Battle of the Bands review

With the popularity of music rhythm games it was only a matter of time before someone came out with a game for the Nintendo Wii that used the Wii remote to make music rather than a plastic instrument. But a big part of the fun with music games has become the great toys you get to play with, (You can admit to jumping up on the couch with your plastic guitar here, we don’t judge –Ed) and we were curious to see how Battle of the Bands from THQ would turn out. Could an accessory free music game using the simple Wii mote still make us feel like we were playing music? Just as importantly would the track list based on wacky versions of popular songs be enough to make it stand our from ‘big theme’ games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero?

Battle of the Bands is a little different from games like Guitar Hero in that it puts you more in the roll of conductor with the Wii remote than musician with an instrument, and that isn’t the only difference between it and the ‘cool’ rock fantasy of the big games. From the moment you pop the game into the Wii it’s clear that Battle of the Bands is a far more of a comic approach to the rhythm game concept. The tone that the developers Planet Moon were going for seems to be ‘zany’ and for the most part this element of the game works. Where else have you seen a mexican band with a name like ‘Pistolas Gigantes’ facing off with a preppy, clean cut marching band called ‘Beat Legion’, or hardcore hip hoppers up against a bunch of redneck country singers ? Each of the 11 bands from five music types (rock, hip-hop, country, marching band and Latin) you can choose to play as is a cartoony caricature and that plays to the strengths of Battle of Band, with its more light hearted and fun approach. Battle of the Bands isn’t trying to compete with the big marquee rhythm games; it’s a far more casual game. Conducting your band is a charming concept, and had the game play had a little deeper, we would have taken to like ducks to water. As it is, Battle of the Bands is fun to begin with but a little too shallow to maintain interest for very long.

Battle of the Bands game play is based on a simple enough premise: select a crazy band from one of five genres and go on stage to battle against another band for points. And even more importantly this is a musical face off and about changing the song from being played in your opponent’s style to your own. So as your hip hop crew battles to keep the song ‘hip’ for example, their rock n’ roll style opponents will want to thrash it up with their own version and the music moves back and forth.

It’s this switching between songs that is the best thing about BOTB's music mash concept, and where it really shines. Publisher THQ has licensed 30 popular songs from various artists and genres for the game. You’ll find a diverse range of artists  in Battle of the Bands, including Cypress Hill, Def Leppard, Korn, Rick James, Tenacious D, the Black Eyed Peas, LL Cool J, and Keane just to name a few. That may not seem like very many but you need to remember that each genre band in the game has their own version of the songs, so 30 songs quickly balloons into 150 distinct tracks. None of the songs are original, but there’s some pretty impressive cover work being done here and for the most part they work really well.

In a system similar to Guitar Hero, a music board flows up the screen, with notes that need to be hit in order to score points. The boards for both bands are on screen at the same time, and above that you get to see them on stage, engaged in their cartoon battle to the death-playing like crazy and firing musically themed weapons at each other in time with your attacks. You’ll need to shake the Wii Remote left, right, down or use a stabbing motion to hit the notes' on the scrolling board at the correct time. Points are also gained by successfully unleashing attacks on the opposing band's screen, which happens automatically so long as you hit a row of notes correctly. These attacks, which range from missiles to grenades, launch themselves at the opposing board, requiring that player to press the ‘B’ button to block. If you’re able to score enough damage, the song being played will be taken up by your band, forcing your opponents to endure your musical styling’s until they can inflict enough damage to regain control of the ‘momentum meter’.

It's easy, very accessible and on a simple level, we can appreciate Battle of the Bands approach, but this game doesn’t go much beyond a neat party game and cute show case. In fact the game is so easy that we finished it on normal without losing a single song, and there just isn’t enough game play depth here to keep serious gamers coming back. The motions you have to make aren’t particularly difficult but the shakiness of the Wii remote can be frustrating, and you’ll have to deal the cursor bouncing all over the place at the slightest move of your hands. Added to that, none of the motions you make feel connected enough to the music being played, you’ll get to sing or stab to the beat, but it all feels very floaty. Unlike like Guitar Hero for example, you rarely get the feeling of being cool and ‘making’ the music. (It doesn’t help the ‘coolness’ factor that between every song the game suggests you take a break, like some music game nanny-Ed)

But there’s a more serious problem with BOTB and it lies in the momentum meter, which automatically seems to move, even if you’re able block all your opponents attacks. It means that eventually, no matter how well you’ve been playing, the song will shift on a single hit. That ensures the music often switches from one genre to another which as we’ve said is the best thing about it, but it feels very fake. It’s just a way to keep the songs constantly moving back and forth, almost divorced from game play.

With the combat rendered somewhat meaningless by the momentum meter and slightly dodgy controls, once the novelty of hearing songs like, ‘Insane in the Membrane’ or ‘I’m gonna knock you out’, alternate between Hip Hop and Country (Which had some of my favorite renditions of songs-Ed) or Latin and Rock wears out you aren’t really left with much. You’ll unlock weapons upgrades as you play adventure mode, but there isn’t a great deal of depth to them, and given the way the momentum meter works, slight increases in the ‘damage’ you can do doesn’t really matter. Two players can go head to head,but the problems with control and lack of challenge soon make themselves apparent.

The graphics are mostly on par with Guitar Hero Wii and do the job, each of the band members has a lot of character, but it might have been nice if the combat actions of the bands were little more detailed. As it is, all they really do is fire weapons with the same animations and duck whenever you block. But you won’t really get to look at them much as you play; you’ll be too bust frantically waving the Wii mode in your hands to the music.

We can see that the developer was trying to make something new and original with Battle of the Bands, and was really aiming it at casual audience, but once you move past the music, there really isn’t much of a *game* here-which is the point of the whole exercise, casual or not. At the moment, once you’ve played through a handful of  songs you’ve gotten all you can out of it. This is a good idea, and given a bit of development and a better set of gestures with the Wii mote, perhaps Battle of the Bands 2 will make a great game. For now, this ones a nice idea that just needs better execution.

UKMusic.com Rating: 2.5 out of 5

If you’re looking for a cute party game, or one for kids, BOTB is fun, and has some great music but is ultimately flawed by shallow game play.

Written by: Sam Bandah