Ready to 
Icrontic gets hands-on with The Beatles: Rock Band at E3
Rob Updegrove
June 2, 2009 7:44 PM ET in Gaming
Rob and CB play The Beatles with a couple of random pubs
Rock Band is a tradition at ICHQ, starting with a legendary midnight run during IC Oktoberfest, and carrying on through every event since. Therefore, it was a no-brainer for us to have an interest in MTV Games’ new title The Beatles: Rock Band. We scheduled a spot in the first showfloor demonstration of the game at noon on the opening day of E3.
Due to a timing overlap of the show opening at the same time as our appointment, we hoofed it across the convention center at opening to the MTV Games booth, to discover a stage replica of the Beatles’ Abbey Road Studio. This was our first sign that the development team spent a lot of effort in capturing the history of the band to incorporate into The Beatles: Rock Band.
An eager crowd awaits our demo of The Beatles: Rock Band.
After a brief video history of the Rock Band franchise, the curtains were drawn back to reveal the stage. The informational intro by the development team gave us our most exciting news: the game will feature three-part vocal harmonies. That is a truly substantive advance in the music gaming field, and the largest change to the gameplay. Another gameplay mechanic change that the developers added is an automatic no-fail mode for the Easy difficulty level. This bridges the gap between music game veterans and newcomers by allowing no-fail to be played selectively by only certain players.
Icrontic previews The Beatles: Rock Band at E3 from Icrontic.com on Vimeo.
Other features of The Beatles: Rock Band follow the theme. The game features five historical venues of The Beatles. The developers paid a lot of attention to detail across Beatles eras in order to draw in both new and old fans of the band and bring them together. One happy side effect of this is that The Beatles: Rock Band bridges the gap between casual and hardcore gaming even better than previous titles in the genre. This is truly a game that even my parents could play.
A team plays on MTV's set, showing the easy incorporation of three-part vocal harmonies with a mic at each station.
After the demo by the development team, we were released into the wild where we got a chance to take the stage ourselves. It was as familiar an experience as any game in the Rock Band franchise, but at the same time had a fresh feel. The art is more varied than the grunge club scene of previous titles, and the setup for vocal harmony made the game sound richer. The rhythm was catching to a Beatles fan, and harmonizing felt as comfortable as singing along without a mic in previous titles.
It’s hard to revolutionize a genre that already does so much to immediately catch a new player’s attention and yet maintain interest by the veteran player, but MTV and Harmonix have managed to add some great features to the Rock Band franchise, while at the same time tightening the integration between casual and veteran gaming. As a fan of both music gaming and The Beatles, I look forward to playing again.
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