Appy Rockin’ Monday!  I’m a fan of Rock Band on the Xbox 360.  I own Rock Band, Rock Band 2 and The Beatles: Rock Band on that platform.  So an official Rock Band app for the iPhone / iPod Touch immediately peaked my curiosity.

Premise

Rock Band is a rhythm game with similar game mechanics to previous iterations on various consoles.  You can play guitar, bass, drums or vocals.  It has the familiar runway with notes moving down it, that you strike at the right time.  The longer you go without a mistake, the higher your multiplier.  You can build up and activate overdrive to double your multiplier.

If you are at all familiar with Rock Band on other consoles, you’ll be right at home with this app.   You know you’re playing a Rock Band game the instant you fire it up.  From the graphics and sound effects to the gameplay and achievements, it’s it quintessentially Rock Band.

Presentation

The visuals of Rock Band are exactly what you’d expect, if you’ve played other versions.  Everything is very sharp and easy to see.  Runway graphics are excellent, and where you press is below the runway area, so your thumbs don’t get in the way of the action.  Everything is in portrait mode.  It would have been nice to have a landscape mode, as the thumb area was a bit cramped.

Music is not high quality.  More than likely this is a space-saving function,  but it would be nice to have a little higher quality.  It really didn’t affect gameplay though.  Sound effects are spot-on, and exactly like other iterations of the game.

I did have one or two instances of the game stuttering during gameplay, when a particularly intense series of notes came down the screen.  It’s messed up my score on that particular song, but really hasn’t happened regularly enough to affect overall gameplay.  It does make me wonder how well it will work on older iPhone / iPod Touch devices.  (It does require OS 3.0.)

Interface

On the iPhone / iPod Touch, you use the touch screen to strike various green/red/yellow/blue notes as they cross a note bar.  Missing a note and you get a “clunk” sound and your multiplier resets.  For guitar and bass, you hit the appropriate guitar picks.  For drums, you hit little drum pads, and there is no foot pedal.  You tilt the device to active overdrive.  The mechanic is simple and it works well, although by squeezing 4 pads in across the bottom, it can be harder for people with large hands, and it can sometimes be easy to drift off the pad and either hit the wrong pad or nothing at all.

Vocals are odd in that you are not actually singing.  The lyrics are not even present.  The notes scroll right to left, and you hit them with your thumb as they cross the line.  Since you can hook up headphones with a built-in microphone, it’s odd that they just don’t let you sing.  Plus, as you never hold more than one note at a time, it doesn’t feel as challenging.

Freshness

While tapping the screen doesn’t seem as interactive as using the plastic instruments, at the upper levels the game can get quite challenging.  I’m not a Rock Band protege.  My level of play on the Xbox 360 rarely exceeds medium.  Hard mode on the iPhone / iPod Touch introduces hammer-ons and pull-offs with a slide-your-finger technique,  and I found the jump from medium to hard more difficult than the jump from easy to medium, even on the simpler songs.

There is no online multiplayer on Rock Band, which might be one of the biggest adjustments for Tap Tap Revenge aficionados.  It does have local multiplayer over bluetooth, which I’m told by others works well, but I haven’t tried it.  You can play “online” with others by playing a song and syncing your score.  Other people playing that song with other instruments will be combined with you to form a “band” and you’ll get push notification later on with your score and fans acquired.  I tried that several times, and the mechanic worked ok, but it’s nothing I’d do regularly.

Value

The price is $9.99, which is very high for an iPhone / iPod Touch app, though like every other app I’m sure it’ll drop after awhile.  Additional tracks come in 2-packs and can be downloaded for 99 cents, and one pack was available for free right away.  I popped for the app right away the day it was released, and I wasn’t disappointed.  I played all the way through the World Tour and (eventually) 5-starred every song on medium.  I’d have liked to see the World Tour be longer, but I’ve since been going back to try to get various achievements, so I definitely feel I’ve gotten my money’s worth.

Fans of Tap Tap Revenge 3 might have a hard time adjusting to Rock Band for the iPhone / iPod Touch.  I haven’t played Tap Tap Revenge much, but there are quite a few differences (3 pad interface, chat rooms).  From my limited experience, Tap Tap Revenge seems to have music that is less well known, and seems to be geared more towards getting the app out there cheap, and pushing DLC.  Rock Band is the opposite, where they charge you more up front, but you get tracks from some more established artists that you can play outside the DLC.  Fans of Rock Band should pick it up right away.

Summary

Premise:  Great
Presentation:  Superlative
Interface:  Impressive
Freshness:  Good
Value:  Above Average
Overall:  Excellent app