Reviewed: June 22, 2009
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
MTV Games
Electronic Arts
Developer
Backbone Entertainment
Harmonix
Released: May 26, 2009
Genre: Music
Players: 1
5
7
7
7
5.4
Supported Features:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Music games have exploded on the consoles ever since Guitar Hero took the world by storm back in November 2005. There have been countless sequels to that game as well as the birth of Rock Band, a game that expanded upon the concepts of Guitar Hero to include drums, bass, and vocals thus creating perhaps the ultimate party game of all-time. Guitar Hero was quick to follow with their own World Tour title as well as arrive first at the table of handheld gaming with their On Tour series for the NDS.
And now Rock Band fires back with their own portable game, Rock Band Unplugged exclusively for the PSP. But I fear that in their quest to keep up with the Jones, Rock Band Unplugged fails to deliver that same “rock star” appeal or even the same satisfying gameplay experience as its console brethren. For as much as Unplugged looks and sounds like the bigger games, at least on the surface, my concert tour never boarded the tour bus.
It would be easy to condemn Unplugged for simply not having an instrument in your hands. After all, that is the major appeal to this entire “air-guitar, rock-star-wannabe” genre. But then why does Guitar Hero On Tour work so well? Because they actually turned the DS into a quasi-guitar with a hardware peripheral thus retaining the fingering and the guitar-like flavor of the original.
With Rock Band Unplugged you are using the Left and Up on the D-pad and the Triangle and Circle buttons to hit the corresponding four-colored note stream. Much like On Tour, the fifth orange note has been dropped entirely from the game, which would normally be cause for alarm, especially when you want to factor in difficulty and challenge, but Rock Band answers right back with making you play all four instruments at the same time – not simultaneously but in rapid sequence. The resulting effect is like the old vaudeville act where you try to keep four plates spinning on poles for as long as possible.
I was immediately reminded of the old PS2 game Frequency where you matched rhythmic note streams just long enough to get the track to play by itself long enough to switch to another track and get it going. Rock Band Unplugged is identical. All four instruments are present but you can only play one at a time. If you successfully complete all the notes within the highlighted phrase that track will continue to play on and you are free to switch to another instrument…repeat until end of song.
The first thing you will want to do is go to the options and turn on Track Wrapping so you can cycle the four instrument tracks completely otherwise to go from lead to bass guitar you will have to tap Left Trigger three times rather than once to the right. The track you are playing will always be at a slightly louder volume than the other three, which sort of messes up the overall presentation of the music. I don’t mind an instrument getting louder in a solo but to have all four tracks in a constant state of imbalance isn’t fun.
As with the console versions, if you miss enough notes that instrument can fail and you can save the jam session by engaging overdrive on another instrument. You get three strikes and saves before the gig is a complete loss. But my biggest concern is that you have very little control over the instruments you get to play at any given time. Usually, when one phrase is completed you’ll only have one other option to switch over to – sometimes two, but usually one, so you are being lead around the song in a very linear sequence of instrument tracks.
I love Rock Band but Unplugged just doesn’t cut it. It’s like playing DDR with a controller rather than a dance mat. Sure it can be done but why would you want to. And even though I’ve taken a stab at playing guitar and singing at the same time in Rock Band 2, I would never attempt to play all four instruments at once – who does that? It would have been much cooler to lay down four separate tracks and have the game slowly mix all your performances together.
You have a warm-up mode that at least lets you enjoy a song playing only one instrument but this won’t help further your career. And for those who don’t have enough stress in their life, check out survival mode where all four tracks are active and you are jumping all around trying to stay alive. But like most Rock Band games you will want to pursue the career or World Tour, which is still a convoluted mess of short streams of notes and hectic track switching. Even worse, most all of the music is locked down and you are forced to play the same tracks over and over again with new tracks being slowly added to the venue list.
As it is now, this game suffers from A.D.D. I can never get comfortable or find my groove with any given instrument before that track is locked down and I am forced to cycle to another track for a few seconds and then repeat over and over until the end of the song. Unplugged might be a great way to test and hone your multitasking skills but it fails as a competent and fun music game in every way.
Sadly, it’s not for a lack of trying, as this game has all the components necessary. You can create your individual rock stars then form a band. You have a built-in store to buy clothes and instruments and an online store to buy downloadable songs. After spending at least $200 on DLC music for Rock Band and Rock Band 2 I just can’t bring myself to start spending more money for PSP downloads – even if I liked this game.
Unplugged comes with 41 awesome tracks that will certainly appeal to fans of all genres and age groups. Here is the song list by decade: (* notes a PSP exclusive)
|
2000s 1990’s |
1980’s 1970’s 1960’s Downloadable Track List |
The presentation for Unplugged is 100% Rock Band from the satin curtain load menus to the cool venues and clever MTV-style camera work during the concerts. Due to the frantic nature of the gameplay you’ll have even less opportunity to appreciate the graphics and due to the small size of the PSP screen, spectators will be limited to those looking over your shoulder. It’s not a huge loss since the band animations have taken a drastic step into the realm of predictable random cycling rather than dynamic motions based on your actual inputs.
The rest of the presentation is a mirror of the console version with all the same cities and venues, the same band hires, and the same rewards. Since this is a one-player game and one that you’re friends can’t even easily watch you play I found that you quickly don’t care what your band looks like, what clothes they wear or what instruments they play. This negates the entire shopping and customization aspect of gameplay. Think about it – if you aren’t leaving the house are you going to dress up? Perhaps if I could have earned additional bonus fans for “looking” like a rock star I might purchase those distressed jeans and tattered tank top.
The load and save screens are frequent and insufferably long starting at 10 seconds and approaching 20 on some occasions, although in all fairness I do have an earlier model PSP, but still… Everything you do in this game sparks a new load screen, even if you are backing out of a menu, and the game auto-saves even when you haven’t done anything worth saving. All of these excessive load and saves really add up, especially when you are trying to sneak in a few jams during a 15-minute break at work. The additional disc access sucks the life right out of your battery.
The lack of multiplayer is unforgivable, especially since that feature alone could have easily saved this game. With built-in wireless support it would have been all too easy to form your own impromptu mobile band with each person playing their own instrument and contributing to the whole.
Rock Band Unplugged may look and sound like Rock Band but without instruments to hold and friends to join in the fun, all that’s left is a solitary and miserable experience with intolerable load times that had me rushing back to my console version of Rock Band 2 to wash the bitter taste from my mouth. Save yourself $40 and buy some tracks for the “real” Rock Band, then you can party like a rock star.