Green Day: Rock Band Review

Rock Band and Green Day junkies rejoice, because the newest addition to our ever-growing arsenal of songs is here: Green Day: Rock Band, the second band-centric Rock Band game since The Beatles: Rock Band. But, how does this game stack up to the previous Rock Band games?

If you are a Green Day fan, then this is hands-down a must buy. The game comes with 47 songs (all of which are Green Day, suck on that Activision!), three entire albums: 1994's Dookie, 2004's American Idiot, and 2009's 21st Century Breakdown (counting the six tracks already available as DLC), along with eight of their older hits from other albums thrown into the mix; nothing off 39/Smooth or Kerplunk however. However, if you're not a Green Day fan, then I suggest renting the game and at least giving it a shot, you may be surprised at what you find.

Now, I myself am a big fan of Green Day, and I found myself loving every minute of this game. The graphics and animations actually seem to be a step up from Rock Band 2, thanks mostly in part to the band actually being motion-captured (which obviously could not be done with The Beatles) and Harmonix did a wonderful job making it seem like you are at an actual Green Day concert.

Oh, how you've changed... Green Day, not the gameplay.

In terms of game play, I found that the guitar and bass are rather repetitive, but I found myself enjoying the songs so much that I never got sick of playing. Singing is... well, it's singing, if your familiar with the songs then you will, without a doubt, enjoy it; and the three-part harmonies from The Beatles: Rock Band return here. But, if you're not a big Green Day fan, but you love playing drums, then you are in luck, for the drums are the definite strong point of the game. I've listened to Green Day for years, but it never really hit me just how good of a drummer Tre Cool is until I played some of these songs. I don't see myself getting bored of ANY of these songs anytime soon, they give just enough challenge to satisfy your every drumming need. Constantly changing beat, tons of drum rolls, and he even presents possibly the hardest drum solos in Rock Band yet (seriously, they are insane!).

All in all, I would have to say that Green Day: Rock Band is a must buy for Green Day fans, and it is certainly worth a rent for the average Rock Band/Guitar Hero player, maybe you'll even find a new found love for some good old fashion punk rock.

Overall Score: 8.5/10

Green Day: Rock Band is available in both regular $60 version and a $70 PLUS version which includes a voucher to export the songs to Rock Band and Rock Band 2 (eventually Rock Band 3 as well) and includes the 6 21st Century Breakdown DLC tracks. This review was based on the PLUS version for Xbox 360, which is basically just like the regular edition, but PS3 and Wii versions should play the same (minus the visuals on the latter) .