All you need is love (and a lot of plastic instruments)

Should I buy it.. Shouldn't I buy it? It was a massive dilemma considering my current situation. I'd already turned down Batman : Arkham Asylum this month despite a very impressive demo and it getting great rave reviews. Did I really need another Rock Band?

I was mainly undecided because it seemed to go against everything I liked about the Rock Band concept: you buy the software once (okay maybe twice - Rock Band 2 was a pretty upgrade), and then all you buy after that is songs you want. Alarm bells sounded when they buggered it up with the AC:DC branded version, whereby they provided a severely crippled version of Rock Band, which even if you export the tracks to Rock Band / Rock Band 2 worked out much more expensive than a track pack would have been. Then I head the bad news that the Beatles version would go a step further and not allow you to export the songs, or play any non-Beatles DLC.

Not good. I decided I wasn't going to buy it. Then the trailers hit and I realised this wasn't going to be a crippled version of Rock Band, but an entirely rebranded, re-worked game. It showed a proper story mode. Lots of unlockable photos and videos and stuff. Plus: It's the frigging Beatles.

Combine this with a sudden discovery of a cache of Tesco Clubcard vouchers and of course I caved.

Do I regret it? Not at all! I have to say this is the slickest version of Rock Band so far, the presentation is gorgeous and there's lots of neat interface tweaks, for example a difficulty display on the screen where you choose between Guitar & Bass which is a huge help for avoiding tedious bass lines / obscenely tricky guitar tracks. So far we've only played a little way through the Story mode (Cat's still suffering with post-viral fatigue, we have to take things easy) and browsed the track listings but we've really enjoyed it. In fact I practically had to wrestle the controller off her last night and use the classic parenting line "It'll still be here tomorrow" ;).

The bonus content really is something special. We've only unlocked a little, but so far the photos and accompanying text are very interesting and we've learnt quite a few suprising things already. An impressive "prize" extra we unlocked today was the content of a very limited edition Christmas record that was sent out to Beatles fan club members in... 63 I think? Was very silly but incredibly fun to hear, the quality of the recording was outstanding!

Need to have a gathering at some point and see if we can get enough xbox microphones to try out these 3-part harmonies some of the tracks support. Then again I think most of me and my friends struggle to find the right pitch when solo :D

But is this going to happen? I honestly don't know. Even with 45 greatly varying tracks, I don't know how this would go down with my Rock Band buddies. The only couple of friends I know that are definitely Beatles fans don't normally touch Rock Band, and the friends I have really into Rock Band definitely aren't Beatles fans. Perhaps this isn't a match made in heaven?

For me and Cat though it's going to be a fantastic experience, and that's all we need.