Your band will eventually acquire a manager who will guide you to earning a tour bus, jet, roadies, and a PR firm. All the while, you are racing to reach the Rock Band Hall of Fame. Racing might not be the best way to go about reaching this goal because it will take several hours to reach this level of rock god. In fact, none of the band will be able to play on easy or medium if this is your ultimate goal. One of the key factors into reaching the Hall of Fame is how many fans you have, and on the lower difficulty settings, you are cut off from receiving new ones after you reach a certain number. The hard difficulty will be your first step to achieving this plateau of rock. So you will need to do some practicing outside of your band's tour in order to ensure you reaching this goal.

For those among us who don't really have the friends around to play through the Band mode all the time, there is a solo mode. Here you are able to play through songs with any of the instruments at your disposal. This mode is solid enough, but I found myself wanting to band together more than I wanted to play in the single player mode, with the exception of when we were facing off against one another. The battle modes are honestly more enjoyable online than when you and your band are with one another, mainly because when the band is together you'll want to play together as a band in the career mode or watch each member battle it out online against the other players that think they are top notch.

The online mode options are simplistic and smooth to move through with a total of three options for you to choose from. You can get a band together and play a few songs in quick play, but none will count towards progress in a career mode. Tug of War is probably the best online option in the game. In this mode, you will battle it out with another player in different parts of the same song. Your goal is to win over the crowd. This is fun with each instrument, especially the drums. Of course, there is also the two-player duel mode we have grown accustomed to. The online play is smooth and holds no extreme difference from the main game.

Rock Band has one thing going for it: the necessity to having friends to play and the willingness to work together. It may not be enough for everyone to drop 170 bucks on the game and equipment, but I can say if you even remotely have thought about this game, it is worth it. With the only major problem being the smaller track lists when compared to Guitar Hero, Rock Band has potential. You will have to look towards the future and see the albums and other songs soon to be available as downloadable content that are sure to increase the replay value of the game. Besides, maybe you can get your band together beforehand and collect instrument fees before you go buy the game.

By Matthew Walker
CCC Project Coordinator

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