The band concept gets further integrated into the game with the
ability to 'save' your peers after they fail a song. Instead of using
the neck-tilting powerup (also lifted from Guitar Hero) to double your
points, you can use it to bring a band member back to life. This is
more of a requirement than an option – let a failed band member sit
too long and everyone goes down with the ship. It's also a nice lesson
in collaboration that will most likely be co-opted by corporate
America as a team-building activity. At least that's what you tell the
boss when busted hooking Rock Band up to the TV in the conference
room.

Each new venue contains a limited number of songs and options to play
random song or create a setlist from a larger pool of songs. While
those options allow you to choose tunes different from the given
setlist, there's a lot of repeating the same songs over and over while
clawing to the heights of rock stardom.

Which leads to the biggest complaint of the game – the number of songs
that comes as part of the standard setlist. While 48 seems like a
large number of songs, after spending a few days playing them, song
fatigue sets in sooner rather than later. Sure, new song packs for
about $5 can be purchased online – a nice touch – but then again it's
hard not to feel a little ripped off after spending 15 bones to buy a
few Who and Metallica songs.

To be fair, the music selection offers a wide collection of songs that
will appeal to music aficionados across the generations. Bands like
The Killers and Yeah Yeah Yeahs get mixed up with The Who and
Mountain. Fill in the gap with Bon Jovi and you've got four rock 'n'
roll decades mostly covered. We'd like to see more classic acts like
Hendrix and The Kinks in the mix (this is our official request,
Harmonix), so we'll keep our fingers crossed til the next go round.

The online portion of the game seemed set for greatness, and while it
reaches certain heights, it has yet to be fully realized. While it's
pretty easy to connect to other players online, the lag time keeps the
singer's vocals from transmitting over Xbox Live – a blessing or a
curse depending on who's singing. The online modes, while fun, don't
offer much in the way of innovation. Of course, rocking out with a
friend remotely still has a certain cool factor that lack of features
can never take away.

In fact, these nitpicky complaints still can't touch the fact that
this is, bar none, one of the coolest games to hit stores this year.
It celebrates rock, bands and video games that appeal to people who've
never heard of an FPS, RPG or MMORPG. Is this game better than Guitar
Hero III? This reviewer says, yes definitely. Then again,
value-conscious shoppers and brand loyalists might stick with the $99
Guitar Hero III package. That just means more Rock Band for the rest
of us.