Just as the music gaming population seemed on the verge of hanging up their plastic guitars, the makers of Rock Band play their trump card. That means delivering not just a game, but an entire music experience starring a band that, while timeless, has almost totally missed the digital revolution.

In the past decade, as we filled our iPods and other devices with songs from hundreds of classic bands, The Beatles have always been conspicuously missing. Part of that is because their record company, Apple Corps, has fought a series of ongoing legal battles with the various corporate entities that own a piece of the pie (as well as legal spats with a certain other company also called Apple). But we'd like to think that another part is that The Beatles were waiting for just the right experience to change their mind.

Beatles: Rock Band isn't just a game, it's a full-fledged music experience.

If that's the case, The Beatles: Rock band delivers the right experience, a digital form of Beatlemania waiting to be beamed into your living room. From the beginning of the game, where players are treated to a quick animated overview of the band's history, to the unlockable images, factoids and rare Beatles ephemera (the group released seven Christmas albums for their official fan club). The game's Story mode takes you on a more in-depth tour of their career, hinted at in the opening credits. Start out playing classics like "Twist and Shout" and "Boys in the Cavern Club", then move on to playing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on the Ed Sullivan Show, then repeat until the tour ends at the Abbey Road recording studio, where the foursome created their last albums.

It's obvious that nothing's been spared when it comes to the overall presentation. The Fab Four and some of their better-known venues were lovingly recreated as animated illustrations (using the word "cartoon" would be an injustice). As the Beatles went from a pop act to a more studio-based band, the game adds its own trippy graphics (all very reminiscent of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine) that flow in time with the music. The menus are also completely decked out with graphical flourishes, and this entire experience was obviously created with an almost religious sense of reverence (also under the watchful eye of the remaining Beatles shareholders, namely Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison.)

The backbone of this new Beatlemania, however, is the same music game experience that's been driving a billion dollar industry over the past few years. While The Beatles brand will give the whole music game genre a much-needed boost (after all, sales of both Rock Band and Guitar Hero have dropped in the past year), it's hard to ignore the fact that you're still playing another music game. Up to four mock rock stars (or six if you have two extra USB mics for harmony singers) form a band, playing drums, bass, guitar and vocalist; each must play (or sing) along as directed. Singers must hit the right pitch, while guitarists and drummers strum or hit color-coded buttons as notes flow down an on-screen musical highway.

The main new innovation to The Beatles: Rock Band is the two to three part harmonies, which is a nice, but not a game-changing addition to the music genre. Plug in up to three mics and then do your best to match the vocals. Unless you're intimately familiar with Beatles songs, the harmonies can be quite difficult to pick up. With the entire song going full-blast, it's hard to hear the different parts, and since there's no penalty if you don't sing the harmony correctly, there's not much impetus to learn the parts. The game ships with a harmony tutorial, which is helpful if you're really determined to learn, but that's something that only the more dedicated, points-obsessed player will dive into.

George Harrison's son, Dhani plays the drums in an early demo of the game. He was instrumental in bringing The Beatles and Rock Band together. Photo Credit: Libe Goad

The game's party mode starts out with all of the songs unlocked, a smart move to keep more casual gamers engaged, but once you jump in and start playing, it's a bit of a letdown to realize there's only 45 songs (the new Guitar Hero 5 game, in comparison, contains 85 songs). The set list mostly sticks to the hits from earlier albums, peppered with a few of the band's trippier songs recorded near the end of their career.

We'd also be remiss not to mention our disappointment that we couldn't rock out to Beatles classics like "Help", "Hey Jude" or "Blackbird" right out of the box. Fact is, for the price the cash-strapped majority will pay for this game -- $60 for the software and up to $250 for the special limited edition (which comes with the game, a Hofner bass replica controller, a mic and stand and a replica of Ringo Starr's drums)-- we would have liked to see a few more songs thrown in for good measure. Downloadable albums ("Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band", "Rubber Soul" and the rest of "Abbey Road") will begin to arrive in October, but you'll also pay a premium ($17 for the entire album, $2 for each song) for the pleasure of enjoying new tracks.

Of course, The Beatles are worth every penny, especially for fans of the Fab Four. This game delivers one of the most phenomenal music experiences, outside of hopping into a time machine and watching them perform live, we're likely to see during this phase of our digital age.

Check out Spinner's exclusive interview with The Beatles: Rock Band devs!