When Harmonix announced that they were developing a Rock Band title for the PSP, I was intrigued;  How could they replicate the experience of playing Rock Band, an inherently social game, for a portable system, which, while not out of intention necessarily, is designed for solo play?  For that matter, how could they design an instrument-based game for a system for which you can’t actually use any instrument peripherals?

Short answer:  They didn’t.  Long answer:  They didn’t, but this is still a great game.

When players start RB:U, they’re treated with an incredibly familiar interface.  Developer Backbone Entertainment has replicated the Rock Band 2 interface to the smallest detail, to the point where if you didn’t know you were playing on a portable system, you’d swear you were sitting in front of your TV playing the same game.  All of the same modes are there, from creating musicians, quick play, tour mode, hell, even the options screen is in the exact same place.  Once you start a tour and create a band, you’ll be greeted with the same interface as if you were in front of your 360.  Granted, the amount of options for your characters isn’t quite as diverse, but you’re still given a TON of options, given the limited capacity of the medium.  Once you start the tour, you’ll find the city travel interface is identical as well, but once you start a song, that’s where the similarities (sort of) end.  The interface stays the same, but the game itself is very different.

When the song starts, you’re presented with the four rock band tracks, all scrolling toward you at once.  This time around, you’re playing as a sort of one-man band.  I’m assuming in real life this would involve a guitar with both guitar and bass strings, you sitting in front of the mic, and you playing the drums with your feet.  Personally, I haven’t been able to pull it off, but considering I can barely play guitar and sing at the same time without massively screwing one of them up, I can appreciate the feat.  You’ll use four buttons on the PSP face (by default: up, left, triangle, and circle) to press red, yellow, blue, and orange respectively, and use L and R to switch between tracks.  Once you’ve played enough of a “phrase”, you’re given a bonus, and the track is “locked down”, so that it continues playing itself for a short while, while you’re off playing the other tracks.  If you can manage to keep up with locking down tracks, you’ll usually only have at most two “active” tracks at once. If you don’t keep up, having four active tracks can get pretty harrowing.  While this is a different way to play, I can’t help but think it’s a little fami…….

Wait a minute, Harmonix, you magnificent bastards, this is AMPLITUDE!

Amplitude, in my opinion, was one of the most underrated “hidden gems” of the PS2 era.  I’ve always been a big music fan, and the idea of combining music and gaming was always fascinating to me.  At the time, my only real exposures to this type of game were Dance Dance Revolution and Rez, which, while both fun in their own right, created an interaction that was more in “response” to the music as opposed to actually taking part in it.  The feeling of actually “creating” music  (or at the very least, piecing together what others had created) was totally new, and to me the experience was unparalleled.  In DDR and Rez, the song continued going whether or not you were an active participant in it or not.  Sure, if you missed enough notes, the song would end, but the track never changed.  In Frequency/Amplitude, if I performed poorly on the vocal track, the vocals would disappear from the song.  It felt very odd to hear, for example, a Weezer song with Rivers’ voice removed, while the rest of the band played on.  Trying to avoid these strange musical phrases, as well as getting an interesting look into how parts actually “fit” into a song was as much of an appeal as the simple, addictive rhythm action of the game.

Amplitude followed the same method of play that is now used in RB:U:  Four tracks (the same four tracks, even), locking and unlocking tracks – it’s the same game!  Granted, this time the track selection is a little bit better than the pop-rock pap that filled amplitude (P.O.D., I’m looking in your direction).  Now, don’t misread what I’m saying – yes, it’s the same style of game, but it’s  a take on a game that I really enjoyed on the PS2, and complained for years to my peers about not having a sequel.  Of course, now I know that this game never got a sequel because Harmonix was off developing some go-nowhere-for-the-company game called Guitar Hero, but it’s good to see them getting back to their roots.

Back to the gameplay:  While I think, for the most part, the tracks are well suited for the game, and the note patterns are well put together, the scoring system may have been a little too harsh.  You basically need to play the song almost perfectly and use your overdrive at the exact right times to even think about getting five stars on the song.  While I can five star just about any song on expert in Rock Band on guitar (and five gold-star them in most cases), I was finding it difficult to even maintain a 4-star average on RB:U.  The game seems to enjoy throwing in a slightly off-pattern rhythm or note right toward the end of the phrase to throw you off, which usually ends up with you messing up the beginning of the next phrase as well. All the while the other tracks start picking up again (and dropping out of the song) and you find yourself playing a lonely bassline while the other voices drop to red.  Granted, I maintain that more songs need “bass solos,” but it can be a little frustrating.

My last minor quibble with the game is more of an problem with the PSP as a system, but if you find yourself going into overdrive, it can sometimes work against you given the processor limitations of the PSP.  The graphical “kick” the overdrive animation provides can slow down the PSP, causing you to get off rhythm and ruining your 12x multiplier, especially when you go into overdrive while switching song parts.

These issues aside, I think this is still a great game.  The one thing that Backbone/Harmonix have managed to carry over from the game’s full size brother is the addictive nature of the game.  I constantly find myself trying a song “one more time, just to get that last star or get that solo right,” or trying to squeeze in one more song before work or bed.  As a guy who has found himself a sudden “Baltimore-to-DC commuter,” I can also appreciate the “short subject” nature of the game, as you can fire it up, play a couple of songs, get hooked, play a couple more songs, get so wrapped up in the game, miss your stop, play really angrily on the game, mashing the buttons as you move to the next stop, get on a train going the other way, play on your way b……where was I?  Ah yes.  This game is definitely worth a buy.  Now, I’m going to wrap this review up so that I can get in a quick round before my train pulls into Union Station.