Review: Rock Band Unplugged (PSP)

When Guitar Hero was ported to the portable Nintendo DS, they decided it was necessary to create a peripheral for the console to emulate the playing the guitar. This worked out alright for Activision and RedOctane. They made an alright game that could be milked for a bunch of cash. However, when the main focus of your game is having 4 instruments all playing at one time, how exactly do you miniaturize that?

For Harmonix to expand the Rock Band platform over to the handheld consoles, a little bit of ingenuity was required, and a bit of borrowing from prior experience. Taking a cue from classic Harmonix games such as Frequency and Amplitude, Rock Band Unplugged tasks you with being a one man band. Extraneous peripherals have been replaced by the buttons on the PSP.

All of the songs tracks are now laid out before you (bass, drums, guitar, and even vocals) for you to juggle between. To perform the song, you need to hit all the buttons correctly in the note window outlined on that specific track. Do it right, and you won't need to worry about that track for a while. Screw up, and the window will move ahead for you to try again. When you hit that phrase of notes correctly, you will need to switch over to a different track and complete the whole thing over again. Along the way you'll pick up Overdrive, which is used to help out tracks that you are struggling with, or bring failed ones back into the game.

Occasionally 3 of the tracks will fade out and you will perform a solo. Much like how Rock Band 2 added in drum solos, Rock Band Unplugged now features solos for every instrument. During some of the harder songs, you won't need to worry about switching between tracks and keeping them all alive because the game will be kicking you between drum, vocal, and guitar solos.

It should be mentioned that it felt very weird playing this game, and not because it's a different format to one of my favorite games. The note charts felt wrong and contradictory to the console versions in some instances. Sure, with only 4 buttons to hit there have to be concessions. My real problem is that notes were added where there were none previously, and sometimes extra notes were being added into the song. It started to screw me up on guitar when I needed to hit an extra button where I didn't hear any sort of audible notation.

The game is also a bit wonky when it comes to sound. You really should play this thing with headphones on, otherwise it'll be extremely hard to pick up the bass. Whenever you switch between tracks, the equalizer will change how the song sounds. If you're over the bass, it'll be turned up for you. If you're over the vocals, it'll sound like the game is being played over the radio. As you keep switching between tracks throughout the songs, you're favorite song (assuming it's in there) will sound completely different.

As an added bonus, it took me an extra long time to get adjusted between the different tracks. When I played Rock Band on the consoles, I enveloped myself in whatever instrument I was playing. The others were there, but paled in comparison to mine. I lived and breathed with each fret or drum. When I hit a phrase, I'd have to psych myself out of playing the previous instrument, and pick up the new one instantly. It's still something I'm trying to deal with. It also doesn't help that the note windows feel incredibly small and seem to vary depending on the amount of notes hit.

When playing this game, it's obvious that you'll spend most of the time playing World Tour. You'll also run into a similar problem if you've ever played the other Rock Bands. Overplayed songs. When first starting out, you unlock songs by playing them. When you can only play 3 songs and a mystery setlist, guess what the mystery setlist will contain? If you guessed one of those 3 songs you just played, that's your prize for being right. Also if you've played as many Rock Bands and Guitar Heroes as I have, then you'll be intimately familiar with the song list too. It's not a terribly creative setlist, nor are there many exclusive songs. Also, I call into question the Endless Setlist when the PSP doesn't have that great of a battery life. Just throwing it out there, but I don't PLAN to spend hours upon hours playing a hand held ... it just kinda happens.

If you don't have the kind of time to play some setlists, you could also play in the game's quick play. But if you'd like to have extra fun while doing it, in the Extras menu there are two modes worth exploring. Band Survival Mode eliminates the note windows of the main game, making every note count and forcing you to choose when to switch between tracks. It is a really good challenge to play songs in this mode, especially if you have begun to feel bored with your current difficulty setting, but don't feel froggy enough to amp it up.

If you're not into playing the game for the challenge, there is also Warm up mode. Warm up acts similar to the Band Survival, except the game only keeps track of the notes you hit on the track you're active on. Effectively, you could play an entire song on the guitar while playing in this mode, or you could switch between tracks to hit all of the high spots that you want to.

What these two extras really do is exaggerate the need for multiplayer. When playing these extras, you notice that playing one specific instrument is still really fun, but you'll never be able to hook up with three friends and play wirelessly. It's a shame that there is no multiplayer, even a throwaway one man band versus one man band would be greatly appreciated.

It's a little sad that after a week, I'm already tired of playing Rock Band Unplugged. This is compounded by the fact that it took me nearly 2 years to grow tired of playing Rock Band on the consoles, where I played on a virtually daily basis. This game is good for what I intended it to be, a way to get my Rock Band fix when I'm no where close to a console. Unfortunately, this game doesn't stand out on it's two legs nearly as high as the console versions do. By no means will this replace your virtual band.

Welcome to the show!

This is the introductory post on Hit the Buttons, the next step of a project I used to run called The Next Level. This is a videogame blog where I'll be writing editorials and reviews as I see them. Feel free to sit back and enjoy the ride. And be sure to tell your friends!