Preview from E3 - The Beatles: Rock Band

The latest installment to come from MTV and Harmonix is the hugely awaited ‘The Beatles Rock Band’, and GameOn was at E3 to get a sneak preview of the game.

Arriving at the E3 MTV booth, GameOn was greeted with a replica of Abbey Road, whom most of you know is infamous with The Beatles. And after being lead inside, we were introduced to a stage where the developers of the game stood, about to giving us a taster of the action. They talked about how the creativeness and authenticity was put into making the game; and how they had gone to great lengths to work with Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Star, Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison to make everything seem as good as it can be. And it shows.

As the developers demonstrated how the game looked and felt, you get a sense of the effort that has been put into making The Beatles, the stages and arenas they are in believable. There is even a new lineup of controllers that have been replicated from the original instruments they played. Everything looks and feels like you are stepping into those famous shoes.

But that’s not all, the developers have made the move from having the game not only fun to play, but fun to watch as all the controls are hidden from the audiences view, making the outlook present itself like a real rock band.

To explain this a little more, the original instruments for Rock Band, and in fact Guitar Hero, had the 5 coloured buttons that you used to play the game, facing out so all could see. Now the move has been made to hide these and make the guitars seem more realistic, the coloured buttons are just marked at the top and bottom of the guitars.

The result is that the gamers actually look like they are playing the guitars, this may only be a cosmetic change but it allows the spectators to be immersed in the game as well as the players.

The game itself is packed with 45 of The Beatles songs, all unlocked from the start and all with their own unique twist on the game play. For instance, if you played “I am the Walrus” then you’ll be treated to a psychedelic ride that comes straight from the 60’s. But if you played “Here comes the Sun” from their Abbey Road album, then they start within a recording studio and progress out to sunny country field, giving a more relaxed vibe to the song.

And that’s the key, every detail has been made to immerse you into the life of The Beatles, even the appearance of the guys alters due to when the song was released. They may go from clean shaven young lads to 60’s hippies with long hair and beards.

With any Rock Band game, you can also download all their previous release songs to play, and this has lead to a unique feature with this game. “All you need is love”, arguably one of the most famous songs The Beatles ever had, is not included with the game. It is exclusively as a downloadable through Xbox Live with all proceedings going to “Benefit Doctors without Boarders” charity. This is only gong to be a timed exclusive to Xbox Live, so will be available to the PS3 and Wii soon after the release.

The “Love album”, which is reported to have all the songs The Beatles have ever made, will be released at the same time as the game. All the songs from the album are reported to be available for download in the future to play with The Beatles Rock Band game, and indeed any Rock Band game. A good move as it will promote both album and game sales.

The game is set to be released on the Xbox360, PS3 and Wii, on September 9, 2009. And I have a feeling that young and old players will enjoy this, Beatle Mania will grip the world again.