Demo Review #1: Green Day: Rock Band

A free demo of the upcoming video game, Green Day: Rock Band, was just released on XBox Live today for anyone with a gold membership. Being a huge Rock Band fanatic, I went ahead and downloaded it. Two full songs are available to play on the demo, Boulevard of Broken Dreams and Welcome to Paradise. The former I was very familiar with, having heard it countless times on the radio. The latter I was not familiar with at all.

It's no secret that I do not think Green Day deserves to have their own Rock Band game. The Beatles did. Green Day is nowhere near as influential as The Beatles were and still are. They certainly don't have the diversity of catalogue behind them, and they obviously have not been around as long. Still, Green Day is a household name so it's a game that will sell well. And Harmonix, at the end of the day, is a business.

The game comes in three editions: plain old Green Day: Rock Band, which is just the game and all the bells and whistles that come with it for $60. You'll have 47 songs to play, including two full albums: Dookie and American Idiot. On top of that, all the songs export into the Rock Band platform for $10.

There's the special edition, which includes six additional songs (songs that are already available as DLC in the Rock Band platform) for $70. With the addition of these six songs, you'll have a third full album by Green Day on the disc, 21st Century Breakdown. Additionally, you can export all 53 of the songs onto your hardrive for free. This is obviously the better deal, especially for someone like me who doesn't have any of the Green Day DLC.

Finally, there's the special edition which comes with every major release of Rock Band, which includes the game and the peripherals (one guitar, the drum set, and mic) so the game is fully playable to someone new to Rock Band right out of the box (and is made collectable by someone who already has the peripherals). The peripherals, like with The Beatles game, comes with the Green Day logo.

Unfortunately, only two songs come with the demo. Which is fine, it's still two free new songs to play. But I do wish the demo could have come with at least a couple more new songs. But I will say this: the game looks great. I mean, The Beatles: Rock Band looked great, but this game looks, at least in my opinion, better. Which you would expect from a later release.

As for the difficulty, it was pretty much where I expected it to be. There will be two- and three-part harmones in the game (like there were with The Beatles: Rock Band).

Boulevard of Broken Dreams -- This song, as you might expect, was very easy. I got a full combo on this song on vocals, drums, and bass -- which is the closest I've ever come to a one man band full combo. Plus, this is the first song I've ever gotten a sight read full combo on drums. I would have full comboed the guitar but a part during the solo kind of took me by surprise. All in all, this one won't give anyone any trouble.

Welcome to Paradise -- This one is very easy on vocals (as I expect most of the songs in the full game to be). Guitar is not too bad. However, drums will give you a lot of trouble. The trouble comes mostly from how fast the song is. There are some fills that might give you trouble, but their simple sixteenth note fills that you just need to practice with. And the bass on this song was a pleasant surprise. Much more fun than Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

All in all, I think Green Day: Rock Band is shaping up to be another great entry in the Rock Band catalog. I don't expect the game to be insanely difficult (though a little more difficult than The Beatles was). And even though I'm not a fan of Green Day, I think the game will still be quite enjoyable.