Following the success of The Beatles: Rock Band, Harmonix decided to shift gears a bit and focus their attention on the pop-punk band Green Day. While not as big as the Beatles, Green Day is well known around the world and has a nice following. Green Day: Rock Band lets you become a member of the band and rock out to 47 of their songs some of which are good and others I don’t really care about.
While not given the “limited-edition” treatment that was given to the Beatles, there is still a good amount of stuff to unlock in Green Day: Rock Band. You can unlock things like video footage, memorabilia, and old photos of the band. This alone should be enough to make any die-hard Green Day fan jump up and down with excitement. But for everyone who either is just a casual fan or can’t stand them, this may not be enough to warrant a purchase.
The game consists of three different venues each with a different amount of set lists to play through. The first venue is an underground club and this is where Green Day really became popular with punk fans. At this venue, you play through the entire album of Dookie. After mastering all those songs, you move to another venue that allows you to play the entire (and amazing) American Idiot album, along with some of their other songs from various albums. The final venue is the least fun as you have to play their bomb of an album, 21st Century Breakdown.
When I first put the disc in, I was only mildly excited about playing this game because, honestly, I am really burnt out on these music and rhythm games, and to be honest Green Day: Rock Band really didn’t do anything to suck me back in. While it as cool to play some of my favorite songs from Dookie, Nimrod, and American Idiot, I caught myself getting heavy eyes and starting to doze off. These songs are just not that much fun to play. Most of them are just sustained chords and repetitive rhythms; having said that, there are a few songs in the American Idiot venue that are more challenging and fun to play. Plus every Green Day fan knows that Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt have the tough parts. So, if you are looking for a nice challenge, play either the drum or bass parts as they make the game a bit more fun.
If you don’t want to sit and play through career mode just to unlock every song (and I couldn’t blame you, I mean some of the songs in American Idiot are loonnng), then you may want to check out Quickplay. Here, every song is unlocked and ready for you to give them a whirl. In this mode, you can turn on No Fail Mode just in case you play this game at 3am and are really tired. Of course multiplayer is here and its played just like every other Rock Band game but with Green Day, you can have up to three harmonizing vocal parts.
If you are like me and are tired of this genre of game right now or you’re not a fan of Green Day, skip this game. There’s just nothing here for you. With that said, if you still love playing music games and enjoy Green Day, you might want to at least give this a rent. While there’s a ton of cool unlockables and two of their best albums can be played in their entirety, I still don’t think this game is worth the $60, plus if you want to import the songs to Rock Band, you have to pay another $10 on top of that. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge Green Day fan, but I just didn’t have that much fun playing through most of these songs. Watching the unlocked videos was nice, but not enough to make me care about this game as much as I wanted to. It was a good try Harmonix, but I hope you deliver a better experience with Rock Band 3.
Review copy provided by publisher.
