Sing with the Beatles

Would you like to sing and play Beatles songs along side Ringo and Paul?

And John and George?

Not in person, but virtually.

From Harmonix, the Rock Band people comes The Beatles : Rock Band.

It looks like its using the Rock Band 2 engine (similar to the Metallica version), and if the trailers (with footage) and the opening cinematic (both downloadable from the Beatles Rock Band site) looks great. Naturally it looks great; this game took at least two armies of lawyers (probably more) involved so it has to look good. And you get to play with /as the Beatles in the Cavern Club, in the Ed Sullivan Theater and even under the sea (in the Octopus’s Garden presumably)

And because this is an official Beatles release / merchandise offering, there are the Beatles songs. Confirmed so far are

• I Saw Her Standing There
• I Want to Hold Your Hand
• I Feel Fine
• Day Tripper
• Taxman
• I Am The Walrus
• Back In The U.S.S.R.
• Octopus’s Garden
• Here Comes The Sun
• Get Back

And given that downloadable content is possible, there may be even more songs after the release (imagine that, or rather, “Imagine” ? Please!)

And there is more. If you don’t already have your cheap plastic Rock Band kit, you can get replica instruments of the ones played by John, Paul, George and even Ringo. No idea if the coloured buttons will chip to show the colours underneath.

I’m more cynical about this than Christan (who tipped this, thanks) but on the ninth of the ninth 2009 (see the trick they’ve played) I wanna try it out. Lets face it, almost everyone knows at least one Beatles song (even if for some its the really old stuff).

There is also a possible downside… Can Rock Band handle 3 guitarists, one drummer, one vocal line and up to 3 harmonics? Its supposed to have full band capacity, but do they mean full “Rock Band” capacity, or actual band capacity? For the record, I have no idea if this is a hardware or software issue. Maybe the new instruments have microphone connections. No idea here.

The other downside of this is that its September release date is too early to see Ryan Tubridy completely embarrassing himself with this on the radio or TV.

Anyway…

The Trailer

and the Opening Cinematic

Out on the XBox360, PS3 and Wii in September.