A promotional poster for the Rock Band 4 video game. (Photo : YouTube)
Harmonix released "Rock Band 4" on Oct. 6, Tuesday, and within hours of the release, critical reviews began surfacing on the Internet. The most common theme of these reviews points out that even though the game feels and plays the same, it introduces a whole new level of gaming experience.
According to IGN, the fourth entry into the successful "Rock Band" franchise is reminiscent of the experience felt when playing the last three games in the series which were released in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platform. The IGN review added that "Rock Band 4" relieves the joy of playing with friends and the effort exerted in working as a team and crosses the plain reality of tapping buttons on some plastic instrument.
Many reviewers are not quite happy about the game's library of songs to play. For many gamers, the replay ability and overall backbone of "Rock Band 4" hangs on its lists of available songs to play. The newest addition to the franchise adds a lots of big bands like Van Halen and U2 on the list, but overall, many critics consider the "Rock Band 4" out of the box playlist as weak compared to previous iterations.
Harmonix dropped some A-list artists on its repertoire. "Rock Band 4" failed to include big shots like Nirvana, AC/DC, Metallica and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, all of these bands were part of the list in the past versions of the game.
In this aspect, however, "Rock Band 4" has a saving grace which came in the form of backwards compatibility for almost every downloadable content (DLC) released in previous iterations of "Rock Band." The best part is if gamers have already bought these DLCs in previous platforms, they can migrate it to newer consoles completely for free.
According to Mashable, the price tag of "Rock Band 4" is a bit of a downside too. The complete Band in the Box bundle which includes one guitar, drum set, microphone, and the game disc costs $250.
