Hello. My Name is Rebecca Goings, and I'm Addicted to Rock Band.

Rock Band. Who knew the one game that would break my video game celibacy would be a game about being in a ... band?

It all started back in October, when friends of ours bought Guitar Hero 3. We went over to their house, and it was pretty fun. Mostly because you are listening to some sweet rock riffs, but also because you can play along! It's nothing like playing a real guitar, mind, but pretty dang sweet anyhow.

Then we heard of a new game using the same technology. You guessed it - Rock Band. Like an idiot, DH asked for Rock Band for Christmas, being the ONLY gift he asked me to get him, so obviously, if I didn't have that ginormous box under the tree, I think I would have been "booed off the stage". LOL

The difference between Rock Band and Guitar Hero is that in Rock Band, you have "more" instruments to play. If you have two guitars, one person can play bass. You can have a drummer and a singer too. Before you cringe at you or one of your friends singing, the game only registers pitch, not words. So you could literally fake your way through a song, as long as you're singing in the same pitch as the singer. They flash the words on the screen, and there's an indicator arrow to tell you whether to go up or down on pitch.

I began playing Rock Band as the singer. DH noticed me belting out songs on my iPod and decided to put my pipes to good use. However, my true calling is the drums. Yup. The drums.

I can pretty much get 95% and above on the "medium" drum setting, but need more practice before I can tackle "hard". We're currently doing the "world tour" in the game, where you play at different venues and unlock new songs in the game and whatnot. We even went online and bought more songs from the Rock Central Server. Now, we can play "Fortunate Son", "Buddy Holly" (by Weezer - oheeeooo I look just like Buddy Holly oh oh and you're Mary Tyler Moore...) There's a few others we purchased, like the Metallica pack (dear GAWD, those guys rock HARD) and a few punk songs.

Sure, there is talk about some of the instruments not holding up, and sometimes breaking. In fact, DH had to open up his guitar last night to do a wee bit of surgery. His guitar was experiencing missed notes and double notes on the down strum, but up strum was perfectly fine. So he had to adjust the contacts for the down strum a bit. A lot of people have complained about the drums as well, but fortunately, our drum kit isn't broken. Even the Guitar Hero guitar will work with Rock Band. :) That's an awesome bonus.

But this game is the ultimate party game. If you miss a note, you can HEAR it in the song. If you're jamming, you can hear that too. Even if you don't want to play an instrument, if those colored buttons are too hard to hit, you can sing! And making your own character is pretty darn fun, I must say.

All in all, I love the game. If you've been thinking about it, you should buy it. To give you an idea as to how much I really like the game - I've played it by myself, without my DH home and pestering me to play with him. LOL It's been a long time since I've wanted to turn on a console and play a game on my own. When a game can do that, you know you have a winner!

The only thing this game needs (and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they're offered in the Rock Band marketplace online) is some Twisted Sister "I WANNA ROCK!" and some Quiet Riot "Cum On Feel the Noise!" It also needs a little more 80's hair bands in my opinion. But what they do have is an eclectic mix of songs, from Black Sabbath to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Nirvana to Weezer to the Stones to Aerosmith.... It's really a load of fun.

KEEP ROCKIN!

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com