Today is..

...the greatest...day I've ever known.

(Yep, I downloaded it. Yes, I will still purchase it. It's that good.)

(Updated 5-31-2009: Now with gameplay video after the jump! Michael!)


Rock Band: Unplugged for the PSP.

Great soundtrack? (Jackson 5, The Police, AFI, Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer) Check. Graphics and sound? Quite on point. Controls? As intuitive as DJ Max's 4 button scheme, with the added task of switching between all four members of the band dynamically. I was a bit iffy about how this kind of thing would work across a 4-5 minute song with multiple parts, but my doubts were immediately put to rest once I started playing.

While it's true that all four tracks (Guitar, Bass, Drums, Vocals) are laid out and running at the same time, you only have to complete a small portion of the song, or a "phrase", and that part of the track will start playing itself. When a phrase is complete, you switch to another member and play their portion. What it boils down to is completing phrases from each member of the band in order to keep the song sounding great, and while it sounds like a handful in text, there's a certain addictive rhythm and satisfaction in successfully keeping the song going from all fronts. On the other side of the coin, messing up will cause that portion of the track to cut out, but you can easily rescue it with a few consistently well timed button presses.




I like it. Add the fact that this portable version retains the music store, which means downloadable content, which means this game could potentially NEVER end like the console Rock Band (Over 670 songs available for download and growing!), and you have a game that'll never leave my memory card--er, I mean UMD Drive.

Because I am buying it.

Harmonix deserves it. It's not like they're Activision or anything.