The most prominent band from the sixties is back for an encore.

Harmonix has done it again by making another top selling game, The Beatles Rock Band, their third Rock Band.

To be honest, I had my doubts about the game at first because I knew how long it takes to beat the regular Rock Band games were and didn’t know how Harmonix was going to make the game long enough.

I was right.

The game was very short, with only 45 songs.Usually the Rock Band games have over 80 songs, but more of the Beatle’s  songs will be available to download and play in the future.

The overall story of the game is not like the normal story of the Rock Band games. For the Beatles Rock Band, you can’t create your own player at all; you play as John, Paul, George, or Ringo. Only hair style changes as the game progresses to match how the characters looked over time.

The goal of the game is to unlock pictures and videos of the Beatles, as opposed to gaining fans or unlocking random articles of clothing like you did in the other Rock Band games. You do not complete challenges comprised of different songs, but instead  you play by replaying the album for a better score. Also, instead of playing songs by difficulty, you play songs by the time they were released.

There are many cool new features in the Beatles Rock Band that were not in the other Rock Bands. The game has a “realistic mode,” where the volume of the crowd in the background is turned up so that you can barely hear what you are playing, giving you an experience similar to that of the Beatle’s.

Another new feature is harmonizing. Now, in every song, you have the option to harmonize with the player who is singing. This feature takes a lot of getting used to because it is hard to look at the words to sing while you are playing the guitar or drums at the same time.

Harmonizing was a creative feature to add to the game, but it still needs a little work to be made easier for the players with other instruments. However, there were some aspects that were disappointing. The main issue is that there are only 45 songs, although the Beatles released over 200 songs.  Although the game has a decent selection of songs, it does not have some of the most famous songs such as “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Let it Be.”

My personal rating for this game is a nine out of ten.  If you like the Beatles, consider checking this game out.

Nico Cvach can be reached for comment at [email protected].