Of course, all the real content from this game is gonna come from DLC, where they’ll probably charge you twenty bucks per album. If you buy this and are a hardcore Beatles fan, be prepared to shell out boatloads of cash in the future to get the songs and albums they should have put on here in the first place. I consider myself a hardcore Beatles fan, so I know all the songs. Even so, I was disappointed with the tracklist, as alot of the obvious hits were left out in favor of album cuts (i.e., leaving out “Help” to squeeze in “I Dig A Pony”).

As far as the gameplay, its typical Rock Band. Meaning…its way too easy for musical minded people and I think its way to forgiving of errors. Definitely seems like it was dumbed down for the masses. Unless you play on Expert, you’ll just be mindlessly strumming 1-2-3-4 for most of the songs. Again, story mode is pointless but the art design is cool, as is the studio chatter during load screens. Makes you feel like you really are getting ready to record a take in the studio. Still, I cant help but feel like this is merely a very expensive disc to get you to download expensive DLC.

Casual music fans will probably want to skip this in favor of another version of rock band or guitar hero that has double the tracks for less money…or wait til the price drops for a used copy. Beatles Rock Band is definitely for hard core fans only…and even they probably will be let down because theres just not enough of it to justify the full price.
Rating: 3 / 5

Why? It’s THE BEATLES. I love every song, know them all by heart, and love playing not just along with the music, but as a Beatle!

The graphics are awesome, the RB2 format improved a little bit, and all in all, it’s just a great game.

The new harmony singing feature is terrific.
Rating: 5 / 5

Number one: it’s just so much fun. Obviously, if you know you don’t like the Beatles, then go ahead and walk past this one. This game would be absolute torture if you didn’t like the songs, but there are many more lovers than haters of this band. For most people, every song is going to be simultaneously a reminiscence of what you’ve heard before and an all-new experience of hearing the song broken down to its individual parts. I enjoyed focusing just on the bass, for example, or noticing what how the harmonies complement the lead vocals. It was a constant rediscovery, even on my favorite songs.

Number one, part two: it’s just so much fun (continued). We had a Beatles: Rock Band party last night, and it was great to have six people participating at once (three singers and three musicians, 50% more participants than ever before in Rock Band). Yes, playing the instruments is, in general, not as challenging as in other rhythm games, but that simply changes what you aim for. Rather than thinking, “Oh, I hope I make it through this song!” you’ll be thinking, “I better get five stars on this!” or you’ll see that flawless playing is possible with practice and concentration. Harmonies, on the other hand, are brand new and definitely a tough challenge. It’s a joy to hit a double fab (two part harmony) and our triple fabs were rare enough to warrant high fives around the room. Although future music games are likely to include harmonies, no other game will do what the Beatles can do, and that’s because of the perfection of the original performances.

Number two: it’s just so beautiful. Every part of this game shines with attention to detail and great uses of color, sound and motion effects. This compares to other video games as an art book compares to an oil painting.

Number three: it’s just so valuable. There’s plenty of game for you dollar here. You can play songs a la carte or by creating setlists, or you can play story mode. And yes, the story mode is set up in the shortest possible way. You play through forty-five of the Beatles best songs (no, not every single favorite of every fan) in chronological order with no repeats. I’ve heard other reviewers point this out like it’s a bad thing. But I’m telling you that it was such an awesome experience to play through the story from start to finish in one sitting with seven other friends. That’s never happened before, and it’ll probably never happen again. For people who complain there are “only” forty-five songs here, as opposed to the eighty-two in Rock Band 2, consider that each of these songs has a specifically composed background video, whereas all previous similar games had your on-screen avatar just rocking out on a stage in a random series of animations. So with the additional songs, you’re not only downloading a great mix of a Beatles song (which you’ve never been able to do before), but a computer-generated video to go along with it. Not sure why people would complain about that!

Number four: it’s just so valuable (continued). Seriously, there’s a lot of game here. The integration of trophies and achievements has never been done better in any previous game. After playing songs in quick play you can easily check out your progress on all of the trophies, which are all named after Beatles lyrics. You’ll get different scores on songs for each of the four instruments and for band play. The song results screen also ranks your performance against that of other players. And to think that the song selection will be increased by over thirty songs by the end of the year!

In conclusion, this game is oodles of fun, beauty and value. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some harmonies to work on.
Rating: 5 / 5