Wii Rockband

Rock Band for Wii is a rhythm based video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems. The Wii version of Rock Band was released in June 2008. Rock Band for Wii allows up to four players to play rock music songs on controllers modeled after musical instruments. Players can choose to play the lead guitar, bass guitar, and drum parts to a multitude of songs, as well as sing the lyrics through a microphone attached to the Wii via USB. The game is often sold as a bundle containing the game and one or more of the instruments available. If desired, the game disc is also available as a standalone piece, as well as each of the instruments.

During gameplay, players gain points based on their ability to match musical notes with their instruments as they scroll across the screen, or by their ability to match the song’s original singer’s pitch on vocals. In band mode, each of the players’ points are added to a band score pool. If a player does exceptionally well, they will fill their overdrive meter. The overdrive meter can either be used to increase your score multiplier or save a failed player in band mode. Alternatively, if a player makes too many mistakes during a song, they will fail the song or, if playing band mode, their instrument will be muted and they will cause the Band Meter will drain, resulting in the band failing the song if the player is not rescued quickly enough by another band member. Based on the player or band’s score they are given a rating of one to five stars. Each player can select a difficulty of Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert, reflecting their experience and comfort with the game.

The Wii game disc contains 63 songs as opposed to the standard 58 of the other systems. The songs range from 70s glam rock to 90s alt rock to the modern pop rock bands of the early 2000s. There are songs for everyone, regardless of taste in music. In addition to the 63 songs included on the Wii game disc, over a thousand additional songs have been released for download on the Wii versions, providing endless hours of entertainment. Rock Band is an extremely successful and popular franchise. Due to its success, Harmonix Music Systems has since released the sequels Rock Band 2, The Beatles: Rock Band, Lego Rock Band, Green Day: Rock Band, and Rock Band 3.