The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Rock Band Unplugged has a bad rap, I think. It’s gotten mediocre reviews, and I’m not hearing about a lot of people playing it.

That’s a shame, because it is pretty damn good.

Basically, take Amplitude. You remove the techno music, reduce the number of tracks down to four. To compensate for this (since Amplitude was a game about switching tracks and keeping the plates spinning, which isn’t hard at all with four tracks) you have four buttons to hit instead of three, and you add chords. Then you take songs straight from Rock Band 2, put a Rock Band 2 skin on the thing. Bam. You have Rock Band Unplugged.

Yeah, I guess that doesn’t make it sound appealing.
It really isn’t anything revolutionary or something you must play. But it is just about as good as you can get the rock band experience on the go, and I am having quite a good time with it. On Medium, the button presses are fairly close to what the song is, and it’s challenging without being back-breakingly hard. I’m sure on Expert, I would be weeping.

But yes, I am having a good time. So much so that I have Class of Heroes sitting right here, and I keep going back to the World Tour mode. I’m going to beat Rock Band Unplugged.

It’s main flaw, I think, is the same flaw with the first Rock Band: Small number of songs. Now that I’ve experienced Rock Band 2 with all the DLC and all the songs of Rock Band 1, I never want to go back to playing songs more than once in a session. I want that huge list, and this game just doesn’t have it. It’s got a fairly nice setlist, taken almost completely from Rock Band DLC, but I’m still ending up playing songs twice during longer sessions, which is unfortunate.

The game also has The Trees, which is the worst song ever created by mankind. Bleh.

There are two main complaints about the game. One is that “it doesn’t capture the spirit of Amplitude.” I can’t really argue with this one. Amplitude is a better game. But it’s not portable, and I’ve played Amplitude to death. Heh.
The second is that “it doesn’t capture the spirit of Rock Band.” This is mostly connected to talking about a lack of multiplayer modes. This is a complete bullshit complaint. If I want to play Rock Band with friends, I will, gasp, play Rock Band with friends. I have never, ever played a PSP game multiplayer, and I probably never will. A portable game NEEDS a strong single-player component. Multiplayer is almost always going to be useless, unless it is hot seat. I guess I just don’t know what these people expect. Guitar Hero On Tour was trying to make the game “feel like Guitar Hero” and that gave us this and was god-awful to play. At least this is a fun game, you know? It’s blatantly using the Rock Band name for sales, but it is a fun game.

So much of me is saying “Yes, but, yes, but, yes, but.” That isn’t a good recommendation, I guess. There is a demo, I hear, so I’d download it and try it, if you’re questioning a purchase. But I’m completely getting my money’s worth out of it. It’s a solid game! Not a must-have. But if you like music games, and actually own a PSP, it is worth your time. Yes. Yes it is.