Entertaining, But As Limited As Wii Comes
It's Rock Band. It's fun. For those of you expecting the PS3 or Xbox 360 versions: why would you? If you own a Wii, and have seen the other platforms, don't expect the same level of graphics. Just a few bullet points:
- Just like the guitar controller is hard for guitarists, the drums are tricky for drummers for two reasons - most drummers don't read music on a kit and the pads are counter-intuitive from a typical kit. You get over it though.
- The lack of online play / ability to download games astounds me. Shame on you, developers.
- There's nothing really "Wii" about it. In other words, there's no motion capture components at all. Having wired drums and mic is really dumb for a platform that relies on being wireless.
- Despite the negativity, it's still entertaining as all-get-out.

Great game on its own!!!
Although I've been a heavy shopper of Amazon for years, I've written very few reviews - mostly due to laziness. But after playing with Rock Band for just over a week, and noticing a lot of the negative reviews, mostly due to comparisons to versions of the same game on other platforms, i felt i really ought to provide some of my feedback.

I don't own an XBOX or a PS3. I wish i did - but.. i'm too cheap, and my kids are still too young (3 and 7) for the type of games that are popular on those systems. I've settled for the Wii. Although we've been quite happy with Wii Sports, none of the other games have really kept our interest beyond a couple of days. (granted, i've only attempted to purchase games that would appeal to both my 7 year old and all the adults around - that's pretty hard to do)... until now. Rock Band has to be one of the best "team" oriented games I've played in a long time. Its a game that has kept friends of ours over very late trying to pass the various songs. More importantly, its a game that both my 7 year old and I can play together at the same time. (she sings, and i'd play the drums..).. And to be able to complete a song together is really cool.. Its "team" oriented because you're only as good as your weakest band member.. and when the weak band member falls behind, the best band member has the ability to "save" him/her..otherwise, the team falls..

Since I've never played the Xbox or ps3 version, i have no idea what i'm missing.. but what i do get, i absolutely love! So, if you are a single console owner like myself, i think this game is a must have - its the best party game since Wii Sports.

I only hope that the equipment stays functioning for a long time as we've given it a good workout so far..

Don't Bother with the Wii
Rock Band is the best music/rythm game out there, no question about that. But only for the Xbox 360 and PS3. The PS2 version of the game took all the extra fun outside of playing songs and stripped it away. Thats what you get with the Wii version. A shell of what Rock Band truly is. Wii owners, wait until Rock Band 2 comes out this year, it will have updated instruments, and a full Rock Band experience.

Wii is a great family gaming console, how about some family music!
Instead of Rock Band, how about Pop Band?
The Wii audience is generally younger and families, how about some tunes for families?

I would much rather have my 9 year old son and 5 year daughter play a game that has Phil Collins songs from Disney movies instead of these harder rock songs.

The platform has been developed, how hard could it be to make sets of songs for other music tastes?

Great Game, but I can't help but feel a bit "Ripped-Off"
I had been wanting Rock Band for awhile, but being that I don't have a PS3 or 360, and the load times for Guitar Hero on the PS2 were terrible, I was excited to finally get this game for the Wii.

First, the good:

The songs are great, the game play is great and the sound isn't as bad as some people are saying it is. It sounds great in Stereo. Unlike the Guitar only games, the drumming for this game is probably as close as your going to get for a video game. After the "Easy" level, it's rather realistic.

Now, the bad:

When your playing the Medium it shows there are 63 songs to play through. There are, but only about 50 of them are songs from known artists, and a lot of them aren't REALLY that known. The remaining dozen or so songs are of unknown acts except for one song from South Park.

So you could imagine my surprise, playing through Medium and I hit 50 (or so) songs and learned I was done. I then had to play through 8 to 10 songs I had never heard of to reach the South Park song. Not to say all the unknown songs are bad, some of them are quite good, but it was kind of annoying to say the least.

One thing GHIII had over this was the ability to just "Buy" the extra songs you wanted, but not having to play the un-heard of songs if you didn't want to. That Rock Band pretty much forces you to play them in order to open up everything is more than slightly annoying.

Also, on GHIII the "Extra" songs weren't included in the number of songs needed to play. So when you see 63 songs, you think "I'm going to get to play 63 songs that I know". Again, not the case.

The other thing missing is the lack of downloadable content. I do like the idea of having the extra "Track-Pack" and I have already pre-ordered it.

When I hear that Guitar Hero IV will feature downloadable content, and the fact that you STILL can't use a Guitar Hero guitar for play on Rock Band (for shame to both Activision and Harmonix on this one) not sure if we'll keep Rock Band once GHIV comes out. We'll have to see what we get on the forthcoming track-packs.

Overall, it's a fun game, I do recommend it for those that want a new music