As we all know, September 9 is the date on which The Beatles: Rock Band will make its way to our game systems. MTV Games has recently released the almost-complete list of songs, leaving only one a (magical) mystery. Here are the songs (presented here in alphabetical order):
And Your Bird Can Sing
Back in the USSR
Birthday
Boys
Can’t Buy Me Love
Come Together
Day Tripper
Dear Prudence
Dig A Pony
Do You Want To Know A Secret
Don’t Let Me Down
Drive My Car
Eight Days A Week
Get Back
Getting Better
Good Morning Good Morning
A Hard Days Night
Hello Goodbye
Helter Skelter
Here Comes the Sun
Hey Bulldog
I Am The Walrus
I Feel Fine
I Me Mine
I Saw Here Standing There
I Wanna Be Your Man
I Want To Hold Your Hand
I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
I’m Looking Through You
I’ve Got A Feeling
If I Needed Someone
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Octopus’s Garden
Paperback Writer
Revolution
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band/With A Little Help From My Friends
Something
Taxman
Ticket to Ride
Twist and Shout
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows (from Cirque De Soleil’s Love)
Yellow Submarine
Downloadable content available at launch will include the rest of the Abbey Road album (with the medley on the second side as a single song) and All You Need is Love (first only on Xbox 360, then on other systems, with proceeds benefiting Doctors Without Borders), with the rest of Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper’s to follow.
The New York Times had a wonderful article recently on the making of the game which is a must-read.
And here are the three trailers for the game, one of which is brand-new: First Trailer Second Trailer Third Trailer
As only a casual fan of both rhythm games and the Beatles, I’m still looking forward to this.
I suck at Rock Band drums and guitar/bass, but I’m still pumped for this. The game looks gorgeous and my vocal range (being female, but an alto) fits with theirs pretty well.
I went to my local Target on Sunday and noticed that they sell “Reservation Cards” for $1 for popular upcoming games, for PS3/XBOX/Wii. Buy one and they say they will keep a copy of the game for you at that location for 7 days after the release date, and give you a $5 Target gift card when you redeem your reservation. This was one of the games they offered, so I grabbed one for the PS3.
I’ve seen that NYT article linked elsewhere, and agree it’s very interesting. The title is funny (if inaccurate): “While My Guitar Gently Beeps.”
I also loved the cover on the NYT Magazine that contained the article: “The Music Will Matter To You Because You’re Pretending To Play It.”
I also forgot to add that players will be able to unlock extras such as rare photos and other Beatles goodies, including the first Beatles Fan Club Christmas album and other Beatle ephemera.
Am I the only one disappointed in this list? Where’s the most covered song in history? Did they think “well, thousands of professional musicians have liked this song so much that they’ve covered it, but the average Joe doesn’t care about it.” Where’s Hey Jude or Eleanor Rigby? In fact, looking over a list of their #1 hits I’m seeing even more omissions. No Love Me Do, Help!, or Penny Lane? I guess, if they’ve been able to secure the rights at all, they’re probably going to offer them as stand-alone content to get extra money out of people. That kind of sucks that about a third of their most popular tunes won’t be there on the core game though.
The Wiki article says yes, though it will come out first for XBox, and only after that for PS3 and Wii.
(It’s worth noting that for the original game, most of the downloadable tracks are now available for Wii. That wasn’t the case earlier in the year, I think.)
I get it, but naked greed isn’t the way to my gaming dollars. I’d rather buy a karaoke cd with the songs I actually care about than have to shell out for expansion after expansion each with just one or two songs I actually want. That’s part of what killed the traditional CD market. One or two good songs and fourteen filler songs makes people flock to iTunes. I’d probably forgive this release if it had Yesterday and Hey Jude(which should be a great rock band song, with the repetitive chords and length allowing people to get into it after just a couple plays) but holding those out just strikes me as pure greed and it’s a huge turnoff. Plus there’s no guarantee they’ll ever be released at all, so I could buy it and maybe never get to play Yesterday, and that makes me sad.
