controllers, and screaming their lungs out into microphones. Players using next-gen counsoles will be able to interact through both offline and online multiplayer capabillities. In addition to the songs already available on the disk, hundreds of additional songs may potentially be available as downloadable content. Rock Band was first announced on April 2, 2007. Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos said in the announcement that Rock Band "takes the core premise of Guitar Hero and expands it tenfold. It let's you create a complete collaborative band."

On screen, there will be three vericially scrolling sections along the bottom of the screen, one fore each lead guitar, drums, and bass. Vocals will be desplayed, scrolling horizontally. The lyrics will display beneath green bars, which represent the pitch of the individual vocal elements. The remainder of the screen is used to display the band's characters as they perform. Within the main co-op mode, all players earn points towards a common score. If a player doesn't play well enough, they will fail out of the song and their instrument will be muted from the audio. World Band Tour is the game's primary multiplayer mode. It will allow any combination of online or offline players up to four to create a band, play gigs, and tour a virtual representation of the world, bands will be able to play in 41 different venues spanning 17 cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, and New York. Players will choose a starting city and play a few concerts in small venues until they unlock a van, which will in turn unlock neighboring cities. As of October 15, 2007, 37 songs have been announced.

"Are You Gonna Be My Girl" – Jet
"Black Hole Sun" - Soundgarden
"Blitzkrieg Bop" – Ramones
"Brainpower" – Freezepop
"Celebrity Skin" – Hole
"Cherub Rock" – Smashing Pumpkins
"Creep" – Radiohead
"Dani California" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Detroit Rock City" - Kiss
"(Don't Fear) The Reaper" – Blue Öyster Cult
"Enter Sandman" – Metallica
"Epic" – Faith No More
"Flirtin' with Disaster" – Molly Hatchet
"Gimme Shelter" – Rolling Stones
"Go with the Flow" – Queens of the Stone Age
"The Hand That Feeds" – Nine Inch Nails
"Here It Goes Again" – OK Go
"Highway Star" – Deep Purple
"I Think I'm Paranoid" – Garbage
"In Bloom" – Nirvana
"Learn to Fly" – Foo Fighters
"Main Offender" – The Hives
"Maps" – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Mississippi Queen" – Mountain
"Orange Crush" – R.E.M.
"Paranoid" – Black Sabbath
"Reptilia" – The Strokes
"Sabotage" – Beastie Boy
"Say It Ain't So" – Weezer
"Should I Stay or Should I Go" – The Clash
"Suffragette City" – David Bowie
"Tom Sawyer" – Rush
"Vasoline" – Stone Temple Pilots
"Wanted Dead or Alive" – Bon Jovi
"Wave of Mutilation" – Pixies
"Welcome Home" – Coheed and Cambria
"Won't Get Fooled Again" – The Who

Additionally, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game will support downloadable tracks, including complete albums. Users can download the albums in their entirety or on a track-by-track basis. Thus far, the following downloadable content has been announced:

Who's Next – The Who
Nevermind – Nirvana
"One" – Metallica
18 songs by The Grateful Dead (including "Casey Jones", "Sugar Magnolia", "Touch of Grey", "Truckin'", and "Uncle John's Band")

Features XBox360 PlayStation3 PlayStation2

Price $169.99 $169.99 $159.99

Release Nov. 23, '07 Nov. 23, '07 Dec. 10, '07

Date

Game Yes Yes Yes

Software

Controller Wired Wireless Wireless

"I can't wait for this game to come out," says Peter Gruetzmacher. This game truly should live up to it's expectations!

For information on this topic, I referenced Wikipedia.com and Rolling Stone magazine.