When Green Day: Rock Band was first announced, I was a bit sceptical. Unlike the Beatles, Green Day don't have that many stand-out tracks that everyone knows. Yes, you've got American Idiot, but that's well known for all the wrong reasons, simply because when it was released, no radio station would stop playing it.
So, with a certain amount of scepticism, I sat down to play. Like other Rock Band games before it, you hold a plastic instrument similar to whatever instrument you're playing in-game, and hit the coloured buttons/hold the button and strum in time to the music and the on-screen prompts. Green Day: Rock Band also keeps the vocal harmonies from The Beatles Rock Band, allowing up to 6 people to play together, if you're being crafty.
As there's only 3 venues to share 47 songs, the backdrops get quite boring quite quickly.
But unlike The Beatles: Rock Band, which made you play through the music of the Beatles in chronological order, having to finish each setlist before unlocking any more, Green Day: Rock Band gives you access to the first setlist from each venue, which lets you chop and choose between Green Day's various eras however you see fit. We'd advise against starting with the Warehouse (the first venue in the list), as it contains every song from Dookie. Somewhat illogically, these are some of the hardest songs in the game, due to them being written (with a few notable exceptions) before Green Day learnt to play guitars, so every song is made up of thrashed powerchords with the odd triplet (odd? There's practically nothing but triplets - Ed) thrown in for good measure. There's also a ridiculous amount of similarity to these songs, which means that the opening few setlists are some of the most boring to play/listen to in any guitar game, ever. Bar Band Hero. If they'd only included the singles (Longview, Welcome to Paradise, Basket Case, When I Come Around and She) it would've been much more bearable, but the full album obsession spoils the game for people who aren't overly obsessive Green Day fanatics.
Fun Fact 1: Tré Cool's real name is Frank
It's the same story with 21st Century Breakdown, Green Day's most recent effort, and here the full album obsession is even more infuriating. In the first setlist for 21st Century Breakdown, there's a track called Song of the Century, which is a minute long vocal solo track, which you need to play before you can finish the remaining setlists, and indeed, the game. This means that if you don't have a microphone compatible with Green Day: Rock Band (and the standard Xbox headset isn't), you can't even play the song, so you can't finish the game. We thought that really needed bolding, because it's such a incredibly stupid idea. Effectively, the entire game can be ruined by a song, that isn't even technically a song, that shouldn't really be there in the first place! Gah!
Fun Fact 2: Sesame Street once threatened to sue Green Day due to the inclusion of an Ernie doll on the Dookie album sleeve, that may have led parents to believe the album was Sesame Street endorsed.
But while the game is almost ruined by the inclusion of every song from Dookie, it's actually salvaged (and I can't believe I'm saying this) by the American Idiot "concept" album, 13 songs that with the exception of American Idiot are actually rather good songs, regardless of the instrument you choose to play. Whether it's the anthemic "Are We the Waiting", the 9-minute epic "Jesus of Suburbia" (hands down one of the most enjoyable songs on the game), or the sobering "Give Me Novocaine", the variation between the songs makes the whole album one of Green Day's best works, and the best section of the game. The 7 minute "musical suite" of Homecoming is also one of the finer points of the American Idiot album, if only for Tré Cools section.
As well as the three full albums, there's also a few of Green Day's singles off albums that (thankfully) weren't featured in full on the disc, including tracks from Warning, Nimrod and Insomniac. Unfortunately, one of Green Days most popular tracks, and therefore one that had to be included on any tribute to the band (Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)) is an acoustic track, and there aren't even any live versions that have all the instruments joining in. We know, we've checked. Thankfully (or annoyingly, depending on how you look at it) Harmonix have done a Guitar Hero and turned the bass into a string section. While this doesn't give the most realistic band experience, it at least gives the bassist something to do, which is more than can be said for the drums, which don't have a part at all.
Fun Fact 3: Green Day actually have 4 members. Jason White, the 4th member, has only ever featured in 2 videos
And while we're on the subject of the realistic band experience, while for the most part the in game transcriptions of the songs are quite good, there are a few that are quite glaringly wrong. The most obvious example of this is the intro to Boulevard of Broken Dreams, where they turn a 16 note riff (with an effects pedal) into a 128 note riff. Thankfully the rest of the tabs seem quite accurate though, and you never need to play a piano on the guitar.
In the end, there's one major difference between this and The Beatles: Rock Band, Harmonix's last foray into the band specific rhythm action game. The Beatles: Rock Band was an experience, they'd obviously done their best to not taint the legacy of the Beatles, so it was incredibly accurate, exciting to look at and fun to play, and even if you weren't a Beatles fan to start with you would be by the end of it (I certainly was). Green Day: Rock Band is just Rock Band with Green Day characters bolted on, and does nothing that couldn't be achieved in a DLC add-on. Yes, you get a few new stadiums to play in, but other than that, it's just a load of Green Days old tracks - and the first ones are so mind-numbingly repetitive, you may as well just buy the one of them and be done with it. If you're not already a fan of Green Day, this won't be the thing to convert you.
Still, it's better than Guitar Hero: Metallica.
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
