By Pminton & Cechols

Here’s a little story about a game. A game for the ages. A game above all other rhythm games. I’m writing, of course, about Rock Band.

Our story begins many hours ago at my local “store-which-must-not-be-named” (The Chad is boycotting said store). I was in line behind several people - already impatient - when I heard the beleaguered employee tell the people in the front of the line that the Rock Band Bundle they just purchased was the last one.

I not-so-calmly leaned around the person in front of me and said,”It had better not be!” I may or may not have used profanity - the details are blurred in the face of the supreme rocking that we eventually beheld.

He looked up at me and said something along the lines of, “That’s the last one in the back.” To which I riposted, “Then you need to go look again. I pre-ordered this thing six months ago.” Obviously not happy about being addressed this way, but still (to his credit) willing to give customer service a whirl, he agreed to go look again when the rest of the customers were served. I told him that the rest of the people could wait and that he should effing well go find my copy of Rock Band. On that point I was defeated. I had to wait my turn. Woe, woe was me.

At any rate, after waiting in the store for what seemed like an eternity within a Mobius strip wrapped around a temporal anomaly I finally got my hands on the Rock Band Special Edition Bundle Pack! Turns out there was one back there somewhere. Probably it was the one he was saving for himself. But regardless, it was in my hands and I was quick to get the hee-haw hell out of there.

To the car, to the condo, to unpacking the box. Immediately, the first (of few) annoyances was discovered. For some reason, the wired Fender guitar controller needed 3 AA batteries. And since I use the Nyko Charger Station for my Wii-motes I had zero AAs in the house. A trip to the store later and we were ready to rock….almost.

The band and character creation is a little complicated and time consuming. It took longer than any of us expected to get our rockers and band named, outfitted and stage-worthy - but overall it was just a speed bump in the parking lot of Rock. The biggest annoyance that my band of nerds and I discovered is that in between every step of creation the game needed to talk to the “Rock Central Server” over Xbox Live. Generally it would take 20-30 seconds to talk to the server and then another 15-20 seconds to load the next step. Seriously. Waiting a full minute between areas takes a big chunk of the excitement out of the game right from the start. It’s quite irritating.

We’re talking about every incremental step here. Creating characters, changing band rosters, finishing a set…the communication with the Rock Central Server is frequent and quite annoying.

That being said, once you actually get to play the game with three other people…all thoughts cease. There is only rocking. Me and three other uber-nerds were rock stars for about 6 hours last night. Honestly. Rock Stars. With capital R and S.

–

Chris here. By the time I arrived at the party, much of the time-consuming setup had already been slogged through. So I was spared much of the initial annoyance. But I quickly got my own taste of the Xbox server delay frustration. After finally creating my own rock avatar and after we disassembled one band trying to figure out how to add a new player to an existing roster, the unadulterated awesomeness began in earnest.

I’m a big fan of the Guitar Hero franchise, but I didn’t have the first bit of interest in the guitars. I was at the party for one thing, and one thing only: the drums. Now, I’ve never been a drummer - nor do I have any reason to believe I’d make a good one. But secretly, inside everyone who’s ever made themselves look like a seizuring epileptic while air-drumming in their car, there is a rock drummer just dying to wail a killer solo. I am one of those people.

Make no mistake - the first time you try to keep the beat in Rock Band, if you’re not already skilled at multi-tasking your hands and feet in separate movements, you’re going to blow it. The kick-pedal is tricky as hell at first. It’s sort of like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. But! You will get better.

Before long, I was feeling good about my drum skills, and the four of us were rocking venues with ease. Even our singer, who (unbelievably) wasn’t familiar with almost any of the songs, managed to tear up the vocals like a champ. Once I started feeling like I wasn’t a total failure at the drum set, I started noticing how good it felt to be a part of this “band.”

It sounds silly, but you genuinely get this awesome sense of cooperation. It’s a microcosm of the same feeling that drives real rock stars to be so addicted to and passionate about performing. It’s a tiny taste of the natural high that comes from working together to really kick ass musically.

The individual parts of the game function beautifully. There’s no question that you’re going to have a great experience even without a group to support you. But when you’re together with the full band, shredding licks and wailing hellacious drum beats, you feel it. That is where this game rises above anything else you’ve ever played.

If you’ve ever wanted to feel the thrill of being a rock hero, you can’t afford not to put your $170 down on the counter for Rock Band.