Like all of the other Rock Band games, overdrive is used to double your score multiplier as well as rescue fallen band mates. No you don't have to shake your PSP to activate it, however I won't stop you from doing so if you still want to look like a weirdo on that crosstown bus. Instead you'll hit either the X button or the down button on the d-pad. Seeing how your buttons for matching are all at the top of the controller (Up, left, triangle and circle), using the bottom ones for overdrive allow you to turn it on easily without having to worry about screwing up the songs, something I can never seem to accomplish when playing the previous games. You'll have three failures you can come back from before you're booted off stage, so tell your bassist to lay off the cough syrup before going on.

For the most part, the button matching works well, and if you've played any of the music games since Guitar Hero you know what you're in for. When you first start playing, the notion of switching instruments and matching at the same time seems daunting but you quickly get into the groove. The only off part of the note matching is with vocals. Maybe it's because I'm just too used to singing in the Rock Band games, but the note charting for the vocals didn't seem to match up as well with the song as the charting for the other instruments. For the other instruments you can play along with the beat and the notes, especially if you already know the song, but for the vocals I always felt like I was sight reading the chart, which made for some tough moments. Plus, you'd be surprised how many vocalists aren't very good, especially when they're the only thing you can hear.

Outside of the button matching you'll be following the same tour band progression made famous in the Rock Band games. You'll play gigs, amassing stars, fans and money in the process, buying new modes of transportation which will bring you to more gigs in more places and more stars, fans and money. You can hire staff to get you more fans than money, or vice versa, as well as play gigs that give you more rewards based on how well you play. At every gig you'll have a combination of single songs and playlists to tackle, which brings us to one of the biggest complaints about the game, the track listing. Don't get me wrong, the songs are, for the most part, great, lifted pretty much entirely from Rock Band 2—there just aren't enough of them.

With only 41 songs available, you'll replay a good number of them as you criss cross the globe. Sure you can buy new songs from the PSN for two bucks a pop, but it's a little disappointing to see the track list from Rock Band 2 cut in half. The songs that are unique to this iteration of the franchise work well, and every track is a master recording so at least it all sounds good.

If you don't feel like touring, you can tackle songs in quickplay mode, or play them in Band Warmup or Band Survival mode. Warmup allows you to just play one instrument so that you can practice your button matching without having to babysit the rest of the band. Survival is the complete opposite. In this mode, there are no phrases which means that the band members never play on their own. You have to be aware of who's heading towards failure at all times and switch between the instruments to make sure that every band member is satisfied, kind of like being the band's manager but with no opportunities to run away with all of their money. Warmup can get boring quickly, but Survival mode is a nice, frantic change from the "proper" game play as you're constantly darting in and out of note charts, matching enough buttons to get the chart out of the red. Multiplayer is strangely absent, an odd choice given the social nature of the previous Rock Band games, so outside of the tour, these modes are all that's left.

The game looks great, reproducing the visuals of the Rock Band games and providing a scaled down selection of accoutrements for your rockers. I unfortunately didn't realize that the money I was given upon band creation was to be used for the entire band, leading my bassist and drummer to look like fashionistas and my vocalist and guitarist to look like they got bounced out of the Goodwill store, so heed my warning and spread the money around. Concessions like no tattoos have been made to make space for the game and the performances are absent of crowd shots and crazy camera angles like the fretboard close up, but the arenas are all well modeled and when you can take a minute to watch the band, they all do the rocking out thing with graphical gusto. The sound is excellent, which, all things considered, it kind of has to be.

As a way of taking the four player Rock Band experience and distilling it down into a portable, instrument-free experience, the game excels, it's just that I don't want my Rock Band experience to be instrument free. I buy new songs because I want to sing them, or I want to flail around horribly at them on drums. The experience for me has always been playing the music, or, in this case, playing at playing the music. That's just me though and certainly, if you're looking for a well produced puzzle-esque game that allows you to hear music in a way that you wouldn't be able to normally, the game provides plenty of that. The lack of multiplayer and the shorter track list knocks the value proposition down a bit, but for those needing a fix of rock on the go, this will hit the spot. You are now free to rock around the country.

Questions or comments? We'd love to hear from you .

Comment on our forums!