The Beatles: Rock Band vs. Van Halen: Guitar Hero Xbox 360

The Beatles: Rock Band vs. Van Halen: Guitar Hero

 

A lot of gaming sites and publications have compared The Beatles: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5 because their release dates were so close together. I however think this is an unfair comparison since The Beatles: Rock Band is focusing on one band and Guitar Hero 5 is focusing on 83. So for a more fair comparison, I’m going to compare The Beatles: Rock Band with Guitar Hero: Van Halen. This is an even comparison in my opinion since I am a bigger fan of The Beatles then I am of Van Halen and I’m also a bigger fan of Guitar Hero then I am of Rock Band, so lets see the results.

 

 

Title: The Beatles: Rock Band
Release Date: September 9, 2009
Genre: Music
Rating: T for Teen
Platform: Xbox 360
Publisher: MTV Games
Developer: Harmonix

Product Link

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Title: Guitar Hero: Van Halen
Release Date: December 22,2009
Genre: Music
Rating: T for Teen
Platform: Xbox 360
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Neversoft

Product Link

Website

Songs:

TB:RB offers 45 original Beatles songs on the disc. Such greats as Eight Days A Week and Ticket To Ride appear, as well as some lesser known ones like I Me Mine and Dig A Pony. There are also plans to release the remaining songs off of Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Rubber Soul each month through the end of the year.

GH:VH will offer 28 Van Halen songs. Included are popular hits like Dance The Night Away and Panama as well as some rarities like Mean Streetand Hear About It Later. In addition to Van Halen, 19 guest bands have been included. Most notably are Blink-182’s First Date, Queen’s I Want It All and newcomer to the Guitar Hero Universe, The Offspring’s Pretty Fly For A White Guy. I would be renounced if I didn’t also mention Tenacious D’s Master Exploder, which may be the best song to both sing and play on guitar to date.

Advantage? I’ve got to call this a push. While The Beatles’ songs are really fun to sing, I get the same kind of excitement playing Van Halen’s songs on guitar. Van Halen is known as one of the most popular arena rock bands and that really translates over to an exciting guitar experience. Each game’s track list is stellar and neither can be declared better.

Visuals:

TB:RB’s graphics are alright. The whole game goes for a late 60s feel with psychedelic background animations and a soft feel. The background animations are what bring the game down, the trippy movements and colors are very distracting when trying to follow the sliding notes on screen.

GH:VH’s graphics are what you would expect from the Guitar Hero series. I guess if it’s not broken, you don’t fix it. Guitar Hero really takes advantage of this old adage.

Advantage? GH:VH gets the edge simply because it is a lot less distracting.

Gameplay:

TB:RB has some really nice features. The track list is sorted in order of their release, not their difficulty.  Each song does give you a preview of how hard it is to play on each instrument before you choose your instrument. It also gives you the option, before each song, to choose the difficulty. This is an excellent addition since my skill level is in between medium and hard, I have the option to choose hard difficulty on easier songs and medium difficulty on harder songs. You are also given the option to sing lead or back-up, which works great with Beatles’ songs.

GH:VH does a lot of things wrong. The music playing aspect is just as good as always but all the extras draw it downward. You cannot play a career and switch instruments mid-way. If you want to do a singing career you choose a difficulty and have to sing every song on that difficulty. I’d like to be able to switch because sometimes the bass line is better then the lead guitar riffs or I want to sing a single song or something.

Advantage? TB:RB definitely. The change-on-the-fly options make it leaps and bounds better in the gameplay department. Especially since you can do a career and have friends hop in and out at their leisure.

Final Verdict:

TB:RB is an excellent representation of the Beatles career. You jump from album to album playing most of their hits along the way. You get to be featured in the most popular moments in their legendary lifespan and come out the other side with a better respect for their music.

Overall Rating:

GH:VH puts you in control of the world’s foremost arena rock band. Their high energy tracks coupled with a sub-par career mechanism brings up mixed feelings from this reviewer. While I really had fun playing their songs on guitar, I couldn’t really get into the singing aspect.

Overall Rating:

The Gaming Savant, Ryan Smith-MuzikReviews.com Video Game Review Staff Team Leader

10/24/2009

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For questions or comments on this review send an e-mail to rsmith@muzikreviews.com

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