NegativeCreep

I am a pretty serious Rock Band veteran. My main instrument is drums and I've been playing at expert level since 2008. Rock Band 4 had consistently existed on my "dream sequels" list for the past several years and so I was thrilled when it was finally announced. That's what makes it a special shame that this game, in its current state, is pretty disappointing. I'll start off with what I think is good; The "shows" feature in which setlists are voted on from a random pick of songs is a pretty good inclusion. I didn't think I would care for it at first, but it's refreshing and fun to not know what song is coming next and to be able to make your selection from what is presented to you. As a drummer, I also like the new dynamic fill feature, for the most part. Like setlist voting, the unpredictability of it is what makes it fun and unique. It was a pretty good decision on Harmonix's part to dump the "create your own" fill section from previous titles, as it quickly got boring. The new fills can sometimes be annoying however as it may present you with a totally off the wall fill which doesn't fit in well with the current section you're playing and cause you to get off track, but for the most part I enjoy having a new fill to play every time. I have played with the new freestyle guitar solos a bit, and I think it's interesting although personally I'd probably prefer just to play the charted solos. There's a few reasons why I think the game deserves a low score, and it's all to do with its relativity to the other games. The core experience of the game is still well-established in RB4. There's hardly much different about it at all, really, and it's still as fun as it was previous games. This means that the main improvements to the game should have been in other areas in order to enhance the overall experience, and in most cases this didn't happen. Probably the two biggest surprises I had upon playing the game were that there was no practice mode and no ability to create and play your own setlists. These are pretty dumbfounding features to cut from the game, and so it leads me to believe that the game was likely rushed. Online multiplayer is also notably absent, and Harmonix has gone on the record several times to say that it is planned for a future update. I expect that both of those other features will be implemented in a future update as well, but it's still wildly bizarre that they were missing from launch. The career/tour mode, by far one of the most important parts of the series for me, is a bit better than RB3's, but still a let down. Some of the game's marketing before launch portrayed the career mode as "practically a full-on RPG", which is absolutely untrue. It's so frustrating how Harmonix has had 4 iterations to work on this mode and it's still nowhere near achieving its potential. At least you can choose your own cities again. But this leads me to another point: There are 3 venues in the entire game. A lot of people aren't going to care about that, but to me I found the venues thematically important and it's really disappointing that such a huge step backward was taken here, and it contributes to the feeling that the game was rushed. Something that especially hits hard, given that this is the first Rock Band game on next-gen is that the animations in this game are absolutely dreadful. The guitarist/bassists arms are so stiff that they look like robots and half the time the on-screen musicians don't seem to be playing the actual parts. This is especially disappointing as I loved how in Rock Band the avatars would accurately play the songs, and you could see it. Not so here, and it's extremely puzzling given that they have all the more power to work with. The game's UI and menus also feel really lackluster and it's apparent that they were having budget trouble as a new independent studio. The hardware itself is ok, but I've been having consistent issues with drums. From 16th notes and on, I have trouble hitting the notes even if I play them the exact same way I did in previous games and got credit for them. I don't know if that's a calibration issue or what, but it's pretty annoying. The core experience of Rock Band is still totally in tact here, and it's still fun. But the lack of improvements made, and the flat-out steps backwards that were taken are disappointing and upsetting.

if you go into the game with low expectations, you will hate it. but if you start the game with an open mind you might actually find it alright, and believe it or not actually pretty fun. it's absolutely not anything like Rock Band or Guitar Hero of course, and it is extremely cheesy in some aspects but to be honest, I really did have fun with this thing.. It's very easy to grow bored of though, and after you unlock all the songs and stages, you'll pretty much put it back in it's case and probably never so much as look at it again. the songs are actually shockingly bad. stuff like fere jacques, happy birthday, things like that. best songs are by far the Nintendo songs. The most fun thing to do with this game is take a song and re-arrange it a bunch of different ways, but that does get fairly old fast. pretty decent I'd say.

Bought this game with skepticism thinking it would just be a tacked on, rushed expansion but it was faaar me. It's a complete second game, believe it or not better than the original. At times it doesn't even feel like the first. (in a good way)

For the first 20 hours or so, this game is fantastic. Probably the best MMO I've yet played (besides WoW of course). After 20 hours or so you start to realize you're just doing the same thing over and over and over and it gets so awfully repetitious. Graphics in this game are SUPERB though.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

In my mind the best Zelda game. The plot and atmosphere the game creates is essentially brilliant. It honestly feels like it should be a movie, not a game (and I mean that in a good way! this isn't like Final Fantasy!) that being said, it does suffer from what every other 3D Zelda game has suffered from and that is that some sections (ESPECIALLY the temples) drag on WAAY too long. It's just puzzle after puzzle after puzzle and it's so boring, so frustrating and so unnecessary. Besides that, this is one of the best Wii games, and like I said the best Zelda.

I have been playing this game on and off for about five years now, and it I still love it. It's probably the second greatest RPG ever made. The story is pretty dumb, and the graphics aren't THAT great (but decent) and the sounds are fairly low quality at some points, but the sheer fun and addiction of the gameplay surpasses all of that. The main problem with the game however, is that is never really fresh. Once you have completed about three different quests or so, you've completed every quest in the game since every quest is practically the exact same thing.