I’ve been meaning to write this review for over a week, and every time I have some spare time I end up playing instead. It turns out that works in my favor for this review because I’ve spent a lot more time with Rock Band in the last week. To start off with, yes, I acknowledge that the game is expensive. The bundle with the guitar, drums, mic, and game cost $170. However, having played it for a total of 18 days in a row now I can honestly say that it is well worth the cost. I picked it up on New Years Eve and proceeded to head over to a friends house to pay if for about 5 hours with about 12 other people to bring in the new year. We had a lot of fun. We had people of all skills ranging from never played video games (let alone Guitar Hero type games) to people who can play Guitar Hero 2 and 3 on Hard. None of us there had played Rock Band before that night though and it was an overwhelming consensus that the game was great fun for everyone. The game works really well when you have 4 or more people together to play. Even if people are different skill levels. The better players can save the ones who are having trouble if they need to, and before the start of each song each individual can pick what difficulty they want to play at.

Since New Years I’ve had people over to my house a few times to play for a Saturday afternoon and every time we have a blast. I’ve also got a band tour going with my wife. Even though it is just the two of us playing it is still a lot of fun. And her idea of gaming consists of Solitaire and MindSweeper on the pc. When we first started she was playing bass on easy, but now she has moved up to where she can play everything on Medium and some songs on Hard. I point this out because Rock Band does a great job of slowly increasing the difficulty to help you keep building your skills. Most of the guys I play with had all played Guitar Hero and could beat songs on Medium. On Rock Band they can easily start on Medium and move up to Hard within a few hours of playing.

So, as a social party game Rock Band is the best I’ve come across. We also tried the new Scene It game on New Years which is the other party game that was recently released, but after a single game of that we promptly went back to Rock Band because it is just so much fun. They really nail the feeling of playing in a real band. When one team mate is struggling th rest of the band gives them a hard time, but in the end can save them if they need to.

When it is just me gaming I still have a lot fun with Rock Band playing thought the Guitar and Drum solo tours. No as much fun as playing with a large group of people but still a lot of fun. The solo tour are pretty similar to playing Guitar Hero’s campaign mode, but with better songs and graphics.

On that note, I should spend a minute on Rock Band vs Guitar Hero. I’ll start of by saying while I really enjoy Guitar Hero 2 and 3 they, by far, are not in the same class as Rock Band. Rock Band’s graphics make Guitar Hero’s graphics look really lousy. More importantly, the songs in Rock Band are just more fun to play that in Guitar Hero. It feels more like I’m playing the songs on a real guiater in Rock Band. When I go back to Guitar Hero now it feels like I’m playing a cheap knock off of Rock Band. The other area that Rock Band dominates Guitar Hero is in the Downloadable Content. Guitar Hero 2 and 3 both had a little DLC, and the songs available for both to download are pretty good additions. Yet, Rock Band’s DLC cost less, you can buy the songs individually instead of being forced to buy 3 song packs like Guitar Hero does, and there is a lot more DLC for Rock Band. Yes, you have to pay for it, but they have released at least 3 new songs every week for Rock Band.

I know a lot of Guitar Hero fans don’t agree, but I like the Rock Band guitar better than the ones from Guitar Hero. It is a little bigger in size and feels less like it will break at any second. The buttons are not raised up so it is easy to slide my fingers from one not to the next when playing on Hard. Also, I like that the strum bar does not click. For me it makes it easier to play the fast parts strumming up and down. I know a lot of people have broken their instruments and had to have them replaced, but I’ve not had any issues with mine. I’ve put a lot of hours into Rock Band already and the instruments are holding up fine.

In case you have not figured it out by now let me recap as quickly as I can: Rock Band is the best music game you can buy right now, and it is well worth the cost.