Shoot, one of my favorites, Rocky Raccoon, didn’t make the cut. I was looking forward to seeing how they would animated that. I’m not the only one who visualizes Rocky as an actual, literal raccoon with a cowboy hat and six shooter am I?
ETA: After clicking on the dlc-wiki, I’m also hoping for Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
Dhani Harrison (George’s son) was one of the driving creative forces behind the game and he claims they did this for artistic reasons. While I believe him, I still think it’s lame.
Is anyone seriously surprised they didn’t put all the big hits out with the game at first? That’s been my experience with a lot of the bands represented in Rock Band 2 and the associated DLC. They released Nirvana’s Nevermind album without “Smell’s Like Teen Spirit!” (My person most grating example = releasing Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream” instead of “Ziggy Stardust” :mad:)
Even so, it’s still a pretty great list of tunes, IMO. Can’t wait until this comes out!
Sort of, but not really. Harmonix never released Nevermind as a full album pack. Instead, they released a “Nirvana Pack” that included seven songs, all from Nevermind, that didn’t include “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.
Not that that excuses excluding the biggest song of the 90s, but it probably had more to do with license rights than any “we’ll make more money releasing singly later!” plow. Which, honestly, doesn’t make any sense, as all DLC is available singly in addition to the album releases.
Really? I think that’s normally the makings of a bad RB song. Repetitive chords and great length = boredom after just 1 or 2 playthroughs. A great example of this is Ball and Chain by Social Distortion. I can’t remember if it is in RB or GH. Either way I hated covering that song in a real band because of its repetitiveness and it’s even worse playing it in a video game. It’s even worse if you have friends over to play because most people want to PLAY the game, not just WATCH others play. That’s one of the difficulties of GH Metallica. Its great playing alone or with a freind or 2 in full band mode but the songs are far too long for alot of people to stomach sitting through.
I agree with Cubsfan that Hey Jude would be a bad song for the game. My personal favorite “A Day in the Life” probably didn’t make the cut for the exact same reasons.
On the other hand I’d rather see Rock Band: Beatles: The Second Half than nickel and diming people for software that they’re essentially renting.
I guess I have a different take on Rock Band. I’ve only played the game at parties and a song which goes on long enough for someone to get into the rhythm and get it more or less right before their turn is over holds appeal to me. Would I sit and play it over and over by myself? No, not at all. But the social aspect of Rock Band, being able to get up and play without hours and hours of practice, has a lot of appeal to me, as a mostly casual gamer. My gaming hours per week are very limited and mastering a complex song just isn’t something I’m interested in. So the ones which only take once or twice to perform competently I consider good songs.
Harmonix has announced the dates of the first three albums available for download: Abbey Road October 20, followed in November by Sgt. Pepper’s and Rubber Soul in December. However, the 45th song on the game itself is still unknown.
I deeply, deeply want this. Except I wish it was a left-handed bass guitar. Paul and John singing into the same microphone with their guitars pointing out towards the audience is the iconic Beatles image to me. Also, I play real guitar (poooorly) left-handed. I don’t know why, I just do.
Quick question. I’ve beaten up my drums and the guitar doesn’t hit every note anymore from my Rock Band I purchase. If I get Rock Band Beatles, will the instruments work for Rock Band II, III, or any DLC I get? I’d hate to invest in new peripheries only to have them only work for the Beatles game.
Yesterday was all string-quartet and Paul on acoustic guitar. It might be the most covered song in history, it just doesn’t work in this format. Same for Eleanor Rigby. And Penny Lane, imho.
As for the rest… well, the thing about the Beatles is that no selection of song would please everybody for there will always be “obvious” songs “missing”. For example the movie Across the Universe, IIRC, didn’t feature a single song from Revolver, which is a travesty. But one only had two hours of movie, so whatcha gonna do?
