IPhone App Review: Rock Band for IPhone and IPod Touch

The video game industry has been revolutionized systems like the Wii which move the video gaming experience out of the realm of using mere controllers to incorporating the entire body. This new wave of gaming has turned the digital pastime from one of passive thumb twiddling to a full body workout. Likewise, music-centered titles such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band engage the player's auditory system in a new way as well maintaining the same full-body engagement (and have no doubt sparked some new musical interests to boot!).

Well now Harmonix Music Systems, the geniuses behind Rock Band and Rock Band 2, have taken their brain child mobile with the Rock Band app for iPhone and iPod Touch available via the iTunes App Store. Originally priced at $9.99, this great game has been reduced to only $6.99 and is filled with great (and challenging) songs by Jethro Tull, Smashing Pumpkins, Motorhead, The Pixies, Silversun Pickups, Presidents of the United States of America, Blink-182, and more.

The method of play is similar to that of the console version. The screen is filled with the picture of a guitar neck and notes float from top to bottom on the screen. Four colored "buttons" are located at the bottom of the screen upon which the player must tap the when any note reaches its respective button. During a song the player can get additional "Overdrive" points and must maintain a decent streak in order to keep from failing the gig.

The Modes

Rock Band for the iPhone and iPod Touch consists of two modes: "Quick Play" and "World Tour."

On World Tour mode, your band is traveling the globe playing gigs and earning street cred on your way to stardom. Each city along the way has its own dedicated set list. Upon entering the game you choose the song you would like to start with. The first city on the tour consists of the easiest songs in the game. You may begin with any song within a city and then you have the option of choosing any of the four instrument duties: guitar, bass, drums, or vocals. Then choose your difficulty level: Easy, Medium, or Hard.

Guitar: Guitar presents you with four lines or "strings" running from top to bottom and colored notes come at you from the top of the screen. Each "note" represents a tone in the song and you must tap the colored button at the bottom of the screen when that note reaches it. Sometimes two notes come simultaneously and their buttons must be tapped simultaneously.

Bass: Bass is the same idea as Guitar only it follows the song bass line.

Drums: Drums still consists of four lines running from top to bottom of the screen. The same colored dots representing elements of the drum beat proceed from top to bottom and must be tapped upon their reaching the bottom buttons on the screen.

Vocals: Vocals is a different animal all together because in this mobile version of Rock Band no singing is actually done. Instead dots float from right to left representing the vocal line and they must be tapped upon reaching the left side of the screen.

With all instruments a meter located on the left shows how well the song is being performed. The higher on the meter your instrument is the better you are doing and thus the more points you are receiving. But if you begin making mistakes and your place on the meter falls, you come closer to failing the gig which happens if you reach the bottom of the meter.

Quick Play is for those times that you simply want to get some game time in, maybe for practice or just as a time waster. Quick Play scores do not affect any World Tour play you may have in progress nor does it affect your World Tour performance rating for any given song. Use Quick Play to get better at particular songs.

Overdrive

If during a song you begin to have a long streak of consecutively tapped notes the notes will begin to glow. During this time if you give your iPhone/Touch a slight shake you will go into overdrive mode and every note you hit consecutively gives you bonus points. Try to keep this going as long as possible.

New Songs

As you complete a city's set list you will unlock a secret song for that city. In addition to these you can also download new song packs via an in-app purchase. Choose from a nice selection of Free and 99 cent tracks that you can add to your game play (unfortunately songs downloaded are only available for Quick Play; they can not be incorporated in to World Tour mode).

Download it!

This game is terribly addicting and so much fun. After you have played through the sets try to get your best score on all songs by attempting to achieve a five star rating on Hard difficulty level for all songs. This will provide hours of challenging and engaging game play. So go ahead and purchase and enjoy Rock Band for the iPhone and iPod Touch.