Review by: Brandon "Easy as 1-2-3" Cackowski-Schnell

Folks that play music games fall into two basic categories: Those that are new to the genre and started with Guitar Hero (or later) to emulate their favorite rock stars and to hoist their plastic instruments in triumph as they enthusiastically greet Cleveland—and those that started back in the day with games like Frequency and Amplitude and are looking to interact with music in a new way, and, in the process, gain a greater appreciation for the music. Given that I consider myself firmly in that first camp, my opinion of Harmonix's first portable outing of the awesome Rock Band franchise is this: it's good, it just ain't my thing.

Gone are the huge plastic instruments of Rock Band, understandable given that this is a portable system and nothing says "freaking weirdo" like lugging a plastic bass on the cross-town bus, but the main game mechanic of hitting buttons to match notes as they travel down the musical highway still remains. This time you only have four notes to deal with, however don't think for a minute that it means the songs are any less difficult on the higher levels. Hell, "Alive" on Medium made me feel like an arthritic. What the game lacks in peripherals though it gains in musical activity as this time you're responsible for the entire band. Yep, that's right, bass, drums, vocals and guitar all fall under your stewardship.

To do this, the game relies on phrases, bunches of notes grouped together in predetermined batches. Play all the notes in a phrase correctly and that instrument will play on its own for a while, allowing you to give the other instruments attention. Switching to a new instrument is as easy as pressing either of the two shoulder buttons and there's a handy on-screen indicator to show you which instrument you can switch to in order to keep the combo going and earn bigger score multipliers. As you switch between the instruments, the instrument you're playing at the moment will be slightly louder allowing you to hear the subtle nuances that each instrument brings to the songs. This is particularly cool when playing bass as, for the most part, the bass line of a song never gets prominence in the sound mix.

If you are unable to hit all of the notes within a phrase, that instrument will start the slow road to failure, but more importantly, you now have to decide whether you're going to try another phrase to get that instrument to play on its own, or switch to something else that's demanding your attention. And remember those instruments that you did get to play on their own? Yeah, well they don't do that forever, meaning that you'll have to get back to them eventually. With so much going on in the visuals department, the game uses sound to tell you that you're about to have your drummer fail out, by lowering the volume of the instrument in trouble. If you don't hear the vocals, well, you best start matching notes on the M-I-C or you're going to be riding the failure bus to sadness town. Hearing the various instruments fall off only to switch over to them, complete matches and have them all come thundering back is a very cool sonic experience.