Battle of the Bands (Wii)

Another game jumps on the bandwagon. Get it?!?

It’s a rule of American business that any raging success launches a trend, as people attempt to replicate the success of the first. Guitar Hero set off a wave of rhythm game hysteria, and Battle of the Bands is the latest one to join the pack.

Battle of the Bands doesn’t have a fancy peripheral; instead its gimmick is to let you choose different types of band sounds (Latin, rock, country, marching band, hip-hop), which then dictates how the songs sound when you play. In each round, you battle against a band of another sound, and the goal is to try and perform well enough that your version of the song is the one playing rather than the rival’s.

It’s a pretty neat little trick, actually—it’s funny hearing well-known songs in different styles, and the versions can be pretty clever. For example, the Latin band sings everything in Spanish—except if the lyrics are supposed to be in Spanish (such as in Una Maz Cerveza), in which case they sing in English. It’s also a great way to deal with the whole issue of having covers instead of original artists. The song selection is pretty good as well, covering a wide range of eras and styles, from funk classics like Jungle Boogie to hair-band faves like Photograph, from bluegrass tunes like Man of Constant Sorrow to recent hits like Feel Good Inc.

Battling in hell.

Marching band geeks and goth kids...this feels like high school all over again!

As far as the actual rhythm part of the game goes, there’s a fret-like board scrolling in time to the music, but instead of pushing buttons, you’re flicking or shaking the Wii remote as indicated. It’s pretty simple to figure out, with only six different moves total. You also get different attacks to fling at the other opponent, such as covering their fret in smoke, which you trigger by stringing together enough correct moves in a row. Landing attacks is what gives your band control of the sound, and you get more points for attacks that you successfully complete when you are in charge as opposed to the other band.

GAMETAP RECOMMENDS: ToeJam & Earl, ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron

It’s all nice for a few hours of fun against a friend, but it doesn’t take long before you start realizing that the overall experience is kind of shallow. There are only two modes—versus and adventure—and all the songs are unlocked in versus mode from the second you boot up the game, meaning that there’s not a whole lot of motivation to play through adventure mode, which basically just has you play all the songs through once and yields no rewards for completing it. If you do opt to play through the adventure mode, you’ll notice pretty quickly that the difficulty doesn’t really ramp up as you go along; it would have been nice if things got trickier, or if the medium or hard modes introduced new moves with the Wii remote. Also, you’ve got to flick that Wii remote pretty decisively to get it to register, meaning that if you’re a total wuss like me, your arm starts to get a little sore after a couple of hours. Another minorly annoying thing is that when you’re flipping through songs, it doesn’t actually play whatever song you have highlighted—it’s just a random montage going on in the background.

Battle of the Bands is pretty fun, and it’s definitely a cheaper option in the whole music game fad than the peripheral-laden titles out there, but there’s just not a lot of depth there. Hardcore rhythm game aficionados will easily polish the game off in a few hours, and while families may get a little more life out of it, I’d still recommend it as a weekend rental rather than a purchase.

Pros: Nice set list; the different types of band sounds is a fun trick; easy-to-learn controls.
Cons: More modes would have been nice; some sort of reward for finishing adventure mode would be good; should be a control to modify the sensitivity level of the remote for those of us with weak arms.

Questions or comments? Email the GameTap editors and let us know.