Words: Mav

Pix: Courtesy of THQ

One of THQ’s latest releases and one of the newest in the recent trend of rythym based games, Battle of the Bands is a Wii format music game with a twist.

Made by Planet Moon Studios, The core idea of the game is to take the familiar model- matching scrolling beats on the screen in order to play a song- but Battle of the Bands is always played against an opponent who plays in a different musical style. The gist is that whoever is currently winning gets to hear the song in their style- so if your rock band is winning, you hear rock.

This is a strange but sound idea and results in much chuckling when halfway through AFI’s ‘Miss Murder’, the song turns into a marching band version. As you may have guessed, to pull this off each of the 30+ licensed songs has been performed by cover artists, once in each 5 styles. Some may be a bit disappointed that their songs aren’t being performed by their favourite artists, but the difference is negligible.

This if course can be seen as a good or a bad thing- the songs have been picked for their generic sound and are usually based on their original versions. For example, ‘Brick House’ is not the Rob Zombie or even Lionel one, but the Commodores – no harm in that but maybe not what you expected. Of course this doesn’t matter so much when your Mariachi band turns it into a Spanish acoustic ballad anyway.

The five genres of music available are Rock, Hip-hop, Latin, Country and Marching Band. Strange but broad selection and from here it should be clear that if you were expecting a Guitar Hero game, you will be disappointed- Battle is more for pure music fans and people into composition or any of the rarer genres such as Marching Band and Latin will appreciate it. Each genre has a few types of band within them allowing you to choose what you look like- for example Rock could be an insane asylum psycho squad or a carnival freakshow.

The crowning jewel of the game is certainly Cypress Hill’s ‘Insane in the Brain’, which sounds great as Hip-hop, kick-ass as Rock, and lol-tastic in Spanish, Country or Marching band. The Spanish version of Def Leppard’s ‘Photograph’ works surprisingly well. Korn pop up with ‘Coming Undone’ and also Electric Six with ‘Danger High Voltage’, which is definitely funny in various genres. We definitely recommend ‘That’s the Way I Like It’ when fought between Hip-hop and Rock- it actually works really well! Some songs might not be recognised, perhaps not immediately anyway, such as The Fixx – ‘One Thing Leads to Another’. Yeah, exactly.

A couple of gripes with Battle of the Bands would be firstly some bizzare cutscenes with the bands giving each other strange insults which range from amusing quips to cringe worthy babbling. Words like ‘varmit’ feature heavily. The control system is basically a series of waggles of the wiimote, sometimes oddly satisfying but mostly awkward and unreliable. Combat between bands simply involves hitting the notes in sequence and blocking enemy attacks, with head to head instrumental sequences.

All in all Battle of the Bands is great for music fans and a good party game, but hardcore Guitar Hero fans will not find their usual thrill. It’s suitable for all ages and takes the rhythm game in a new direction, without compromising too much to the dark pit of novelty. If you ever wanted to hear a Rock version of That’s The Way I Like It, then you’re in for a treat.

3 out of 5 Zs

- Insane In The Brain in Latin mariachi style

- Miss Murder in Country and Western

‘- Be’ a Marching Band. Not many games where you can do that.