Battle of the Bands

Written by Matt Swider  on June 25, 2008

Reviews: Maestro...scratch that. How about Miistro?!

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Battle of the Bands is the closest we've come to conducting via Wiimote. Players put down their guitars, microphones and drum sticks and pick up Nintendo's baton-like controller to wave it to the beat of the songs. This one-handed musical act performs like Guitar Hero-lite and is geared toward juveniles, although it's filled with some harsh character stereotypes that are not. It's also a mixed performance in that it does introduce a single interesting element, cover versions of songs from multiple genres, but, at the same time, doesn't play nearly as well as Guitar Hero or Rock Band.


















In Tune
The scrolling Уfret boardФ in this game uses arrow icons to indicate waving the Wii remote right, left and forward and narrow and wide zigzag lines to indicate quickly shaking the remote back and forth. Occasionally, there's a target symbol among the arrows and zigzags in which you must execute a stabbing motion. Effectively, these motion-controlled moves replace the color-coded buttons on the guitar peripheral. There's a tutorial mode to teach you all of this, but it's hardly needed.

Something that wasn't lost in the Guitar Hero cloning process is the attack functions. By correctly playing notes with weapon icons hovering over top of them, it's possible to hit your rival band with items like lightning, fire or icon-covering smoke screens, making back and forth assaults the cornerstone of Battle of the Bands. Whenever incoming projectiles are headed your way, pressing the B button with perfect timing throws up a one-second shield. It's challenging to pay attention to your opponent's fret board for potentially incoming attacks far in advance, hitting the B button with perfect timing to defend against those attacks and making sure you hit the notes on your own fret board all at the same time.

The most remarkable aspect of Battle of the Bands, and the only thing that's original, is that the game includes five versions of each of its 30 cover songs. With the tracks switching back and forth between rock, hip-hop, country, marching band and Latin, Battle of the Bands is really a battle of very diverse music tastes. It's interesting to be a rock band dueling a hip-hop group and go from hearing AFI's УMiss MurderФ in its native rock form to hearing a hip-hop rendition of the song on and off. And, you really haven't heard 90s rap song УWhoomp! (There It Is)Ф until you've heard it in country form. It's hilarious to listen to these songs in completely opposite genres. Thanks to an in-game music player you can switch between all five types on the fly without having to play them multiple times between two different group types at a time.



Out of Sync
The various genre interpretations of these cover songs, the solid motion controls and strategy-filled battle mechanics don't help Battle of the Bands' stamina. Because, as novel as those Уin tuneФ elements are within the first five songs, the gameplay quickly becomes tiring both mentally and physically. There's little depth to constantly waving the Wii remote from side to side and repeatedly doing so will wear you out as you try to appropriately motion in perfect time. Sure, you'll cramp up just as much in Guitar Hero, which is also just clicking a bunch of buttons. But, learning to play the virtual guitar is much more rewarding than batting your arm around a couple hours. If you're going to tire yourself out, at least get the satisfaction of having fun doing it and mastering the plastic axe.

In addition to a completing the adventure mode with multiple bands, there's also a versus mode with two-player support. Going back and forth between styles of music with a friend and using weapons and blocking tactics against their band brings more entertainment to the game than being stuck playing the computer. However, again, after five tries the gameplay becomes stale and your energy is best spent elsewhere.