The Beatles Rock Band: Rubber Soul

Score: 95%
Publisher: EA Games
Developer: Harmonix
Media: Download/1
Players: 1 - 6 (Co-Op/Online)
Genre: Rhythm/Party/Online

Graphics & Sound:

The Beatles Rock Band: Rubber Soul is, in my opinion, the best album pack to be released for The Beatles: Rock Band to date. Yes, I will admit to preferring the older tunes from The Beatles, but I still enjoy music from every album. That being said, when playing each of the songs from Rubber Soul, I found that I liked every one. I may not have absolutely loved each tune, but I did enjoy my time with all of them. On the contrary, the last two albums both contained songs that I really hated and will never play again. The Beatles Rock Band: Rubber Soul contains such classics as "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," "Michelle," "Nowhere Man," "Girl," and "In My Life." 11 great songs in all make this my favorite DLC for The Beatles: Rock Band, hands-down. That being said, Geck0 did have to mention that with all of the Indian-inspired music he has experienced while playing The Beatles: Rock Band, it appears that the world finally has a pseudo-version of Sitar Hero.

Once again, as you play songs, you are treated to CG images of the band, doing what they do best. Some songs have them playing venues, while others have them in the studio recording music and then the visuals melt into trippy landscapes reflecting the tune that is playing, such as birds flying about in "Norwegian Wood." It's a lot more of what you have come to expect from The Beatles: Rock Band DLC and it definitely doesn't disappoint.

Gameplay:

As before, in The Beatles Rock Band: Rubber Soul, up to 3 singers can participate at a time (either singing the three-part harmony or all can sing the primary vocals), plus a guitar player, a bassist and a drummer, for a total of 6 players at once. Of course, if you want to play solo, you can do that too. It's pretty seamless and flexible, overall. You can either play the songs in Quickplay Mode, use them to further your Career (although by now, I am sure most fans have beaten the game) or play them online against friends or in matched games. Since I kept getting the alert that I was the first of my friends to get the high score in every song from this album, my friends apparently haven't yet invested in Rubber Soul. Their loss.

Difficulty:

There's a nice mix of difficulty in the songs from The Beatles Rock Band: Rubber Soul. Some are really easy for the vocalists, while they may be super challenging for the drummer or the bassist, and vice versa. It varies from song to song, but if you are accustomed to playing on Expert, you may just find yourself getting winded on a couple of songs when you weren't expecting it. As with all of the songs from The Beatles: Rock Band, each person playing can select their own difficulty for each song, between Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert, and depending on how many players you have participating and what levels they are playing on, your score will be affected. But at this point, we've all beaten the game on Career Mode and are just playing the songs for fun anyway, so who cares!

Value:

Once again, the value of The Beatles Rock Band: Rubber Soul is completely relative to how much you enjoy the songs contained therein. Personally, I really liked them all, so there's a definite savings in purchasing the whole album if that is the case with you. Rubber Soul is classic Beatles, right before they went completely hippie. If you liked this era of music from this amazing band, then the complete album pack of The Beatles Rock Band: Rubber Soul is must-have DLC for you. In my opinion, at 1440 MS Points ($17.99), it's a steal for fans, especially since the individual tracks run $1.99 each. Give them a listen and see if this album is for you.

-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications
AKA Ashley Perkins

Graphics & Sound:

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